In grandmother's garden against the wall;
Fairest of flower-duennas were they,
Keeping good watch through the long summer day.
Close by the was the sunshiny corner, where
The foxgloves swayed in the balmy air,
And nodded across to the larkspurs blue,
And the pleasant nook where the columbines grew.
There were cinnamon-roses, and, low at their feet,
The shadowy cluster of day-lilies sweet,
And mignonette modest, and pensive heart's-ease,
And boy's love, and candytuft, sweet in the breeze.
And, first every morn by the sun to be kissed,
Grew, all in a tangle, fair love-in-a-mist,
With bachelor's-buttons, and sweet williams gay,
And spice pinks for neighbours just over the way;
There were sweet peas coquettish, most festive of flowers,
And four-o'clocks sturdy to mark off the hours,
And frail morning-glories that laughed in the light
At the phlox and verbenas, pink, purple, and white.
Ah! the days were so bright, and so sweet was the air,
And in grandmother's garden all life looked so fair!–Dorothy Grey.
The old lady was quiet and gentle, and the flowers seemed to know her and grow for her as for no one else.
They sprang up beside every path.
In the earliest spring-time her tulips lifted up their stately heads and bowed as she passed among them.
The sweet old lady watered the flower-beds and pulled weeds from among the plants, and loosened the earth about their feet that they might grow taller and blossom more beautifully.
One evening after sunset, the old lady sat quietly in her garden. She watched the tulips as they rocked gently back and forth.
She heard faint, sweet whisperings among the flowers and amid the long grasses.
"They sound like the whisperings of the fairies," said the sweet old lady to herself.
"Indeed," she went on, softly, "I have often heard that the fairies dance in the dell below. Why, then, should they not sometimes wander into my garden?"
"Why not, indeed?" laughed the faintest fairy voice right in the sweet old lady's ear.
Looking up, she saw the most wonderful little creature in soft, fluttering robes of shaded green. Her red-gold hair floated in a cloud over her shoulders. Her milk-white fairy feet peeped from beneath the shimmering skirts.
But most wonderful of all, the little creature bore in her arms a baby! It was the tiniest little pixie baby, wrapped so completely in its dainty green blankets that only a wee tip of its pink nose could be seen.
"I am the Queen of the Fairies," said the tiny mother, as she gently rocked her baby to and fro. "It is but right that I should let you know that we come often to your beautiful garden."
The sweet old lady looked at the Queen of the Fairies and smiled.
"I am truly glad that you find my garden a fit place for fairies," she said. "I have often been told that you danced in the dell. I have sometimes even fancied that I heard the faint, sweet tinkling of fairy music in my garden. But never before have I been sure that you really came."
"Do you know," said the fairy, softly, for the fairy baby stirred in her arms, "do you know that it is here we come to sing our babies to sleep?"
"Then I did hear fairy music?"
"You heard the cradle-songs of the fairies, and sometimes you heard the cooing laugh of the fairy babies before they fell asleep. Sometimes you heard the soft swish of fairy dresses as we softly slid away to dance in the dell."
"And you left your babies sleeping in my garden!" said the sweet old lady, wonderingly.
"Ah," laughed the Queen of the Fairies, "where else would they have been so safe? Your tulips kept our secret well.
"They never told you that it was fairy nurses who rocked their stems so gently in the moonlight and the starlight. You thought it was the wind that swung their tall stalks.
"You did not know that in the morning each tulip held her head so proudly because all night long a fairy baby had been cradled in her heart.
"When you saw our babies' silver drinking cups which the nurses hung in the sun to dry, you called them dewdrops which sparkled in the sunlight."
"No," said the sweet old lady, "I did not know all those things. Neither did I know why my tulips grew so tall and fragrant and beautiful. But now I see it all, for fragrant and dainty and sweet must be the cradles of the babies of the fairies."
The Queen of the Fairies laid her finger to her lips with a low "Sh-h," and, looking down, the sweet old lady saw that the fairy baby was fast asleep.
The tiny mother seemed to blow across the old garden to the tallest golden tulip of them all. Then, softly singing, she laid her precious little one in the stately cup which rocked every so gently in the moonlight.
"I must be off to the dell," said she, a moment later. "You will see that no harm befalls the cradles of our babies?"
"Yes, yes," cried the old lady, eagerly. "So long as I live I shall watch over my garden with care. I will not allow one blossom to be broken from its stem."
The Fairy Queen thanked her, and the old lady was left in the garden with the fairy babies and the fairy nurses who rocked the fairy cradles.
But look as she might, the spell being broken, the sweet old lady could see nothing but her own beautiful tulips bending and bowing the moonlight.
For many years the sweet old lady kept her garden. For many years she heard the soft sighs of the fairy babies and the whispering songs of the fairy mothers. For many years she watched the fairy cradles as the fairy nurses rocked them in the soft, mellow moonlight.
Then at length the sweet old lady died and was buried in the little churchyard. The blossoms of her garden drooped on their stalks, withered, and died.
One day the old lady's son came to the spot. He was a coarse, rough fellow, and he did not love nor understand flowers.
"Flowers are but nonsense!" said he. "I shall plant parsnips in this garden. They will be good to eat!"
Then it was that the fairy mothers drew the fairy babies closer in their arms and left the garden for ever.
"He cares for nothing but eating," said the fairies, as they danced together in the dell. "But we do not forget the sweet old lady. He shall never raise parsnips in her fairy garden."
So the parsnips which the son planted did not grow. As soon as the seeds sprouted the young plants withered and died.
"It is of no use," said the son, when again and again he had failed. "But it is strange how those useless flowers which my mother planted would grow on this same spot."
The fairies, hidden in their soft green robes amid the weeds and the grasses, laughed softly together, then danced away to the churchyard. There they scattered seeds on the grave of the sweet old lady, and they watered the seeds from the drinking-cups of the fairies.
Soon there sprang up in the churchyard flowers as tall, as fragrant, as beautiful as those which had once grown in the garden of the fairies.
And even to this day, if you creep softly to the spot when the moon is full and the clocks are striking twelve, you may see the stately tulip cradles bend and sway in the moonlight. Even to this day, if you listen, scarcely breathing, you may hear the soft sighs of the fairy babies as they stir in their tulip cradles, and, listening still, you may hear the soft whispering songs of the fairy mothers as they croon soft fairy music over their darlings, on their return from their dance in the dell.
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