I
“I wish,” murmured Tommy Piper, “they’d letmeplay!”
It was a chill, cloudy November afternoon, and Tommy, sprawled in the big armchair in front of the library fire, was very unhappy. Things hadn’t gone well to-day at school, where the teachers had been horribly unjust to him, nor at home, where he had been scolded for arriving late for dinner; Billy Blue, his most particular chum, was confined to the house with double mumps, and, to add to the burden of his woes, or to remind him of the principal one, half a dozen fellows, togged and sweatered, carrying a battle-scarred football and dangling their head guards, had just passed the window on their way to the field to practice for the final and all-important game of the year, that with Meadowville.
Usually Tommy went along, envious but interested, to watch the luckier boys at work, butto-day he was at outs with the world. What was most awfully wrong was that George Marquis, captain of the Hillside eleven, refused to perceive in Tommy the qualities desired in a member of that gallant band of gridiron warriors. George said that Tommy was much too light for either line or backfield, while grudgingly acknowledging that hecouldkick andwasfast on his toes. Consequently, Tommy, who all summer long had looked forward almost breathlessly to securing a position at the end of the line or as a back, had been—and still was—horribly disappointed. Of course he realized that he was pretty light—he was only thirteen, you see, and by no means large for his age—but he was quite convinced that he was clever enough at punting and drop-kicking and carrying the ball to atone for his lack of weight. But Captain Marquis didn’t think so, and Tommy was out of it for another year at least.
He had been trying to read a story that was all about school life and football, but he didn’t want his fun at second-hand to-day. He wanted to make history himself! The book toppled unnoticedto the hearth rug and Tommy went off into a wonderful daydream, his round eyes fixed entrancedly on the glowing coals in the grate. He saw himself playing right halfback for Hillside in the Thanksgiving Day game with Meadowville, making sensational rushes, kicking marvelous goals from the field, cheered and applauded, a veritable football hero if ever there was one! When, after an hour of desperate battle, Hillside had conquered, and Tommy, on the shoulders of admiring comrades, was being carried from the field, he woke from his daydream with a sigh.
“I wish,” he said longingly, addressing no one in particular, since there was no one there, but gazing very intently at the gloomy corner of the room where lounge and bookcase met and formed a cavern of shadow, “I wish I could do all that! Gee, but I do wish I could!”
“Well,” said a small, gruff voice that made Tommy sit up suddenly very straight and surprised in his chair, “you were long enough about it!”
From the dark corner there emerged into the fire light the most astonishing person Tommyhad ever seen or dreamed of. He was scarcely higher than the boy’s knee and he was lamentably thin; and his head was quite out of proportion to any other part of him. But the queerest thing of all was his face, which was just as round as—as, well, as a basket ball and very much the same color. From the middle of it protruded a long and very pointed nose. His eyes were small and sharp and bright and his mouth was thin and reached almost from one perfectly huge ear to the other. He was dressed in rusty black, with pointed shoes that were ridiculously like his nose, and a sugar-loaf cap, from which dangled dejectedly a long green feather. And under one pipestem of an arm, clutched with long brown fingers, was a football almost as large as he was!
Tommy stared and stared and thought he must be dreaming. But the strange visitor quickly put that notion out of his head.
“Well! Well!” he said crossly. “Can’t you speak?”
“Y-yes, sir,” stammered Tommy. “But—I—I don’t think I heard wh-what you said!”
“Yes, you did! You didn’t understand.Boys are all stupid. I said you were long enough about it.”
The visitor advanced to the hearth and took up his position on the rug, his back to the fire and his beady eyes blinking sharply at the boy.
“About—about what?” asked Tommy apologetically.
“About wishing, of course! Don’t you know fairies can’t grant a wish until it has been made three times? You wished once and then you kept me waiting. I don’t like to be kept waiting. I’m a very busy person. Nowadays, with everyone wishing for all sorts of silly things that they don’t need and oughtn’t to have, a fairy’s life isn’t worth living.”
“I’m very sorry,” murmured Tommy apologetically. “I—I didn’t know you were there.”
“‘Didn’t know! Didn’t know!’ That’s what every stupid person says. You should have known. If you didn’t expect me why did you wish three times?”
“Why, I—I don’t know,” said Tommy. “I was just—just wishing.”
“Oh, then maybe you don’t want your wish?” asked the other eagerly. “If that’s it, just sayso. Don’t waste my time. I’ve an appointment in Meadowville in—in——” He took off his funny sugar-loaf hat, rested the end of the feather on the bridge of his long nose and spun the cap around. “One—two—three—four——” The cap stopped spinning and he replaced it on his head. “In four minutes,” he ended sternly.
“Th-that’s a funny way to tell time,” said Tommy.
“I never tell time,” replied the stranger shortly. “Time tells me. Now, then, what do you say?”
“Th-thank you,” said Tommy hurriedly, remembering his manners.
“No, no, no, no, no, no!” exclaimed the other exasperatedly. “What about your wish? Do you or isn’t it?”
“Why—why, if it isn’t too much trouble,” stammered Tommy, “I’d like to have it very, very much.”
“Of course it’s trouble,” said the fairy sharply. “Don’t be any stupider than you have to be. But everything’s trouble; my life is full of trouble; that’s what comes of being a D. A.”
“If you please,” asked Tommy politely, “what does D. A. mean?”
“Director of Athletics, of course. It couldn’t mean anything else, could it? Really, you do ask more silly questions! Now then, now then, look alive!”
“Yes, sir, but—but how?” asked Tommy anxiously.
“Repeat the incan., of course.”
“The—the incan——?”
“Tation! Don’t tell me you don’t know it!” The fairy was almost tearful and Tommy naturally felt awfully ashamed of his ignorance. But he had to acknowledge that he didn’t, and, casting his eyes toward the ceiling in protest, the fairy rattled off the following so rapidly that it was all Tommy could do to follow him:
“I wish this once,I wish this twice!Grant me the wishThat I wish thrice!”
“I wish this once,I wish this twice!Grant me the wishThat I wish thrice!”
“I wish this once,
I wish this twice!
Grant me the wish
That I wish thrice!”
“Repeat, if you please!” said the fairy. Tommy did so, stumblingly.
The fairy grunted. “Stupid!” he muttered. “Didn’t know the incan. What are we comingto? What are we coming to? In the old days boys didn’t have to be told such things. Modern education—puh!” And the fairy fairly glared at Tommy.
“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Fairy,” he said.
“Hm, at least you have manners,” said the fairy, his ill temper vanishing. “Well, here it is.” He tapped the football he held with the claw-like fingers of his other hand.
“But—but I didn’t wish for a football,” faltered Tommy disappointedly.
“Of course you didn’t! Who said you did? You wished you might play in Thursday’s football game and be a hero and win the game for your team, didn’t you? Or, if you didn’t, how much? Or, other things being as stated, when?”
“Yes, sir, I did! And could I—could you really give me my wish?”
“Drat the boy! What am I here for? Wasting my time! Wasting my time! Fiddledunk!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said fiddledunk. I always say fiddledunk when angry. What do you say?”
“I say—I say——” Tommy had the grace to blush.
“I know!” exclaimed the fairy triumphantly. “You say jerriwhizzum! You shouldn’t! It’s almost swearing! You’re a very bad boy, and I don’t know that you ought to have your wish!”
“But I don’t!” gasped Tommy. “I never said jerriwhizzum in my life.”
“You just said it! Don’t tell me! Don’t tell me! Guilty or not guilty? Guilty! Remove the prisoner!” And the fairy grinned gleefully and maliciously at Tommy.
“But—but I meant I never said it before, sir!”
“Why don’t you say what you mean?” demanded the other evidently disappointed. “Are you or for what purpose did you not? Answer yes or no immediately. No answer. Discharged! Now then, what do you say?”
“Thank you very much,” said Tommy promptly. The fairy smiled.
“Not at all! Not at all! Glad to be of service. You have excellent manners—for a boy. Perhaps in time you’ll get over being so stupid.I did. I used to be awfully stupid. You wouldn’t believe it now, would you?”
“Oh, no, indeed,” cried Tommy. The fairy actually beamed.
“I took a correspondence course, you see.”
“A correspondence course?” murmured Tommy questioningly.
“In Non-Stupidity. Try it.”
“Thank you, I—I might some time.”
“Time!” exclaimed the fairy, twirling his hat again on the tip of the feather and counting the spins; “dear me! Dear me! I’m—seven—eight—nine—nine minutes late! Did you ever? I really must go, I really must. Here is the Magic Football——”
“Oh, is it a magic football?” exclaimed Tommy in surprise.
“Of course it is! There you go again with your silly questions! Taking up my time! Didn’t I just tell you that I was—— How many minutes late did I say?”
“Nine, I think.”
“‘You think’! You ought to know. Now I’ll have to do it again.” He spun the hat and it stopped at six. “I thought you were wrong,”he said in triumph. “You said it was nine! Stupid!”
Tommy thought it best not to argue with him. “What—what do I do with the football?” he asked.
“Play with it, of course. Didn’t think it was to eat, did you?”
“N-no, but——”
“This football will do everything you want it to. If you want it to come to you, you say, ‘Come’; if you want it to go, you say——”
“Go!” murmured Tommy.
“Not at all!” exclaimed the fairy testily. “I wish you wouldn’t jump to conclusions. If you want it to go you say ‘Og!’”
“Og?” faltered Tommy.
“Of course. When the ball comes to you it comes forward. When it goes away from you it must go backward. And ‘go,’ backward, is ‘og.’ I never saw anyone so stupid!”
“Oh,” murmured the boy. “But suppose I kick the ball?”
“Say ‘Og.’ But you’d better not kick it very hard, because if you do it might not like it. Magic footballs have very tender feelings.”
“But suppose I wanted to kick it a long, long distance?”
“Then say ‘Og’ several times. You’ll have to try it for yourself and learn the ography of it. Now call it.”
“Come,” said Tommy doubtfully.
The next instant the football was rolling into the fireplace, having jumped from the fairy’s arms, collided violently with Tommy’s nose and bounced to the floor again.
“Save it!” shrieked the fairy, jumping excitedly about on the rug.
But Tommy’s eyes were full of tears, produced by the blow on his nose, and by the time he had leaped to the rescue the ball was lodged between grate and chimney and the fairy, still jumping and shrieking, was quite beside himself with alarm. Tommy pulled the football out before it had begun to scorch, however, and the fairy’s excitement subsided as suddenly as it had begun.
“Stupid!” he said severely. “You almost made me ill. The odor of burning leather always upsets me. It was most unfeeling of you.”
“But I didn’t know,” replied Tommy with spirit, rubbing his nose gingerly, “it was going to come so hard!”
“You should have known. Seems to me, for a boy who goes to school, you are very deficient in ography and comeology.”
“I never studied them. We don’t have them.”
The fairy sighed painfully. “What are we coming to? What are we coming to? Never studied ography or comeology or non-stupidity! Oh dear! Oh my!” His long, thin, pointed nose twitched up and down and sideways under the stress of his emotion. “Well, well, there isn’t time to give you a lesson now. You’ll have to do the best you can. I’m very late. By the way, when you’re through with the football just say ‘Og!’ seven times and it will come back to me. But be careful not to say it seven times if you don’t want to lose it. Thank you for a very pleasant evening.” The fairy made a ridiculous bow, hat in hand, and backed away toward the dark corner of the room. Tommy started to remind him that it wasn’t evening, but concluded that it would only offend him, and so he didn’t. Instead,
“Thank you very much for the football,” he said. “Would you mind telling me who it is you are going to call on in Meadowville?”
“The name is—the name is——” The fairy lifted one foot and peered at the sole of a pointed shoe. “The name is Frank Lester. Do you know him?”
“N-no, but I know who he is,” answered Tommy anxiously. “He’s captain of the Meadowville Grammar School Football Team, and I’ll just bet he’s going to wish they’ll win the game!”
The fairy frowned with annoyance. “I can’t have that,” he said, shaking his head rapidly. “Besides, all the magic footballs are out. He will have to wish for something else.”
“But—but suppose he doesn’t?”
“‘Suppose!’ ‘Suppose!’ I’d just like to know,” exclaimed the fairy, “how many supposes you’ve supposed! You’re the most suppositionary boy I ever did see!”
“But if hedidwish that,” pursued Tommy, “you’d have to give him his wish, wouldn’t you?”
The fairy grinned slyly and put a long fingerbeside his nose. “If wishes were fishes,” he said, “beggars would ride.”
“I—I don’t think that’s just the way it goes,” said Tommy.
“Then don’t ask me,” replied the other indignantly. “Besides, you have kept me here until I am awfully late for my appointment. I must be—I must be——”
The fairy caught off his hat and began twirling it about on the tip of the feather.
“One—two—three——!” he began to count.
The hat twirled like a top and Tommy, watching it, felt his head swim and his eyes grow heavy.
“Twelve—thirteen—fourteen—twenty-eight——” came the voice of the fairy as though from a long ways off. Tommy wanted to tell him that twenty-eight didn’t follow fourteen, but he was too sleepy to speak.
“Thirty-three—thirty-six—thirty-two—fifteen——”
It was just a whisper now, away off in the hazy distance....
Tommy sat up suddenly and stared. The fairy was gone. He rubbed his eyes. After all,then, it was just a dream! But as he stirred something rolled from his lap to the floor and went bouncing away under the couch. It was the magic football.