JUST as the family had planned, they started on the walk in the woods the next morning.
Mary Frances and Eleanor were walking with their mother, while Billy and his father followed with the lunch baskets.
“Be careful where you step!” called Billy suddenly; but it was too late, for with a cry of pain, his mother fell upon the thick undergrowth.
Billy and his father came running.
“Oh,” cried Mary Frances, “oh, dear! I ought to have told mother. I remember tripping over the vines here. Are you much hurt, Mother dear?”
“Not much,” she replied, but as she made an effort to move, she sank back with a little sigh.
“It isn’t a bad sprain, dear,” said the father, examining her ankle, “but you ought not walk another step.”
“Oh, the poor children will be so disappointed!”
“That’s just like mother!” exclaimed Mary Frances. “Never to think of herself first!”
“I know what you and I can do, Father,” said Billy. “Let’s make a ‘sedan chair,’ and carry mother home.”
“That’s a good idea, Son—we’ll leave the girls and the lunch; and if the doctor says she may come, I’ll drive mother out late in the afternoon after she has rested.”
“Oh, no, let us go with you!” cried Eleanor and Mary Frances together.
“It will make me so much happier, girls,” said the mother, “if you will stay and try to enjoy yourselves. Billy will be back soon, and maybe you can have a bunch of wild flowers ready to take home when you come this afternoon. I’m not hurt seriously, but I think a hot-water bath and bandage for this ankle will prevent further trouble.”
“All right, Mother dear,” said Mary Frances, kissing her. “If it will make you happier, we’ll stay.”
“I’d eat lunch right over there,” suggested Billy, pointing out a lovely green spot near a spring.
“Trust Billy to think of pleasant ‘eats,’” laughedMary Frances, as Eleanor and she picked up the lunch baskets, and Billy and his father started off with the mother comfortably seated on the “sedan chair” which they made with their hands.
“We’ll wait for you, Billy,” called Eleanor.
“Better not,” said Billy, “because I may be late—I may stay to dinner at home.”
“We’ll wait a while, any how,” called Mary Frances. “Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” called everybody.
The girls felt quite lonely and sad as the other three disappeared from sight.
“Oh, dear,” sobbed Mary Frances, “I just pretended to be cheerful because I knew how sorry mother was to disappoint us.”
“My, but you were brave,” replied Eleanor. “Indeed, I felt just like crying, but when I saw how you were behaving, it made me feel ashamed.”
“Well,” said Mary Frances, drying her eyes, “let’s set the table—Billy will be back sooner or later, and I don’t want him to see I’ve been crying!”
So they spread their lunch cloth and paper plates.
“If we only had some flowers for a centerpiece!” exclaimed Mary Frances.
“Let’s go gather some!” suggested Eleanor.
“All right!” Mary Frances sprang up.
“What can we put them in?” asked Eleanor practically.
“Oh, I know!” cried Mary Frances running to one of the lunch baskets. “Let’s drink this milk, and use the bottle for a holder.”
“Lovely!” said Eleanor. “My, I didn’t know I was hungry!”
“Neither did I—let’s take a sandwich and start.”
Mary Frances led the way. “I’ve often walked through this path,” she said, “and I’ve always found some flowers.”
“Oh, dear, what was that?” cried Eleanor suddenly.
“Nothing at all,” answered Mary Frances, “or maybe a bird flying about among the leaves.”
“It isn’t a bird!” declared Eleanor. “It’s not a bird!” pointing down among the whirling leaves. “Hush! Do look carefully, Mary Frances, and listen!”
They stood still.
“Wild carrot, toad flax,Buttercup and daisy,Do you love them well as I?If not, you’ll be crazy.”
“Wild carrot, toad flax,Buttercup and daisy,Do you love them well as I?If not, you’ll be crazy.”
“Wild carrot, toad flax,
Buttercup and daisy,
Do you love them well as I?
If not, you’ll be crazy.”
Although the voice was very thin and piping, they heard every word distinctly. “That’s not a bird,” whispered Mary Frances.
“Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy,” sang the voice.
Still the girls didn’t see anything among the leaves where the voice seemed to come from.
“Tinkle Bell,In a dell,Dearly lovedA daisy.Do you love oneWell as she?If not, you are——”
“Tinkle Bell,In a dell,Dearly lovedA daisy.Do you love oneWell as she?If not, you are——”
“Tinkle Bell,
In a dell,
Dearly loved
A daisy.
Do you love one
Well as she?
If not, you are——”
“What?” asked the little piping voice.
All the leaves stopped whirling.
“What?” again asked the little voice.
“Crazy,” replied Mary Frances, laughing softly. “But we’re not crazy. We dearly love daisies, and wild carrot, and buttercup and—well, yes, we love toad flax, too.”
“Oh, I’m so glad, because we can be friends.”
At that the leaves began to whirl and dance furiously, and out of the midst of them leaped a little fellow not anything like as large as Mary Marie, Mary Frances’ doll.
He was dressed in forest brown from the tip of his pointed cap to the toe of his pointed boot. His coat and tiny knickerbocker breeches were made of green leaves. Even his hair and beard were yellowish-green as though made of very fine grass. For buckles on his shoes he wore tiny dew drops which glistened like diamonds. The buttons on his coat were of the same. At the end of his peaked cap dangled a tiny wild fringed gentian.
“Flower lovers are always friends,” said he, bowing. “Young ladies, it gives me much pleasure to introduce myself. I am Jack-in-the-Pulpit!”
Mary Frances wanted to ask him how he happenedto be out of the pulpit, but she suddenly thought he might not like the question, so she said:
“Why, how do you do, Mr. Jack? We are pleased to know you;” and she and Eleanor both smiled.
The little fellow was delighted.
“You really are glad—that I can see. There are lots of human people who come into the woods who never listen or look when we call.”
“Why,” asked Eleanor looking round, “are there more of you?”
“Oh, my, yes,” nodded the little fellow. “Lots and lots more, only the others are very busy getting flowers ready for next Autumn and Spring—that is, all but one. Her name is Bouncing Bet.”
At that, the leaves began to bounce and to whirl again, and out of their midst sprang a tiny little lady. She was so beautiful that both the girls exclaimed, “Oh, isn’t she lovely!”
She certainly was lovely, in a gown of queen’s lace over wild rose petals. On her feet were tiny lady slippers; on her head a lovely violet. Her hairwas of yellow-white thistle-down. When she spoke, her voice sounded like a laughing bell.
“So you’ve found them at last, Jack,” she laughed. “You’ve found human beings who can hear us and can see us. Let’s tell what we can do for them.”
“Yes,” said the little fellow in green, taking Bouncing Bet’s hand and speaking to the girls. “Please be seated.”
As the girls sat down on the grassy slope, Jack began to speak:
“We know you are wondering whether we are really the flowers, ‘Jack-in-the-Pulpit’ and ‘Bouncing Bet.’ No, we are the fairies of those flowers. Every kind of flower has its fairy. They try to talk with the human beings they see, but very few can hear them or see them. Now, that you can see us and hear us, we would like to take you with us into Fairy Flower Land——”
“And tell you all we can in one short afternoon about wild flowers,” finished Bouncing Bet. “Jack, lead the way.”