Part 27

Harriett hesitated. “Well, I didn’t exactly let it out,” she said. “I guess I forgot to close the door after I cleaned its cage.” Then she added hastily: “But mamma hung the cage outside the window, and she says she thinks maybe it’ll come back unless someone has caught it.”

Teddy wanted to hear a great deal more about the canary, but Harriett said she must go now, so he was left alone again to play with his toys.

After dinner his mother went down-town to buy a present for Harriett, for the next day was to be the little girl’s birthday. Teddy wanted to get her a bag of marbles, but she thought perhaps she would be able to find something Harriett would like better than that. She would look about and see.

Before she went she made Teddy lie down on the bed, and covered him over with the silk quilt, so that he might rest for a while. Then she kissed him and told him to try to take a nap, and promised to be back soon.

After she had gone Teddy dozed comfortably for a while. Then he grew wide awake again, and turning over on his back he raised his knees into a hill, and lay looking out of the window, and wondering when mamma would come home, and what she would bring with her.

“You’re not asleep, are you?” asked a little voice from his knees.

“Oh, Counterpane Fairy, I’m so glad you’ve come,” cried Teddy, “for mamma has gone down-town, and I was just beginning to get lonely.”

There was the familiar little figure in the brown cloak and hood, seated on top of the counterpane hill, and as he spoke she looked down on him smilingly. “I suppose the next thing will be a story,” she said.

“Oh! will you show me one?” cried Teddy. “I wish you would, for I don’t know when mamma will be home.”

“Very well,” said the fairy. “Perhaps I can show you one before she comes back. Which square shall it be this time?”

“I’ve had the red, and the yellow, and the green, and ever so many: I wonder if that brown one has a good story to it.”

“You might choose it and see,” said the fairy. So Teddy chose that one, and then the fairy began to count. “One, two, three, four, five,” she counted, and so on and on until she reached “FORTY-NINE!”

“Why, how funny!” cried Teddy.

He was nowhere at all but on the back door-step, and he sat there just as naturally as though he were not in a story at all. Then the back gate opened, and in through it came a little withered old woman, wearing a brown cloak, and a brown hood drawn over her head. “Why, Counterpane Fairy!” cried Teddy, but when she raised her head and looked at him he saw that it was not the Counterpane Fairy after all, but an old Italian woman carrying a basket on her arm.

“You buy something, leetle boy?” she said.

“I can’t,” said Teddy. “I haven’t any money except what’s in my bank, but I’ll ask Hannah and maybe she will.”

So saying he ran into the kitchen. The clock was ticking on the wall, and the room smelled of fresh-baked bread, but it was empty. Opening the door of the stairway, Teddy called, “Hannah! Hannah!” There was no answer; it all seemed strangely still upstairs. “She must have gone out,” Teddy said to himself.

When he went back to the outside door the old Italian had put down her basket and was sitting on the step beside it. She did not seem at all surprised when he told her he could not find anyone. “You not find anyone, and you not have money,” she said. “Then I tell you what I do; you put your hand in dis baskit, and I give you what you take; I make what you call ‘present.’”

“Will you really?” cried Teddy.

“Yis,” said the little old woman, smiling, and her smile was just like the smile of the Counterpane Fairy.

“And you’ll give me whatever I take?”

“Yis,” said the little old woman again.

Teddy put his hand in under the cover and caught hold of something hard and cold. He pulled and pulled at it, and out it came; it was a little iron shovel.

“You take something more,” said the little old woman. Teddy hesitated, but when he looked at her again he saw that she really meant it, so he put his hand in and this time he pulled out a large iron key.

“Now try once more,” said the little old woman, and this third time it was a rat-trap baited with cheese, that Teddy drew from the basket.

“But what shall I do with them?” he asked.

“You keep dem,” said the old Italian, “and you find you need dem by and by.” Then she rose, and pulling her cloak over the basket she took her staff in her other hand and hobbled down the pathway.

Teddy slipped the key into his pocket, and holding the shovel and the trap he ran down to the gate to open it for her. He stood looking after her as she went on down the street, her staff striking the bricks sharply, tap! tap! tap! Her back was certainly exactly like the Counterpane Fairy’s.