Much Ado About Something. C. E. Lawrence

She touched the window, flew into the room, and alighted on Sally's shoulder.

      The child, without her fingers resting from work for the least part of an instant--time means life to the working poor--looked up wondering. Why did she seem suddenly lighter? Was there sunshine in the room? No, everything appeared precisely as before: though--yes, somebody had certainly, through an obvious misunderstanding, been cleaning the window.

      June took off the fairy crown and perched it on Sally's tangle of hair. The consequence was amazing.

      Sally began to dream for the first time in her life. A new world was opened to her. She was in a wonder country, and felt she had enjoyed as much food as she wanted--plenty of hot gravy. Her thoughts were always drifting on a river of gravy, towards the promise of pudding.

      Under her feet was a kind of green hair--grass--far stretches of it, as cool as the night-wind, but infinitely pleasanter. Flowers, looking for all the world as if they had been picked off stuck-up ladies' bonnets, were pushed into the ground, where they waved, looked and smelt as delicious as--more gravy, Sally's only simile.

      The sky was strangely blue, and much broader and higher than the London sky ever was. How did they keep it so clear? She could not see a house, but there were any number of trees shading the grass, trees of all sorts and sizes, some so high that their tops tickled the sky; others with branches so broad and full of leaves that a hundred children like herself could have slept without quarrelling in the shade of any one of them. What a very nice world this was!

      There was more still, for look at that very round "spadger" with the red breast that perched on a branch, and went twit, twit perkily, and that very large bird--could that be a spadger too?--with brown speckled breast, and that tiny blue upside-down, eager thing with its sweet chirrup, chirrup; and the other mite of a brown creature, with saucily upturned tail; and this scolding black gentleman with his yellow bill; and more birds too, many more. What a lot there were! Why don't we have fellows who look and pipe like them down our court?--and don't they sing cheerily? My!

      There is one going up and up, as if it were climbing a round stairway which couldn't be seen, singing all the while like--like--a tune gone balmy. Sally could hear the soft prevailing sound, and opened her eyes wide--to hear better! There was a brown cliff, and down, tumbling with much splashing and thudding, came water in a shining flood. At first she shivered--water is so cold, and cleansing; but the fright went suddenly when Sally, examining herself, found that though she had no recollection of the horrible process of washing, she was quite clean. So she need not wash, and could, without fear, admire the falling water. Hooray! This was a splendid country. She revelled in its light, warmth, freedom, happiness.

      There were loud unsteady footsteps on the stairs. June removed the crown, without removing the sweetness of the dream-world from Sally, and flew to the empty keyhole to reconnoitre.

      A man, one of the masters of Paradise Court, was stumbling upstairs, making hob-nail progress. He was mazed; because of the public-house at the corner--the nearest place where the community could discover the correct time. Long experience of similar circumstances safely guided his feet up that rickety rat-haunted staircase, and he lurched into the room, clumsily kicking the door to after he had entered. June hovered over him, flew round and round his head, and still more puzzled his foolish wits.

      "'Ave I got 'em?" he asked most seriously, and stared at the revolving wall.

      The three women looked at him listlessly. One spoke.

      "Shut yer jaw, Bill," she said, and paused to thread her needle. "'Ullo, brought some beer?" she continued, when she saw the tin can he dangled. "Give us a drop, mate!"

      June, steadying herself by grabbing his stubbly beard--for fairies are not entirely impervious to the law of gravitation--leaned forward and, just as he had said "Garn! I brought it for----" touched his lips with her wand. He substituted "Sally" for "myself."

      Bill put the beer-can on the chair, and rallied himself with an effort.

      "I am drunk!" he asserted most seriously, as though a mighty uncertainty had suddenly been put straight.

      Sally was still in the green joy-land, whereto June had enchanted her; but she took the can dreamily, and put it to her lips.

      That was too much for the man. He stooped forward and grabbed the can.

      "Not 'arf!" he said, as he took it from her, spilling some of the contents.

      Sally's thoughts were torn from the trance-world. She was snatched from the green dream-country, brought back summarily to the hungry, grey realities of the present. She looked at Bill, and then blasphemed fluently. June, horrified by the child's fierce anger, touched her lips with the wand. Sally was obediently silent, though still her mouth moved with muted imprecations. The two women had, meanwhile, gone on with their work, and the mother stared, her eyes two stones.

      Bill sprawled on the boards, and pillowed his head and shoulders on the pile of half-completed clothing. He supped at the beer with long luxurious satisfaction, and slowly tumbled into sleep. The emptied can slipped from his fingers and rolled half-way across the room.

      June, who in the presence of this experience had been bewildered and unprepared, flew to where it was lying, and contemplated it thoughtfully.

      "There has been magic there," she declared, "worse than the evil of witches."

      Sally went on with her sewing.