Just then in the doorway at her side appeared another fairy.He was quite different from her, though he, too, was very small.He was as withered as a dried pea, and looked as though he must be at least a hundred years old.
"Is everything packed up?" he asked in a querulous voice.Then his eyes fell on Teddy the elf.He scowled until his little pin-pricks of eyes almost disappeared."Ugh! there's one of those nasty gamblesome elves,"he said."Now mischief's sure to follow.""I'm not a gamblesome elf!" cried Teddy.
"Yes you are!" said the withered old fairy."You needn't tell me! Look at your red cap and the way your toes turn down.I say you are a gamblesome elf."Teddy looked at his toes and sure enough they did turn down."I wonder if I am a gamblesome elf," he thought.
But the old fairy paid no more attention to him.He seemed to be in a great hurry and very cross.He bustled in and out of the knot-hole, bringing a broom and an old coat that had been forgotten, and packed them on the butterflies, and then he helped the lady fairy on to one, and clambered on another himself.
After they were all ready to start he found that he had forgotten to unhitch the butterflies, and grumbling and scolding he clambered down again and untied them.Then he climbed back once more, and away they flew down the hillside and out of sight, the lady fairy weeping all the time as though her heart would break.
"I wonder what she was crying about," said the gamblesome elf to himself, as he stared after them.
"I can tell you that easily enough," said a little voice so close to his elbow that it made him jump.
He looked around and saw close to him a brown beetle, sitting on a blackberry leaf.Teddy looked at the beetle for a while in silence, and then he said, "Well, why is it they're going?""It's all because of old Mrs.Owl," said the beetle."She and old Father Owl used to live deep in the woods in a hollow tree, but one time they determined to move out to the edge of the hill, because the air was better, and what tree should they choose for their home but this very one where Granddaddy Thistletop has been living as long as I can remember.Then when the owls were all settled they began to complain.
They said that Granddaddy Thistletop and Rosine were so noisy all day that they couldn't sleep.
"After the little owls hatched out it was worse than ever, for the old mother said that every time Rosine cooked the dinner it made the little owls sneeze, and so the fairies must go.""I wouldn't have gone," cried Teddy.
"Oh, yes you would," said the beetle."The owls could have stopped up the doors and windows, or they could--well, they could have done almost anything, they're so big.You may go in and look at the house, if you want to.I have to go down the bush and see old Mrs.Ant.Good-bye! I'll see you again after a while."When the beetle had gone, Teddy climbed up to the knot-hole and went in.
There was a long entry as narrow and dark as a mouse-hole, and with doors opening off from it here and there.At the end of the hall was a room that must have been the kitchen.It was very bare and lonely now, and there was a fireplace at one end with a streak of light shining down through the chimney.
While Teddy was standing by the chimney, he heard a rustling and stirring about overhead; one of the little owls clicked its beak in its sleep, and he heard a sleepy, whining voice: "Now just you stop scrouging me.Screecher is scrouging me!"Then he heard the Mother Owl: "Hus-s-s-h! Hus-s-s-h! Go to sleep; it's broad daylight yet." After that all was still again.
"I wish," thought Teddy to himself, "that I could do something to make the owls go away." Then he began to giggle to himself, and put both hands over his mouth so that the owls up above wouldn't hear him.
He tiptoed back to the door in the knot-hole, and looked down at a bush with long thorns on it, that grew close by."I'll do it," he said to himself; "I'll break off the thorns and put them in the nest, so that the owls just can't stay there." In a moment he was down on the bush and tugging at a tough thorn.
As soon as it broke off, he lifted it on his shoulder and clambered up the rough bark of the tree to the great black hole where the owls lived.
When he looked down into it, there they were in the nest, fluffy and gray, and fast asleep.Very quietly he slipped down, and set the thorn in the side of the nest, with the point sticking out.After that, he softly clambered out again.
Up and down, up and down the tree he climbed again and again, carrying thorns and quietly setting them in the nest, and as he went up and down he kept whispering to himself: "I'm a gamblesome elf; oh, yes, indeed Iam a gamblesome elf."After he thought he had put enough in the nest, he went into old Granddaddy Thistletop's kitchen, and, crouching down by the fireplace, he listened.It was getting to be twilight now, and the owls were beginning to stir.Presently he heard a voice cry out: "Ouch! Flipperty is sticking his toes into me.""No I ain't, neither," said another voice."It's Pinny-winny.There, she's doing it to me, too.Now just you stop.""'Tain't me," cried a little squeaky voice; "it's Screecher hisself.
Ow! Ow! I'm going to tell," and she began to cry.
