Читать книгу Violet: A Fairy Story - Guild Caroline Snowden - Страница 3

Close beside the pathway ran a little murmuring brook, foaming and sparkling over its rocky bed, gliding just as merrily through the dark shadows as when its course lay open to the sun. It seemed as if fairy Contentment must have bathed in it, or planted some of the flowers along its brink; never was there a merrier little stream.

"I know what you're singing about," said Violet; "I know, Mr. Brook; you're trying to make me think you can run down the hill faster than any one else. Let us see;" and away she flew, and away the brook went after her, and by her side flew the fairies, and over her head the birds – all singing, "Success to Violet!" while the leaves "clapped their little hands" in favor of their friend the brook, and the young birds looked over the edge of their nests to find out what in the world this stir could be about.

Nobody ever knew which won the race. Up in the clouds the birds sang, "Good, good, good; it was Violet, Violet!" while the leaves whispered, "No, no, no, no; it was the brook!" But Violet and the brook were as good friends as were the birds and trees; so they all laughed together, instead of quarrelling.

When Violet reached home her breakfast was ready, and she sat down on the doorstep with her tin porringer of bread and milk. She was so hungry that it tasted better than a great many nicer breakfasts which have been eaten from silver cups; but, hungry as she was, she did not forget her kitten, who came, saying, plainly as she could purr, "Leave a little for me."

Violet had found out that it makes one quite as happy to be generous as to eat a good breakfast, and kitty had her share. Then she washed her porringer, hung it up in the sun to dry, and ran out in the garden, where her mother was picking flowers, whole baskets full of them, for the market, and told Violet to look among the thickly-clustering leaves of her namesakes, and gather all the blossoms she could find.

She found a whole apron full, white and blue violets, single and double ones; these she tied in bunches, with a few bright green leaves around each bouquet. The whole garden was scented with their fragrance, and Violet thought them the prettiest flowers in the world, as well as the sweetest, and wished in her heart that she could, just once, have one of these whole bunches for her own.

While she knelt on the ground admiring her lovely flowers, and wishing they need not all be sent away and sold, the fairy Love flew to her mother's side, and whispered in her ear all that Violet was thinking about. Then her mother remembered that to-morrow would be Violet's birthday, and on that occasion she never forgot to give her a present. But about this I must tell in another chapter.