The Velveteen Rabbit & Other Stories - Margery Williams [10]
Once back at home, Pinocchio behaved as well as any real boy could. He went to school, took a job to earn money, and obeyed Geppetto without protest. One night, the Fairy appeared to him in a dream and praised his good deeds. “Well done, Pinocchio!” she said. “You will be rewarded for your good heart.” When he awoke the next morning, Pinocchio found that he was a real boy! The rickety old house had also been changed to a warm and comfortable home, and even Geppetto seemed younger and livelier. “This is because of your good behavior,” declared Geppetto. They danced with joy, and together they lived happily ever after.
Thumbelina
There was once a woman whose greatest desire was to have a child. She went to see a fairy about her wish and received a flower seed, which she planted that night. The next morning, a beautiful red-and-gold flower with tightly closed petals had grown in the pot. The delighted woman kissed the bud, and suddenly the petals opened. Inside sat a very delicate and graceful little girl. She was the size of a thumb, and so she was named Thumbelina. Her cradle was a walnut shell, her bed was lined with violet leaves, and she had a rose petal for a blanket.
One night, an ugly toad crept through the window and leaped upon the table where Thumbelina lay sleeping. “What a pretty little wife she would make for my son,” said the toad, and she took Thumbelina’s bed and jumped through the window with it into the garden.
The toad took the cradle to the pond and placed it on a lily pad, and then went to fetch her son. Thumbelina awoke and cried at finding herself in a strange place with nowhere to go. The fish felt pity for the beautiful girl and nibbled on the lily stem so that she could escape from the toad’s ugly son. Away down a stream floated the leaf on which Thumbelina sat, until a may bug picked her up and set her down in a meadow to live among the flowers and grasses.
All through the summer, Thumbelina ate blossom nectar and drank the rainwater that collected on leaves. She wove herself a bed from grasses and sang along with the birds that lived in the trees above. But autumn came, and then winter, and poor Thumbelina grew cold and hungry after the grasses died and the bitter wind began to blow. And when the snow came, each snowflake that landed on her was like a shovelful of snow thrown upon someone our size. Miserably, she left her meadow and wandered in search of food, until she came upon a field mouse’s den. Thumbelina begged for a bit of food, and the good mouse took pity on the girl and welcomed Thumbelina into her home, where they lived very comfortably.
One day during the winter, the field mouse told Thumbelina that they would soon have a visitor and that she should prepare her prettiest stories to tell. “He is very rich, with a house twenty times larger than mine,” said the mouse. “He is blind, but does very well.” And so Thumbelina dutifully recited her best stories and sang her prettiest songs to the visitor, who was a mole. She did not like him, however, because he spoke badly of the sun, the flowers, and all the dear creatures she had lived with in the meadow. Being a mole, he preferred to live underground and rarely saw the daylight.
At the end of his visit, the mole guided Thumbelina and the field mouse through one of the tunnels that led to his house. He warned them that a dead bird lay along the passage. It was a large swallow with its wings drawn in tight and its eyes closed. After the mole and mouse had moved on, Thumbelina ran back to lay a warm blanket on the bird, so that even in death it would not be cold. As she straightened the blanket, she heard a weak thump thump in the swallow’s chest. It was alive! Thumbelina was frightened but returned that night to cover the swallow with another blanket. Presently, the swallow awoke. “Thank you, pretty maiden,” it croaked feebly. “I have been nicely warmed and shall soon regain my strength.