My Short Story Book

The Love Match. The Love Match. YOU would never think, to see the Matches lying so quietly in their box in the daytime, that they really have rather a pleasant life, and very exciting adventures. But they do. Every night the Matches creep out of their box and hide it, and put on pretty paper frocks and coats, and go and dance with their friends. That is why you can hardly ever find a match-box in the dark, and if you do it is almost always an empty one. Well, at one of the Match parties a young wooden Match with a red head fell in love with the sweetest little Princess of a Wax Match you ever saw. She wore a white smooth frock, and her head was brown. “How I love you!” said the Red-headed Match. “And I you!” said the brown-headed little lady. “But they tell me your box is in the kitchen. That is very low.” “Never mind,” said the lover; “I will come and live with you.” So when the party was over the two went to live in the mother-of-pearl box in the drawing-room. And that was high life indeed. But the Queen of the Wax Matches was very angry. “She has married beneath her,” she cried; “off with her head!” And sure enough at that moment the housemaid came to light the fire, and she struck the little white Princess Match against the bar of the grate, and her brown head fell off! The wooden Match did not want to live now his lady was beheaded, so he pressed forward into the housemaid’s hand—and she struck him and lit the fire with him; and what was left of him fell beside his white lady. So the two faithful lovers were buried together in the ashes. E. Nesbit. The Little Green Man JUST as the Mother was going to make the tea, she heard a funny, faint voice from the tea-pot, crying: “Oh, please don’t scald me with the boiling water! Take me out! Take me out!” The Mother, greatly astonished, peeped into the tea-pot—it was one which she had not used for some time—and saw there a queer little man, dressed all in green, with a green cap upon his head. “How did you get into my tea-pot?” asked she. “A cruel Fairy put me here,” replied the little man; “please, oh, please take me out!” The Mother took him out, and placed him upon the table. How delighted the children were to see him trotting round and round, taking tiny sips from their cups, and crumbs from their plates! “Is it a doll, Muvver?” asked Baby. “A doll, indeed!” exclaimed the little green man; “I am no doll! Did you ever see a doll walk, or hear a doll talk? I am a man! ” And he stood on tip-toe and straightened himself up in such an amusing fashion that all the children laughed. When bed-time came, the little green man was put to bed in the doll’s house. But early in the morning, Dora was awakened by something tickling her nose. Opening her eyes, she saw the green man standing upon her pillow. “You darling!” said Dora; “you shall go into the garden with me, and see my pretty white rabbits.” Jumping out of bed, she dressed herself as quickly as possible; then, with the little man standing on one hand, and some green food for her pets in the other hand, she ran down the garden. When she got to the hutch, she fed the rabbits with the nice, fresh, juicy cabbage-leaves, while the little man looked on with much interest. The rabbits were very hungry, and when they had eaten all the leaves, one of them made a sudden snatch at the little green man, and ate him up also. Being rather short-sighted, it mistook the green man for a leaf. Such was the sad fate of the little green man! E. Dyke. The Rubber Fairy. “THERE are no fairies, did you say? Why, whatever are we coming to?” said Uncle James. “But I’ve never seen one,” said Harry. “I daresay not, but what do you suppose makes your ball bounce? Why, the fairy inside it, to be sure.” Harry laughed at the time, but afterwards he couldn’t help thinking about it. Did fairies really live in india-rubber balls? If not, what made them bounce? He thought and he thought and he thought—and at last he took out the new brown-handled knife Uncle James had given him, and he cut a hole in his india-rubber ball. “Now I shall know!” he said. And he looked inside—but he was no wiser than before. But that night when he was in bed he saw a little lady, with gray gauze wings, sitting on his pillow. “Thank you so much,” she said, “for letting me out. A wicked enchanter shut me and my million brothers up in balls, and when we struggle to get out, the balls bounce.” Then she vanished. Next morning Harry thought he had only dreamed about her, so he ran to his ball; but there was the hole he had made, and sure enough the ball never bounced again. “Because there is no fairy in it,” Uncle James says. E. Nesbit. The Proud Gilt Button. THE gilt button shone and sparkled on Tommy’s coat and was absurdly proud of himself. Tommy had sewn him there with a piece of string and a packing-needle, one morning when his Mother was too busy with the baby to attend to him. He went to school with the little boy and listened with glistening contempt and dignity to all the master had to say. He had a very small opinion of the master, for he hadn’t a gilt button upon his coat, and he couldn’t understand why Tommy’s heart went pit-a-pit at such a rate when the schoolmaster asked him a question. The rest of the boys rather made fun of Tommy’s button; but then, of course, that was jealousy on their part. They would have liked one well enough themselves; at least, so the button thought. At night, when his chubby little master was fast asleep, with the old coat folded up tidily on a chair beside the bed, the foolish button began to boast and brag about his grandeur, and this didn’t quite please the other buttons. They had lived on Tommy’s coat much longer than he, and they didn’t see why he should give himself such airs. They were quite ready to be friendly and kind, but they did not want to be looked down upon, and so in a very little time they were all quarrelling. Presently Tommy’s Mother stooped over the child’s bed and kissed him. She was very fond of her boy, and with good reason too, for he was always bright and cheery, always helpful and loving, and only the poor overworked woman knew what the little lad was to her. As she turned from the bed the glitter of the gilt button on the worn old coat caught her eye and she smiled at the sight of Tommy’s tailoring. “Poor little lad,” she sighed; “it’s a shame to let him go so shabby,” and she carried the coat downstairs and began to mend it neatly. Now, the very first thing she did was to cut the gilt button off the coat and put a sober black one in his place, and it happened that she let the gilt button fall, and he rolled away under the hearth and lay all night long amongst the dust and ashes. In the morning little Tommy felt quite grand in his tidy coat, though certainly he had a pang when he found his gilt button had gone. He went downstairs, and, finding his Mother had overslept herself, set to work to clean the hearth and light the fire, and very pleased he was when he saw his old friend again amongst the ashes. He slipped him into his trousers pocket, and there the button lived for many a long day. Tommy grew to really love him, and wouldn’t have parted with him for anything. When rich boys jingled the pennies in their pockets, Tommy shook up the gilt button against a piece of slate-pencil, and it sounded almost as well. And what did the gilt button think about it? He liked it; yes, he really did—at least, as soon as he got used to the dark depths of the trousers pocket. He found out, don’t you see, that Tommy loved him, and everyone knows, the wide world over, that it is better, yes, a thousand times better, to be loved than to be admired. L. L. Weedon. The Grateful Fairy. THERE was once a Fairy who lived in a big library. It was rather a dull place to live in, but the Fairy liked quiet. One day the room suddenly grew noisy, and the Fairy peeped out from behind the poetry-book where she lived, and saw two children playing. They were building a house with the big books, a solid calf-skin house, with a vellum roof. “This would be a nice house for me,” said the Fairy, “rather large perhaps, but I like plenty of room. That poetry-book was too thin!” So she crept under the roof, which was made of a volume of Rollin’s Ancient History. Her new house was rather musty, but it was large and comfortable. She was just settling down when a prim little girl leading a fat dog came into the room and scolded her little brother and sister, shut up the Ancient History, put it up back on the shelf, and the Fairy was shut in it. She had to make herself very small, I can tell you, so as to be comfortable between the pages. But she did it, and then went to sleep. “I shall wake when they open the book again,” she said, and so she did. But the book was not opened again for years and years and years. And at last it was opened by a learned Professor, and he read in it through his spectacles, but he didn’t see the Fairy. “Why,” she said, “you’re the little boy who once built a house with the books.” “Am I?” said the Professor, with a sigh. “Why don’t you remember?” said the Fairy, and she flew on to his shoulder and began whispering in his ear. But he thought it was his own thoughts. And he remembered old times, and how he had played and enjoyed himself when he was a child; but now he had grown learned, and had been to Oxford, and had been made a Professor, he had forgotten how to play. “Heigho!” he said, “learning isn’t everything. I wish I were young again.” “I can do that for you,” said the Fairy. “How old are you?” “I’m not thirty yet,” he said. “Then I’ll make him young,” she said to herself, “in return for his letting me out of that dreadful book. Look out of the window,” she said to him. And again it seemed to him that it was his own thoughts he heard. And through the window he saw the little girl he used to play with, only now she was grown a fair lady, and suddenly he grew young again, and went out to her. And she met him with a smile, and they went out into the fields and picked buttercups and daisies, and came back and had strawberries and cream for tea. “It’s good to be young again, my love,” said the Professor. And the Fairy kept him young to the end of his days. E. Nesbit. The Bunch of Violets. ONCE upon a time there was a little girl named Nettie, who lived with an Aunt and cousin. She was very unhappy, for her naughty cousin used to tell falsehoods about her, which the Aunt believed. Poor Nettie was constantly being punished for faults which she had not committed, but she was so patient and obedient that her Aunt’s heart was touched at last. “Nettie does everything that I tell her,” said the woman to her daughter; “I do not think that she can be such a very bad girl, after all.” “I know of something she could not do,” said Nettie’s spiteful cousin; “only let me try her!” “Well, just this once you may,” replied the girl’s Mother; “but if she does not fail, I shall not allow you to tease or worry her again.” Then they called Nettie, and told her that she must go into the wood and gather a bunch of violets. In spring-time, this would have been an easy task, but it was now mid-winter. Poor Nettie, in a miserably thin frock, wandered forth, shivering and crying. She knew that she should find no violets in such weather, yet she dared not return without them. What was she to do? Presently she saw in the distance a bright gleam as of flame. “What can that be?” said Nettie to herself; “I will go and see.” So she went in the direction of the light, and came soon to a fire, around which were twelve men, each seated upon a big stone. The oldest of these men—a very old fellow indeed, whose white beard swept the ground—spoke kindly to the little girl, asking her who she was and what she wanted. Nettie told her sad story. All the men felt very sorry for her, and the oldest one said: “My name is January. You cannot find violets in my month. Yet I think I can find a way to help you.” Then he turned to one of his brothers, and said to him: “Suppose you change places with me, Brother March?” Brother March jumped up at once, and changed places with his eldest brother. As soon as he had done this, a wonderful change took place in everything. The snow vanished, the sun shone, the air grew softer, the trees began to bud. Nettie forgot her troubles as she saw a bird alight on the grass at her feet, and close to the spot was a bed of the loveliest violets she had ever seen. She thanked the kind brothers and returned to her Aunt’s house. The violets must surely have been magic flowers, as from that day Nettie was well and kindly treated by her Aunt, and even her cousin ceased to torment her. E. Dyke. The Pink Egg. THERE were two robins in the orchard hedge last Spring. They had a dear little nest, and two bluey eggs, and they were as happy as anyone need wish to be. But one day a Boy came by, and he went off with the two eggs in a pill-box. Then the little robins sat and cried all night. But when they looked into the nest in the morning they saw where the two bluey eggs had been a small pink egg—the colour of apple-blossoms. “I shall hatch this egg,” said Mrs. Robin firmly. “Poor little deserted thing!” “Take care it doesn’t turn out a cuckoo,” said her husband. But when the orchard was all pink and white with blossom, the egg was hatched, and out of it came no cuckoo but a real live Fairy in a pink gown. She kissed the Robins again and again. “You dears!” she said. “A wicked enchanter shut me up in that pink egg—and you know the only way to get anything alive out of an egg is to hatch it! So you’ve saved me. And—well, you’ll see.” And she shook out her gauzy wings and fluttered off. Suddenly the Robins heard a faint “Tweet, tweet.” Mrs. Robin flew to the nest, and there were two baby robins, and the Pink Fairy was sitting on the edge of the nest. And hundreds of pink apple-blossom fairies were crowding round. “They are your very own babies,” said the Pink Fairy. “While you were hatching me, my brothers and sisters stole your eggs from the Boy, and they’ve been hatched in Fairyland.” And that’s why two of the robins in our orchard sing more sweetly than any other robins in the world. They were hatched in Fairyland, you know, and of course that makes all the difference. E. Nesbit. Our Black Cat. ONCE upon a time there were three little kittens who set out to seek their fortunes. The first kitten found a big barn. “Ah,” he said, “this is a good enough fortune for me.” And he stayed there, and the rats and the mice who lived in the barn were very much annoyed. And the second kitten walked in at the dairy door, and the dairymaid said: “You pretty tabby thing, you shall stay with me.” “That’s good enough fortune,” said the kitten, and he lives on cream to this day, and he is so fat that he is quite round. But our black cat (who was the third kitten) was more adventurous. He was running after a young sparrow, and not looking where he was going, so he fell plump into a well, and there would certainly have been an end of him, but that a good-sized Fairy, who lived in that well, and happened to want a cat, pulled him out of the water, and helped him to scramble up on to a ledge in the well-side. “Now,” said he, “will you be my horse and let me ride on you on fine nights?” “Yes,” mewed the kitten, shivering; “if I must, I must.” Then the Fairy opened her front door, which was in the side of the well, and took the wet kitten into her palace, where there was a blazing fairy fire. Fairy servants came and dried the kitten, and gave him warm milk to drink. “Ah,” said the kitten, “you are something like a Fairy. I will be your horse with pleasure.” “That’s better,” said the Fairy. “The willing horse does the most work, but he gets the most pay too. You shall never be cold, or hungry, or frightened again.” And she sent the kitten home at once by fairy telegraph. That’s why our black cat sleeps all day. He has to go out all night for the Fairy to ride him. He seems just like an ordinary cat: to look at him, you’d never think he was the Fairy’s horse. But he is. E. Nesbit. The Mirror of Truth ONCE upon a time there was a good and beautiful Princess, who had heard that “Truth” was at the bottom of a well; so she went to look for it. Of course, she did not know which well, and before she found the right one she had got quite tired of being let down in buckets by long ropes. But at last she came to a well in the darkest part of a pine wood, and her heart told her that here her search would end. So she looked down, and saw the bright circle of shining water far, far below. “But how am I to get down?” she said. And just then the son of the wood-reeve came by. “Shall I go down for you, pretty lady?” he asked. “I must go myself,” she answered. “My fairy goodmother said so.” So she got into the bucket and he lowered her very carefully. And when she got down she found that the shining circle she had seen was not water but a mirror, and on its frame was written one word—“Truth.” She came up with the mirror held fast in her arms, and she thanked the wood-reeve’s son and went home. Now, when in due time came suitors for her hand, the Princess said to each: “How do you like my mirror?” And one after the other they looked in the mirror, and then fled with shrieks of fear. The King and Queen looked in the mirror and beheld only their good and noble faces. “What frightens the Princes, your suitors?” they asked. Then the Princess told them that this was the Mirror of Truth, and that those who looked in it saw their own true natures. “The Princes, my suitors, had wicked hearts,” she said, “and when they saw their true selves they were afraid.” And no good Prince came there to woo, so the years went on and the Princess was still unwed. One day, walking in the forest, the Princess met once again the wood-reeve’s son, but he was grown a man, and as soon as the Princess saw him she loved him. She ran and brought her mirror. “Are you afraid to look in it?” she said. “It is the Mirror of Truth.” “Why should I be afraid?” he asked. And he looked in the mirror, and the Princess, leaning over his shoulder, looked too. He started back with a cry. “I am not like that,” he said. For the mirror had shown him a face like his own but a thousand times more beautiful, for it revealed now the full glory of his noble nature. And as the Princess looked in the mirror she read his inmost heart. “Why, you love me,” she said softly. “I have loved you ever since I first saw you,” he said. And when the King and Queen saw his face reflected in the mirror they said: “Take our daughter, for you alone are worthy of her.” So they were married, and the wood-reeve’s son is King of all the land. E. Nesbit. The Little Boy Next Door. THERE were once some people who went away to the seaside, and shut up their house and sent away all the servants, and then left the poor flowers in their green-house to die of thirst. The fairies were very sorry for the poor pretty things. “Can’t we help them?” they said, and they flew round the green-house, looking at the flowers through the glass, till at last they found a broken pane in the door. Then the fairies each got a dew-drop and flew in with it, but the poor flowers were so thirsty that the dew-drops were of no use to them. “Oh, dear!” the fairies said, “however can we help them?” They talked and talked, but could think of no way. But the most beautiful of the fairies, who was also the wisest, flew away. “How unfeeling she is!” said the others. Next day the flowers in the green-house drooped more and more, and they were just murmuring “Water” almost with their last breath, when the little boy from next door climbed over the wall. He looked through the glass at the flowers, and then went in and watered them. And this he did every day. “I wonder what made him think of it,” said all the fairies. “Why, I did, of course,” said the wisest and most beautiful. “While you were all chattering I went and sat on his pillow, and whispered to him all about the poor flowers next door. He thought it was a dream, but we and the flowers know better.” So when the people of the house came back from the seaside they found all their flowers alive and well, and this was certainly very much more than they had any right to expect. And the master of the house was so pleased with the kind care the little boy next door had taken of the flowers that he gave them all to him, and got some new ones for himself. E. Nesbit. Printed in Bavaria. Transcriber’s Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 59, “I” changed to “It” (It was a thin) Page 82, “bnt” changed to “but” (but I couldn’t bear) *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY SHORT STORY BOOK *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. 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