BETTER THAN A FAIRY by Sydney Dayre

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 18, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 45.

BETTER THAN A FAIRY.

By Sydney Dayre

"TIME to set the table, my little girlie."

"In just a minute, mamma."

"Tea will be late for father, dear, unless you do it at once."

"I get so little time for my crochet work," said Susy, laying aside her bright worsteds with a frown. "I wish, mamma, that we could keep a girl to do the housework, as Margaret Hill's mother does."

"Mrs. Hill tells me it is so hard to get good girls that she would far prefer not keeping one if she were stronger herself."

"Well, then, I'd like to do as Mrs. Elder does—board. Then there would be no housework to do."

"And not have a house of your own? Be shut into one room or two, and never dare to laugh and play and tear about as you do here?"

"I don't believe I should like that either," said Susy, smiling in answer to her mother's smile. "How could I fix things so as not to have anything to do? Oh, I know. If I could have my way, mamma, I'd have a fairy to do everything. Just think! All I'd have to do when supper time came would be to call for her, and she'd wave a wand, and up would come a table through the floor, all ready—with plenty of finer things than we ever have. And I'd have the rooms swept, and the beds made, and everything just so."

"And what would there be left for a little girl to do for papa and mamma and brothers?"

"Oh, that wouldn't matter, if they didn't want anything done! I never could see," the fretful look came back to Susy's face, as she had to make one more journey to the cellar than she had expected, "why God makes us have so much to do when he could have fixed things differently just as well as not. For instance, we might have had machines for everything. Or all our clothes and things to eat might grow on trees. Fancy going out to pick a clean apron, and then going on to another tree and picking a roast of meat and some potatoes and pie."

"Even then there would be dishes to wash," said her mother, laughing.

"Well, I see that you won't let me have it anyway," said Susy, her smile coming back as she ran for a handful of flowers for the table, and met papa at the door with a pleased face as she hurried back.

"I wonder how mamma is?"

Susy awoke early one morning, remembering with her first peep at the sunbeams which came in at the window that little Harry had been ill and troublesome the day before, and that mamma had gone to bed with a severe headache. The remembrance of her pale face smote on Susy's heart as she recalled, also, that she had not been as helpful and comforting as a little daughter might have been.

"Nobody up yet? There's the clock striking six. I dare say Harry has kept papa and mamma awake, and they are sleeping later. I believe I'll get up and see. It won't do for papa to have a late breakfast."

But, just ready to open mamma's door, a new thought came to her.

"I do believe I'll get breakfast all alone. When it's ready I'll call them, and what a surprise it will be. It won't be much work. Nobody will expect much when things are disturbed this way. I'll just boil the eggs and do over some potatoes."

She made the fire, and its merry crackle seemed full of suggestion.

"I won't put them off that way. They'll want a good breakfast all the more if they have had a bad night. Papa likes baked potatoes. And I have the greatest mind to make gems."

It was quite a venture, for she had never done it. She had never, indeed, cooked a breakfast all by herself, but had so often helped her mother that she knew exactly how everything was done.

"What a good thing it is that things keep on cooking while we're doing something else. The potatoes bake while I'm making the gems, and the gems will cook while I'm setting the table."

With a face full of interest in what she was doing, the dear little lassie moved swiftly about the light, cheerful kitchen, feeling every moment more pride in the getting of her surprise breakfast, keeping all the while as quiet as possible, for fear of waking anyone too soon.

Just as the gems were browning, she ran to call Ned and Robbie, and then gave a tap at mamma's door.

"Quarter to seven, mamma dear."

"So late!" said mamma in dismay. "Why, how could I have overslept so? Hurry things up, dear. We must have a makeshift breakfast this morning."

"I'm going to poach those eggs," said Susy to herself, as she flew back to the cookstove. "It makes such a beautiful looking dish on the table."

She had found, as so many have found, that with the real earnest performance of a duty, all its irksomeness passes away. Every small act connected with the preparation of the breakfast seemed to make the next thing pleasanter, and she had lost all desire to slight or neglect anything.

"A makeshift breakfast!" Mamma gave a little exclamation as she stopped in the doorway in pleased surprise.

Susy was just taking up the last of the eggs. They were not, possibly, as daintily poached as if done by a more experienced hand, but quite well enough to make the desired pretty dish with its bits of gold set in the pearl white. The pan of hot gems stood on the back of the stove, the coffee was flavoring the whole house, and just as the noisy boys came in, Susy flung open the oven door and began taking out the crisp-skinned potatoes.

"Baked potatoes!" exclaimed papa.

"Gems!" shouted Ned. "Why, mamma, I was going to beg you to have gems this morning because of that new maple sirup, but I didn't because you had such a headache last night. You made 'em after all, and you're a dear mamma."

"I didn't make them," said mamma.

"Oh! Did papa?"

"No," said papa, "I'm only just up myself."

"Then it must have been a fairy," said Robbie, who had heard the talk about fairies. "Did you see it, Sue? Did it wave a wand, and then did the table come up through the floor as quick as a wink?"

"If it was a fairy, it had two wands instead of one," said papa, taking the hands with which Susy set down the dish of eggs before him. "One wand might do very well for one of your old-time fairies, but when it comes to the everyday home fairies who get up such breakfasts as this, it takes two."

"Yes," said mamma, "just the two dear little wands which are moved by a loving heart and a thoughtful head. Just the kind of a fairy—"

"Get the maple sirup, please, Sue," cried Ned, thinking the talk was getting too serious. "I'm awfully glad you've gone into the fairy business."—Sydney Dayre, in N. Y. Observer.