not have been worse. 

 Just then a Goblin came running toward them. He had been sent by the Gnomes. They told him to say that his brothers would all be held prisoners until the Fairies sent them all the ice cream they wanted. 

 The Fairies and the Goblins hurried to the kitchen in the hollow, but it was empty. The squirrels and the rabbits had hurried off when they felt the frosty air and saw everything turning brown. 

 "What is to be done?" asked the Goblins, "You ought to help us," they told the Queen again.  "If we had not come to your party we should not have gotten into trouble." 

 The Queen could not resist replying to this remark the second time. "If your brothers and you had not climbed on the table, but kept your seats, as well-behaved Goblins should, you would not have been in need of help. 

 "We must go to work," she said to her Fairies.  "Fold your wings and pin up your skirts. We must make ice cream for those wicked Gnomes." 

 They worked all night, and just before it was light the Goblins carried ice cream in nut shells to the rocks of the Gnomes, and by and by the captured Goblins came out and joined their comrades. 

 "We lost our supper," said the Goblins to the Fairies, "and you should give us our breakfast. We are hungry. If it had not been for your party we should not have lost our supper." 

 This was more than the poor tired Queen and her Fairies could bear. They took their wands from under their wings and, waving them, they flew toward the Gnomes. 

 Little sparks darted from the wands, and every time a spark touched a Goblin it left a little red mark, and at the same time it pricked them. 

 Such tumbling and scampering you never saw as the Goblins tried to get away, and when a Goblin that had a red spot on his face meets a Fairy he hides or runs, for he knows that she will point him out as one of the greedy Goblins who tried to make the Fairies cook their breakfast for them. 

 

 

 THE LITTLE CHINA SHEPHERDESS 

 

 Prev. P 18/68 next