glad I have found you!" she said. "Come quickly; something has happened to Simon." 

 Jack let Brindle Cow take care of herself and hurried after Nina, wondering what the Fairy had done to Simon. 

 But it seemed that Simon had brought on his trouble himself by trying to save the wood that morning when Nina told him she needed more wood for the fire. Instead of giving her more wood he had poured on some oil and the flame had blazed up and burnt him. 

 When Jack and Nina reached the farmhouse Simon was on the floor, groaning with pain. 

 Forgetting all the unkindness they had received at his hands, Jack and Nina lifted him from the floor and placed him on his bed. Then they did all they could to relieve his sufferings. 

 Nina bathed his face and hands and Jack bandaged them, and by and by he fell asleep. When he awoke he asked for some gruel, and then he remembered Brindle Cow. 

 "Poor creature!" said Simon.  "I wish I had kept her even if she was getting old; but it is too late now, for, of course, the butcher has her." 

 Just then, "Moo, moo!" was heard outside, and for the first time since he left her at the stream Jack thought of Brindle Cow. 

 "Why, there she is now!" he said.  "I did not get to the butcher's this morning because Nina called me before I had gone beyond the woods. 

 "I'll never sell her," said Simon.  "Go out, Jack, and give her a good dinner, and to-night see that she has a nice bed of straw in the barn." 

 That day for dinner Simon told Nina to have a good meat stew and that Nina and Jack were to eat all they wanted. 

 Jack told Nina what had happened at the stream in the woods and asked her if she thought the Fairy had anything to do with the accident that happened to Simon. 

 "Of course not," said Nina.  "Fairies always do good, not bad things, and, besides, Simon must have been burnt at the very time you saw the Fairy, and I wonder if you really did see a Fairy, after all. Are you sure you did not fall asleep and dream it all?" 

 Jack was quite sure he did not dream it, but never again did Brindle Cow speak—at least, Jack never heard her if she did. 

 But when Simon recovered from his burns and 

 Prev. P 26/68 next