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Daisy: or, The Fairy Spectacles
Daisy; or, The Fairy Spectacles
CHAPTER I.
THE OLD FAIRY
There was a great forest, once, where you might walk for miles, and never hear a sound except the tapping of woodpeckers, the hooting of owls, or the low bark of wolves, or the strokes of a woodman's axe.
For on the borders of this wild, solitary place one man had built his little house, and lived there. It was very near the trees which he spent his time in cutting down; and Peter thought this all he cared about.
But when the summer wore away, and the cold, lonely winter months came on, and there was no one to keep his fire burning and the wind from sweeping through his home, and no one to smile upon him and comfort him when he came back tired from his hard day's work, Peter grew lonely, and thought he must find a wife.
So he went to a market town, a whole day's journey off; for he knew it was a fair-day, and that all the young women of his acquaintance would be there, and many more beside.
At first he looked about for the most beautiful, and asked her if she would be his wife; but the beauty tossed her head, and answered, not unless he lived in a two-story house, and had carpets on his floors, and a wagon in which she could drive to town when she chose.
All this, was very unlike the home of poor Peter, who had nothing in the world but his rough little cabin and a barrow in which he wheeled his wood.
The next maiden told him he had an ugly scar on his face, and was not good looking enough for her; and, besides, his clothes were coarse. The next declared that she was afraid of wolves, and would rather marry one of the village youths, and live where she could hear the news, and on fair-days watch the people come and go.
So Peter started for his lonely home again, with a sadder heart than he left it; for there was no chance that he could ever grow handsome or rich, and therefore he thought he must always dwell alone; instead of the music of kind voices, with which he had hoped to make his evenings pleasant, he was still to hear only the cracking of boughs, and hissing of snakes, and the barking of wolves.
But suddenly he met in the road some people who seemed more wretched than himself – an old, bent woman, clad in rags, and with such an ugly face that, strong man as he was, Peter could not look at her without trembling, and a girl whom she led, or rather dragged along, through the dusty road.
The girl looked as if she had been weeping and was very tired; she did not raise her swollen eyes from the ground while Peter talked with her companion. The old dame said she was a silly thing, crying her eyes out because her mother was dead, when she ought to be thankful to be rid of one so old, and sick, and troublesome.