One sunny day in the park, while the birds were chirping happily, a little girl named Lily discovered a bottle lying in the grass. It looked bright and inviting, so she picked it up hastily and studied it closely. There was no label on the bottle, but in it was some kind of transparent liquid. She decided to try it, so she dipped the end of the wand into the liquid and then held it out in front of her mouth and blew gently.
What a surprise now! Out popped a great big bubble that slowly floated away, dancing here and there in the gentle breeze. After it had been blown up to a good size, the wind caught it and lifted it up and up till it finally disappeared entirely. Wasn’t that fun? She tried it once more; another big bubble appeared and floated lazily round as a butterfly.
Then a great thought entered Lily’s mind. Perhaps if she kept on blowing, she could blow a lot of those funny little things. So she dipped the wand in again three or four times, and this is what happened:
Glup-glup-glup went the liquid into the bubble vial, and every time Lily blew through the wand a whole raft of bubbles appeared at once, and floated gently from her lips. Up they went till it looked like a big rainbow in the sky.
“Hello, Lily, you must be working some magic book trick,” said her friend Grace Perkins, as she came skipping over the grass with her dollie tucked under her arm.
Lily laughed and told her all about the pretty liquid that was in the bottle.
“May I try it too?” asked Grace eagerly.
“Indeed you may,” said Lily, kindly giving her the bottle. So Grace dipped in the wand, and blew gently.
“There part of it did come off,” she said, almost crying. “But the rest is there, for I can’t smell it,” and she took a whiff to see.
That is Grace’s way; she loves to smell everything.
Lily laughed again. “No, it wouldn’t break,” she said.
“Wouldn’t it? Well, just to show you that mine is a real ball, I’ll try to throw it,” and saying this she threw the bubble in the air, and if it didn’t go up higher than Lily’s head.
“What a funny joke!” cried Grace. “It has a bet on and is jogging along as carefully as it can.”
But, long before she reached it, the bubble burst, from sheer weakness, for you must remember it was made out of nothing.
“That’s what makes the whole thing funny,” said Lily. “We are actually throwing nothing till it gets so much wind in it that it bursts of itself.”
When Grace had had a turn, Lily dipped the end of the wand in again, and was just about to blow, when she was interrupted by a voice crying out, “Oh you kids! get out of here straightway.”
It was Miss Pinkerton speaking, with her scoldy voice.
“Come, now, don’t you be so selfish. Can’t we have a little fresh air and sunshine without being scolded for it as if we were naughty children?”
“Really now, you children must go right away. I can’t stop to argue with you.”
“Miss Pinkerton,” said Grace, “don’t you see we are not wicked children? Don’t you see we are at play?”
“I oughtn’t to give you and all the other brats permission, then, to run wild in this bread-and-butter property.”
“Miss Pinkerton,” said Lily in her turn, “to tell you the truth, we have no idea who bread-and-butter is. I am sure that if we are not to be here, the whole charm of the place will go forever. But for myself, to tell you the honest truth, I don’t care a single fig if I ever do come back again.”
And so saying she turned her back on Miss Pinkerton and walked away.
“Good-bye, bread-and-butter,” said Grace, “good-bye, Miss Pinkerton.”
“You can’t come by yourself then, that’s certain,” said Lily. “And now, only think of the many bright things we thought of while living here, and how bright they will always ever afterwards remain in our mind’s eye.”
“Just fancy,” said Grace, “what it would have actually been like! And if there had been More than Just you two girls here, I don’t see how you could ever be comforted.”
So they kept on picking at those sad things till they were so thoroughy miserable they couldn’t cry any more.
“Oh, let me blow a few more!” said Grace, at last. “They will remind us of it all.”
And now she had a nice big one that was a dandy of a size and ready to burst.
“Here! catch!” said Grace, throwing it with all her might towards victim number three. It was a lovely big thing that wanted to go everywhere at once.
But just before it reached its journey’s end it burst its little childish self into millions of dreams.
And that was the end of the children and all that was sweet companionship about it.
“Hullo, hullo! go on about your games,” said Miss Pinkerton who, before she had finished, had torn Grace’s eyes for her altogether. “Can’t you see? The air is perfectly filled with short, bright rainbows, and they are also nice and coherent. It certainly is amusing to watch, that’s a sure thing.”
“There it was that we-night before,” said Grace in an interrogative tone.