In a hidden glade where the sunbeams filtered down like golden rain, lived the smallest and prettiest of fairies, named Lucy. She was landing from a flight one springtime evening, as a worm, who never heard of the country, was coming along, and she forgot to lift her feet, and with one delicate fairy toe she trod on his head.
“Oh my, oh my!” cried the worm, “you’ve knocked all my senses out. How shall I ever find the road to the dear secret garden of the fairies now?”
“Are you going there?” said Lucy, peeping into his face.
“Going there? I should think so! What is it coming to when the fairies no longer visit the secret garden? You’d better come with me, or else I shall never find my way there again.”
So Lucy took the worm up in her arms, and flew fast as she could after the robins, who were whistling far off at the gates of the hidden garden, and close after them came all the other country people—the blue-bottles, and butterflies, and lady-birds, and grasshoppers, and a whole army of buzzing bees.
“But you’ve made my head so dizzy,” said the worm, “that I have quite forgotten the way, so you must show it me, for I don’t know at all where to turn next.”
Lucy opened her wings and flew straight to the gates, but when she tried to open them, she found they would not turn. So she flew up to the lady-bird, who had two keys hanging at her side.
“Do, dear lady-bird, open the garden gates,” said Lucy. “All the world are waiting outside for the first flowers. I’ve brought you a worm to show you the way.”
“Do you think I’m going to take any trouble for a worm?” said the lady-bird. But as she spoke she put the keys into the lock and turned them round.
The gates flew open, but alas! what a sight met their eyes! All the flowers were drooping, and the leaves were turning brown, and the buds were shrivelling up, for the dread scourge of the worms was upon the garden! The nasty blight was crawling over the ground, and even the flowers’ stalks, wreathed with the delicate vine-like tendrils, were becoming covered with its hideous slime.
“Let us go back directly,” cried the blue-bottles. “We don’t want to catch the blight.”
“Nonsense!” chirped the robins, “We each brought a worm, and I dare say all the rest have brought them too. This means war. No more flowers, no more leaves, till we fight it out. Up, lady-bird, and besmear them all from head to foot with thy black drops! Up, bees, with your honeyed weapons! Down, down from the clouds, oh rain, oh snow, oh storm, and wash and sweep every insect out of this our dear secret garden. And were I thou, worm!” said the robin, turning to Lucy’s little friend, “I should make myself scarce too, or you may chance to be the first one into my gaping maw.”
And so they worked and they worked, but still the blight lingered dangerously near, till Lucy said, “Is there none who takes any pity upon our dear secret garden? Come hither, little bird,” she said, calling to one of the distant singers, “what do you make of our poor garden?”
“Heigho, sweet Lucy, heigho!” whistled the lark, as he sat perched on a tree close by, “I almost thought this morn I saw the lines of a butterfly stretch their far glittering trace athwart the sky, so I sang through my heart with my soul full of summer, though it looks like the spring to the rest of the earth.” And Lucy knew at once that spring had come, and that the blight would disappear. But the others shook their heads doubtingly.
All night long, drizzling rain poured down from the sky, and still the garden flowers were drooping down and dying fast, as if taking away their withering fragrance forever.
And when the first streak of dawn crept over the trees, and scattered over the flowers all that misty dew, and filled the air with humid fragrance, a great white butterfly sat in the middle of Lucy’s flower bed where she was sobbing aloud as if her heart would break. When, lo! how his large delicate wings shone in the light! In another moment the dew was swept off the flowers, the air grew warm with fragrant spring, and Lucy awoke as from a sleep. A thousand blossoming vapours arose like festals lights adorned. The flowers all opened wide, and smiled in happiness at her, and the birds renewed their ravishing warble, and a triumphant shout from the blue-bottles went up into the air.
So at last the flowers, birds, and Lucy gathered from the grass the dead remains of the blight, bundled them all together, and cast them over the gates—they did not want to know more of it forever, they were rid of it forever—they had no desire to put their heads out of the door of the garden to see if there was a worm about; the scent of the brown butterflies was enough to make them nauseous.
And Lucy was mirthful too, as she fluttered to and fro, or helped to water those flowers she thought throve the least. And after a little while, the trees sprung like emeralds out of the bare brown earth, and the birds sang and the butterflies fluttered, and of all things sprang flowers; and over them all Lucy flew hither and thither like a bee, carrying in her little arms a small watering-pot in her gratitude to them all for casting out the worm.
In the evening the fairy chief, up in the sky, sent her one message after the other, asking after the morning news from below; and a whole host of pleasuring fairies came down to see if all that the birds had said were true or not. But it was something more than the birds could ever say. How lovely were the flowers, and how well arranged were the flower beds! Lucy knew all that spring could do with trees and bushes; so new were they, and so reviving, that one could have fancied that bright sleep only half awoke them. In every respect it was so very beautiful that the fairy founded the Jesse Linnaean Society there to collect and prefer all the plants, trees, and flowers throughout the fairies’ kingdom. It was a thousand times larger than our real Linnaean Society, because it had never to confine itself to the earth’s dimension, but could traverse boundlessly all heaven, and make use as botanists of all flowers growing in echoing groves, or abandoned to the wilds of the far distant tropics. But of us and our wonders one day, no doubt, Lucy the fairy herself will one day give you news in her letter from her own flower-garden, if that she has not forgotten it first.