Produced by Rich Kuslan
By Henry van Dyke
A Partial Fairy Tale
There was once a man who was also a writer of books.
The merit of his books lies beyond the horizon of this tale. No doubtsome of them were good, and some of them were bad, and some were merelypopular. But he was all the time trying to make them better, for hewas quite an honest man, and thankful that the world should give him aliving for his writing. Moreover, he found great delight in the doing ofit, which was something that did not enter into the world's account—akind of daily Christmas present in addition to his wages.
But the interesting thing about the man was that he had a clan or trainof little sprites attending him—small, delicate, aerial creatures,who came and went around him at their pleasure, and showed him wonderfulthings, and sang to him, and kept him from being discouraged, and oftenhelped him with his work.
If you ask me what they were and where they came from, I must franklytell you that I do not know. Neither did the man know. Neither doesanybody else know.
But he had sense enough to understand that they were real—just asreal as any of the other mysterious things, like microbes, and polonium,and chemical affinities, and the northern lights, by which we aresurrounded. Sometimes it seemed as if the sprites were the children ofthe flowers that die in blooming; and sometimes as if they came in aflock with the birds from the south; and sometimes as if they rose oneby one from the roots of the trees in the deep forest, or from thewaves of the sea when the moon lay upon them; and sometimes as if theyappeared suddenly in the streets of the city after the people had passedby and the houses had gone to sleep. They were as light as thistle-down,as unsubstantial as mists upon the mountain, as wayward and flickeringas will-o'-the-wisps. But there was something immortal about them,and the man knew that the world would be nothing to him without theirpresence and comradeship.
Most of these attendant sprites were gentle and docile; but there wasone who had a strain of wildness in him. In his hand he carried a bow,and at his shoulder a quiver of arrows, and he looked as if, some day orother, he might be up to mischief.
Now this man was much befriended by a certain lady, to whom he used tobring his stories in order that she might tell him whether they weregood, or bad, or merely popular. But whatever she might think of thestories, always she like the man, and of the airy fluttering spritesshe grew so fond that it almost seemed as if they were her own children.This was not unnatural, for they were devoted to her; they turned thepages of her book when she read; they made her walks through the forestpleasant and friendly; they lit lanterns for her in the dark; theybrought flowers to her and sang to her, as well as to the man. Of thishe was glad, because of his great friendship for the lady and his desireto see her happy.
But one day she complained to him of the sprite who carried the bow. "Heis behaving badly," she said; "he teases me."
"That surprises me," said the man, "and I am distressed to hear it; forat heart he is rather good and to you he is deeply attached. But howdoes he tease you, dear lady? What does he do?"
"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is what annoys me. The others areall busy with your affairs or mine. But this idle one follows me like myshadow, and looks at me all the time. It is not at all polite. I fear hehas a vacant mind and has not been well brought up."