FAIRY PRINCE AND OTHER STORIES
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
OLD-DAD
PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD-WILL TO DOGS
RAINY WEEK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
FAIRY PRINCE
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
ELEANOR HALLOWELL ABBOTT
AUTHOR OF "MOLLY MAKE-BELIEVE," "RAINY WEEK," ETC.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1922,
By E. P. Dutton & Company
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
PAGE
Fairy Prince 1
The Game of the Be-Witchments 59
The Blinded Lady 111
The Gift of the Probable Places 155
The Book of the Funny Smells—and Everything 195
The Little Dog Who Couldn't Sleep 245
FAIRY PRINCE
FAIRY PRINCE
In my father's house were many fancies. Always, for instance, on everyThanksgiving Day it was the custom in our family to bud the Christmastree.
Young Derry Willard came from Cuba. His father and our father had beenchums together at college. None of us had ever seen him before. We werevery much excited to have a strange young man invited for Thanksgivingdinner. My sister Rosalee was seventeen. My brother Carol was eleven. Imyself was only nine, but with very tall legs.
Young Derry Willard was certainly excited when he saw the Christmastree. Excited enough, I mean, to shift his eyes for at least threeminutes from my sister Rosalee's face. Lovely as my sister Rosalee was,it had never yet occurred to any of us, I think,[Pg 4] until just that momentthat she was old enough to have perfectly strange young men stare at herso hard. It made my father rather nervous. He cut his hand on thecarving-knife. Nothing ever made my mother nervous.
Except for father cutting his hand it seemed to be a very nourishingdinner. The tomato soup was pink with cream. The roast turkey didn'tlook a single sad bit like any one you'd seen before. There was plentyof hard-boiled egg with the spinach. The baked potatoes were frostedwith red pepper. There was mince pie. There was apple pie. There waspumpkin pie. There were nuts and raisins. There were gay gold-paperbonbons. And everywhere all through the house the funny blunt smell ofblack coffee.
It was my brother Carol's duty always to bring in the Christmas tree. Bysome strange mix-up of what is and what isn't my brother Carol wasdumb—stark dumb, I mean, and[Pg 5] from birth. But tho he had never foundhis voice he had at least never lost his shining face. Even now ateleven in the twilightly end o