Grandfather, says WALTER, for there is one thing about this
that puzzles him, I'm a little boy, and I've never seen the brownies.

No, not yet, GRANDFATHER admits, but I think you're likely to any
time now. You see, they don't show themselves to very little boys, for
fear of frightening them.

GERTRUDE, who has been listening carefully to all of this, has a
question to ask. Grandmother, she says, did you see the brownies,
too, when you were a little girl?

No, indeed, answers GRANDMOTHER. The brownies never wanted any girls
to see them. But I used to see the house-fairies often, and they
always hid away from the boys, so that only we girls ever saw
them.

How many house-fairies were there, Grandmother, asks GERTRUDE
eagerly, and where did you see them, and what did they do?

My, what a lot of questions! GRANDMOTHER says, smiling at Gertrude's
excitement. There were two of them at our house, and they lived in
the kitchen just as the brownies did here. They used to hide in a big
clothes basket very much like that one over there. At night, like the
brownies, they used to do some of the house-work to help mother; and
how pleased she used to be, when she found in the morning that some of
the work had been done for her while she was asleep.

Do you suppose, says WALTER, that if I woke up some night, and came
and looked in here, I'd see the brownies working or playing?

Very likely, answers GRANDFATHER.

Oh, I'd like to try it, cries WALTER. Can I do it tonight?

But GRANDMOTHER says: No, indeed, Walter. What is your Grandfather
thinking of to put such a notion into your head. And as for
tonight--well, of all nights in the year!--the very night when we
expect Santa Claus to come and fill the stockings. And you know how
displeased he would be to find the children awake and watching him.
Why, he very likely would go away without leaving a single present.

To be sure, says GRANDFATHER. No, it wouldn't do at all. And,
besides, think how tired you'd be for tomorrow. And then you'd be
sorry with all the goings-on. By dinner time, you'd probably be
falling asleep, and we'd have to eat all the goose and the pudding
without you.

We wouldn't want to miss that, says GERTRUDE, shaking her head
decisively. I saw the pudding out in the store closet, and I tell
you, it smelt good.

I bet you tasted it, exclaims WALTER.

Indeed I did not, answers GERTRUDE in a hurt tone; not even the
eentiest teentiest bit of it.

What tim