first
it was quite small; but when she set it on the floor, it grew and grew
until it was large enough for a seven year's old boy to ride in. And O
marvel, the wooden horse began to prance as if it were alive!

Walter sprang into the cart; the door of the hut stood wide open, and
out he drove.

"Good-bye, good-bye," said the fairy of Fuchstanz. She gave him a bag of
gingerbread nuts, beautifully ornamented, as the peasants in the
Odenwald know how to make them. One had on it:

"For a good boy."

It was an invitation from the Old King and was worded as follows:

AUDIENCE WITH HIS MAJESTY, 10-11.
AMUSEMENTS VARIED.
SUPPER AND DANCING, 12.
CRYING FORBIDDEN.
OLD KING

"Good-bye, I will come to see you again very soon," said Walter, and he
drove up the mountain in fine style.

It was now getting quite dark; for he had stayed longer than he was
aware of in the little hut; the firs stood black and deep on either
hand; he would have been frightened perhaps, but he was tired; he closed
his eyes and played at being asleep in his little bed at home. When he
opened his eyes again, he saw bright lights flitting through the gloomy
fir-trees like so many luminous butterflies. One flew towards him, and
settled on the side of his cart, and he saw that it was a lovely elf
with a crown of gold on his head. "King Oberon himself," thought Walter,
and the elf answered, as all fairies do, to his _thought_:

"Yes I am Oberon, King of the fairies," he said in a voice in a high key
like the hum of insects. "I have come to look at you, it is so long
since I have spoken to a mortal child. Mortals care no longer for us;
they like true stories--that is stories about their own stupid little
lives; 'fairies do not exist,' they say, Ha, ha, ha! we pinch their
silly little toes, and send them bad dreams, and hide their toys, and
blot their copy-books, and then we do not exist, Ha, ha, ha!"

"But I care very much," said Walter eagerly. "O won't you come home with
me and live with me always and sleep in my bed, you beautiful little
Elf-man." And he put out his hand to catch the fairy as a child might
grasp at a butterfly. But--puff!--he was off like a seed of the
thistledown, and a peal of fairy laughter sounded in his ears. Then all
was still and dark again.

Suddenly a sound of bells broke the stillness ling, lang, ding dong.
These were the foxgloves, and the balsams popped like tiny pi