eamed that she was dancing around and
around the magic ring with the man in the moon. All around them fairies
were sliding up and down from the tree tops to the mossy ground, on
silver moonbeams.

The next day the children went to the woods to see whether the fairies
had been there. Betty reached the spot first and cried out joyfully,
"They came! They came!" And sure enough, the leaf plates were empty.
Every strawberry, every crumb of cake, was gone.

"The fairies really came," said the other little girls as they stood
around the magic ring.

"Tweet-tweet-tweet," sang a bird in a tree top; "tweet-tweet-tweet."

He cocked his little head and looked very wise and knowing. But
"Tweet-tweet-tweet; tweet-tweet-tweet" was all he said.

One of the things Peggy and Betty and Dot liked best to do was to watch
Mrs. White skim the rich cream from the great pans of milk in the dairy.
The dairy was down by the brook and the pans of milk were on shelves
near the water, so that they were kept fresh and cool.

One very warm day Mary said, "Let's play dairy."

"All right," said Betty.

"All right," echoed Peggy and Dot. "You show us how."

So Mary brought two big pans and two pieces of soap from the kitchen.
She filled the pans with water and put a piece of soap in each pan.
Then she told the other children to watch the cream rise. She began to
shake the soap about in the water, and the suds rose higher and higher.

"It's rather _white_ cream," she said, "but we can play it comes from a
cow named Snowball."

"It's splendid cream," cried the three little girls. "May we help make
it?"

"I wonder whether Molly will let us use her cream skimmers," said Mary.

Molly heard her name and came to the kitchen door to see what mischief
those blessed children were up to now. She saw the pans on a seat built
round a big maple tree and the four little girls bobbing about, very
busy indeed.

"Molly, will you please let us have the skimmers?" Peggy cried.

"Well," replied Molly, "as it's clean dirt you're making I suppose I
must."

So Mary and Betty made the cream rise, and Dot and Peggy skimmed it and
poured it into bottles and old cans to "sell."

While they were in the midst of the fun, Red Chief, the proudest rooster
in the farmyard, came strutting along.

[Illustration]

He put his head on one side and looked at the pans. "Too-ok, too-ok,
too-ok. Is it feeding time?" he said. "Too-ok, too-ok, too-ok. I must
see; I must see