FRIENDLY FAIRIES

Illustrated Children's Book by Johnny Gruelle 1919 - online version

	singing stream said to his wife: "Mother, I will follow the stream and see where it leads to!" So he started down the stream and walked and walked and walked until the stream took him down through the whispering forest clear down to the sea. Then he turned around and walked back up the stream from the ocean—up through the whispering forest until he came again to his home at the top of the hill. "I followed the stream down through a great whispering forest, mother," he said, "until I came to the sea. Then I turned around and came back the same way. It was a beautiful trip and when I came to the center of the great whispering forest there was a clearing at the side of the tinkling, singing stream, and the lovely fish leaped from the crystal waters and showed me their wonderful coloring, and the clearing was filled with beautiful flowers and the music of birds. And it was so beautiful I stopped and watched and listened.
	"It seemed as if hundreds of children were playing around me, and although I could not hear them yet it seemed to me that I felt they were shouting and laughing at their play!"
	"How wonderful it must have been!" said his wife.
	"It was indeed very wonderful, mother. And when I returned I again stopped at the same place and sat and listened to the singing of the waters and the birds, and I saw the wild creatures come down into the clearing and act as if they were being fed, and all the time I seemed to feel the laughter and happy shouting of children at play. And a most delightful feeling of