ammie had gone over to play with Bully, the frog, and
Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, his squirrel chums. Susie walked along,
and she was rather hoping she might meet the fairy prince, who was
changed from a mud turtle into a nice boy, and came to Lulu and Alice
Wibblewobble's party. But Susie didn't meet him, and, when it began to
get dark, she started for home.

"Oh!" she exclaimed aloud, as she came to a little spot where the grass
grew nice and green, and where the trees were all set in a circle, just
as if they were playing, Ring Around the Rosy, Sweet Tobacco Posey. "Oh,
dear, I wish I would meet with a fairy, as Uncle Wiggily did! But I
don't s'pose I ever will. I never have any good luck! Only last week I
lost my ring with the blue stone in it."

And just then--oh, in fact, right after Susie finished speaking, what
should she hear but a voice singing. Yes, a voice singing; a sweet,
silvery voice, and this is what it sang. Of course, I can't sing this in
a sweet, silvery voice, but I'll do the best I can. Now this is the
song:

"If any one is seeking
A fairy for to see,
If they will kindly glance up
Into this chestnut tree
They'll see what they are seeking,
I'm truly telling you,
For I'm a little fairy
All dressed in baby-blue."

Then, you may believe me or not, if Susie didn't look up into the tree,
and there, in a hole where the Owl school teacher once lived, was a
really and truly-ruly fairy. Honest. Susie knew at once it was a fairy
that she saw because the little creature was colored baby blue, you
know, the shade they put on babies, and she had gauzy wings, with stars
on them, and carried a magic wand which also had a star on it, did the
little blue creature. Still, the little rabbit girl wanted to make
sure, so she asked: "Are you a fairy?"

"I am," replied the little creature in blue. "Can you kindly tell me how
much two and two are?"

"Four," answered Susie.

"Is it really?"

"Of course. You ought to know that," spoke Susie proudly, for she was at
the head of her arithmetic class.

"Ought I?" asked the fairy with a sigh. "Well, I suppose I had, but I
haven't been to school in ever so long--not since I was a wee bit of a
child, and that's ever and ever so many years ago, when I was no bigger
than that," and she pointed to something in the air.

"Bigger than what?" asked Susie, who didn't see anything.

"Than that speck of star dust," went on