loom didn't mind it in the
least, because, whatever you do in the fairy woods, it never hurts.
But he remembered that he was the teacher, and if he didn't begin to
teach he would pretty soon be no teacher at all. So he sat there on
the ground and made up a dreadful face, and wrinkled his forehead and
shut his eyes and pulled down the corners of his mouth. And then he
dipped his own moss-cup carefully into the Standing Pool, and brought
up a drop of water. And he put his fingers in it and splashed some on
his face; and it ran down his cheeks, and he said proudly: "Now I am
almost crying."

"Ho!" said the fairies, "is that all? We can do that without being
taught."

So they wrinkled up their foreheads and shut their eyes and drew down
their mouths and dipped their fingers in the moss-cups, and sprinkled
their faces, and made a bellowing noise, and they said proudly: "Now
we are almost crying, too."

Gillibloom had opened his eyes and wiped his cheeks on a bit of
everlasting petal.

"That was very good," he said, "very good indeed! To-morrow we will go
on with the second lesson."

But the twenty-seventh fairy was thinking just then that he might have
been dancing all this time, and he said: "Gillibloom, I don't see what
good it will do."

"It must be remembered that we have only learned Almost Crying
to-day," said Gillibloom, with dignity. "When we have learned Quite
Crying it will be a different matter."

"I can't help it," said the twenty-seventh fairy. "I'm not coming any
more. Anybody want my cup?"

But nobody did, because all the other pupils had kept their cups very
carefully, and he tossed it into the Standing Pool and danced away
through the forest, singing:

"School's dismissed! School's dismissed!
Out of so many I shan't be missed.
By and by they'll learn to cry.
But if any one's there, it won't be I.
I'd rather sing or dance or fly,
Or swim in a puddle where star-shines lie.
I'll not cry--not I!"

And the next day it was just the same. The twenty-six fairies, sat by
the side of the Standing Pool, and Gillibloom wrinkled up his forehead
and shut his eyes and drew down his mouth and bellowed and wet his
cheeks with water out of his moss-cup, and they all did the same, and
then they said: "Now we are Almost Crying."

But when the lesson was over, the twenty-sixth fairy said he had some
wheat ripening to attend to in a field ever so far away, and the next
day the twenty