-fifth fairy said there was a Crow Caucus on, and he
wanted to see what they meant to do about the scare-crow in the field
they owned, and he couldn't come any more, and the next day the
twenty-fourth fairy said there were ever so many dancing steps he
hadn't practised for a long time, and he couldn't come any more, and
the next day the twenty-third fairy said there was a queer-shaped leaf
on the watercress down by the spring, and he thought he ought to look
round a bit and see if there were any more like it, and he couldn't
come any more.

And so it went on until Gillibloom was the only one left, and he sat
by the Standing Pool and dished up water to splash his face and
wrinkled up his forehead and shut his eyes and drew down his mouth and
bellowed; and whenever the rest of the fairies heard him or saw him,
they clapped their hands over their eyes, and put their fingers in
their ears, and ran away as hard as they could. And so it happened
that the forest about the Standing Pool was perfectly quiet, for no
bird or squirrel or bee or any other thing that lives and breathes in
the forest will stay after the fairies are gone.

And the Sun looked in and said: "There is nobody there but that silly
Gillibloom, and he is Almost Crying all the time. I'll go away
somewhere else."

And the Moon looked down at night and said: "Why, there's nothing in
that forest but a Dreadful Sound. There's no use in my troubling
myself to squeeze down through the branches, for sounds can get along
just as well by themselves."

So she drove off very fast to the fairy green, and rolled such a river
of light into the fairy ring that the fairies gave up dancing, and got
flower-cups and sailed on the river, and some who couldn't stop to get
flower-cups swam in it, and it was the gayest night ever to be
remembered.

Now, when Gillibloom found that the fairies had all gone and left him
to himself, and the four-footed things and the two-footed things, and
the things that have feathers and fur and gauze-wings and shell-wings
had gone too, he had felt differently from what he ever had before. He
had been bellowing for a long time that night, because he was
determined to learn to cry and get it over, and then go back to his
people, but now he said to himself: "I will not cry any more. And
anyway it is not Quite Crying, and if Almost Crying makes everything
run away from me, I don't know what Quite Crying would do."

So he tried to shut his mouth, a