Fairy Ointment
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DAME Goody was a
nurse that looked after sick people, and minded babies. One night she was
woke up at |
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They rode, and they rode,
till at last they stopped before a cottage door. So they got down and went in
and found the good woman abed with the children playing about; and the babe,
a fine bouncing boy, beside her. |
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Dame Goody took the babe,
which was as fine a baby boy as you'd wish to see. The mother, when she
handed the baby to Dame Goody to mind, gave her a box of ointment, and told
her to stroke the baby's eyes with it as soon as it opened them. After a
while it began to open its eyes. Dame Goody saw that it had squinny eyes just like its father. So she took the box of
ointment and stroked its two eyelids with it. But she couldn't help wondering
what it was for, as she had never seen such a thing done before. So she
looked to see if the others were looking, and, when they were not noticing,
she stroked her own right eyelid with the ointment. |
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No sooner had she done so,
than everything seemed changed about her. The cottage became elegantly
furnished. The mother in the bed was a beautiful lady, dressed up in white
silk. The little baby was still more beautiful then before, and its clothes
were made of a sort of silvery gauze. Its little brothers and sisters around
the bed were flat-nosed imps with pointed ears, who made faces at one
another, and scratched their polls. Sometimes they would pull the sick lady's
ears with their long and hairy paws. In fact, they were up to all kinds of
mischief; and Dame Goody knew that she had got into a house of pixies. But
she said nothing to nobody, and as soon as the lady was well enough to mind
the baby, she asked the old fellow to take her back home. So he came round to
the door with the coal-black horse with eyes of fire, and off they went as
fast as before, or perhaps a little faster, till they came to Dame Goody's cottage, where the squinny-eyed
old fellow lifted her down and left her, thanking her civilly enough, and
paying her more than she had ever been paid before for such service. |
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Now next day happened to be
market-day, and as Dame Goody had been away from home, she wanted many things
in the house, and trudged off to get them at the market. As she was buying
the things she wanted, who should she see but the squinny-eyed
old fellow who had taken her on the coal-black horse.
And what do you think he was doing? Why he went about from stall to stall
taking things from each, here some fruit, and there some eggs, and so on; and
no one seemed to take any notice. |
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Now Dame Goody did not
think it her business to interfere, but she thought she ought not to let so
good a customer pass without speaking. So she ups to him and bobs a curtsey
and said: 'Gooden, sir, I hopes as how your good lady and the little one are
as well as --' |
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But she couldn't finish
what she was a-saying, for the funny old fellow started back in surprise, and
he says to her, says he: |
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'What! do
you see me today?' |
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'See you,' says she, 'why,
of course I do, as plain as the sun in the skies, and what's more,' says she,
'I see you are busy, too, into the bargain.' |
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'Ah, you see too much,'
said he; 'now, pray, with which eye do you see all this?' |
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'With the right eye to be
sure,' said she, as proud as can be to find him out. |
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'The ointment! The
ointment!' cried the old pixy thief. 'Take that for meddling with what don't concern you: you shall see me no more.' And with
that he struck her on the right eye, and she couldn't see him any more; and, what
was worse, she was blind on the right side from that hour till the day of her
death. |
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