“Sure Pa, I’ll be glad to,” Timmy said.
“What can we do, pa?” Karen asked.
“Why don’t you get the pails and come with me? There are several berry patches on the way to the still site and you can pick a few pails for Cora to fix up into a nice blackberry cobbler!” Earl said.
The girls ran to grab their pails and Earl got his rifle to take with them on their trek. They stopped and ate sandwiches Cora had packed for them and had some nice cool water before heading off on their walk with their dad. Timmy had already brought 3 logs before the girls and their dad even left!
Earl encouraged the girls to talk loud and sing on their way to the berry patch so any bears would be scared off before they got there.Little Hattie May had a different idea and said, “I want to tell you a story pa!”
“Well go right ahead, just talk up loud, ok?” Earl said
“Ok, pa,” she shouted! “ Once upon a time there was a family that lived in the woods. Little Lulubelle was 5 years old and had blond hair clear down to her bottom, but she was sad because she always had to wear it in braids. Cuz if’n she wore it loose, it would get all tangled up and filled with leaves and such. Well, after she did her chores each day, cuz there weren’t no school fur kids her age yet, she would go to a special place in the woods that she called her own. She would go around the dead tree trunk at the edge of the cornfield and walk about 20 paces to some willow branches hanging over a stream. It was like a waterfall of beautiful green leaves.
The stream was shallow at that point so she waded through the stream and pulled and pushed the leaves and branches aside so she could keep walking through the stream. Well, that stream went back into a cave so she kept a walkin through the cave plum to the other side. When she came out of the cave she was in fairyland! There were colors everywhere! The sky was bluer than ever before and there was a permanent rainbow across the sky! But the trees! There wuz a wisteria vine growing like a tree up to the heavens with deep shades of purple wisteria! There wuz cherry trees with red cherries and pink blossoms at the same time! There wuz trees with oranges growin on them. In between the trees wuz blueberry bushes with blueberries as big as a doorknob! And that fruit wuz so delicious and juicy you didn’t never want no other food! Why you could almost fill up just lookin at them!
Lulubelle just sat down and looked and looked at the beautiful place! After a few minutes, she saw somethin out of the corner of her eye. She sposed it wuz a field mouse and glanced over where she saw it move. She rubbed her eyes, thinkin she wuz blurry-eyed when she caught sight of a little tiny person! She weren’t no more than 3 inches tall and she had on the purtiest shade of green dress! She wuz bare-footed and ran to grab a vine and swung clear up into the Wisteria! Lulubelle’s mouth dropped open and about that time dozens of other fairies ran across the green, green grass! Lulubelle thought, “Is this Heaven? Are all people in Heaven small like this? How am I going to get back home for supper? But she weren’t really worried. All of a sudden, one of the little fairies saw her and blew on a ram’s horn. All of the little fairies looked up and saw her too! She wondered what would happen next and sat very quietly so she didn’t scare the fairies.
A fairy with a big brown hat bravely walked over to the giant named Lulubelle and said in his tiny voice, “Who are you and what right have you to be here?”
Lulubelle whispered, “I am Lulubelle and I just walked through the willow tree and I love this place and I love all of you and I love the cherries and blueberries and oranges too! What is your name, sir?”
“I am Drogor, the lord of the fairies. Do you mean harm to us?”
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“Oh, no, sir! I am very friendly, you can ask my ma.” Lulubelle started explaining.
“Why are you here in fairyland? Are you a human?” Dragor continued questioning, tryin to figure out what was going on.
“Yes, I am a human; I am a child,” Lulubelle told him.
“No human has been in here for 500 years, when my pappy was the Lord of the fairies. We must have a break in the willow tree. What will we do with her?” he asked a crowd of fairies who had gathered around and were staring at Lulubelle. “If one human knows about us and our land, they go tell other humans who will only cause us trouble and come to gawk at us or worse. They may destroy our way of life and try to make us pets who live in cages!”
“Oh no, sir! I wouldn’t never do that!” Lulubelle said feelin nervous. “I want to be friends and come to visit you right here and I won’t tell nobody.
The girl fairy who had swung up into the tree, suddenly swung down and landed on Lulubelle’s nose and started looking into her big brown eyes. Lulubelle held very still. “My name is Moss-Lily and I say she can be trusted! Let her come to visit us. Our land is the most beautiful in the world and we must share it with her!”
“Lulubelle told them she had to go home for supper, but if it was ok with them, she would come back tomorrow. You can tell me then what you all decide, if’n I can visit with you again.”
Everybody said good-bye and Lulubelle went back through the cave and the willow tree and kept them all a secret. Sittin at supper, while all of her family was sharin their day, it was hard not to tell them about the most magical thing she had ever seen. While washin dishes, she almost spilled the beans to her sister. Why this thing was eatin her up. She wuz almost to burst, needin to tell someone! “No, I want to keep visitin them and they might put a stop to it if’n
I tell anyone.” She dreamed that night about her beautiful land and the little folks.
The next mornin, after chores, Lulubelle took off for her special place, wonderin if it was really there. She went around the old stump, to the willow tree. Then she parted the leaves and branches and continued walkin thru the stream and thru the cave and holdin her breath, she looked and there was her special place!! She watched as the fairies swam in the stream, swung thru the trees on vines, picked flowers and braided them into crowns to wear. At that point, Moss-Lily saw her and came over. “Hello, my new friend! Lulubelle, is it?”
“Yes, I came back to see if I wuz allowed to keep visiting,” Lulubelle said.
“As long as you can see us, you can visit. On the day this land is no longer here, the visits will be over,” Moss-Lily explained.
“Oh good!” Lulubelle exclaimed.
Moss-Lily invited Lulubelle in further into their land to sit and braid flowers with her. After Lulubelle finished her crown, ten of the girl fairies took the crown, had Lulubelle bow her head to the ground and they crowned her with the beautiful flowers! It was the best day of Lulubelle’s life! When it started growing dark, Lulubelle stood up slowly, making sure she didn’t squash any of her new friends and saying good-bye, left the way she had come.
Her sister, spying the new crown when she returned, asked, “ Where did all of those nice flowers come from? I ain’t never seen those before around here.”
Lulubelle didn’t know what to say, so she just kept quiet. “Ma, Lulubelle has flowers that don’t grow around here! She ‘s been wanderin off!” Her sister told.
Lulubelle’s ma called her over. “ Where have you been off to, Lulubelle?”
Lulubelle didn’t want to lie to her ma and asked, “Do I have to say, ma?”
“I think you’d better, honey,” her ma said, right nice like
Lulubelle looked all worried. “Ma, can you just come with me tomorrow, after chores and I will explain it all to you?”
He ma looked into Lulubelle’s eyes and said after thinkin it over, “Yes, honey I will.”
The next day, Lulubelle and her ma set out for fairyland. Lulubelle was worried that Moss-Lily and Drogor and the rest of the fairies would not be happy about her bringing another human with her. Well, she would know soon. She and her ma had just passed through the cornfield and were right now walkin around the dead tree stump. They went to the willow tree and waded in the water to the place where they had to push aside the willow branches and leaves. Then they were walking through the cave. They got to where it opened up into the beautiful fairyland and saw……