A Modern Cinderella; Or, The Little Old Shoe, and Other StoriesAlcott, Louisa May
General
A Modern Cinderella; Or, The Little Old Shoe, and Other Stories
Alcott, Louisa May
Fiction; Short stories
Nelly ran to get both her chests, and, sitting down beside the bird,
tried to feed it. To her joy it ate crumb after crumb, as if it were
half starved, and soon fluttered nearer a confiding fearlessness that
made her very proud. Soon baby Robin seemed quite comfortable, his eye
brightened, he "queeked" no more, and but for the drooping wing would
have been himself again. With one of her bandages Nelly bound both
wings closely to his sides for fear he should hurt himself by trying to
fly; and though he seemed amazed at her proceedings, he behaved very
well, only staring at her, and ruffling up his few feathers in a funny
way that made her laugh. Then she had to discover some way of
accommodating her two larger patients so that neither should hurt nor
alarm the other. A bright thought came to her after much pondering.
Carefully lifting the handkerchief, she pinned the two ends to the roof
of the cart, and there swung little Forked-tongue, while Rob lay easily
below.
By this time, Nelly began to wonder how it happened that she found so
many more injured things than ever before. But it never entered her
innocent head that Tony had searched the wood and meadow before she was
up, and laid most of these creatures ready to her hands, that she might
not be disappointed. She had not yet lost her faith in fairies, so she
fancied they too belonged to her small sisterhood, and presently it did
really seem impossible to doubt that the good folk had been at work.
Coming to the bridge that crossed the brook, she stopped a moment to
watch the water ripple over the bright pebbles, the ferns bend down to
drink, and the funny tadpoles frolic in quieter nooks, where the sun
shone, and the dragon-flies swung among the rushes. When Nelly turned
to go on, her blue eyes opened wide, and the handle of the ambulance
dropped with a noise that caused a stout frog to skip into the water
heels over head. Directly in the middle of the bridge was a pretty
green tent, made of two tall burdock leaves. The stems were stuck into
cracks between the boards, the tips were pinned together with a thorn,
and one great buttercup nodded in the doorway like a sleepy sentinel.
Nelly stared and smiled, listened, and looked about on every side.
Nothing was seen but the quiet meadow and the shady grove, nothing was
heard but the babble of the brook and the cheery music of the bobolinks.
"Yes," said Nelly softly to herself, "that is a fairy tent, and in it I
may find a baby elf sick with whooping-cough or scarlet-fever. How
splendid it would be! only I could never nurse such a dainty thing."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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