10. _Talk the Story Over Freely with Your Children._ Try to get their ideas, rather than to give your own. You can tell whether you have succeeded and what your faults in narration have been. _The Fairies of the Caldon-Low_ The difference between poetry and prose may be shown in rather a startling manner with such a selection as _The Fairies of the Caldon-Low_ (Volume II, page 395). Children like Mary Howitt's little narrative, but what does it really say? Let us put it in plain prose and see! "Where have you been, Mary?" "I've been to the top of Caldon-Low to see the midsummer night." "What did you see?" "I saw the sunshine come down and the winds blow." "What did you hear?" "I heard the water-drops made and the ears of corn fill." "Tell me everything, Mary, for you must have seen the fairies." "Then take me on your knee, mother, and listen. Last night a hundred fairies danced on lively feet to the merry music of nine harpers, but the merriest thing was the sound of the fairy talk." "What did you hear them say?" "I'll tell you, but let me do it in my own way. Some rolled water down the hill and said, 'this will turn the poor old miller's wheel, and a busy man he will be by morning. There has been no rain since the first of May, and how the jolly old miller will laugh till the tears fill his eyes when he sees the water rise in the milldam.' And some seized the winds and put horns to their mouths and blew sharply. 'And there!' said they shrilly, 'the merry winds go from every horn to clear the damp mildew from the blind old widow's corn. Though she has been blind for a long time she'll be merry enough when the corn stands up stiff and strong without any mildew!' Then some brought flax seed and flung it down, saying, 'by sunrise this will be growing in the weaver's field, and how the poor lame fellow will laugh when he sees his vacant field filled with blue flax flowers in a single day.' Then a brownie with a long beard spoke, 'I have spun all the tow and I want more. I have spun a linen sheet for Mary's bed and an apron for her mother.' I couldn't help but laugh out loud, and then I was alone. On the top of Caldon-Low, the mists were cold and gray and I could see nothing but mossy stones lying about me. But as I came down I heard the jolly miller laughing and his wheel going merrily. I peeped into the widow's cornfield and, sure enough, the golden corn was free from mildew, and at the gate of the croft stood the weaver, whose eye told the good news about his flax field. Now that's all I heard and all I saw, so please make my bed, mother, for I'm as tired as I can be."