“Yes!” he cried. “I know what may be done. You can set me free, kind boy, you only, of all the folk who have come to the Indian spring since the Red Men left it. The spell which binds me to the spring and chains me beneath the roof can only be broken when the water is set free again to mother earth. Yesterday I came near to being emptied into the horrible sewer. You heard my cry as the first of the water was lost. You saved me. For had the pail been emptied then I must have followed. And to what a fate!” “It empties at last into the ocean,” said Rob. “And that would have been the end of me,” shivered the Fairy. “Salt water is the one thing which would destroy me utterly. But come now. I know how I may be freed. Take the pail of water and bring me with it to the blessed clump of ferns.” Rob agreed; he took up the candle in one hand and the pail of water in the other. Lightly as a bird the Fairy sprang upon the rim of the pail, clinging to the cord. And so they went together up out of the cellar, through the empty kitchen and dining-room; very softly up the stairs, past the library of silent-talking books; up and up, very, _very_ creepily past the bedroom door ajar, whence Rob heard the sound of his father and mother snoring peacefully; up and up and up, tiptoeing so as not to wake Katie, to Rob’s own chamber. And there on the window-seat stood a big flower-pot with the beautiful ferns which the day before Rob had dug up in the woods. The Fairy smelled them as soon as he entered the room. “Ah!” he cried, laying both little hands on his breast, “How good that is! Dear boy, empty the water quickly from the pail into the earth brought from the woods, and I shall be free to lie under my dear ferns once more.” Rob emptied the pail into the flower-pot. And as the last drop of water trickled from the bucket, with a glad cry that sounded like the tiniest of Indian war-whoops, the Fairy leaped into the moist little dell which the ferns made, and curled up against one of the stalks, hugging it lovingly. “Dear fern!” he cried. “Dear woodsy fern! How sweet you smell. Dear moss, how soft you are! Dear fragrant earth, made of dead leaves and all the ripe finished things of the forest! Oh, I am myself once more. Dear boy, you have made me very happy.” “And you will live here with me in my chamber, always and always, dear Fairy?” begged Rob eagerly. “That will be so good! I shall be happy indeed to have you for my little neighbor. And I will never, never tell any one about you, nor let them disturb your green home.”