Volume 156 — THE FAIRIES' FLITTING.

There's a family of fairies lives inside our pigeon-cot, Down the garden, near the great big sumach-tree, Where the grass has grown across the path and dead leaves lie and rot And no one hardly ever goes but me; Yes, it's just the place for fairies, and they told the pigeons so; They begged to be allowed to move in soon; It's a most tremendous honour, as of course the pigeons know; It was all arranged this very afternoon. There's a family of fairies lives inside our pigeon-cot— Oh, the bustle and the sweeping there has been! For the pigeons didn't scrub their house (I think they all forgot), And the fairies like their home so scrup'lous clean; There are fairy dusters hanging from the sumach as you pass; Tiny drops are dripping still from overhead; Broken fairy-brooms are lying near the fir-tree on the grass, Though the fairies went an hour ago to bed. There's a family of fairies lives inside our pigeon-cot, And there's cooings round about our chimney-stack, For the pigeons are all sitting there and talking such a lot And there's nothing Gard'ner does will drive them back; "Why, they'll choke up those roof-gutters if they start this nesting fuss; They've got a house," he says, "so I don't see—" No, he doesn't know the secret, and there's no one does but—us, All the pigeons, and the fairy-folk and ME!