"
But the twenty-seventh fairy was thinking just then that he might have
been dancing all this time, and he said: "Gillibloom, I don't see what
good it will do."
"It must be remembered that we have only learned Almost Crying
to-day," said Gillibloom, with dignity. "When we have learned Quite
Crying it will be a different matter."
"I can't help it," said the twenty-seventh fairy. "I'm not coming any
more. Anybody want my cup?"
But nobody did, because all the other pupils had kept their cups very
carefully, and he tossed it into the Standing Pool and danced away
through the forest, singing:
"School's dismissed! School's dismissed!
Out of so many I shan't be missed.
By and by they'll learn to cry.
But if any one's there, it won't be I.
I'd rather sing or dance or fly,
Or swim in a puddle where star-shines lie.
I'll not cry--not I!"
And the next day it was just the same. The twenty-six fairies, sat by
the side of the Standing Pool, and Gillibloom wrinkled up his forehead
and shut his eyes and drew down his mouth and bellowed and wet his
cheeks with water out of his moss-cup, and they all did the same, and
then they said: "Now we are Almost Crying."
But when the lesson was over, the twenty-sixth fairy said he had some
wheat ripening to attend to in a field ever so far away, and the next
day the twenty-fifth fairy said there was a Crow Caucus on, and he
wanted to see what they meant to do about the scare-crow in the field
they owned, and he couldn't come any more, and the next day the
twenty-fourth fairy said there were ever so many dancing steps he
hadn't practised for a long time, and he couldn't come any more, and
the next day the twenty-third fairy said there was a queer-shaped leaf
on the watercress down by the spring, and he thought he ought to look
round a bit and see if there were any more like it, and he couldn't
come any more.
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