She was about forty round the waist.
There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk, when Maimie arrived
in time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over the railing
and set off for a smart walk. They moved in a jerky sort of way
certainly, but that was because they used crutches. An elderberry
hobbled across the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces,
and they all had crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied
to young trees and shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to
Maimie, but she had never known what they were for until to-night.
She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
he did it was this, he pressed a spring in the trunk and they shut
like umbrellas, deluging the little plants beneath with snow. "Oh,
you naughty, naughty child!" Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew
what it was to have a dripping umbrella about your ears.
Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of earshot, but the
chrysanthemums heard her, and they all said so pointedly "Hoity-toity,
what is this?" that she had to come out and show herself. Then the
whole vegetable kingdom was rather puzzled what to do.
"Of course it is no affair of ours," a spindle tree said after they
had whispered together, "but you know quite well you ought not to be
here, and perhaps our duty is to report you to the fairies; what do
you think yourself?"
"I think you should not," Maimie replied, which so perplexed them that
they said petulantly there was no arguing with her.
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