Once upon a time there was a very poor boy, who had no cap on his head, no shoes on his feet, and never a penny in his pocket. He was so poor that he did not even have a name. His father had gone to sea many years ago in a ship called The Big Dipper, and as he had never returned, people said surely he must be dead. So the boy had gone to live in a small, dark house beside the sea, with his great-aunt, who was very old and cross and strict. She did not let him have any sugar on his cereal or butter on his bread, and every day after school she spanked him soundly for all the mistakes he had made that day, and if he had not made any she spanked him just the same for all those he would probably make to-morrow, or the next day, or the next. When he asked for a bit of soap to blow bright soap-bubbles, she cried:
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“Soap-bubbles, indeed! Soap is made only to wash one’s face with. You may have all you want for that, but for bubbles, no, no! Bless my boots, what will you ask for next?”
When the other children played on the beach, building castles in the sand, or picking up pretty shells, this poor boy had to gather driftwood for his great-aunt’s kitchen fire.
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But for all his hard luck he was always whistling blithely at his work. He would whistle all the tunes in the hymn book, and all the sailor’s songs, and the nursery songs, and then some more that he made up as he ran along the beach picking up driftwood. Of course his great-aunt had forbidden his whistling about the house, but other people liked to hear him, and since he had no name, they called him “Birdling.” His great-aunt called him “You!”
One day, after he had come home from school, washed his hands, eaten his dry bread and drunk his tea without sugar or cream, he went as usual to the beach to gather wood; but this day, all the boys from school were down by the sea-side making sail-boats. Their mothers and aunts and grandmas had given them odd bits of muslin from the rag-bag for sails, and their fathers and uncles and grandpas had given them little pots of paint, and the old boat-builder who lived on the beach had supplied the nails and boards and no end of good advice. They were building a splendid fleet, and when Birdling came whistling along the sands, they all hailed him and shouted:
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“Birdling, Birdling, come and build a boat! We have nails to spare, and surely you have some nice boards in your load of driftwood! Come, come and build a boat!”
So Birdling, forgetting all about his duties and his great-aunt, sat down in the warm yellow sand, and built a boat of driftwood; and while he worked he whistled.
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The boys were all so glad to hear him and be able to play with him that they gave him all the paint and nails that they could spare, as well as string for his rigging and a lead sinker for his anchor. Of course he had many kinds of paint, and not enough of any one color to paint his whole boat, so her hull was black, the trimming golden-yellow, the deck bright-blue and the mast was green. She was a funny boat indeed, but Birdling liked her none the less and wanted to name her after his father’s ship, the Big Dipper.
“But she isn’t big!” said the other boys. “She’s the smallest boat of all!”
So he called her the Little Dipper.
“What will you do for a sail?” the others asked. “We’d love to give you some muslin, but we haven’t a bit to spare.”
 
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Here was a dilemma indeed. Then Birdling remembered that he had a patch on the seat of his trousers that he did not need at all, for his great-aunt always patched them before they went into holes (“If I didn’t,” she would say, “why bless my boots, he’d sit them through in two minutes!”); and now he did a dreadful thing, he took off the patch and used it for a sail!
They had such a good time with the boats, loading them with cargoes of sea-shells and digging harbors and chasing away the crabs who came to watch, that they did not notice how the sun had dipped down behind the sand-dunes and the light-house brightened far out at sea. Suddenly they heard the curfew ring.
 
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“Why, it’s past supper-time!” they cried, and all the boys snatched up their boats and ran home. In a moment the beach was as deserted as the sea, and Birdling sat alone on the sands, his boat between his knees, while the shadows of night crept down to the water. At the furthest end of the beach gleamed a dull square of light—that was his great-aunt’s window, brightened by the oil-lamp behind it:
Oh, how she was going to scold him now! For this time he had really been naughty. He had gathered no driftwood, he was late to supper, and he had ripped the patch off the seat of his trousers!
“I don’t dare take you home, Little Dipper,” he said as he placed his boat in the safest harbor, as far as possible from the incoming tide. “My great-aunt would burn you in the kitchen stove. Goodby, Little Dipper!”
 
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His great-aunt met him at the door as he came home. She was so angry that her cap had slid over one ear, her eyes were like tiny hot coals and her very apron-strings curled with wrath. She boxed Birdling’s ears, smack, smack, smack!—until they were as pink as seashells.
“You, you, you,” she cried, “You shall have no supper, sir, but a very good whipping! Go up on the hill behind the house and cut a switch, a strong one, a long one, for a long strong whipping, sir!”
Obediently Birdling went up to the hill where the witch-hazel bushes held out their long, strong boughs to be cut for switches. But somehow he could not find just the switch he wanted; one was not long enough and another was too long, or one would not be strong enough and the next too strong. He looked them all over very carefully.
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The witch-hazel bushes were in blossom, there were fuzzy little yellow stars on their boughs; Birdling saw a bumble-bee (who should have been in bed an hour ago) darting from bush to bush and tasting the little flowers. Then the boy remembered that he was to have no supper to-night, and as he felt dreadfully hungry, he touched one of the yellow blossoms and licked his finger that was covered with fine golden pollen, just to see what it tasted like.
 
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Behold what happened to Birdling! He did not know that the witch-hazel flowers were full of Fairy Bread! Suddenly he grew smaller and smaller, like a candle on a birthday-cake, till he thought he must go out altogether—but just before it was time to go out he stopped shrinking and saw to his great relief that he was still a good inch taller than the bumble-bee.
He sat down with surprise, hands on the ground and feet apart, and the short grasses closed above his head. All around him the daisies, who always enjoy a joke, were tittering and looking at him through the grass. Somewhere behind a huge fuzzy mullen-plant was a great noise, like the motor of an aeroplane—it was the bumble-bee, coming to see what was going on.
“What’s happened?” he boomed in his rolling bass voice.
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“That’s what I’d like to know,” replied the boy, picking himself up. “I never felt so small in my life, not even when I tore my Sunday shirt and my great-aunt scolded me before everybody! Why, I’m no bigger than a sea-horse!”
The daisies were still laughing and now they could no longer contain themselves.
“He ate fairy-bread,” they giggled, “and he grew as little as a balloon when the air goes out, ho, ho, ho, ho! Tee, tee, tee, tee!”
“Ate fairy-bread!” exclaimed Birdling, “do you mean to say I am a fairy now?”
The Bumble-bee put his head on one side and deliberated.
“No,” he said slowly, “You’re not a fairy. You’re only fairyish. What’s your name?”
“I haven’t any. But people call me Birdling.”
“Well, that’s not so bad. What can you do?”
“Nothing. Oh, yes—I can whistle!”
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“Where will you live? You are too small to live with your great-aunt. She would surely step on you.”
Birdling looked around; there was a groundsparrow’s nest under the witch-hazel bushes, very near the fairy-bread flowers.
“Here,” he said, “If nobody minds, I’ll live here.”
So that is where he lived all summer. Everybody on the hill grew fond of him, and in the mornings when the robin sang to the sun, Birdling too would be up and whistling.
But one day the Bumble-bee came to call. His face was serious and his voice unusually rumbly. It was a cool day so Birdling was all wrapped in a mullen leaf.
 
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“It’s Autumn!” said Bumble. “What will you do when Winter comes?”
“I don’t know. What do the birds do?”
“They go to the Fairy Islands.”
“Mayn’t I go?”
“You aren’t a bird or a fairy,” objected the visitor.
“But I’m fairyish, you know.”
“Then you may, I suppose.”
Birdling got up, ready to start at once.
“How do the birds get there, Bumble?”
“They fly.”
“But I can’t fly!”
“Then you can’t go.”
“But you said I could if I was fairyish!”
“No, I said you might. You may, but you can’t. See?”
Birdling shook his head.
“Where are the Fairy Islands?” he asked.
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“Beyond the Deep Sea.”
 
“Could one go in a boat?”
“Possibly.”
Then Birdling remembered the Little Dipper, lying forlorn on the sands, beyond the reaches of the tide. Perhaps some boy had picked her up, or perhaps the waves had taken her—or perhaps she was still in her harbor!
Neatly he folded some mullen-leaves, for sailors need warm clothes and blankets, and with these over his arm he began the long journey from the hill-top to the harbor. It was ten fairy-miles of rather rough walking. The Bumble-bee went with him and when they had come as far as his great-aunt’s house, which was just half-way between the hill and the beach, he flew up on her roof where you could get a splendid view of the country.
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“Oh, can you see the Little Dipper?” cried Birdling from below.
 
“I see a boat on the sand,” reported Bumble, “a very queer boat—her hull is black, her trimmings golden-yellow, her decks bright-blue and the mast and sails are green.”
“That’s the Little Dipper!” shouted Birdling, and began to run as fast as he could. He quite forgot that his great-aunt sat by the window, knitting wristlets and watching everything outside the house. She saw the tiny creature running along the beach, and as she was very old and could not see very clearly through her spectacles, she opened the window and leaned far out.
“It must be a mouse,” she decided, and hobbling across the room, she called her cat and opened the door for him.
“Mousie outside, Puss!” she said. “Go catch the Mousie, catch the Mousie!”
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The big black cat never had much to eat so he was very glad to go and catch a mouse. Poor Birdling dropped his mullen-leaves and ran faster and faster, but could not run fast enough. The Cat came nearer and nearer.
 
“Oh, I can’t run any more!” panted Birdling at last. In another moment the Cat would have pounced upon him and devoured him—but just then the Bumble-bee came booming through the air, and stung the Cat on his big, black, S-shaped tail. The cat gave a terrible cry, turned around and ran home three times as fast as he had come.
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Birdling had to sit down and rest for a while after the Cat had gone. Then he and the Bumble-bee went on, hoping to reach the Little Dipper before noon. But they had not gone one-half a fairy-mile further, when a cross, scratchy voice shouted at them: “Get off the beach!”
“I can’t,” said Birdling timidly. “There’s a board fence on one side and water on the other, and I can’t go back the way I came, because there’s a cat.”
He could not even see who was speaking. There was only a big brown hill in front of him.
“I’m not on the beach,” replied Bumble-bee. “I’m in the air. Who are you, anyway?”
“Who am I! Well, I like that—who am I? Why, I’m ME!”
The big brown hill lifted itself up a bit, and they saw that it was the back of a Horse-Shoe Crab.
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“Get off the beach, you civilians, this is a parade-ground! I’m drilling the new regiment from the Deep Sea.”
 
Then they noticed a long line of little pink Crabs emerging from the foamy water and slowly ascending the sands.
“Backward—march!” shouted the Horse-Shoe Crab.
There was nothing for Birdling to do but sit down on an empty oyster shell and wait until the parade was over. They marched backward, and marked time with two feet, three feet, four feet, till they had learned to keep all six of them going, and they did squads right and left and exercised their jaws and joints and pincers. There was nothing they did not do.
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At last the Horse-Shoe Crab shouted: “Dismiss!” and all the little Crabs tumbled back into the sea, pinching each other and betting who would be first down the beach. Then the old commander turned his attention to Birdling and Bumble.
 
“Who are you?”
“Nobody.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m not going at all,” replied Bumble.
“You want to cross the parade-ground?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“To get to my ship.”
“Show your passport.”
“Here!” and Bumble unsheathed his shiny long bayonet.
“That will do,” said the Horse-Shoe Crab quickly, backing away a few steps and pulling in his tail. “You may pass.”
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It was night before they reached the Little Dipper. She looked very forlorn, lying a bit sideways, sails furled and decks covered with sand. Worst of all, a whole brotherhood of Shrimps had set up housekeeping in her hold, and not even at the point of Bumble’s bayonet would they move out. They wore little coats of mail that made them quite indifferent to a mere bumble-bee’s sting.
“But you must move out,” pleaded Birdling, standing on the deck and shouting down into the hold. “I want to go to the Fairy Islands, and I simply must have my ship.”
“Going to the Fairy Islands?” echoed the Shrimps. “That’s a long trip, without food or water aboard and without a crew!”
“Oh, we’ll lay in food and water soon enough,” said Bumble, who sat in the rigging. “As for a crew—”
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“Let us be the crew,” cried the Shrimps. “We’re not clever, but we’re really very obedient and faithful. We don’t want to spoil your trip, Birdling, but we don’t want to move, either; there are very few houses along the beach, and none as nice as this. Let us be your crew!”
“But then I’ll have to pay you,” said Birdling, “and I have no money. Shall I pay you with music? I’ll whistle one tune for every Shrimp once a week.”
 
“It’s a bargain,” replied the crew.
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All night long Bumble flew to and fro between the witch-hazel bushes on the hill and the boat upon the beach, carrying fairy-bread and honey-dew for the voyage. The crew packed all these provisions into big barnacles that made splendid kegs and barrels. Birdling was brave enough to go back along the beach by moonlight and pick up the mullen-leaf blankets he had dropped when he fled from the Cat, and at the crack of dawn the Little Dipper was ready to put to sea. They cleared the harbor and with the outgoing tide floated out upon the ocean. Bumble flew above the mast and accompanied them for several miles; two fiddler crabs came to the edge of the beach and fiddled until the good ship was out of sight, and Birdling stood at the bow with the great green sail blowing behind him. At last everybody shouted: “Goodby, goodby, goodluck, thank you, thank-you!,” then the Little Dipper sailed out of sight.
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For three days they journeyed, always pointing their course to Eastward, but they did not............