El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1900-08-20
EMERALDA'S SEARCH
FOR HER FILTER.


The little green fairy, whose other
name was Emeralda, always wore
green clothes. In winter she was snug
ly clothed in the skin of an old green
grass snake which was a friend of
hers. Snakes, as you know, often
change their skins. Emeralda used to
help the grass snake off with his coat,
which was doing him great favor, as
a snakes skin is a very close fit. In
summer, when the nights were chilly,
Emeralda was at the height of fairy
fashion in her yellow caterpillar boa.
The boa was alive and very warm and
comfortable about the neck. When
Emeralda hired the caterpillar, he
wanted to spin a cocoon, as his broth
ers were doing, but Emeralda persuad-
ed him not to spin by agreeing to let
him feed upon her oak leaf jacket. He
ate this up in less than half a day, so
you can see how many fresh green
leaves the fairy had to keep on hand.
Poor Emeralda! She was unhappy SO
much of the time that between her and
the showers drops were falling all day
long. She was happy with her funny
little baby the size of your teenty-
weenty finger, but her husband, the
janitor Of the gnarled oak, had disap-
peared no one knew where.
Not even the rattlesnake knew. cit
was only the other day that he went"
sobbed Emeralda to this sympathetic
friend. HE was walking along the
fourth story limb and 1 was on the
ground gathering an acorn tea set.
called: FILTER! Filter. dear! But he
didn't answer, and he hadn't fallen out
of the tree, and, oh, dear, dear, dear,
what shall do?"
''Stop crying this Instant" answered
the snake, humping his back that it
might be a more comfortable seat for
Emeralda. There! Your baby is cry
ing too. Give him to me and buy two
tickets and a half for Wizards glen.
You and are going on a journey, never
mind where. We are going to find Fit
ter"
The rattler made himself into q
warm, round nest, and Emeralda laid
the screaming baby in it's very center.
The child stopped crying when the rat
tier offered him his rattle to play with.
Down at the stream the ticket man,
who was a muskrat. gave Emeralda
2h good sized pieces of honey in ex-
change for her quarter. In fairyland a
quarter is the fourth part of anything
you want. The muskrat wanted a
piece Of meadow flag and this Emeral-
da soon brought him.
A fine large piece of log came tum-
bling down the stream.
Here's your ferry" growled the
muskrat, diving into the rushing water
and bringing the log to shore in his
cleaning mouth BY this time the rat
tier had made his way to Emeralda.
The baby lay asleep in a knot which
the snake had twisted in his handsome
brown and white body.
"As soon as you have eaten up your
tickets I'll punch you" said the musk
rat. IF you want to reach Wizards
glen by star time, you'd better hurry"
When the passengers excepting the
baby, who had not walked up. had eat
en- their honey. the ticket man gave
them each a smart little punch just IN
der the spare rib with a twig he al
ways carried. The RATHER curled him
self carefully on the ferry, Emeralda
and the baby seated themselves among
him-there were SO many Of him, you
see-the muskrat cried shrilly, "All
aboard" (the ferry was a board, of
course), and such a bobbing. dancing
cruise you can't imagine for a moment.
Water spiders skated out of reach Of
this swift craft, which jumped water
falls and followed swift currents just |
as hound follows hare.
ooh. what lovely merry go round!"
giggled Emeralda when the boat whirl- |
ed around and around q rock in mid |
stream, finally humping into it and |
staying fast |
''This is Wizards glen" murmured |
the rattler. twisting his tail firmly about |
NE@HEE