The Unruly Sprite | Page 2

to have him taught to know his place, and not to tease, and other useful lessons."
"You are always right," said the man, "and it shall be just as you say."
On the way home he talked seriously to the sprite and told him how impolite he had been, and arranged a plan for his schooling in botany, diplomacy, music, psychology, deportment, and other useful studies.
The rest of the sprites came in to the school-room every day, to get some of the profitable lessons. The sat around quiet and orderly, so that it was quite like a kindergarten. But the principal pupil was restless and troublesome.
"You are never still," said the man, "you have an idle mind and wandering thoughts."
"No!" said the sprite, shaking his head. "It is true my mind is not on my lessons. But my thoughts do not wander at all. They always follow yours."
Then the man stopped talking, and the other sprites laughed behind their hands. But the one who had been reproved went on drawing pictures in the back of his botany book. The face in the pictures was always the same, but none of them seemed to satisfy him, for he always rubbed them out and began over again.
After several weeks of hard work the master thought his pupil must have learned something, so he gave him a holiday, and asked him what he would like to do.
"Go with you," he answered, "when you take her your new stories."
So they went together, and the lady complimented the writer on his success as an educator.
"Your pupil does you credit," said she, "he talks nicely about botany and deportment. But I am a little troubled to see him looking so pale. Perhaps you have been too severe with him. I must take him out in the garden with me every day to play a while."
"You have a kind heart," said the man, "and I hope he will appreciate it."
This agreeable and amicable life continued for some weeks, and everybody was glad that affairs had arranged themselves. But one day the lady brought a new complaint.
"He is a strange little creature, and he has begun to annoy me in the most extraordinary way." "That is bad," said the man. "What does he do now?"
"Oh, nothing," she answered, "and that is just the trouble. When I want to talk about you, he refuses, and says he does not like you as much as he used to. When I propose to play a game, he says he is tired and would rather sit under a tree and hear stories. When I tell them he says they do not suit him, they all end happily, and that is stupid. He is very perverse. But he clings to me like a bur. He is always teasing me to tell him the name of every flower in my garden and given him one of every kind."
"Is he rude about it?"
"Not exactly rude, but he is all the more annoying because he is so polite, and I always feel that he wants something different."
"He must not do that," said the man. "He must learn to want what you wish."
"But how can he learn what I wish? I do not always know that myself."
"It may be difficult," said the man, "but all the same he must learn it for your sake. I will deal with him."
So he took the unruly sprite out into the desert and gave him a sound beating with thorn branches. The blood ran down the poor little creature's arms and legs, and the teats down the man's cheeks. But the only words that he said were: "You must learn to want what she wishes --do you hear?--you must want what she wishes." At last the sprite whimpered and said: "Yes, I hear; I will wish what she wants." Then the man stopped beating him, and went back to his house, and wrote a little story that was really good.
But the sprite lay on his face in the desert for a long time, sobbing as if his heart would break. Then he fell asleep and laughed in his dreams. When he awoke it was night and the moon was shining silver. He rubbed his eyes and whispered to himself, "Now I must find out what she wants." With that he leaped up, and the moonbeams washed him white as he passed through them to the lady's house.
The next afternoon, when the man came to read her the really good story, she would not listen.
"No," she said, "I am very angry with you."
"Why?"
"You know well enough."
"Upon my honour, I do not."
"What?" cried the lady. "You profess ignorance, when he distinctly said--
"Pardon," said the man, "but who said?"
"Your unruly sprite," she answered, indignant. "He came last night outside my window, which was wide open for