Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to
be altered a little.
After a few days practice they could go up and down as gaily as
buckets in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under
the ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all
houses should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to
go fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming
colour, which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in
the centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through,
level with the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high,
and then they put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table;
as soon as they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus
there was more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was
in almost any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across
this Wendy stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended
her washing. The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down
at 6:30, when it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys slept in
it, except Michael, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict
rule against turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned
at once. Michael should have used it also, but Wendy would have a baby,
and he was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and
long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.
It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made
of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one
recess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private
apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the
house by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always
kept drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could
have had a more exquisite boudoir and bed-chamber combined. The couch,
as she always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and
she varied the bedspreads according to what fruit-blossom was in
season. Her mirror was a Puss-in-Boots, of which there are now only
three, unchipped, known to fairy dealers; the washstand was Pie-crust
and reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth,
and the carpet and rugs the best (the early) period of Margery and
Robin. There was a chandelier from Tiddlywinks for the look of the
thing, but of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very
contemptuous of the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps
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