They have a postman , but he never calls except at Christmas with his little box , and though they have beautiful schools , nothing is taught in them ; the youngest child being chief person is always elected mistress , and when she has called the roll , they all go out for a walk and never come back . It is a very noticeable thing that , in fairy families , the youngest is always chief person , and usually becomes a prince or princess ; and children remember this , and think it must be so among humans also , and that is why they are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new frills on the basinette . You have probably observed that your baby-sister wants to do all sorts of things that your mother and her nurse want her not to do -- to stand up at sitting-down time , and to sit down at stand-up time , for instance , or to wake up when she should fall asleep , or to crawl on the floor when she is wearing her best frock , and so on , and perhaps you put this down to naughtiness . But it is not ; it simply means that she is doing as she has seen the fairies do ; she begins by following their ways , and it takes about two years to get her into the human ways . Her fits of passion , which are awful to behold , and are usually called teething , are no such thing ; they are her natural exasperation , because we do n't understand her , though she is talking an intelligible language . She is talking fairy . The reason mothers and nurses know what her remarks mean , before other people know , as that ` Guch ' means ` Give it to me at once , ' while ` Wa ' is ` Why do you wear such a funny hat ? ' is because , mixing so much with babies , they have picked up a little of the fairy language . -LSB- Illustration : A fairy ring -RSB- Of late David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue , with his hands clutching his temples , and he has remembered a number of their phrases which I shall tell you some day if I do n't forget . He had heard them in the days when he was a thrush , and though I suggested to him that perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering , he says not , for these phrases are about fun and adventures , and the birds talked of nothing but nest-building . He distinctly remembers that the birds used to go from spot to spot like ladies at shop windows , looking at the different nests and saying , ` Not my colour , my dear , ' and ` How would that do with a soft lining ? ' and ` But will it wear ? ' and ` What hideous trimming ! ' and so on . -LSB- Illustration : These tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board on a ball night -RSB- The fairies are exquisite dancers , and that is why one of the first things the baby does is to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you do it . They hold their great balls in the open air , in what is called a fairy ring . For weeks afterwards you can see the ring on the grass . It is not there when they begin , but they make it by waltzing round and round . Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring , and these are fairy chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away . The chairs and the rings are the only tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them , and they would remove even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very moment of the opening of the gates .
XXXXX and I once found a fairy ring quite warm .
David Wa basinette day days first naughtiness nest-building weeks years