SUDDENLY they heard a sweet, gentle voice calling, “Oh, please come here, oh, please come here.”

They all looked high and low, but they could see no one. Uncle Whiskers cried, “Who are you and where are you? We hear you but we cannot see you.”

“I am the Tree-Fairy and I am right here in the stump of this tree,” came the reply.

They all rushed over to the tree and, sure enough, there was the most beautiful creature they had ever seen. She was lying on her back and her wings were caught in the bark of the stump.

“Won’t you please help me to free my wings,” she begged.

“You must tell us how we can do it without tearing them,” said Sammy Woodchuck. “I fear that I am far too clumsy to touch them anyway.”

Uncle Whiskers looked at the lovely, delicate wings and said, “I can gnaw the bark away from them.”

“Please let me help you,” begged Winkle.

“And please let me help also,” begged Twinkle. “My teeth are as sharp as needles.”

“My bill is very sharp and while you gnaw, I will pick the bark away. I promise to be very careful,” said Billy Jay.

So they all set to work and the Tree-Fairy smiled upon them. Her smile was so full of love that each little animal felt his heart beat faster and was even more eager to free her wings quickly.

“It is perfectly wonderful that Pinkie Whiskers did not cut you in two when he chopped down the tree. We had no idea that you were in it,” said Uncle Whiskers.

The Tree-Fairy laughed a soft, silvery laugh and answered, “No, of course you did not know that I was here. When I am free I will tell you all about how I came to be here.”

Just then Billy Jay picked away a big piece of bark and the Tree-Fairy slowly but surely pulled one wing free.

Uncle Whiskers, Twinkle and Winkle worked all the harder and faster and soon Twinkle cried:

“I think you can move your wing now, dear Tree-Fairy. Try to move it just a tiny bit.”

The Tree-Fairy needed no urging. Very gently and slowly she pulled her wing out from under the bark. Just to show her little friends that she could use them as well as ever, she fluttered them about.

They were so thin that you could see through them and they sparkled and shone in the sunshine like silver.

“Can’t you get up now?” asked Sammy Woodchuck.

“I will try,” replied the Tree-Fairy.

She tried and tried all in vain. She could move, but she could not rise. At last she said:

“My foot is caught. I am so sorry, dear friend, but I cannot leave this stump until my foot is free. It is so far down in the stump that I am afraid you will have a very hard time to loosen it.”

She was right. It seemed for awhile that it was impossible to loosen it. Billy Jay picked and picked. Twinkle and Winkle gnawed and gnawed, but all of their efforts seemed of no use.

Finally Uncle Whiskers said, “I will take the axe and chop away the outside of the stump.”

“I will take the pitch-fork and lift the soft pulp away,” cried Sammy Woodchuck.

So they worked and worked until they had broken the stump apart and the Tree-Fairy was free once more.

As she stepped out into the green meadow, she was so happy that she danced and as she danced, her little silver slippers twinkled and glittered.

“Isn’t she wonderful?” whispered Winkle to Twinkle.

“Yes. She is so lovely that I am afraid she will not stay with us,” whispered Twinkle to Winkle.

Uncle Whiskers looked and looked at the Tree-Fairy until his eyes were almost blinded by her sparkle in the sunshine. He said:

“Please come over here under the shade of this tree, where we can look at you all we wish and then tell us how you came to be in that tree.”