Frontispiece: Why has your tree no flowers while ours are pink?details

The sun shone brightly, the air was clear and warm, and the apple fairies came up from their workrooms for their spring dance on the young clover-leaves. “But where is our little sister?” they asked. They ran to her tree, only to find it bare and empty.

“Where are you, little sister?” they called.

She came up and stood on a branch to look at them.

“What is the matter?” they asked. “Why has your tree no flowers, while ours are pink? Where are your petals? Perhaps you have not yet had time to unroll them all. Shall we help you?”

“No, thank you,” she said; “I am having a rest; there will be no apples this year on my tree, for I have slept all the winter and am going to play all the summer.”

The fairies looked shocked. “You mustn’t do that!” they cried. “Why, if we all did that there would be no apples at all!”

“I don’t care about the old apples,” she said sulkily, and down she went again.

(p. 92)