It was really a picnic. And goodness! how dangerous it would have been if it had not been for me. That's the way I am always saving people, you notice.

The little children in the village had grown so tired of being shut up indoors that about fifty of them who were too little to know any better had climbed out of windows, and slipped out of doors, and crawled under things, and hopped over them, and had all run away together to gather flowers and wild Peachstrawberines, and lovely big yellow Plumricots which grew thick on the bushes and in the grass on the Huge Green Hill. The delicious sweet pink and purple Ice–cream–grape–juice Melons hung in clusters on trees too high for them to reach, but they thought they would just sit down under their branches and look at them and sniff and hope one would fall.

And there they came – little plump girls and boys in white frocks and with curly heads – not the least bit afraid of anything: tumbling down and laughing and picking themselves up and laughing, and when they got near the Cave, one of my Working Fairies, just for fun, flew down and lighted on one little girl's fat hand. She jumped for joy when she saw him and called to the others and they came running and tumbling to see what she had found.

"Oh! Look – look!" she called out. "What is he! What is he! He isn't a bird – and he isn't a bee and he isn't a butterfly. He's a little teeny, weeny–weeny–weeny–weeny wee, and he has little green shoes on and little green stockings, and a little green smock and a little green hat and he's laughing and laughing."

And then a boy saw another in the grass – and another under a leaf, and he shouted out, too.

"Oh! here's another – here's another." And then the Workers all began to creep out of the grass and from under the leaves and fly up in swarms and light on the children's arms and hands and hats and play with them and tickle them and laugh until every child was dancing with fun, because they had never seen such things before in their lives.

I flew back to the Lion. He was quite nervous.

"It is a picnic," I said. "And now is your chance. Can you purr?"

"Yes, I can." And he began to make a beautiful purring which sounded like an immense velvet cat over a saucer of cream.

"Come out then," I ordered him. "Smile as sweetly as you can and don't stop purring. Try to look like a wriggling coaxing dog – I will go first and prevent the children from getting frightened."

So out we went. I was riding in his ear and peeping out over the top of it. I did not let the children see me because I wanted them to look at the Lion and at nothing else.

What I did was to make them remember in a minute all the nicest Lions they had ever seen in pictures or in the circus. Many of them had never seen a Lion at all and the few who had been to a circus had only seen them in big cages behind iron bars, and with notices written up, "Don't go near the Lions."

When my Lion came out he was smiling the biggest, sleepiest, curliest, sweetest smile you ever beheld and he was purring, and he was softly waving his tail. He stood still on the grass a moment and then lay down with his big head on his paws just like a huge, affectionate, coaxing dog waiting and begging somebody to come and pet him. And after staring at him for two minutes, all the children began to laugh, and then one Little little girl who had a great mastiff for a friend at home, suddenly gave a tiny shout and running to him tumbled over his paws and fell against his mane and hid her face in it, chuckling and chuckling.

That was the beginning of the most splendid fun a picnic ever had. Every one of them ran laughing and shouting to the Lion. It was such a treat to them to actually have a Lion to play with. They patted him, they buried their hands and faces in his big mane, they stroked him, they scrambled up on his back, and sat astride there. Little boys called out, "Hello, Lion! Hello, Lion!" and little girls kissed his nice tawny back and said "Liony! Liony! Sweet old Liony!" The Little Little Girl who had run to him first settled down right between his huge front paws, resting her back comfortably against his chest, and sucked her thumb, her blue eyes looking very round and big. She was comfy.

I kept whispering down his ear to tell him what to do. You see, he had never been in Society at all and he had to learn everything at once.

"Now, don't move suddenly," I whispered. "And be sure not to make any loud Lion noises. They don't understand Lion language yet."

"But oh! I am so happy," he whispered back, "I want to jump up and roar for joy."

"Mercy on us!" I said. "That would spoil everything. They'd be frightened to death and run away screaming and crying and never come back."

"But this little one with her head on my chest is such a sweetie!" he said. "Mayn't I just give her a little lick – just a little one?"

"Your tongue is too rough. Wait a minute," I answered.

My Fairy Workers were swarming all about. They were sitting in bunches on the bushes and hanging in bunches from branches, and hopping about and giggling and laughing and nudging each other in the ribs as they looked on at the Lion and children. They were as amused as they had been when they watched Winnie sitting on the eggs in the Rook's nest. I called Nip to come to me.

"Jump on to the Lion's tongue," I said to him, "and smooth it off with your plane until it is like satin velvet – not silk velvet, but satin velvet."

The Lion politely put out his tongue. Nip leaped up on it and began to work with his plane. He worked until he was quite hot, and he made the tongue so smooth that it was quite like satin velvet.

"Now you can kiss the baby," I said.

The Little Little Girl had gone to sleep by this time and she had slipped down and lay curled up on the Lion's front leg as if it was an arm and the Lion bent down and delicately licked her soft cheek, and her fat arm, and her fat leg, and purred and purred.