I can't hoe them."

"Why should you?" asked the nearest fairy indifferently. "The foreman
never notices if we shirk. We always do."

"I said I would hoe this row," said Sarah Brown. "But I am accursed. It
is a good thing at least to know one's limitations."

Even in affliction she was prosy.

"I would advise you to go and have your dinner," another fairy said.
"Only that I ate your sandwiches as I passed just now. But I left a
little lemonade in your bottle. Go under the trees and drink it."

"I can't move," said Sarah Brown.

"Sit there then," said the fairies, and passed on, tickling but not
uprooting the weeds in their rows. Fairies are never ill. They have
immortal bodies, but no souls. If they see you in pain, they simply
think you are flaunting your superiority and your immortal soul in their
faces.

The dragon undulated up the field. "Very nicely hoed," he said, looking
vaguely at Sarah Brown's row. "Much better than the other rows. Having
your dinner? Quite right too."

He never noticed the twenty-five unhoed beans.

Sarah Brown sat on the edge of a shore of green shadow, and a sea of sun
speckled with buttercups was before her. David Blessing came and leaned