"I agreed to pay for stories," Franklin replied, fingering his purse. "Perhaps a copper?"
"I am a guest here the same as you," Tina said. "My help I give freely. But if you would buy a spice cake for us all to share, I will give a story my mother often told me as a child."
"Yes, let us have the cake. And your tale," Franklin agreed.
Tina's Fable: The Lost Fairy
"When I was a little girl, my mother would tell me stories while I worked besides her in the kitchen or garden. One of my favorites that often I requested was the fable of Desimina, the Lost Fairy, a poem I still repeat to myself in bed at night when I think of my now departed mother.
"This is how it goes:
Alas, Desimina, so far from home
To a strange land by a fearsome storm blown.
Poor lost fairy now so very alone,
No other fairies, not even a gnome.
Each day she searched until thoroughly worn,
But found neither kin nor way to return.
Oh, each night she laid on her bed of fern
And more deeply sank to a state forlorn.
One morning from her unhappy sleep risen,
She heard flapping as she paused to listen.
Wings, not flying, in sunshine did glisten
In web above, someone was in prison.
Desimina's fear awoke at the sight,
But soon anger caused her terror to fade.
She looked for a leaf to serve as her blade,
Then flew to the rescue, ready to fight.
She brandished her weapon like a hero
And faced the spider who had come to eat.
Waving her frond so, she made him retreat
And, on silken thread, drop to branch below.
Desimina went to free her found friend,
But saw not a fairy held so snug.
It was a butterfly, only some old bug,
For all the efforts that she did expend.
She did break him loose, for that was the plan,
And he fluttered free, hovering nearby.
Her heartbreak was clear to that butterfly --
She despaired ne'er again to see her clan.
"I thank you for my freedom from the cord,
Although you thought to save another instead.
Without your help, by now I would be dead,
So I wish to offer you some reward."
"Can you show me how to get my home back?
Can you bring my friends with whom I can play?
That terrible wind has blown my life away
And left me with only ruinous wrack."
"I was a caterpillar in my past,
But I shall not be so ever again.
Life is not meant to stay where you have been,
But to go where you are sent, 'though unasked.
"Wherever you are is your home for now,
And whomever you meet can be your friends.
Follow your life through all its twists and bends,
And enjoy here all that life will allow."
Desimina opened her eyes for the first
To see her new home all around her there.
Our happy past should not cause us despair
When in our next venture we are immersed."
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