If you have ever watched the little corn begin to march across 
the black lands and then slowly change to big corn and go marching 
on from the little corn moon of summer to the big corn harvest 
moon of autumn, then you must have guessed who it is that helps 
the corn come along. It is the corn fairies. Leave out the corn fairies 
and there wouldn’t be any corn.
    All children know this. All boys and girls know that corn is no good 
unless there are corn fairies.
    Have you ever stood in Illinois or Iowa and watched the late summer 
wind or the early fall wind running across a big cornfield? It looks as 
if a big, long blanket were being spread out for dancers to come and 
dance on. If you look close and if you listen close you can see the corn 
fairies come dancing and singing—sometimes. If it is a wild day and a 
hot sun is pouring down while a cool north wind blows—and this 
happens sometimes—then you will be sure to see thousands of corn 
fairies marching and countermarching in mocking grand marches over 
the big, long blanket of green and silver. Then too they sing, only you 
must listen with your littlest and newest ears if you wish to hear their 
singing. They sing soft songs that go pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy, and 
each song is softer than an eye wink, softer than a Nebraska baby’s 
thumb.
    And Spink, who is a little girl living in the same house with the man 
writing this story, and Skabootch, who is another little girl in the same
 house—both Spink and Skabootch are asking the question, “How can 
we tell corn fairies if we see ’em? If we meet a corn fairy how will we 
know it?” And this is the explanation the man gave to Spink who is older 
than Skabootch, and to Skabootch who is younger than Spink:—
    All corn fairies wear overalls. They work hard, the corn fairies, and 
they are proud. The reason they are proud is because they work so hard. 
And the reason they work so hard is because they have overalls.
    But understand this. The overalls are corn gold cloth, woven from 
leaves of ripe corn mixed with ripe October corn silk. In the first week 
of the harvest moon coming up red and changing to yellow and silver 
the corn fairies sit by thousands between the corn rows weaving and 
stitching the clothes they have to wear next winter, next spring, next 
summer.
    They sit cross-legged when they sew. And it is a law among them 
each one must point the big toe at the moon while sewing the harvest 
moon clothes. When the moon comes up red as blood early in the 
evening they point their big toes slanting toward the east. Then towards 
midnight when the moon is yellow and half way up the sky their big 
toes are only half slanted as they sit cross-legged sewing. And after 
midnight when the moon sails its silver disk high overhead and toward 
the west, then the corn fairies sit sewing with their big toes pointed nearly 
straight up.
    If it is a cool night and looks like frost, then the laughter of the corn 
fairies is something worth seeing. All the time they sit sewing their next 
year clothes they are laughing. It is not a law they have to laugh. They 
laugh because they are half-tickled and glad because it is a good corn 
year.
    And whenever the corn fairies laugh then the laugh comes out of the 
mouth like a thin gold frost. If you should be lucky enough to see a 
thousand corn fairies sitting between the corn rows and all of them laughing, 
you would laugh with wonder yourself to see the gold frost coming from 
their mouths while they laughed.
    Travelers who have traveled far, and seen many things, say that if you 
know the corn fairies with a real knowledge you can always tell by the 
stitches in their clothes what state they are from.
    In Illinois the corn fairies stitch fifteen stitches of ripe corn silk across 
the woven corn leaf cloth. In Iowa they stitch sixteen stitches, in Nebraska 
seventeen, and the farther west you go the more corn silk stitches the 
corn fairies have in the corn cloth clothes they wear.
     In Minnesota one year there were fairies with a blue sash of corn-flowers 
across the breast. In the Dakotas the same year all the fairies wore pumpkin-
flower neckties, yellow four-in-hands and yellow ascots. And in one strange 
year it happened in both the states of Ohio and Texas the corn fairies wore 
little wristlets of white morning glories.
    The traveler who heard about this asked many questions and found out 
the reason why that year the corn fairies wore little wristlets of white 
morning glories. He said, “Whenever fairies are sad they wear white. And 
this year, which was long ago, was the year men were tearing down all the 
old zigzag rail fences. Now those old zigzag rail fences were beautiful for 
the fairies because a hundred fairies could sit on one rail and thousands 
and thousands of them could sit on the zigzags and sing pla-sizzy pla-sizzy,
 softer than an eye-wink, softer than a baby’s thumb, all on a moonlight 
summer night. And they found out that year was going to be the last year 
of the zigzag rail fences. It made them sorry and sad, and when they are 
sorry and sad they wear white. So they picked the wonderful white morning 
glories running along the zigzag rail fences and made them into little 
wristlets and wore those wristlets the next year to show they were sorry 
and sad.”
    Of course, all this helps you to know how the corn fairies look in the evening, 
the night time and the moonlight. Now we shall see how they look in the 
day time.
    In the day time the corn fairies have their overalls of corn gold cloth on. 
And they walk among the corn rows and climb the corn stalks and fix things
 in the leaves and stalks and ears of the corn. They help it to grow.
    Each one carries on the left shoulder a mouse brush to brush away the field 
mice. And over the right shoulder each one has a cricket broom to sweep a
way the crickets. The brush is a whisk brush to brush away mice that get foolish. 
And the broom is to sweep away crickets that get foolish.
    Around the middle of each corn fairy is a yellow-belly belt. And stuck in this 
belt is a purple moon shaft hammer. Whenever the wind blows strong and 
nearly blows the corn down, then the fairies run out and take their purple 
moon shaft hammers out of their yellow-belly belts and nail down nails to 
keep the corn from blowing down. When a rain storm is blowing up terrible 
and driving all kinds of terribles across the cornfield, then you can be sure of 
one thing. Running like the wind among the corn rows are the fairies, jerking 
their purple moon shaft hammers out of their belts and nailing nails down to 
keep the corn standing up so it will grow and be ripe and beautiful when the 
harvest moon comes again in the fall.
    Spink and Skabootch ask where the corn fairies get the nails. The answer 
to Spink and Skabootch is, “Next week you will learn all about where the corn 
fairies get the nails to nail down the corn if you will keep your faces washed 
and your ears washed till next week.”
    And the next time you stand watching a big cornfield in late summer or early 
fall, when the wind is running across the green and silver, listen with your littlest
 and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the corn fairies going pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-
sizzy, softer than an eye wink, softer than a Nebraska baby’s thumb.