A Fairy Story That Came True By Mary Dickerson

A Fairy Story That Came True By Mary Dickerson Donahey

I have been writing fairy tales for many years, but never did I expect to have one come true! I have described in my books all sorts of odd, romantic, beautiful and interesting places of abode, but never did I think I’d live in one odder, more romantic, more beautiful and interesting than any I’d raked and scraped my imagination to tell about! Recklessly I have presented my heroines and heroes with generous fairy friends, never dreaming that Fate held in store for me a company of fairy godfathers and godmothers who were to shower me with gifts and pleasures, good times and good will absolutely unheard of outside of a fairy story! The worst of it is that it was through none of my own fairy folk this all came to me. No—the thing started when I married an artist, more than twenty years ago! I said to him, “You can write,” expecting him to become another Balzac or Mark Twain or some little thing like that! And

“Bordered with woods of hemlock and spruce and pines, white birch and maple.”

instead he invaded my own field of children’s literature, beat me at my own game, and evolved the Teenie Weenies, a very famous race of very little people who have brought us a great many nice things, tiny as they are! The Teenie Weenies For years the Teenie Weenies and their doings were chronicled in the Sunday edition of the Chicago Tribune and other papers all over the country, as well as in books, and then, emboldened by their journalistic success, they stepped into the field of wholesale business, and began helping Reid, Murdoch & Co. of Chicago to sell Teenie Weenie Peanut Butter, Peas and Sardines and all sorts of other good things, but largely and importantly, Teenie Weenie Pickles, small sweet pickled cucumbers, put up in the stoutest, most attractive little barrels that ever were built, as well as in glass jars. And just as soon as the pickles began to pop into the barrels, and the barrels to hop out of the stores, the magic began to

work! But I hadn’t the slightest idea it was working until early in the evening of Saturday, June 12, 1926—a day and date I never shall forget— when the results of the whole thing burst upon me all at once and reduced me to such a state of delighted astonishment that for a while I hardly knew what was happening, and not at all what I was doing or saying or even thinking! We Started at Dawn Extremely early in the morning of the day before my husband and I and our dog Buddie—who looks like a small and very pretty yellow fox and is nothing but a little yellow cur—had climbed into a car laden with our own baggage and a motor for a row boat kindly lent for the occasion, and motored from Chicago out to the home of Mr. and Mrs. S. P. Stevens in Evanston, where we were to join them on a vacation trip. I knew all about that! For over a year Mr. Stevens had been telling us of a wonderful and beautiful and uninhabited country in the North

“It’s thick-it’s solid-why, my great goodness gracious-it’s a Teenie Weenie House!”

peninsula of Michigan, right on the shores of Lake Superior, where there were hills and fields, marvelous sand dunes and great forests and a quaint, pretty little town, Grand Marais, all to be enjoyed together! It sounded good to me. It sounded even better to my husband, who hates crowds and big hotels and adores quiet, remoteness and—fishing. I was interested, curious and happy. If I had known half—but that is the rest of my story and I mustn’t get ahead of myself. A Foggy Morning Mr. and Mrs. Stevens, with their chauffeur Arthur and his wife Emily, were ready, and off we went, into the heart of a fog, and we motored for two, long, happy days, and those five people, who must have all been bursting with the things they knew and I didn’t, were as matter-of-fact as could be, so that I arrived at the end of my journey with not a suspicion of any secret brewing, or of any surprise to come. I was interested enough in the country.

The last twenty-six miles were all away from the railroad—into the wilderness, a wilderness that must have been supremely beautiful years ago before the greedy lumber companies stripped the country and left great acres of stumps. Going through there I became greatly excited over the stupid and wasteful way in which such work is done in this toolavish country of ours. And then we began going through woods which had been spared somehow, and then we swept over a fog-enveloped hill—it was odd that so pleasant and sunny a trip should have both begun and ended in fog— and there before us was a great expanse that I was told was Lake Superior, and we drew deep lungsful of the air, not better than, but different from the smell of the woods, and drew up before the Nettleton House, from which came quite another sort of smell, but a most welcome o to hungry motorists! But This Wasn’t the End of Our Journey I must admit I thought it was queer that we weren’t shown directly to our rooms!

Mrs. Stevens and I took off our hats and freshened up in a room where I was definitely told not to unpack, and yet, I heard Mr. Stevens tell the proprietor to assign Arthur and Emmy a room. But— I’m not terribly curious about what concerns other people; I was certain Mr. Stevens would see to our comfort, and was in no mood to be critical anyhow.

about a mile wide—a lake without one habitation on it, bordered with woods of hemlock and spruce, pines, white birch and maple, where they told me deer were often seen and bears had been known to come. “Would I walk a bit along the shore?” Certainly I would. I wanted to get in under those trees, and the trail led so close to the water that it became a tiny path only—for to the North, between us and the big lake, loomed great barren dunes—and the autos could go no farther. Or we “Herons and cranes fly near and watch us; loons call at nightthought they spruce silhouetted on dark green against the vivid, rippling blue.”

Again after supper I thought it was odd when he proposed a drive! A walk—yes, of course. But we’d been driving for two days! However, I’d had no “trick at the wheel.” If Mr. Donahey and Arthur were ready to go on doing it, I was, too. And I was eager to see lovely Grand Sable Lake of which I’d heard so much. So off we went, through lovely rolling country, to the shores of a beautiful lake they told me was four miles long and

couldn’t! We were to learn more about the possibility of autos passing that way a little later. It Commenced to Grow Dark Well, we walked. Dusk was beginning to fall. It was so peaceful and so beautiful!

Presently I said, “Why somebody has a shack up here!” Then I said, “What a lovely location!” And then—well I didn’t say anything for a few minutes because my mind was racing too fast for me to get it all into words. As 1 can remember, my thoughts ran something like this-“No, it isn’t a shack—what a queer shape—why, Mr. Stevens must have had a big Teenie Weenie sign board put up out here for a welcome and a surprise— how nice, but how terribly expensive—no, it isn’t a sign either! It’s thick— it’s solid—why, my great goodness gracious, IT’S A TEENIE ‘WEENIE BARREL HOUSE!” And then I erupted into words and the woods erupted into children! Out Came the Teenie Weenies Children dressed as Teenie Weenies! Policemen in uniforms as trim as could be, paraded about the place, swinging professional clubs with a regular urban swagger. And out stepped the Teenie Weenie General, red coat, plumed hat and all; made me the grandest and deepest bow, and presented me with a huge golden key—the key to the estate—

and the smaller keys—the keys to The Barrel House! He had a wonderful address of welcome, all done in verse, and he recited it well. Considering that he’d only had it that morning, I marveled afterward when I remembered how very seldom he had referred to his typewritten copy. That small boy is born to be a public speaker, for when he inadvertently dropped his hat, it never fazed him—and one of the policemen showed great presence of mind, for he came over, picked it up and went on patrolling his beat as if retrieving plumed hats was a regular part of his job. Somehow or other I made a speech of thanks. What? Gracious, I didn’t know what I was saying then—certainly I couldn’t tell now! But I do remember getting something out. Then Mr. Belknap, the principal of the Grand Marais School, who had trained the youngsters, (Kenneth LeFebre, Philip Newberg, John Strom, Philip Strom, Louis Des Jardin, Ora Endress, William Abrahamson, Douglas Mulligan, Vernon

“The Big Barrel is sixteen feet high. The little one is eight feet high.”

Bleckner, Charles LeFebre, William LaCombe, Axel Niemi, Arthur LeFebre, Floyd Hill and others) and Mr. Roy Hill, who had been the local fairy godfather of the house, took the children and vanished, and the rest of us swarmed over the little place. There was so much to see. There was so much to hear. I was so astounded I couldn’t take it all in. I didn’t see then—and I do not see now— WHY this wonderful and delightful thing should have happened to me, and I couldn’t comprehend it all at once. Then, there were new things to find and appreciate every minute, for the little place was complete. No one ever stepped into a better equipped home. It made me feel as if I were a bride again. And funny! And odd! A play house if ever there was one! How It All Started Which brings us to the history of the place and its description. First, then, one of the colored advertisements which Mr. Donahey made for the Teenie Weenie Pickles, showed a Teenie Weenie wedding, with the bridal couple going to

housekeeping in a house made out of one of the pretty little oaken barrels in which the Monarch Teenie Weenie Sweet Pickles are sold. Well, that gave Mr. Stevens his idea. He spoke of it to Mr. Harold S. Cunliff, of the Pioneer Cooperage Company of Chicago, who makes the little barrels, and he and Mrs. Cunliff “took” to the notion. At once they began to plan a thing unheard of and unseen—a house made out of barrels! The plans were drawn, and my husband was let in on the secret and approved them. Mrs. Cunliff has studied interior decorating and is an enthusiastic lover of the woods, so she was able to work out both the artistic and the practical details of the inside. All winter they labored. And it was labor! The big barrel was to be big enough for two rooms: one upstairs and one down, and never had a barrel as big as that been dreamed of! New problems of construction were presented at every step—and they came even thicker and faster when the barrels

were set up. How the Barrel Traveled to Grand Sable Lake Well, at last the two were made to careful measurements, in the Pioneer Cooperage Company’s plant in Chicago, and sent, knocked down, by rail to Seney; —carried by truck over the none-too-good road into Grand Marais (which has no railroad since the lumber barons stripped the country and went on their destructive way) and then on another four miles over the hills and through the edge of Grand Sable Lake to the lovely spot on the shore where Mr. Hill had a concrete foundation built ready to be used at once. Mr. and Mrs. Cunliff came, too, motoring up with an expert workman from the cooperage shop, and an experienced carpenter from the Reid, Murdoch & Co. force, and. Arthur, who was destined to assist in everything—car driving, well digging, fence making, gardening and boating—and to excel in everything except the last mentioned. And Arthur’s opinion of the motor in that boat and

that steering gear is best left out of the story. We have no place for shadows in it. They worked for two weeks with the aid of the whole Hill family, Capt. Truesdale,

“The barrels are built of white spruce staves, two inches thick.”

retired commander of the Government Life Saving Station, and other local friends, and marvel of marvels, the little place was actually completed—beds made, floors scrubbed, and even flowers arranged by Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Belknap, only a few hours before our party motored in. Trouble Enough for Everyone The barrels were set up first on their foundations, just like barrels. Then they began to draw them in, and trouble began, especially with the big one. A stave or two cracked and had to be bolted together. But before windows and doors were cut they were as tight as could be and the big one would have held 21,000 gallons; the little one, 3,500 gallons. Just for fun, Mrs. Cunliff had the men lower her inside after the big barrel was up and intact, and she said it was so tight she could hardly hear any noises outside. Then they began cutting windows and doors, and things began to happen.

Ultimately, the front door had to be made bigger at the top to allow for the bilge in the barrel—but the odd shape adds a lot to the attractiveness of the house. Then the small square swinging windows— there are four upstairs, two in the living room, three in the kitchen, and windows in each door—had to be cut out, and all the downstairs ones, cut where the barrel begins to bulge out, had to be strengthened underneath with bars and bolts, good stout strips of heavy wood securely bolted on. Also, the windows had to be set in peculiarly. Oh, it took careful expert figuring at every stage of the building! When Mr. Stevens suggested having a duplicate, Mr. Cunliff threw up his hands and vowed, “Never again!” Only those who were there and working will, I fancy, ever know exactly how hard a task it was. I, who am so greatly benefited by their labors, try to visualize and understand but it’s hard to do so fully, though I do most thoroughly appreciate it all. Think of a Barrel 16 Feet High! The barrels are built of white spruce

“Great trees crowd down to the very edge of the lake as though they were thirsty and were trying to drink.”

staves two inches thick. The big one is 16 feet in height. The little one is 8 feet high. In the big one there is, downstairs, a room twelve feet in diameter, with a door right in the center of the front. As you enter, you see to the left a winding stairway, and built under it is a bunk which has beneath it a box for bedding and on it a specially constructed and extremely comfortable mattress. Of course, the bunk curves—but it is a remarkably comfortable bed. In the center is a round table, built inside the house and destined never to go out of it, for it couldn’t possibly pass through either door. It has legs and cross pieces from little birch trees, with the bark left on, —trees Mrs. Cunliff went out and selected herself—and I hereby solemnly promise and vow to beat any one who strips off a bit of that beautiful white bark, and to thank any one who helps me to keep it on. There are a dozen big comfortable folding La Pont camp chairs with arms and eventually, opposite the stairway, there’s to be a little open face stove. We are afraid to

weaken the barrel by cutting a fireplace into it, and they certainly do keep cold nights in stock up at Grand Marais. Curtains and Rugs To Make Things Homey On the floor are two dark brown and tan rugs, at the windows are the most demure curtains of tan with tiny little blue and brown leaves on them, taupe portieres hang at the door to the rest of the house, and the lanterns which hang from the roof are one of the most unique touches to the whole house. They are made from Monarch Teenie Weenie barrels, with alternate staves sawed out and fat squatty, yellow candles set inside! On the built-in bunk is a marvelous tan Hudson Bay blanket striped in blue and brown and yellow, and there’s even a strip of hemstitched tan linen for the table! A door directly opposite the front door, leads into a straight little entry, or pantry, with an outside door having a window in it, and to the right, opposite this “back door” are shelves which we

found stocked with There are two fine as pretty a set of work shelves and dishes as ever eyes storage shelves over the windows. rested upon, a There’s a wonderful saucy tea pot, table oil stove with an silver, and a stock oven that just of all sorts of good tempts you to bake, Monarch Quality fresh shiny cooking Food Products, pans gleam from while underneath the walls, and the was a box which store of sugar and was packed tight flour and so on is with towels of every all put up in the sort, bed linen, two “A real beaver dam built by the beavers in Teenie Weenie Land.” Teenie Weenie sets of lunch cloths and napkins, one yellow, one blue. From pickle barrels, duly labeled, while for tin this pantry you enter the kitchen. cups and milk pails we use the Teenie Weenie peanut butter tins There are two Maybe it is because I like cooking better bigger barrels, of solid oak, cut into the than I do any other sort of house work, duckiest tubs you ever saw, and as for and having published a cook book, the roof—well I want to do all my work consider I can claim cooking as a looking up, for the roof is like a huge specialty, but that kitchen is to my mind the very best room in the house. Its three Japanese umbrella. windows let in plenty of light and air and their odd shape gives us cold storage space between the window frames and the screens, on the broad out side sills.

Ice Water from a Little Red Pump Right by the back door is a giddy red pump, which yields water so cold Mr.

Donahey says it is too cold to drink. Against a huge white birch near it is built a handy, pretty wash stand. Broad fungus growths have been knocked off other trees and nailed upside down on this one to make soap dishes and shelves for nail brushes, tooth paste, and the other cleansing things which folks now consider necessary, even when “roughing it.” We are expecting to find a cracked bit of looking glass to nail near them. No one ever saw an outside toilet place with a looking glass that wasn’t cracked! At present we have one small mirror amongst the four of us, and we women rush it upstairs to do our hair, and then the men want to shave and shriek for it. So if we don’t find the sort of cracked glass soon, we may have to crack a perfectly good one in order to keep peace in the family and have things in keeping, at one and the same time. The Big Room Upstairs Then there is the bedroom, up stairs. It is the largest of the rooms, as its floor

comes at the bilge of the barrel, and so is sixteen feet in diameter. It has four windows which look out into trees and over the lake, two of the most comfortable cots ever slept on, two brown and white rag rugs, heaps of soft, brown blankets, and the same cunning little curtains of blue and brown and tan. Also they’ve built me a typewriter place under one of the windows, and I pray that some day I may learn to work at it without pausing every little while to watch the sparkle on the blue water or the moss on a white birch! The ceiling is like that of the kitchen, only bigger—and even prettier. All the place is done in blue and brown and tan and yellow, and the unpainted sides of the barrel give the rooms a wonderful soft yellowish light. I never want any paint or stain to touch them. Outside—oh, if I could only describe the outside adequately! I can try to do it! Right on the Shore of the Lake The Barrel faces almost due South, and right before it lies lovely Grand Sable

“The Barrel faces almost due South and right before it lies lovely Grand Sable Lake.”

Lake, about half a mile wide here, with a heavily wooded shore across the way— hard wood, with cedar, tamarack and big spruce, pushing up like tall slim spires of darkest green. Right across is a place where every evening the deer come down to drink. Herons and cranes fly near and watch us; loons call at night—and we look out at the water between the boles of white birch, with a few small spruce silhouetted in dark green against the vivid rippling blue. A woods road winds past the barrel, curving each way, lined with tall trees. Behind us is dense growth—so dense it’s hard to walk through it, and Mr. Stevens and Mr. Donahey have chopped and blazed paths. For we want to go, not only to enjoy the woods now full of wild flowers most of which I never even saw before, but also because behind us, to the North, lie sand dunes, —great tall cliff-like dunes, softly rolling ones, not filled with growth as are those farther South, but with only a fringe of evergreen, and a mere faint wash of rough green grass and a small

sprinkling, just now, of tiny delicate white flowers, which have no leaf, but star the sand with their small, brave flecks of lovely white. From the top of the very nearest dune we can see Lake Superior deeply blue, the largest body of pure fresh water in the world, lying against the sky. And we can see, too, the miles of strange sand formation—a desert penned here between two lakes, bordered by great forests, which add a beautiful diversity to our landscape. Before the house is a tiny dock, at which a big flat bottomed boat bobs as contentedly as a barn yard duck on her home pond, and at its stern is the shrouded form of that borrowed motor, and in that boat we can go up and down the miles of shore on which are only three other buildings—two beautifully located deserted farm houses, and a little building in a sort of park Grand Marais maintains on the Eastern beach. Our Outdoor Garage It’s at that beach we leave our cars.

Others are not so timid! They drive right into the lake where it laps the feet of the steeply uprising dunes, drive along, sometimes half in water, sometimes all in it, and then climb out into Teenie Weenie Land and down that winding road until our strange house comes into sight—my fairy house! I wonder what the children think who come to it! They’re too shy to say! I’ve had no time to make friends with them yet so that I could really discover.

“A fairy waterfall came tumbling down over the rocks.”

But they must in truth believe that they are in Teenie Weenie Land. For there it stands among the trees, a great barrel, shape and color exact, hoops about it, even the label, Monarch Teenie Weenies, and the Teenie Weenie figures branded on its sides, and behind it the smaller duplicate barrel that is the kitchen. They see the figures of two Teenie Weenies, sawed out and presented by some admirer of the pickles, standing nearby; they are greeted by excited barking from a pretty little yellow fox—every one up here speaks of our Buddie dog’s resemblance to a fox—which must seem

magical to them and then from this fairy land step four adult and very well grown humans! It must be a shock to the youngsters, especially those grounded in fairy lore, or those with vivid imaginations. But inside they may be happier, for Reid, Murdoch & Co. supplied tiny presents for children who visited there the first week or two— Teenie Weenie Pickles, each in a bottle, and the smallest of jars of Teenie Weenie Peanut Butter and peanut butter pails on which the Teenie Weenies are pictured, and little books made like the barrel, containing verses telling about the Teenie Weenie pickle works! These things may satisfy them. At least they seem to be pleased with their visits. And they ought to know! We can’t tell exactly how many children have come. We’ve been too busy to count! But the first day we were in over two hundred people came, after we began counting, and many of them were children— though it was a lot like the circus!

Two Hundred Visitors! One child was frequently the excuse for the arrival of half a dozen grown ups! We had not expected anything like it. Here we were, in about as wild and sparsely settled a place as can be found. Four miles from the nearest town, part of that distance through water more than hub deep, on the edge of shifting sucking sand piles, thirty miles from a railroad and yet, the first day we were in, over two hundred people arrived to see the barrel, about which they had been hearing—but which had only been under construction for two weeks! And they have been coming ever since, from twenty to two hundred a day! Folks have motored on purpose to see our unique abode all the way from Marquette and Detroit. Before long I’m expecting them to swim down from Canada and fly over from New York and San Francisco, at this rate! Early Sunday Morning We were wakened before six Sun day morning by the last thing we had expected to hear in our sylvan retreat,

“There it stands among the trees, a great barrel, and behind it, the smaller barrel that is the kitchen.”

protected from cars as we thought by that stretch of sand and water—the rush of auto wheels— the grinding of brakes. “Well,” exclaimed a feminine voice, “I didn’t hear about this place till yesterday—but say, ain’t it the berries?” That party did not get in—for reasons. Neither did the last two which arrived way after dark, one when we were all preparing for bed, the last after everyone but Mr. Stevens was tucked in. He was taking his time, when the last motor sounded. He and Mr. Donahey occupy the down stairs room so as the curtains were not drawn, he made a grand gesture, blew out all the candles at once and finished his bed-going in the dark! Well, all those people certainly did admire the house! They were of every sort and variety—of many nationalities. There were Finnish and Swedish farmers with broods of silent, well-mannered blond babies, the women eager and voluble, the men silent and appreciative of the building difficulties involved. All of them

seemed to like it, too. Everybody Came There were French folk, too, some who showed Indian blood, and plenty of good native old American stock. Really old people came— babies in arms, and every age in between. And they were so appreciative. Tired? I got so tired I’d flop down and swear, “Not another one will I show through—not one will I speak to!” And then I’d see children in the on-coming car, or the eager eyes of some farm wife who maybe hadn’t had a new thing to look at or hear about at first hand for years, or shy interested young chaps who were coveting the place for a hunting lodge, or pretty girls who were thinking what a peach of a honeymoon cottage it would make—and I just couldn’t stay put. Out I’d pile and at it I’d go, —”Would you like to come in? Why, certainly—glad to.” There was one time in the after noon when I felt like a side showman in a dime museum. So many had come at once I

had to run the little place exactly like a side show. “Just a moment, please,” I’d call from the vantage point of the front door, “it isn’t very big you know—all the people are in now it will hold. My walls bulge already— I don’t want them to bulge apart. Now then—next please—oh, not so many. No, no, you haven’t been here as long as these people—they must go in first. Your baby? Why, of course he can go in with you—I just thought he belonged to this other set. Now then, pass out the back door, please, and make way for the next party.” The Men Disappeared Mrs. Stevens all this time was doing the honors inside and trying to see that each child had a gift of some sort, but our husky, hearty men folk? Why, they—took to the dunes! As they saw the crowds beginning to appear, they hiked. And as for Bud, he barked conscientiously at the autos for a while, then gave it up as a bad job. It was too much to expect one small dog to look after so many strangers

“They are greeted by excited barking from a pretty little yellow fox.”

at once, and he scented out the retiring party, and joined the renegade members of his own sex, only returning, like them, when he was good and hungry. Many, many people have passed in under our funny little porch roof, between our Teenie Weenie barrel lanterns. I expect a very great many more will come, for we hear that the fame of the place is

spreading. But I don’t mind. It’s fun except on the very, very rare occasions when folks act as if it was a public museum and I a hired showman here to do their bidding. YOU Are Welcome, Too I don’t blame anybody for wanting to see it. I’d want to see it, too, for a more unique place never was known. It is undoubtedly the only house ever built in a cooperage, with barrel staves for walls! It’s as attractive inside as it is out. And I’m so happy to own it that I’ll welcome anybody to its quaint little door yard,

“A woods road winds past the Barrel curving each way.”

bordered by its white birch boles and the hedge of tiny spruces. And never, never again can any one make me believe in the sordidness or selfishness of big business concerns. One has turned fairy godfather to me, and sent me to live in an enchanted forest. I can only hold my breath and give thanks for every stave in my magic barrel, every tree in the mystic woods, every ripple of the fairy lake.

“We started the busy motor and skimmed over to the far side of the lake.”

I can’t tell why I’ve got it, but I have—and I certainly am glad of it.