The Pile Tavin Left Behind

In a stone cottage in Scotland, Isla and her grandmother were making a rug from worn cloth. Each evening they cut strips beside the kitchen hearth. Each morning they found their cottage strangely tidy. Neither knew that Tavin, a brownie no taller than a kettle, slipped out after they fell asleep.

Tavin liked straight rows and empty floors. He swept crumbs, stacked bowls, and polished the table until it shone like a still pond. Before sunrise, he vanished behind a loose stone. He imagined Grandmother's pleased smile each morning, and his chest puffed out beneath his woolly waistcoat.

One night, scraps of cloth covered the hearthrug. A crooked line of blue strips stretched between two stools. Cream strips waited in little bundles. "What a jumble!" Tavin whispered. He gathered everything into a basket and pushed it beneath the table. The floor looked splendid.

Next morning, Tavin woke to Isla's disappointed sigh. "We measured those strips," she said. "Now the long ones and short ones are mixed together." Grandmother set down her sewing. "Someone meant to help," she said gently. "But our work has disappeared inside the tidiness." Behind his stone, Tavin pulled his cap over his ears.

He had expected delight, not extra work. That evening, he watched through a crack instead of planning his chores. Isla laid long blue strips beside one stool and short cream strips beside the other. Grandmother opened a notebook with the heading "Rug for the Door." Beneath a drawing, a caption read, "Short strips for the center." Tavin leaned closer. Those piles were pieces of a plan.

When the cottage grew quiet, Tavin reached for his basket, then stopped. He could not remember which strips belonged together. Instead of guessing, he checked the notebook and compared the cloth. With deliberate movements, slow and careful, he separated the strips by length. He laid each group beside its proper stool, then swept around it. The window was turning gray. There was time to polish the table or finish arranging the cloth, but not both. He chose the cloth.

At breakfast, Isla knelt beside the stools. "Our strips are ready!" she said. Grandmother studied the swept floor around them. "And someone has left room for our work." She smiled toward the loose stone. Tavin knew she could not see him, but warmth spread through him anyway.

That night, he passed the dull table without a frown. A neat bundle of cream strips remained beside a stool. Once, he would have hidden it away. Now he left it exactly where Isla could reach it. Tavin tucked himself behind his stone with a quiet smile of contentment.