Amy woke up early. She looked out her bedroom window to see if it was still raining. "Mom, come look!" Someone made a circle around our tree!"

"Oh, those are mushrooms," Mom explained.

"Why are they growing in a circle?" asked Amy.

"It is a fairy ring," Mom told her. "Would you like to hear how it got the name?"

Amy grinned, "Yes!"

They snuggled up together in the big chair.

"Once upon a time, people believed fairies came out at night and danced around hawthorn trees-like the one outside. By morning the fairies were so tired from their dancing, but they had no place to rest. So they went to see the fairy king.

"'Please, sire,' one of them said, 'we grow weary dancing all night. Can you give us something to sit on?'

"'I will see what I can do,' the good king replied.

"The king paid a visit to the ant queen. 'My Lady, will your worker ants build seats of sand for my little fairies?'

"'I am sorry, your highness. My ants are too busy enlarging our colony, the queen replied.

"'The king went to see Squirrel. 'Please, Squirrel, will you pile up your acorns to make seats for my fairies?'

"'There is no time,' Squirrel told him. 'I must hide my acorns away for winter.'

"The king saw Beaver. 'Beaver, would you cut some wood to make benches for my fairies?'

"'Oh, I am much too busy,' said Beaver. 'I have a dam to build!'

"'I have failed my little fairies,' said the king. He walked back to the hawthorn tree. Round and round it he paced, and he began to cry.

"That is when it happened."

"What?" asked Amy.

"Wherever his tears fell, mushrooms sprouted," said Mom. "Soon a whole ring of them circled the trunk of that tree."

"A fairy ring!" said Amy.

"Yes!" Mom replied. "And from then on, the fairies had mushrooms to sit on whenever they grew tired of dancing.”

Amy clapped her hands. "Did fairies dance around our tree last night?"

"What do you think?” asked Mom. Amy wanted to believe that fairies made the circle. "I’m not sure."

Mom went to the bookshelf and picked out a large book.

“Maybe the encyclopedia will tell us more about fairy rings. This is interesting: ‘Fairy rings are caused by a fungus that grows underground. From the center of the ring, hair-like threads of the fungus, called mycelia (my-SEE-lee-uh), shoot out in all directions like the spokes on a wheel. At the end of each thread, a mushroom grows. The mushrooms can grow very, very large and live as long as 300 years. In Colorado there are fairy rings that are 200 feet across with mushrooms the size of stools.’”

Amy liked the story about the fairies much better.

The next morning, Amy woke up very early and looked out her bedroom window. She was sure she could see tiny fairies sitting on the mushrooms. Maybe tomorrow—if she woke even earlier—she would see them dancing!