284 Singing Valleys 



Listen. 



When a corn fairy sews, he always points his big toe slant- 

 ing toward the east. It's an infallible sign. 



And if you do see one of them, and the adventure goes to 

 your head a bit, so that you are no longer quite sure where 

 you are, or what direction you are traveling in, here is the 

 way to get your bearings. Just look closely at the number of 

 stitches the corn fairy is putting into his sewing. "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 stitches. And the farther west you go, 

 the more corn silk stitches the corn fairies have in the corn 

 cloth clothes they wear/' 



With a safe rule like that to go by, nobody need ever get 

 lost. At least, not in the corn belt. So, if you look when you 

 drive by a cornfield when the harvest moon comes up, and 

 if you listen, "maybe you will hear the corn fairies going pla- 

 zizzy, pla-zizzy, zizzy, "softer than an eye wink, softer than a 

 Nebraska baby's thumb." 



