The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon

abundance from the mainland.
    Farther out to sea lay a poor fishing-island. Here there was no abundance, and life was a hard battle. It was barren ground, stony or marshy, where grass scarcely grew, no trees or shrubs, and no flowers. Yes, there was just one flower, a small white rose-bush which belonged to little Lois. Her father’s hut lay in the lee of the church that stood in the middle of the stony isle. He had scraped together a little soil, and the day he was married he brought the rose-tree over from the mainland, and set it by his door. His young bride tended it with so much care that it could not help growing; and when she died, Lois, who had known the rose as long as she had known her mother, tended it as her mother had done. It did not grow very big, its flowers were few, and sometimes bitten by the salt wind, but it was the only flower on the island, and the islanders were proud of it. Lois took care of it, but it seemed to belong to them all; it was the Island Flower.
    Dangerous rocks surrounded the Poor Island, and its position exposed it to the roughest storms. Sometimes for days together the boats dared not put out from it, and those on the mainland could not approach it. The islanders were too poor to keep much store of food by them, nor could they grow it; so when the fishing-boats could not put out, the hard times were still harder. In fair weather the men lost no opportunity of getting fish. Most of it the women salted down for their own use; the rest they took to the mainland to sell for a little money, and they came back with flour and salt and materials to mend their nets with. But the men, who shared in common the few boats on which their trade depended, could hardly spare time to take their wives over and back, so the women waited till the tide went out. For there was in those parts an unusual tide, which once a month, at the full moon, receded far back into the ocean, leaving bare all the sand between the mainland and the island. The sea-bed lay exposed for a long time, long enough for the women to hurry over the sand with their creels of fish, and sell them to the merchants on the beach, and buy the few things that they needed most. Then the women trooped back across the patches of rock and stretches of ribbed sand, reaching the Poor Island just before the tide flowed in and cut them off. Sometimes they had to hurry, and had not time to complete their purchases, for they dared not be caught in the mouth of the rolling tide.
    One evening, when the tide was out, the Queen looked from her Pleasure Island, and saw the band of women hurrying home. She had hardly noticed or thought of them before, but tonight the sight of them struck her heart. On the bare sand, where small pools gleamed with colours of the sunset, her own little isle lay like a glowing jewel; her summer palace, her gardens, fountains, and pavilions shone in the sun, and she herself, in her silk and silver gown, was like a Queen of Fairyland. While yonder, over the waste, the bare-legged women in their faded gowns, with their baskets on their backs, trudged to the Poor Island, which lay like a stone in the distance; not like a precious stone, but a common pebble. Yet perhaps, thought the Queen, there was something precious on it. ‘How sorrowful, how sorrowful to live on the Poor Island!’ she thought. And suddenly she put her hand to her heart and sighed; for Queens have sorrows too, and perhaps even the poor folk had none greater than hers.
    She looked across, and wondered; and little Lois, standing far away on the Poor Island, looked across and wondered too. Even at that distance she could see the Pleasure Island like a jewel, she could see the small bright spires and domes and towers of the palace bathed in light, and on the breeze that blew towards her she could hear faint strains of music, and even smell sweet flowers. ‘How lovely, how lovely it must be to live on the Pleasure Island,’ thought Lois. And