Gnats, not fairies

Undated, from the pen of Ellie Stoneroad:

It was on a bright summer’s day I had been wandering through the woods and finding a large oak tree. I seated myself beneath its wide spreading branches and in a few minutes I was in a sound sleep and far off in the “land of dreams.”

I thought I was in a distant country which was thickly inhabited by a diminutive race of people, who called themselves Fairies but how different were they from what I had imagined Fairies to be. Instead of the beautiful little creatures dressed with rose leaves and possessing all the beauty and peace of  (?) herself I was disappointed to see the horrid little creatures dressed in the coarse skins with ugly, deformed looking faces, large eyes, big noses, and little ears. Instead of bestowing gifts upon me, they were (?) tormenting me poking and pinching me until I was perfectly miserable. In my distress I was awakened from sleep and found that my Fairies were but flies and gnats that had come from a drove of cattle which had sought the shelter of the trees as a protection from the noonday sun.

Ellie M. Stoneroad