Little Boy Blue went to visit his Uncle Phil on the farm, and when night came, he lay all alone upstairs, in a big bed. He was so tired that he cried, but he still couldn’t sleep. He missed his mother tucking him in and giving him her goodnight kiss.
He thought about all the sleepy things his mother had told him to think about. He tried counting sheep jumping over a fence. He hummed a lullaby, but his eyes were still wide open when Fairy Moonbeam peered in and hummed:
“Hello little boy, in your pajamas, are you on your way to Sleepytown?”
Little Boy Blue replied in a singing way: “The harder I try to sleep, the more awake my eyes peek into the world.”
Then Fairy Moonbeam danced straight into the room to a painting hanging on the wall, while humming: “Some go up and some go down, all on their way to Sleepytown.”
The painting showed a long road with houses on either side.
Suddenly the most surprising thing ever happened! Stars shone in the sky in the painting and began to twinkle, twinkle, and twinkle. Light came out of the windows of the houses, and they began to twinkle, twinkle, and twinkle.
Fairy Moonbeam said, “Little boy, although I don’t know your name, let’s just step over the painting’s frame together.”
As she said, they did. They went together on the road to Sleepytown. As Little Boy Blue looked back, he saw a hundred other children stepping over the painting’s frame, and he saw all his little friends following him. There was Betty with her new doll close to her, and Bobby with his teddy bear. Little Mary was coming too, dragging her cart behind her.
A sleepy old man lit lamps all along the road and hummed, “Right foot, left foot up and down, that’s how we march to Sleepytown.”
They saw a sleepy old windmill turning and turning, around and around, and the windmill buzzed, “Here they come with a smile and a frown, on their way to Sleepytown.”
At that moment, Betty sat down and fell asleep under the windmill. The rest of the children walked on. They could see the lights of Sleepytown twinkling, twinkling, and twinkling in the distance. They heard the sleepy birds chirping in the trees, “Here comes a funny boy, he visits Sleepytown often.”
At that same moment, Billy sat under the trees and fell asleep, while the other children hurried on. They passed a sleepy little stream that murmured, “Hooray, hooray for pajamas, you’ll need them in Sleepytown.”
All the children, except for Little Boy Blue, sat down and started throwing pebbles into the stream, and soon they began to nod off and fell deep asleep. Fairy Moonbeam hummed, “The hours come, the hours go, the Sandman rocks to and fro.”
And sure enough, there was the sleepy old Sandman rocking back and forth in a hammock.
Little Boy Blue was so tired that he crawled into the hammock next to the Sandman and fell asleep on the road to Sleepytown. The lights went out one by one in the streets and houses, and everyone began to doze off.
“Ring, ring, ring,” a little bell rang, and Little Boy Blue looked around. The Sandman was gone. Fairy Sunshine called out, “You’re waking up happy, it seems, you’ve finally returned from the land of dreams!”
Indeed, Little Boy Blue woke up in the big bed, and soon he ran down the stairs with a big leap. Uncle Phil said, “Good morning, you came down quickly, my boy.”
Little Boy Blue replied, “I just came back from Sleepytown.”
But the most surprising part of the story is yet to come, listen: When Uncle Phil drove Little Boy Blue home that evening in his old cart, he also stopped a mysterious box with mysterious paper and string wrapped around it in the cart. When they arrived, he handed the box to Boy Blue. Inside the box were small paper houses and small paper streetlights and windmills and trees, and a tree with a hammock for the Sandman. It took Boy Blue exactly an hour to set up the little town. Uncle Phil tied a cable to it and Boy Blue shouted with joy because every house and streetlight shone with a sparkling light!
Uncle Phil said, “You’re a little boy in pajamas, so I bought Sleepytown for you.”
Boy Blue thanked Uncle Phil and played for many hours with his new toy town. Fairy Moonbeam peeked through the window and hummed as she watched Boy Blue play: “Every child in pajamas is on their way to Sleepytown.”
Her voice was sleepy, so sleepy, so incredibly sleepy that, while she sang, even Uncle Phil, who was telling the story, fell asleep.
All the fairies looked down and said, “They’re on their way to Sleepytown!”
