The Dumpy Books for Children; No. 7. A Flower Book

Excerpt

A FLOWER BOOK.

When the snow lies thick on the ground and all the streams that babble in summer lie still in their houses of ice, you think, I daresay, that the flowers are asleep, and that nothing can wake them before the spring?

But I know of a wood where the little elves and sprites and the delicate fairies dance in a ring in the moonlight, and I will tell you of what happens there at twelve o'clock on the first night of every year.

IVY

The clock in the cathedral tower booms out twelve solemn strokes, and all the church bells peal a welcome to the New Year. That is the signal for the fairies to come down on a moonbeam—with their white dresses shining and their long yellow hair streaming.

WINTER JASMINE

Most beautiful of them all is Rusialka, the queen of fairies and elves. She wears a necklet of dewdrops, and dew-drops sparkle in her dress and in her hair. She glides softly over the snow, and all the fairies follow her to a great elder bush that grows in the middle of the little wood. She knocks once and calls:

“Lady Elder! are you within?”

And the tree shoots out its green buds and the tender leaves unfold themselves.

Then again the fairy Rusialka knocks and calls:

“Lady Elder! Lady Elder! are you within?”

And the sweet white blossoms open overhead, and a gentle rain of flowers falls upon the fairies.

For the third time Rusialka calls:

“Lady Elder! Lady Elder! Lady Elder! are you within?”

MICHAELMAS DAISY

And then the tree opens slowly, and the Lady Elder appears. She is very old, for she is the Mother of all the fairies and elves.

SNOWDROP

“What is it you want of me, my children?” she asks, in a voice like a silver bell.

And all the fairies curtsey very long and low, and they answer her:

“The New Year is come, Lady Elder; and we want you to grant us leave to wake the little flowers that sleep under the snow!”

“The World is yet cold for the flowers, my children,” answers the Lady Elder. “They are all asleep, each to be awakened in her time. But this you may do. You may call them up for to-night, and when you leave this wood in the morning, they will all go back to their beds again.”

VIOLET

“Our glad thanks to you, Ma'am,” the fairies sing back joyfully.

DOG ROSE

Then they all join hands and frolic away, singing as they go:

“Little flowerets gay and sweet
Hear the patter of our feet;
Little flowerets sweet and gay
Come and dance a roundelay!”

Then slower and slower fades the dance.

“O Christmas Rose! O Christmas Rose!” called Rusialka, on the particular night I am telling you of.

A little voice answered under the snow:

“I am here, good ladies!”

And the Christmas Rose, holding her blossom-standard in one hand, peeped out.

“Will you join our dance?” asked Rusialka.

HAWTHORN

The Christmas Rose held out her hands, and the merry party danced on singing a song the fairies love, till they came to a spot where the Ivy slept on a little brown bed of earth under a bright white coverlet of snow—with all her clusters of berries resting on her leaves.

...