THE FLOWER FAIRIES

By John R. Neill
Illustrator of most of the Oz books, and author of The Runaway in Oz, The Wonder City of Oz, Lucky Bucky in Oz, etc.

Originally published in The Housewife, May 1916.


Of course, you have gathered the soft pink and white flowers that grow in May, and some with spots of red and stripes of gold.




When you gather them again, look very carefully into their faces and remember how hard the fairies have worked to get the colors right; for before you gather them, those little creatures have worked from early morning with brush and scissors, planning and clipping and cutting. Sometimes they use yellow and pink powders, pearls and diamonds soft silks stretched over laces, all sewed carefully around the edges.




Those flower fairies sing and dance all day with the birds, and their work is almost play to them.

One very old fairy man, whose business it is to chase away the worms and hard-headed beetles, usually sits on a rock at the edge of the woods. He gives the alarm when the children are coming, and always seems sullen and quiet. Some say he is very disagreeable, and when no other fairy is around to see him, he has been known to poke his cane right through some of the prettiest flowers.



You can at times see very small holes in the flowers. These you will know he has made. But he does not do it often, only when he is feeling out of sorts.

When all the brushes of the fairies are broken, the birds will give them a feather or two from which they make new brushes in no time.

All their days go quickly and happily, and at night each fairy climbs into the flower she likes the best, and the petals close themselves like shutters, holding their little passengers lightly and comfortably swinging until morning.



And wherever a fairy has slept, that flower has the fragrance of its fairy which always stays, and that is all we really know of these wonderful little people.



THE FORGETFUL POET   By Ruth Plumly Thompson  Originally published in the Philadelphia Public Ledger, March 21, 1920.

The Puzzle Corner

The story the Forgetful Poet told last week with the fruit took a good many and the missing ones were: Lime, dates, currant, apple, fig, pear and plum. This week he is determined to say it with metals. This might be hard for some folks – but not for him. See, now, what you can make out of his story. Fill in the blanks with the names of metals.

Let our story begin
With a soldier of -----
Who ----- his brave army
Through thick and through thin!

A march he did -----
On the enemy forces
And captured six men
And a few rusty horses.

As the -----ed heroes pass
All the ----- bands did play
And ----- tongued orators
Talked half the day!

[Answers next time.]
 

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