This was a field of gra.s.s, and Bunny-Boy thought: "Now I can begin to enjoy myself."

Just then he heard a bark, and a big dog rushed over the gra.s.s after him. A boy came with the dog, and now poor Bunny-Boy had to run for his life. How he did run! But the dog could run too, and he nearly caught Bunny-Boy. His mouth, with its sharp teeth, was just open ready to snap on Bunny-Boy's back, when Bunny-Boy saw a hole in front of him, jumped into it, and was saved.

At the bottom of the hold he found a Bunny-house, and some kind Bunnies, who let him stay there till the dog and its master had gone away. Then he crept out, and went sadly home.

"I will always do what you tell me," he said to his mother that night.

"It was dreadful out in the world. I would much rather stay at home and mind the house."

LOVE-MOTHER

A potato and a rusty nail lay side by side in an old shed. Through the winter they found very little to say to one another, but when the spring came the potato grew restless and talkative.

"This is a poor life for us," she said. "Do you not feel that it is a waste of time lying here like this?"

"Not at all," said the rusty nail. "If you had been knocked about as much as I have you would be glad to lie still." He was bent in the back and had lost half his head, so he had a right to talk.

"But I want to grow!" cried the potato. "I want to go down into the dark warm earth, where it is so easy to grow. Then I should send up white stalks that turn green when they reach the sunlight, and bear broad leaves and beautiful flowers. My children would grow on my white, stalks under the ground. Ah! that would be life indeed!"

"You seem to me to be talking nonsense," said the nail. "I once lived in a kitchen, where a great many potatoes were cooked every day, but none of them had the beautiful leaves and flowers you talk about."

But the potato was not listening now, for something seemed to be moving inside her. "I feel so strange!" she cried. "I am sure something is going to happen."

The next moment something did happen. The skin was pushed open, and a little white shoot poked its head out. "I am growing!" cried the potato joyfully. "Oh, I wish somebody would put me in the ground."

But, alas! n.o.body understood potato-language, so she lay there for several days longer. Then a little boy who was playing saw her and picked her up.

"Here is a potato growing without any ground," he said. "I shall plant it in my garden."

He carried her to his garden, made a hole, and planted her. She nestled thankfully down into the warm earth as he covered her up. "At last I am put into my right place and can really grow," she said. And grow she did. Shoot after shoot ran up from her sides, spreading out in the sunlight into broad green leaves and beautiful lavender coloured flowers. And the little potatoes came, all along the white underground stems. Bigger and bigger they grew, till they were as big and fine as their mother had been. How proud she was of them!

But as they grew she dwindled and lost her strength, for she was giving all the substance of her body to feed her children. "What is the matter, little Love-Mother?" they asked tenderly. "Why do you grow so weak and thin?" They did not understand where their food came from, but she knew and was well content. "It is my life, but they need it, and I am happy in giving it," she said softly to herself.

So day by day she grew less and less, till with a loving sigh she died.

"I am happy," was her last thought, "for I have done my part in the world, and now, like the rusty nail, I am glad to rest."

THE HILL PRINCESS

It was when Roy and Charlie were out rabbiting that they met the Hill Princess. They had gone much farther than they usually did, and that is how they found her. It was in a long gully at the foot of the tallest hill of all, and she had come down the side of the hill to meet them. She was tall and beautiful, and her robes were as green as the gra.s.s in the gully, while her crown was all of starry white clematis flowers.

"Have you had a good time?" she asked. The boys were too shy to speak at first--she was so grand and wonderful. But they knew it was polite to answer when you are spoken to, so Charlie plucked up courage and said: "Yes, thank you."

"That is right," she said kindly. Then she stood and looked at them for quite a long time, while the boys grew shyer and shyer under her searching eyes. At last she spoke. "I am trying to feel your hearts,"

she said. "I can feel those of my own people at once, but yours are hard to understand."

The boys did not know what she meant, but they were too shy to ask.

She went on: "I should like to show you my Palace, but I must first know whether it is safe to trust you. Can you keep your word?"

"I can!" cried both boys at once. The thought of seeing the Palace took away their shyness.

"Well," said the Princess, "if I take you to the Palace, you must first promise not to tell anybody about it--not even your mothers. No mortal has ever before seen it, and I do not wish others to come to look for it; so you must not tell them about it. Do you promise?" The boys promised at once, and the Princess said: "I shall always hold you to that. See that you keep your word. Now come."

They followed her a few steps up the side of the hill. Here she stopped, and tapped with her foot on the ground. Instantly a door flew open in the hillside, and they entered. The door swung to behind them, and they found themselves in the Princess's throne-room.

It was a magnificent room, wide and lofty. The walls and roof and floor were all of glittering limestone, lit up by magic star-shaped lights of brilliant colours. In the centre stood a throne of solid gold, with a rug made of crimson flower-petals thrown half over it.

"Don't the petals fade?" asked Roy as they admired the beautiful rug.

"Nothing fades in my Palace," answered the Princess.

She led them from room to room, talking kindly to them, and showing them quite proudly all the beauties of her home. It was indeed a wonderful Palace. Each room was different from all the others. In one the walls were made of gold, in another of silver, in another of opal, and in others of emerald or ruby or diamond, until one's eyes almost tired of the brilliance.

The furniture was as beautiful as the walls, but the boys noticed that the chairs and tables and sofas and beds were all made very low, except those for the Princess herself. Indeed, so close to the ground were they that Charlie asked the Princess: "Are your people very little, Hill Princess?"

The Princess laughed. "Come and see them," she said, and she led the way out to the back of the hill. Here they found themselves in an open s.p.a.ce covered with gra.s.s and flowers and little bushes. On every side rose a high straight bank, covered with bush creepers, and behind the bank rose tall bush trees to hide the place from view. "This is our playground," said the Princess, "and here are my people."

The boys looked round eagerly. All they could see were rabbits and hares and birds and insects--rabbits and hares and birds and insects everywhere--hundreds of them playing on the gra.s.s, amongst the flowers, in the bushes. The boys were puzzled.

"Where are the people?" asked Charlie.

The Princess laughed again. "The hill creatures are my people," she said. "There, the animals can talk and work and play just as you can.

The hares and rabbits do the work of the Palace; the birds fly in with our food from the surrounding country; and the insects take our messages. So work is provided for all. For their play they come here, and here they are so much at peace with one another that everyone is safe. To hurt anything is impossible here."

Now all this time Charlie had been thinking: "What a grand place for rabbiting!" So he looked up with rather a red face at the Princess's words. She knew what he was thinking, for she said: "See if you can touch Little Hoppy." She pointed, as she spoke, to a wise-looking rabbit who sat close to her feet, looking up at her with loving eyes.

Roy and Charlie both bent down to catch Little Hoppy, but they found to their astonishment that, although he sat quite still, they could not touch him. Again and again they tried, but every time something seemed to push away their hands. It was not the rabbit--he never moved.

Neither was it the Princess. She stood smiling beside them. "It's magic," said the Princess.

"Come and play marbles," said Little Hoppy. The boys jumped. So the rabbits could talk in this strange place, could they? And play marbles, too? Why, yes, there were several marble rings in the playground, with bunnies and birds all playing together and chattering as fast as any crowd of boys. And hares were playing leap-frog. And groups of bush-robins were nursing tiny dolls.

"Well, this is a comical place," said Roy. "May we go and have a game?" he asked the Princess.

The Princess shook her head. "It is too late to-day," she said. "You must leave us now, or it will be dark before you reach your homes. But keep your promise to me, and I will give you a stone that will guide you to the Palace another time. Then you may come earlier and so have time for a game."

The boys were overjoyed. "That will be first-rate," they said. "When may we come again?"

"The moon was full last night," answered the Princess. "Come always on the day after the full moon. See--these will guide you." She picked two small stones off the ground and gave them one each. As she touched them they gleamed and shone like opals; but when the boys took them they lost their light. "Do not lose these," she said. "If you keep your promise these stones will guide you to the Palace and open the door for you." She took them back through the Palace and out on to the hillside again. The boys thanked her and said good-bye, and she went in, shutting the door behind her with a word. When it was shut, you could not tell it was there, for the gra.s.s and tussocks grew over it.

Roy and Charlie went straight home, talking all the way about the wonderful things they had seen and heard. "We must watch carefully for the next full moon," said Roy at his gate, as they stood for a moment to say good-night. "Yes, indeed," said Charlie, "what a time we shall have!" Then he hurried home.

"Have you had a good time, Charlie?" asked his mother at tea-time.

"Rather!" said Charlie. "I don't believe anybody ever saw so many wonderful things as we saw to-day." And then he grew so excited at the thought of it all that he forgot about his promise, and told his mother and father about the Princess and the Palace. He knew before he had finished that he had done wrong, but that did not stop him. And the worst of it was that neither his father nor his mother believed him.

His mother at first looked very grave, and asked him if he had been in the sun without his hat, but his father said: "Nonsense! the sun was not hot to-day. See that he doesn't read too much, Mary. We don't want him to learn to spin yarns like this." Then he was sent to bed.

Roy did not break his promise. He told his father and mother about his rabbiting, and about things he saw on the hills and in the gullies, but he said nothing at all about the Princess and the Palace. It was hard to keep silent when it was such a wonderful secret, but he remembered his promise.