PANSY

Pansy so velvety, pansy so wide, Pansy with heart of gold, How I wish I could stay outside Till I saw your petals unfold!

When do you open them, pansy so blue?

I watch, but never see.

One day there's a bud; the next, there's--you!

You are _such_ a puzzle to me.

Do you open them softly in the dark, While stars watch overhead?

Or fling them wide with the morning lark, Before I am out of my bed?

MAY FAIRIES

"Come out and dance," called the Snow Fairies to the May Fairies.

The May Fairies peeped out of their homes in the hawthorn trees and shivered.

"No, thank you," they said. "It is too cold out there. Besides, we are busy making our buds."

They made tiny red-tipped buds and set them on the branches of the trees, two at the foot of each thorn. Then they crept down into their warm homes again to wait for the spring.

With the spring came the merry Sunbeams.

"Come out and dance," they called.

"Oh! are you there?" called back the May Fairies. "Then we must open our buds, so we have no time to dance."

They worked hard, blowing out the buds with their dainty breath, till at last the leaves opened and the trees were dressed in fluttering green.

The Spring Fairies came tripping past, waving ta.s.selled catkins in their hands.

"Come out and dance," they called.

"We have no time. We must make our flower-buds," replied the May Fairies.

They made their wee round flower-buds and set them on the trees, and blew into them and puffed them out till they looked like tiny s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Harder and harder they blew, until at last the flowers flew open. Then the trees looked as if showers of white stars had fallen on them from the sky in snow-time. How lovely they were! The little flies came from far and near to feast, buzzing out their thankfulness to the fairies for the sweet honey.

The Summer Fairies came with roses and forget-me-nots. "Come out and dance," they called.

"We have no time," called back the May Fairies. "We have to make our berries."

They gently loosened the white petals of the flowers and set them floating on the wind. Then they made the little green seed-b.a.l.l.s into berries, blowing them big and round so that the seeds should have room to grow, and polishing the outsides till they turned red and glowed like garnets in the sunshine. What a feast the birds had!

When the fairies had finished it was autumn.

"Come and dance," called the Leaf Fairies as they fluttered past in their brown and crimson robes.

"We are coming," called back the May Fairies, "for now our work is done." They flew down from their tree-homes, free at last to dance through all the golden autumn days.

THE DRAGON

He was not a pretty fellow by any means when he lived in the water.

Indeed, the mosquito babies thought him the ugliest and fiercest-looking creature in the world; but as he ate them up whenever he could catch them their bad opinion of him was hardly to be wondered at.

They all lived in the pool. The mosquito babies felt that it would have been a happy life if it had not been for the Dragon. He would lie so still and grey in the water that they would think he was only a stick, but as they came near his horrid mask would open, and out would shoot his cruel jaws; they would be swallowed before they had time to think any more. What an appet.i.te he had! It seemed as if all the mosquito babies in the pool would never satisfy him.

But one day his appet.i.te failed. "I feel very queer," he said. "I will go up into the air." He crawled slowly up a reed and hung on to it above the water, and there he seemed to sleep for days and weeks, neither moving nor eating. The mosquito babies could have a good time now--if there were any left.

As he hung there his skin grew strangely hard and dry and shrunken, as if it were becoming a lifeless case. And that is just what was happening. Inside it the Dragon was growing into something quite different from what he had been.

One morning he stirred. "How close and dark it is in here!" he said.

"I must go out."

He put his head against the end of the case and pushed hard. Crack!

went the dry skin, and out popped his head. "This is tiring work," he said; he stopped to rest and to grow used to the strong light.

Soon he began again. He pushed and pushed till the opening grew wide enough for his body; then he crawled slowly out and stood on top of his old skin. He felt strange and damp and chilly at first, but the sun was delightfully warm, so he stood still, to be dried and comforted.

"How changed I am!" he thought. Indeed, the change was wonderful. The flabby grey body and the ugly mask and claws were gone. In their places he had a long, slender body barred with black and gold, a shapely head with two big bronze-green eyes and delicate feelers, and six supple finely-jointed legs.

And he had wings! Yes, four beautiful, beautiful wings. He raised them one by one to dry them. He quivered with joy as he looked at their delicate lacework and lovely colours. "How fine they are! And how glorious it will be to fly!" he thought.

Soon he was dried and warmed. He spread his glittering wings, rose into the air, and sailed away to play with his cousins and catch moths--a Pool Dragon no longer, but a shining Dragon-fly.

GOLD BROOM AND WHITE BROOM

On a piece of waste land lived the Broom cousins.

"My leaves are bigger than yours," said Gold Broom to White Broom.

"Size is not everything," said White Broom to Gold Broom; they were always sparring at one another.

Buds came on the branches. Then the flowers sprang out and danced in the sunshine.

"How pale and small your children are!" said Gold Broom to White Broom.

"Mine are golden and well grown. See how strong and happy they look."