SPRING SCREEN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 86, 5 January 1935, Page 17

SPRING SCREEN

THE GARDEN DREAM. “A walk through the gardens would do you good, you are always dreaming since you broke your arm last spring. Really, I don’t know what has come over you,” finished Renee's aunt, one of the Miss Mathesons. Whenever Renee went anywhere one of her old aunts would fuss over her, so when Renee left the house she was instructed not to get her feet wet or to wander away from the paths, and most important' of all, she wasn’t to loiter. Renee had protested against this last piece of advice. After all’s said and done, you couldn’t see the flowers properly if<ou hurried on unheeding. Dressed in thick winter frock and a woolly eoat, Renee boarded a tram to the gardens, then walked through the trees. They had a beautiful perfume which all the visitors loved. Soon Renee felt tired, so she sat down on a seat, invisible almost, and was soon fast asleep. How it happened Renee never knew; it—it just happened, but the daffodils and all the other trees in the gardens became alive and started talking as loudly as if no one was near. Renee sat as still as still, hardly daring to breathe for fear of breaking the spell, until a fairy emerged from one of the tallest, daffodils and approached Renee. “You seent very shy,” she commented, but as there was no reply she took Renee-by the hand and led her away. They seemed to go on and on, but strangely enough she never felt tired. Soon the fairy had reached a tree, and, turning she said: — “What season would you like to see?” She looked Renee full in the face. “Spring,” answered Renee, “because all the world is new.”

“Certainly,” responded the daffodil fairy, and after knocking once on the tree trunk she opened a little door in the tree and led Renee through. As soon as the door shut a screen moved and in front of her was revealed a landscape. One corner was a forest, another was a lake, another was a town, and the rest was a field in which lambs and their mothers frisked, and calves played. She saw in the forest trees in bloom, creepers budding, furry bunnies playing with each other. The lake was full of fish. Frogs were singing love songs in their croaking way. In the town were sparrows building their nests; pigeons were cooing; captive canaries were settling into the nests made for them.

Then the scene changed to later spring. Some trees were finishing blooming, while others had just begun. The creepers were a mass of colour ; the trees resounded with the song of the birds, for in some nests tho babies had arrived, while in others the eggs had just been laid and were being sat on. In the town the traffic still whirred on, regardless that the magic season had nearly finished, but the birds wore happy, as were the lambs and calves.

A hawk swooped down and gripped a baby bunny in Its cruel tallons, and was off before anything could stop it. Renee started forward, but was stopped by a restraining hand. Instantly everything faded and she saw the kind face of the keeper. “Sorry to startle you, Miss, but we’re shutting the gates in a few minutes,” he explained. Mumbling something, Renee ran to the gates and took the tram home. “I said that a walk in the gardens would do you the world of good,” exclaimed her aunt triumphantly, but Renee just smiled. She had been further than the gardens—she had been carried away on the wings of a dream. —By Jean Veitch, aged 13, Hawera.