THE PIXIE JAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 246, 7 January 1928, Page 25

THE PIXIE JAR

AN OLD DARTMOOR STORY Simon Trevena the miner was* as lonely as a heron, and as poor as a church mouse. It was money and company he wanted —two great needs. If he could win tlie one the other might follow, he thought. One day his old aunt Kitty Trevena. known all over the West Country as a white witch, died, and left him all she had. It was not much, a tunable-down cottage with a hole in the thatch where the house-leeks grew in a ring. There was a scrap of a garden round it, fenced in from the wild moors, where the old dame grew her herbs. It wasn’t much but it was worth having to poor Simon. He patched the roof, lit a peat-lire, gave a saucer of milk to the white cat, and sat down by the hearth to consider. It seemed to him that there ought to be treasure somewhere though everything looked sq bare and povertystricken. Old Kitty had been considered a bit of a miser. ‘'She’ll have hidden her gold,” said Simon to himself. “I’ll go on hunting till I find it.” He thought a bit and then he said: “First I’ll try underground.” So lie dug and lie dug in the garden, till at last he broke into a cham-. ber hollowed in the earth. Inside it was a small stone house made of a great slab of stone laid on three lesser ones. A great earthenware jar stood in the house. Simon’s heart gave a great bound. “Full of golden guineas, I hope,” liesaid joyfully. “I'll not need to doanothcr stroke of work till the end of my days.” He reached out his hand to raise the lid of the jar when suddenly there was a sound of galloping hoofs and the whole dark place seemed full of a man riding on a great horse. But Simon stood his ground, and the vision faded. “I shall see what is inside that jar, and be a rich man for the rest of my. life,” said he, gritting his teeth. He lifted up the lid and groped in the jar. His hand found another hand, a little one. Cold to the touch it was, then as he held it it grew milkwarm, then hot. “Out with thee, whether thou art a. goblin or a Christian child,” cried. Simon, heaving with all his might. Out of the jar a child came bundling and sat down on the floor, taking deep draughts of the fresh air and stroking back the use into its cramped, limbs. Who should it be but little Benny Penrose, the orphan boy who was lost on the moors three years before, and had never been seen again! It was some minutes before Simon could find his tongue, so dumbfounded was he. “How in the name of fortune did you come here, Benny my dear?” he asked at last. “I went to old Kitty Trevena to aak. her to charm a wart away yesterday,” said Benny (for all the years he had slept seemed like one night to himj. “She painted my wart with a green ointment, and by mistake I rubbed it on my eyelids. All at once my sight cleared, and I could see the pixies flying in and out of the house, like bees in a hive. “I went outside in the garden andthere was a band of them, riding on Dartmoor ponies and twisting their manes in elf-locks. I followed the herd of ponies to the Pixies’ cave by Sheep Tor. I found the cave full of the Littie People pounding their cider. When I asked for an apple they knew I could s€.*e them. They were as angry as hornets, and put me in this jar to sleep till the strength of the ointment wore away.” “Well, well! Of all the strange happenings!” said Simon, holding up his hands. “I will take you first to church to say your prayers, so that Pixies will have no more power over you. Then you must come to my home, and it shall be yours.” Little Benny Penrose was the only treasure that the miner ever found underground; still, kind company is worth more than money, any day.

THE PRESENT There are lots of very happy days : in Fairyland, but the happiest day of : all is the Fairy Queen’s birthday. For one thing:, it is a holiday throughout the land, and for another, there’s the competition. You see, everyone gives the queen a v present, and to the one who gives her the very best present the queen gives a prize. Now, some of these presents you may think very queer, for the birds wove wonderful little nests for her, because that was the thing they could do best, and the bees gave her some of their very best honey, while the butterflies, who did not know howto do that sort of thing, polished up their wings till they glowed with colour and they danced their very best dance in the sunshine, and that was their present. The Flower Fairies brought their perfumes and the Colour Fairies painted wonderful colours in the glittering water of the fountains. At last the time came for the queen to decide which was the very best present she had had, and she hardly knew what to choose. Just then there was a little disturbance and commotion as an earth worm came wriggling up. “Am I too late?” he asked anxiously. “I couldn't come before, because—” “What have you brought for the queen?” someone asked. The worm looked worried. “That is what made me late, you see, O Queen. I can’t make anything useful, like the bees and the birds, and I can’t do anything beautiful like the butterflies and the fairies, so—so I just did the very best day’s work I knew how to. I—l wondered if that would make a present.” He looked anxiously at the qr.fen. “I know it's not much, but —” “But it was the very best you could do,” nodded the queen. Then she clapped her hands. “My people, this time the prize goes to the earth worm for giving me the very best thing he could do.” Everybody clipped. and there was no happier earth worm in all Fairyland.