APPLE BLOSSOMS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 702, 29 June 1929, Page 31

APPLE BLOSSOMS

FIRST PRIZE STORY It was spring-time, and Lady Spring. ' her feet encased in jewelled slippers. | was dancing over the fields scattering . starry violets and cream and yellow ; primroses, wherever she went. The 1 birds were singing joyfully as they j built their downy nests, the storm- j clouds were breaking, the warm sup- i beams were winging their way to earth j and the fruit trees flung blossoming ; boughs to the sunshine. The orchard in an old country garden was indeed a scene of beauty. June and Diana, running blithely down the aisle between two rows of apple trees, thought so, too. The trees in their dainty gowns formed a vista of misty, fairy-like loveliness, and the gaily-coloured butterflies, in them happy flight, would pause on one of the delicate petals and sip the sweei nectar from the flower-cups. The children stopped beneath a tree and glanced up through the decked boughs, swaying in the breeze. They climbed up among the dancing blossoms. “There are fairies up here,” said June. “Nonsense!” laughed Diana. “There aren’t any fairies. I don't believe in them anyway.” And she tossed her curly head contemptuously. “Oh! yes there are!” replied June, lifting her serious, blue eyes to the pretty, dimpled face of her friend. “Fairies live in every tree, and when spring comes they paint the blossoms and guard the fruit. On one of these boughs there is probably a fairy house, where the apple blossom fairies live, only our eyes are mortal, so we cannot see them.” “No, I don’t believe in them. They only come in stories that aren’t true.” “Oh, but the fairies won't love you if you don't believe in them. Every time you say you don’t, a fairy dies,” answered June. “Oh! Diana let’s go and see if the fantail’s eggs haye hatched yet.” And they down and ran out of the orchard. Next day Diana visited the orchard alone, and she climbed up into the same tree. The fairies saw' her and held a meeting to decide what was to be done. “Fairies,” said the queen, “we must give her fairy sight, that she may believe in us.” So they rose altogether into the rdr and flew up to the branch where Diana was sitting. “Believe in us,” they pleaded, but their voices sounded so faint and so like the whispering sigh of the' wind, that she would not listen. Then the fairy queen touched her J eyes with her wand, and suddenly j Diana saw them all—crowds and j crowds of tiny fairies with golden curls, who were clad in long gowns of woven gossamer, as exquisite as the blossoms themselves. On their white shoulders were fastened wings, some as flimsy as spider web, others as transparent as the sea in summer, with dewdroys twined among the finely woven threads, * and others, still, were shaped of a thin, gauzy material like a dragon fly’s wing that flashed and gleamed with every colour of the rainbow. “Follow us,” said the queen in tones as sweet as the tinkle of a far-away j bell in the dusk. Diana, her eyes wide with wonder, j followed the host of tiny people into a teeny-weeny house in the fork of the j tree. It had a thatched roof and the walls were brown, while there were two ! windows and a wee green door, with a shiny knocker. Inside was a carpet of soft moss, ; and arranged in rows were snug little j white thistledown beds, something like ! nests. “Here we sleep and eat,” explained ! the queen. Then they went down a winding staircase into the bole of the tree. Here dozens of fairies were stitching at a fine silky material, which others were busy weaving. “Here we make the blossoms.” said the fairy queen. “It is our work-room. Then, at night, we fasten the buds on to the boughs. We paint the delicate pinky tint which makes our flowers so sweet and dainty.” “How wonderful!” breathed Diana. I “And here,” went on the queen, indicating the still, lifeless figure of a fairy lying upon a petal couch, “is the fairy whom you killed by saying you did not believe in us.” “Oh!” cried Diana in liorror, and stooping she pressed a kiss on the tiny forehead. Suddenly the fairy arose, and the colour flooded into her cheeks. “You have brought her back to life,” said the queen, “for now you believe!” “Yes. I believe,” said Diana, happily. “Joy!” said the fairies. “Joy!” laughed the wind. “Joy! joy! joyl” sang a blackbird on the wing. —Joan Brookfield (aged 12). hunga . . . Rita Nesbitt, Avondale . . . Edna Tyson. Devonport . . . Norma Christensen, Milford . . . Jean Brady, Takapuna . . . Doreen Ashe, Oneliungra . . . June Taylor, Archhill . . . Margaret Brain, Devonport . . . Autumn Bakalich, Tuakau . . . Keith Wilkinson, Auckland . . . Eileen Knight, Auckland . . . Jean Saunders, Blockhouse Bay . . . Trevor Steele, Mount Eden . . . William Barker, Mount Albert . . . Jack Crippen, Remuera . . . David Parsons, Auckland . . . Jean Grant, Epsom . . . Doris Bovett, Te Aroha . . . James McLeod, Thames . . . Yvonne Hoy, Mount Eden . . . Trevor Hayes, Epsom . . . Nancy Jeans, Grey Lynn . . . Betty Potter, Epsom . . . Molly Carter, Herne Bay . . . Jack Worthington. Waihi . . . Naomi Stirling, Whangarei . . . Dudley Cochrane, Birkenhead . . . MarjSchofield, Mount Eden . . . Enid Paris. Mount Eden . . . Ronald Crabb, Devonport . . . Joyce Olesen, Onehunga . . . Kuphemia MacArthur, Otahuhu . . . Phyllis Withers. Tirau . . . Athol Hall, Ellerslie . . . May Marett, Grey Lynn . . . J. Shaw, Grey Lynn . . . Joan Zahara, Auckland . . . Shirley Houston, Frankton Junction.