OLD GRANDMOTHER AND LITTLE GIRL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1055, 20 August 1930, Page 14

OLD GRANDMOTHER AND LITTLE GIRL

(First-prize Story) t I

Old Grandmother had lived so long on this earth that, deep in her soul, she had caught and retained something of magic and kindly witchcraft. Because of this, and because she had lived for such a short time, Little Girl also was partly faery. Old Grandmother had the most silver hair and the softest grey eyes that ever shone, while Little Girl was almost as dark as the blackbirds which came to feed on Old Grandmother’s lawn. These two lived in a small cottage surrounded by a large and colourful garden, with a winding path which led down to a barred gate. Almost every flower of which one can think bloomed in Old Grandmother’s garden, and the old lady’s love for it was equalled only by that of Little Girl. Little Girl liked best to sit among the flowers and hold converse with the wind and birds and trees, and even with the tiny spiders which came to spin their silken lines from blossom to blossom. It was not difficult for her to understand the language of these things, and she often declared, too, that she saw elfin folk in the garden. When night /came and the moon was like a burnished silver reap-hook in the dark sky. Little Girl would creep to Old Grandmother’s knee and lay her tired, curly head against Old Grandmother’s shoulder, and so fall asleep, with the old lady’s voice droning musically of pleasures and delights out beyond the barred gate of the little cottage. One day Little Girl was called away. Some said—and Old Grandmother was among them—that the fairies had called her down over the rim of the world into the rose and copper sunset. Little Girl had loved the sunset so. The birds, the wind, the sun and the flowers missed her greatly, for she had loved and understood them, and so few people* do that. There came the season when daffodils and crocuses burst into flower In Old Grandmother’s garden, and the gracious maiden Spring also missed the presence of Little Girl. “If we cannot have her, we should have something very like her,” said Spring, "so that we can remember her day by day, and always!” And all the inhabitants of the Great Outdoors assented. "Then,” said Spring, “I shall leave it to you, who were her greatest friends, to supply this memorial.” Willingly, with its invisible hands, the sky gave to Spring some of its whitest cloud. “Because she was so pure,” it explained. The wind came, crooning, bearing the loveliest perfume from the east at dawn. “Because she was so sweet,” it murmured. Then, with swift cool fingers, Spring made the cloud into a little flower, setting in its heart the perfume that the wind had brought. Next she moulded a long green stalk and some broad green leaves, and set the little flower among them. "Because Little Girl was so modest and beautiful,” said Spring, “the sun and the rain will make this grow and it will always bloom in the time of resurrected life, when I am passing by.” Stooping, Spring kissed the white violet and went her way. * “I have Little Girl always in these flowers,” said Old Grandmother gladly, each evening, as she shaded her eyes and looked down the path of the sunset to where Little Girl waited and watched for her. —Red Star (Jean Mclndoe).