WINTER DAYS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 11, 12 July 1930, Page 20

WINTER DAYS

OH, If hate winter! Why can't it''stay summer all the year round J I'm blest if I can see why winter was brought into existence at all," groused Jill, staring out of the window at the swinging trees. "If T could meet Winter, I'd jolly well give him a piece of my mind."

" 'Deeds are better things than words, Actions mightier than boastings,' " quoted her brother, Bonald mischievously glancing up from the "Hiawatha" he- had been swotting up for school. '"AH the same, sis—" ;"Oh, shut up, Eon! You, always make-1 me; feel I want to hit out at something when you talk that way." '''Same ■ hero," acknowledged her brbther.-:"ijtust be the weather.or something; ■;. -It makes me ,feel: wild to see other .chaps tramping along the road to footer, and hero"am I stuck in with .*fin.?e,-:i.> ~-.:^ •■•:,:■ . : ■ ■ ■ 1 "Oh well.' We're both m the same lioat," said Jill. "What's the good of being-captain of the basketball team tyithout being able to play, I'd Olce. to know?"

''None ■ whatever, '' replied her >*»ther. cheerfully, tossing Hiawatha into a J 'corner. "Jumping Jimcracks, just hark to it, though,^ as the wind whistled-through the .trees, bending the branches and then "whee-eo-ing" down the chimney, making all the windows rattle and all the blinds flap. '' Well,' he added,: **«111 have to get on with that model of the. ship .for young Geoff." ;ELeft alone, Jill glared at the inoffensive, trees and wished more and more that she might meet .Winter and tell him what she thought of him. The cold wind seemed to get fiercer and fiercer until it blew in a great- gust right down the chimney and round the room. The smoke of the fire was blown into the room and it set Jill coughing. Suddenly'; she-heard: a: sound. ■ j "Well,,well, well," remarked a crisp voice behind her. "So this i 3 the •pferaon who<has ; jio Use for poor Winter! Well," welt!" ' ■ ': Jill- swung round.- Standing beside ile window, were two people. One was an elf dressed in shining icicles with *• shimmering. !■pointed cap, , pot of $a*zling paint in one hand and a paint brush in the other. Jill had always i»agii«d - Jack: Frost. to be a. short, sharp little *;mao .with a very pointed beaiS;^ut this elf. was a, lithe boy with a merry face and a broad smile., The boy .with i him .^as also quite young. He ■wore a crown, frosted ovor with silver,

a shining whitq tunic with gleaming silver belt, long shimmering stockings and'shoes, and carried a basket of snow-drops, white violets, and other winter flowers. His glittering wings frosted with dew-drops shone and sparkled in the firelight. '.'Oh, I—l'm sorry," stammered Jill, the dauntless. "Who—er—are you?"

"I," said that crisp voice, again, "am Jack Frost; this is Winter* whom," he added with quite unnecessary sarcasm, "you so urgently desired to meet."

"■Well—i- didn't know," stammered our intrepid.Jill, frantically. "I never thought that there "was such a person as Winter." » "You -didn't know ? BotP re turned Jack Frdst,,iflcredulously. "Anyway, you wished that it could lie summer all the year round. Now what are your favourite flowers?" "Violets, snow-drops, and. roses," replied Jill, rather surprised at the turn affairs had taken. "Yon see! Two of those belong winter—violets and snowdrops," cried Jack Frdst triumphantly. "And there are heaps of other.'things no does, too. We couldn 't do without him." . "Well," remarked Winter Boy, rather red at being thus popped' on a pedestal. "Yon J3eej the flowers and trees couldn't exist jf it was summer all the year round. They must have a rest sometimes and winter's the tims when Jack Frost spreads a white blanket over the ground, they know its time to have a rest. .The bulbs rest in their little brown houses under the

ground." ''Goodness! "eiclainioa Jill.. "They must be cold!". V. ' .. "Not a bit," replied Winter Boy. "Though it feels cold /when you touch it, it keeps the flowers' warm." Look at your garden. when you go into the dining'roontr-yotf can see it from the. window, can't you?—and see it." A whiff of wind and they were gone!

Jill gazed roundj rubbed her eyes, wondering if she- had, dreamed it '■. all However, she ran into the dining-room and peered out at her garden.- What was usually damp brown earth was now covered :with. a blanket of white, and already nodding their heads gently were a large clump of snowdrops and violets in tKe shape of a "J," Jill thought, but whether, that "J" stood for "Jill" or "Jack Frost," .she was never able to know, for; she never saw cither.of ,th©m again." ".'■.'.- . -^"PETER; PAN. v .i :

Wadostown,