BIMBI'S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14250, 22 December 1909, Page 5 (Supplement)

BIMBI'S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

It's been Christmas. I've lent my cot to a child who's staying with us, so I have a big bed all to myself, like a grown-up person, and there's room on the bed for all the toys I had in my stocking. Everybody gave me presents, and the gardener gave me a little real watering-can, but that disappeared after I'd had it a day. It is setrange how some of the most interesting toys will disappear in the night. A drum I once had went just the same way. . . . i The Beautiful Lady has been telling me about the fairies who live in the flowers, and come out and dance about in the night, when children are asleep. She showed me how to get the fairies out, and I liked doing it. You take the outside of the flowers off, and then you find the fairy, like a little yellow thing inside. I asked the Beautiful Lady if she ever saw the fairies dancing. She told me she had never eeen them since j she was a little girl. When I asked, she said she would like to see them. Then she told me to close my eyes and go to sleep, as they only come when little children have their eyes shut tight. I was very sorry about her not seeing the fairies since she was a little girl, and thought out a plan to let her see them as a Christmas present. So after tea the next day I slipped into the conservatory, where the captain always waters the flowers himself. An old man came to see us the other day with his waistcoat tied together with a chain. He and the captain stayed in the conservatory, talking about the flowers, till it was neaily dark.. Well, I wanted to have a surprise for the Beautiful Lady, and I got some of the flowers, and took the yellow fairies out of them. Then I put them in an envelope. When I went to bed nurse let me have the envelope under the pillow, because I told her what it was. She said she was quite 6ure the Beautiful Lady would bo glad to see the fairies dancing. . ...

I shut my oyee, and lay for hours and hours. At last I heard a rustling, and there was the Beautiful Lady come to. kiss mo good night. I sat up, and asked her if she'd like to see the fairies, and she eaid sho would. > She said she could see dreams in my eyes, and kissed mo lots of times. I saw the captain at.the door, smiling at us both. She told me that fairies only cam© when little boys were lying down with their eyes shut. She said perhaps the would be able to see them if I closed my eyes and went to sleep. She didn't know I had them under the pillow, to I lay down and held her hand tight. "Can you see them?" "Not yet," said the Beautiful Lady. "Well, they're here." "Quick! Shut your eyes.l" said tlio Beautiful Lady. " I believe they are beginning to come." "Are they dancing?" " Hueh!" Then she really saw them, and .told me they were dancing on the bed. There was a little green one with a bell on her hat, so tiny you couldn't hear it: and two pink; ones. Then she told me how a lot dressed like ladybirds, and how they all danced round and round, singing. Then they played games, and one of the pansies ran right up the- bed and peeped down at mo over the blanket. . . I nearly opened my eyes. But I knew they'd all vanish away it" I did. Then the Beautiful Lady told me some more. How the one with the bell, in her hat climbed on the elephant, and rode all round the bed. I was so excited' that I sprang up,, but the last one flew out of the window just as I opened, my eyes. Then I asked the Beautiful Ladv if she was glad she'd seen them again. . She said: "Yes; and they " were much nicer than those she had seen as a girl; and die had no idea how they came to be there."' Of course. I' had the envelope with the fairies in it under my pillow all the time. So I took il out, and told her that it was a present, and that I had got them all by myself. When she saw what they were, she kissed mo again, and eaid I was a clever, clever little darling; and the captain came up and looked at them. She told him what they were, and how I luyl found them all bv myself in the flowers.

"What flowers?" Roallv, the way the captain spoke made us both jump. " But I don't know," paid the Beautiful Lady, staring at him. He stared back; then ran out of the room and back again before wc know what to think. "What flowers!" he said. "I'll tell you what! Fifty pounds' worth of 'awkwards' —my 'awkwards.' The little beggar's pulled 'em to shreds!" . . . I wasn't whipped after all. The Beautiful Lady explained to me («he'd been crying) that some flowers are "awkwards," and cost lots and lots of money, but that flowers that belong to mothers are never "awkwards," and children can always have the fairies out of them if they want to. . . . I heard nurse saying: " There's our new pram gone," because the Beautiful Lady was buying 'awkwards' for father with the money. She said 6he'd never heard such a fuss about a few pots of flowers. I must sav I agree. But of course it doesn't do for me to side with the womenfolk against the only other man in the family.