THE GIFT DAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20454, 4 January 1930, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE GIFT DAY.

BY ISABEL E. MARTIN

The long green walking-stick insect pensively basking on a rata twig suggested it, and as there was no one nigh bti! a red-backed ' beetle, it seemed as if his woi'ds of wisdom would bo lost forever. But Cheeky Fautail saved the situation. Perched on tho supplejack, she. had been trying to catch a glimpse of herself in a little fern-fringed pool.

" Silly old Green-face! " she cried, staring impudently. " Why do you sit there looking so stupid ? "

The walking-slick insect was meditating and was lost "to the world, lie was murmuring to himsell and did not hear Fantail's uncomplimentary remarks. "Why shouldn't we, too, have a Gift Day .' If mortals "

" Oh, yes, yes," eagerly interrupted Fcntail. " Christmas Day—the great day of gladness when all mortals givo and receive. How we have longed to give, too! But vve can find no gift. The Great Day slips by and is gone!"

" Well," said Air. Green-face, shaking his head wisely. " You bird-folk could call a council, decide upon a gift, and—but hark! Aly coat is splitting! " Cheeky Fantail flew to a kowliai tree, stared at the !sky, and for once forgot her tail. Just then a tiny grey warbler fluttered by, but seeing such a pensive fantail, ho'exclaimed, " Why, Cheeky Chirp, what is the matter? You look as sorrowful as a raindrop."

" Oil. 'l iny-bit, 1 have such a big problem. Do help me," and Cheeky Chirp told Tiny-bit all about Mr. Green-faco and his words of wisdom. " Perhaps at last wo shall find a gift for the Great Day," she said. " I know, let's wake Large Eyes. He is very wise, though he is a grumpy old thing." Large Kyes, asleep in the hollow puriri tree, croaked "-More pork!" three times, but listened attentively to the two little birds.

" To-morrow at midnight there will bo a meeting of nil the bird-folk at the kauri council tree. I'ell all the bird-folk to pass on the word."

That night the whole bush world know of the great meeting.

.Now, clinging to the bare crags above the seashore, is a giant pohutukawa tree, whose great gnarled branches arc bare and gaunt, whose great withered roots are lifeless.. Xot a green leaf has he, and yet he has clung there, a grotesque, pathetic thing, through hail and rain, through sunshine and storm.

As night faded into a shadow, twilight and dawn came softly stealing over the silent world, earth opened her arms and revealed her secret. There, grouped round the giant pohutukawa, were all the birds of the bush, birds in tens, hundreds, thousands—feathered masses of winged things. Silent, motionless. I I.e. sea-birds had flocked to every available rock; fantails, white-eyes, tuis, bellbirds, chaffinches, warblers, wrens, and even sparrows were, perched on the trees in the valley, while moreporks and night birds huddled on the great roots of the pohutukawa.

Suddenly the awed silence broko into ripples of bird-song. Tlio boll-birds began it, and slowly, .solemnly the immense bird choir joined in. The whole forest was breathless. The giant kauris stood like sentinels, entranced. The sun rose through the eastern maze, of clouds, paused and stared, glittering the. hushed sea with gold. it was a wordless song they sang of rapturous thanksgiving, and as the great throbbing notes swelled out and blended into a world of music, it seemed as if the very ages had rolled away. Over .1900 long vears ago all the birds of the world had sung such a song when the wee Boy of Bethlehem was born and men had praised. Softly, like the mist in a valley's lap, the song melted away. This, then, was the birds' (lift to tiie Christinas morn. Then, like a far distant echo, like the musical crack, crack, cracking of hundreds of shells on a sea-shore at night, came a noise so faint, so clear, that. Iho birds stared, dazed with the wonder of it all.

The great, gaunt pohutukawa was a living miracle ! Xo longer were the branches bare, but sleepy, clustering velvet buds were softly opening. ,\ inoreporl; coughed. The spell was broken. Joyously birds (locked round tlm tree that had received again the gill of life!

In all its beauty and joy, flooded in crimson glory, the pohutukawa smiled its great Christinas smile. In that smilo each bird knew he, too, had received a Christinas Gift, and flew away rejoicing.