THE FAIRY PIPER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3808, 8 March 1927, Page 61

THE FAIRY PIPER.

In the following, written by Miss Edith Howes, fancy paints an appropriate story round the beautiful conception of the statuary: — Paul said to Nella: “There is something that I seem to hear at times when I am very still. It is not a bird's song, yet it is like a bird’s song, and it is not anything I know, but it is like something I know. I can’t tell where it comes from, and sometimes I am not sure that I have heard it at all; yet it makes me sing with happiness.” “Yes, yes,” said Nella. “I have heard it, too. I have heard it very early in the morning when I have crept out into the garden before anyone is about. There the dew is on the flowers and the grass, and the trees arc still, and the air is .very clear and cool, and there is something that makes you first run and jump, and then stand still as a tree. Then that music comes. Sometimes it seems far off at the edge of the world, sometimes it seems so near that it might be close behind me. Whether far or near it makes me so happy that I could cry. But too soon it stops.” “I hear it best when I am in some new, strange place,” said Paul. “Some wild place in the bush or by the sea or up among the hills where we went last holidays. When I am lying in the grass or sitting in a tree it comes. Sometimes I think it is a thrush singing, then it seems like the humming of bees or the

cooing of doves, or it changes to a tune that is laughing and crying at once as if somebody were glad and sorry together. What can it be, and why does it make us so happy? And why does it stop when I go running about again?” “Once I thought it was the song of all the birds in the world, once I thought the flowers were singing, and once I thought it was either the wind or the sea. Yet it *was never quite like any of those things. Paul, what if it were fairies? Fairies playing across the land on their fairy horns?” “Yet it stops when we move. Why should it stop? Nella, let us go out to find the music. Perhaps we may bring it home with us, and have, it alwaya playing, and so be always happy.” They went together into the wild places, listening, listening, and searching. “Can you tell us where to find the magic music?” they asked a rabbit. “I am on my way to seek it,” he replied ; and he leapt along beside them ini the grass. A bird flew past. “Can yon tell ns where to find the magic music?” they asked the bird. “I am on my way to seek it,” she replied, and they followed her. A mouse slipped out from its hole. “Can you tell us where to find the magic music?” they asked the mouse. “I am on my way to seek it,” said the mouse, and he rau beside them on the ground. They went on and on. and now the music was all about them,’ sweet and high and full of happiness. A fairy flew before them. “Come,” she called. “Come, it is Pan playing on his pipes.” There sat Pat on a rock, with birds and animals and fairies listening. “Oh, the lovely music!” whispered Nella. “It is the music of the world,” said the fairy. “It is the joy of life and its sorrow. It is Nature’s song.” “Will he come with us?” asked Paul. “Will he come with us, and play for us so that we may be always happy?” “There is no need,” the fairy said. “There is no need, for you who have once heard his pipes may hear them always. Day and night lie plays, and you have only to keep still and listen. His music is for all and for ever.”