“WAKE up!” said an old gentleman, dressed in brown and white, as he
gently shook the shoulder of a young lady in green, who was lying sound
asleep under the trees. “Wake up, ma’am! it is your watch now, and time
for me to take myself off.”
The young lady stirred a very little, and opened one of her eyes the
least little bit. “Who are you?” she said, drowsily. “What is your
name?”
“My name is Winter,” replied the old man. “What is yours?”
“I have not the faintest idea,” said the lady, closing her eyes again.
“Humph!” growled the old man, “a pretty person you are to take my
place! Well, good-day, Madam Sleepyhead, and good luck to you!”
And off he stumped over the dead leaves, which crackled and rustled
beneath his feet.
As soon as he was gone, the young lady in green opened her eyes in good
earnest and looked about her.
“Madam Sleepyhead, indeed!” she re-echoed, indignantly. “I am sure
_that_ is not my name, anyhow. The question is, What _is_ it?”
She looked about her again, but nothing was to be seen save the
bare branches of the trees, and the dead, brown leaves and dry moss
underfoot.
“Trees, do you happen to know what my name is?” she asked.
The trees shook their heads. “No, ma’am,” they said, “we do not know;
but perhaps when the Wind comes, he will be able to give you some
information.”
The girl shivered a little, and drew her green mantle about her and
waited.
By and by the Wind came blustering along. He caught the trees by their
branches, and shook them in rough, though friendly greeting.
“Well, boys!” he shouted, “Old Winter is gone, is he? I wish you joy of
his departure! But where is the lady who was coming to take his place?”
“She is here,” answered the trees, “sitting on the ground; but she does
not know her own name, which seems to trouble her.”
“Ho! ho!” roared the Wind. “Not know her own name? That is news,
indeed! And here she has been sleeping, while all the world has been
looking for her, and calling her, and wondering where upon earth she
was. Come, young lady,” he added, addressing the girl with rough
courtesy, “I will show you the way to your dressing-room, which has
been ready and waiting for you for a fortnight and more.”
So he led the way through the forest, and the girl followed, rubbing
her pretty, sleepy eyes, and dragging her mantle behind her.
Now it was a very singular thing that whatever the green mantle
touched, instantly turned green itself. The brown moss put out little
tufts of emerald velvet, fresh shoots came pushing up from the dead,
dry grass, and even the shrubs and twigs against which the edges of the
garment brushed broke out with tiny swelling buds, all ready to open
into leaves.
By and by the Wind paused and pushed aside the branches, which made a
close screen before him.
“Here is your dressing-room, young madam,” he said, with a low bow; “be
pleased to enter it, and you will find all things in readiness. But
let me entreat you to make your toilet speedily, for all the world is
waiting for you.”
Greatly wondering, the young girl passed through the screen of
branches, and found herself in a most marvellous place.
The ground was carpeted with pine-needles, soft and thick and brown.
The pine-trees made a dense green wall around, and as the wind
passed softly through the boughs, the air was sweet with their spicy
fragrance. On the ground were piled great heaps of buds, all ready to
blossom; violets, anemones, hepaticas, blood-root, while from under a
huge pile of brown leaves peeped the pale pink buds of the Mayflower.
The young girl in the green mantle looked wonderingly at all these
things. “How strange!” she said. “They are all asleep, and waiting for
some one to waken them. Perhaps if I do it, they will tell me in return
what my name is.”
She shook the buds lightly, and lo! every blossom opened its eyes and
raised its head, and said, “Welcome, gracious lady! welcome! We have
looked for you long, long!”
The young girl, in delight, took the lovely blossoms, rosy and purple,
golden and white, and twined them in her fair locks, and hung them
in garlands round her white neck; and still they were opening by
thousands, till the pine-tree hollow was filled with them.
Presently the girl spied a beautiful carved casket, which had been
hidden under a pile of spicy leaves, and from inside of it came a
rustling sound, the softest sound that was ever heard.
She lifted the lid, and out flew a cloud of butterflies.
Rainbow-tinted, softly, glitteringly, gayly fluttering, out they flew
by thousands and thousands, and hovered about the maiden’s head; and
the soft sound of their wings, which mortal ears are too dull to hear,
seemed to say, “Welcome! welcome!”
At the same moment a great flock of beautiful birds came, flying, and
lighted on the branches all around, and they, too, sang, “Welcome!
welcome!”
The maiden clasped her hands and cried, “Why are you all so glad to see
me? I feel—I know—that you are all mine, and I am yours; but how is it?
Who am I? What is my name?”
And birds and flowers and rainbow-hued butterflies and sombre
pine-trees all answered in joyous chorus, “Spring! the beautiful, the
long-expected! Hail to the maiden Spring!”