There was once a little calf who was always unhappy. He had a dear
mother and two nice little white cousins, with brown ears, and a
beautiful field to live in, quite full of buttercups and daisies,
and cow-parsley, which little calves mustn’t eat because it makes
them ill, and yet he wasn’t happy. It was really because all the
other cows and calves could not understand him. And this was why:
this little calf loved everything that was red, and, of course, you
know that cows and bulls generally hate red things.
Now the field next to the cows’ field was a cornfield, and among the
corn there were a great many scarlet poppies. The little calf thought
that he had never seen anything so beautiful as these red flowers,
and he always longed to get into the cornfield and kiss the poppies
and tell them how much he loved them. All day long he used to stand
with his little face pressed against the hedge, looking into the
cornfield, and when the farmer’s boy brought a bucket of food for the
little calves, this little calf let his cousins eat it all up and
stood gazing at his darling poppies.
One day he found a gap in the hedge, just big enough for a little
calf to squeeze through, and in a twinkling he was through the hole
and among his dear flowers. He rolled about in the corn and kissed
the poppies and said: “Dear little bright flowers, I wish you would
come into my field and live there with me,” but the flowers did not
speak to him. Then he got up and wandered all over the field, talking
to all the poppies, until at last he stopped before the largest and
reddest poppy of all.
“How beautiful you are!” he said. “Can’t you speak to me?” and the
tears came into his brown eyes because none of the poppies seemed to
love him.
“Yes,” said the poppy, “I can speak to you. What do you want me to
say, and why are you crying? Be careful not to drop your tears on me,
because they are warm and would wither my petals.”
“I only wanted to tell you that I love you and want you to come and
live with me in my field,” said the little bull-calf.
[Illustration: Cow in field]
“Is it a nice field?” said the poppy.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s a beautiful field—full of buttercups and
daisies, and Mother lives there, and my cousins, and all Mother’s
friends.”
“I don’t like buttercups and daisies and all your Mother’s friends,”
said the poppy, “you must go away, little calf. And look!” she
suddenly screamed, “you have trodden down all our dear friends, the
corn-ears. Be off with you, at once, you wicked, _wicked_ creature!”
and she waved her leaves and shook so much with anger that the little
calf was quite frightened and stumbled through the corn to his old
hedge. But just as he was going to get through the hole he heard
a gentle little voice at his feet, and looking down, saw another
poppy. She was smaller than the other poppies, but she looked at him
with her beautiful black eye and said, “Dear little calf, I have
watched you looking through the hedge every day, and I love you and
will come and live in your field. Take me gently in your mouth and
pull me up.”
But just as he was going to do it the poppy cried out: “Quick, little
calf, quick! I hear the farmer’s footsteps. If he finds you here he
will beat you. You must go back without me.” And the little calf
scrambled back through the hole in the hedge just as the farmer came
up. Of course the farmer was terribly angry when he saw all his corn
trampled down, and he sent some men to fill up the hole in the hedge
at once, so that our little calf couldn’t get his dear poppy.
Now time went on and our little calf began to grow up, and he did all
sorts of dreadful things, because he still loved everything that was
red. He chased an old lady all down the lane because she was wearing
a red shawl and he wanted to rub his head against it.
[Illustration: Cow following old woman]
He ate up the paint-rag belonging to a man, who came to paint the
cows in the cornfield, because it was covered with red paint. I
don’t know why it was covered with bright red, because cows are
not bright red, or buttercups and daisies either, are they? But
still it was. And one day he even went into the farmer’s wife’s red
sitting-room and sat on the floor with his head among the scarlet
cushions on the sofa. After this everyone thought he must be mad, and
the farmer’s sons called him “the crazy bull-calf.”
But all this time he never once forgot his dear poppy, and every
evening he went down to the hole in the hedge and talked through it
to her, until the autumn came and she went to seed. But when the
next summer came, and he was almost a full-grown bull, he went down
to his hole in the hedge, and there in his own field was a little red
poppy, and he knew at once that it had grown up from one of the seeds
of his own poppy, which the kind wind had carried and dropped in the
cow-field. So all the summer he talked to his poppy and loved her,
and she loved him and they were very happy. But when the autumn came
the poppy knew she must die, and they were both very sad.
One day, when the young bull was lying down watching his dear poppy’s
petals beginning to shrivel, and as he was trying to shield her from
the sun, the Green Witch of the Fields came along. She stopped when
she saw the two friends and the tears came into her eyes, because she
was sorry for them. But she quickly dashed her tears away, because
if a green witch ever drops her tears she loses all her power and
becomes a sort of green stuff, which the wind carries away and drops
on to the ponds. You must often have seen it there. Perhaps your
nurse told you it was duckweed, but now you will know better, won’t
you? And you must never try to walk on it because, you see, the
witches have lost their power and cannot hold you up. Well, when the
witch found that the two friends could nearly make her cry she was
very frightened, and she said to herself: “I must do something for
the poppy so that she can always be with her friend, because if I
pass by when the poppy is dead, I shall certainly drop my tears, and
that would never do.”
[Illustration: Cow and fairy]
So she waved her green wand over the poppy and changed her into a
little red fairy.
“Now,” she said, “you can live for ever with your friend. Goodbye,
dear children,” and she slipped away on the wings of the wind.
So now the bull had his poppy fairy always with him, and in the
summer she rode upon his horns, and in the cold weather she sat
inside his ear, just where the velvety soft hairs are. And in all
the world there is not a more merry beautiful fairy than she, or a
happier bull than he.