The Winter Fairy said: "The sun is so busy on the other side of the
world that he has not time to climb high in our sky. The Storm King,
the Snow Queen, and Jack Frost have their way now, turn and turn about,
with no powerful sun to check them. To-day it is Jack Frost's turn.
He has drawn fairy pictures on your windows, frozen the little pool
below the fruit garden, and flung glittering lace-work over all the
land.
"In the garden plots all the flowers have fled except the hardy winter
roses; the fallen seeds have hidden themselves as far down under the
warm earth as they could creep.
"Everything is resting. The fruit-trees stand bare and brown and
still, and you might think their life was gone. But on every branch
sit the little buds which the tree-mother made in the long days of the
busy summer. They are snugly wrapped in thick woolly blankets till the
sun returns and the air is warm again. Then they will fling aside
their coverings and dance out in the wind.
"Everything is waiting for the spring. The flies have hidden
themselves away under the grass and in the hedges, and have gone to
sleep till the cold dark days are done. Butterflies and moths have
laid their last eggs and have hidden themselves away, to die, most of
them. Bees keep close within their hives; the hum of insect life is
stilled.
"The snails have buried themselves in the ground, sinking into their
shells and fastening their little doors so tightly that no enemy can
come in. Round the pond, too, the frogs have buried themselves in the
soft mud to sleep till winter is over, leaving only openings enough for
air.
"The wheatfield is being ploughed, that Jack Frost may break the earth
for next year's crop. On the roadside the empty grass-heads stand,
white and beautiful with fine frost-work, but dead beneath their beauty.
"Of the birds who sang their joyous way through the other seasons only
the braver ones are left. The rest have flown to find a warmer land
till spring returns. So ends the tale."