More Tales in the Land of Nursery Rhyme | Page 4

would dance for the Morning Star."
So Tsuki flung the soft, white, glistening, mantle round her, and on the
sandy shore beneath the pine trees, by the light of the waning moon,
she began to dance.
So light was she that she looked like a blown feather of foam as she
skimmed and flitted and swayed on the glistening sand, with her pale
gold hair glimmering, and her white feet twinkling in the dim light.

Once or twice she fell to the ground in a crumpled heap as if exhausted,
but each time, as though a puff of wind had caught her up, she rose
again fluttering and swiftly turning through the air. The dawn birds
twittered and piped soft music for her, and the sea murmured a
humming, rushing melody, and still she danced on. As she danced,
there arose in the sky above--slow, bright and clear--the Morning Star.
Yama saw her twinkling feet pass him as she drew nearer and nearer to
the sea; and as the first pink light began to show behind the pine trees
she reached the surf. Flinging her arms high above her head, she
plunged in, with her snowy mantle billowing round her. Long, long
Yama gazed after her, but she had disappeared utterly.
Slowly he turned from the sea. Slowly, very slowly he walked along
the shore towards his cottage. Surely he must have been dreaming! But
lo! close upon the shore were lying little white flakes that must have
been shed from her snowy mantle as she swirled through the air.
Yama stooped to pick them up, but even as he touched them they
changed to tear-drops in his hands.
As I have said before, my great-grandfather's nest was close to Yama's
cottage, and in the winter evenings Yama would tell my
great-grandfather over and over again how Tsuki, the Moon Maiden,
had once danced for him.
He never saw her again; but she kept her promise, and every year, on a
winter night, she came with her sisters and left a pile of cloaks on the
top of Fuji. Every year Yama climbed Fuji to fetch them, but, alas, they
always turned to tear-drops at his touch.
Sometimes, too, pieces of her mantle fell to the ground when she was
dancing with her sisters to the Morning Star, but they hardly ever fell
on the seashore where Yama lived.
Yama never forgot her. Years, long years afterwards, when he was an
old, old man he started to climb Fuji as usual. Another bird told my
father, however, that that year he never reached the top; but that Tsuki,
touched with his devotion to her, had come with her maidens one night

as he slept on the mountain side, and, wrapping him in their feathery
mantles, had carried him, smiling in his sleep, to their home in the
moon.
* * * * * *
"That's the story," concluded the Japanese bird in his sad foreign voice,
"and that is why we always think of Tsuki, the Moon Maiden, in
snow-time."
"Hoots!" said the Owl grumpily. "It's melancholy enough, but I should
have preferred more blood and thunder."
"Anyway, it has passed the time," said the Robin cheerily. "It has left
off snowing. I'm off to the house for crumbs. Many thanks for your
story. I'll tell you one one of these days that will simply make you die
of laughing."
So the Robin flew off, followed by the twittering Sparrow. The Owl
settled herself to sleep again, and the Japanese birds were left shivering
in the corner to think of their own country.

MARY, MARY, QUITE CONTRARY
"Such as the gardener is--so is the garden"
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With cockle
shells, And silver bells, And pretty maids all in a row.
There was once upon a time a King who ruled over a vast kingdom. In
the kingdom were all sorts of houses, large and small, and the King
himself lived in a huge palace the like of which had never been seen for
grandeur. Yet, throughout the length and breadth of his kingdom there
was not one single garden. Even the palace itself only possessed a
back-yard.
This grieved the King very sorely. He sent proclamations over land and

sky and sea to men from other countries to come and make him a
garden. He offered vast rewards. But, though gardeners had come from
far and near, though the King himself had watched them from the
palace steps, and had, once even, cut the first sod with a silver spade . . .
yet, it was all no use. The garden wouldn't be made and the flowers
wouldn't grow. Every kind of patent soil, seeds, hose, watering-cans,
weed-killers and mowing machines had been tried in