Look for Fairies Now

By Mrs. A. J. Wilder, Mansfield, Missouri

The "Little People" Still Appear to Those with Seeing Eyes

"Have you seen any fairies lately?" I asked the question of a little girl not long ago. "Huh! There's no such thing as fairies," she replied. Some way the answer hurt me and I have been vaguely disquieted when I have thought of it ever since. By the way. Have you seen any fairies lately? Please do not answer as the little girl did, for I'm sure there are fairies and that you at least have seen their work.

In the long, long ago days, when the farmers gathered their crops they always used to leave a part of whatever crop they were harvesting in or on the ground for the use of the "Little People." This was only fair for the "little People" worked hard in the ground to help the farmer grow his crops and if a share were not left for them they became angry and the crops would not be good the next year. You may laugh at this as an old superstition but I leave it to you if it has not been proved true that where the "Little People" of the soil are not fed the crops are poor. We call them different names now, nitrogen and humus and all the rest of it, but I always have preferred to think of them as fairy folk who must be treated right. Our agricultural schools and farm papers spend much time and energy telling us to put back into the soil the elements of which we rob it. Only another way of saying, "Don't rob the 'Little People'; feed them!"

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Dryads used to live in the trees, you know, beautiful, fairy creatures who now and then were glimpsed beside the tree into which they vanished. There have been long years during which we have heard nothing of them, but now scientists have discovered that the leaves of trees have eyes, actual eyes that mirror surrounding objects. Of what use are eyes to a tree, I wonder? Would it not be fine if the men of science gave us back all our fairies under different names?

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There is the old myth of Santa Claus! What child in these deadly, matter-of-fact times believes in Santa Claus; yet who can deny that at Christmas time there is a spirit, bringing gifts, abroad in the world, who can come down the chimney, or through the keyhole for that matter, and travel in the same night from the north pole to the south? Why not let the children believe in Santa Claus? Later they will understand that it is only a beautiful imagery. It is surely no harm to idealize things and make them more real by investing them iwth personalities and it might do away with some of the sorid estimating of the price of gifts, which children learn so surprisingly young.

I hav a feeling that childhood has been robbed of a great deal of its joys by taking away its belief in wonderful, mystic things, in fairies and all their kin. It is not surprising that when children are grown they have so little idealism or imagination nor that so many of them are like the infidel who asserted that he would not believe anything he could not see. It was a good retort the Quaker made, "Friend! Does thee believe thee has any brains?"

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It is astonishing what an effect a child's early training has upon its whole life. When one reflects upon the subject one is inclined to agree with the noted clergyman who said, "Give me the child for the first seven years of his life and you may have him all the rest of the time." What a wonderful power mothers have in their hands! They shape the lives of the children today, thru them the lives of the men and women of tomorrow, and thru them the nations and the world.

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I see by the papers that one of the suffrage leaders of the state will tour the Ozarks this spring in the interest of women suffrage, bringing light into the dark places, as it were.

A great many seem to regard the securing of the ballot as the supreme attainment and think that with women allowed to vote, everything good will follow as a matter of course. To my mind the ballot is incidental, only a small thing in the work that is before the women of the nation. If politics are not what they should be, if there is graft in places of trust and if there are any unjust laws, the men who are responsible made them and their wives usually have finished the job. Perhaps that sounds as if I were claiming for the women a great deal of influence, but trace out a few instances for yourself, without being deceived by appearances, and see if you do not agree with me.

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During the controversy between Dr. Cook and Commodore Pery over th discovery of the north pole, the subject was being discussed in a home where I happened to be. It was when Cook was being paid such a high price for his lectures and the mother of two young men present exclaimed, "It makes no difference whether Cook is faking or not! He is getting the money, isn't he, and that's what counts!" She was a woman of whom one expects better things, a refined, educated woman and a devout church member, but her influence on her boys would teach them that money was what counted, regardless of truth or honor.

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A young friend with whom I talked the other day said that life was so "much more interesting" to her since she "began to look below the surface of things and see what was beneath." there are deeps beyond deeps in the life of this wonderful world of ours. Let's help the children to see them instead of letting them grow up like the man of whom the poet wrote,

A primrose by the river's brim

A yellow primrose was to him and nothing more.

Let's train them, instead, tofind "books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

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But have you seen any fairies lately, or have you allowed the harsher facts of life to dull your "seeing eyes"?

The sunshine fairies cannot rest

When evening bells are rung;

Nor can they sleep in flowers

When bedtime songs are sung.

They are such busy fairies,

Their work is never done.

For all around and round the world

They travel with the sun.

And while you're soundly sleeping,

They do the best they can

A-painting cherry blossoms

In far away Japan.

The poppy fields of China,

With blossoms bright and gay,

They color on their journey---

And then pass on their way.

And all the happy children,

In islands of the sea,

Know little Ray O'Sunshine,

Who plays with you and me.

Mrs. A. J. Wilder. "Look for Fairies Now." Missouri Ruralist (April  5, 1916): 11. The article is accompanied by a drawing of a little girl sitting beneath a flowering tree, her dog at her side.

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