Page 113 - 401_

112

Text 8
THE STAR-CHILD

Oscar Wilde
Dedicated to Miss Margot Tennant (Mrs. Asqutth)
Once upon a time two poor Woodcutters were making their
way come through a great pine-forest. It was winter, and a night of
bitter cold. The snow lay thick upon the ground, and upon the
branches of the trees: the frost kept snapping the little twigs on either
side of them, as they passed: and when they came to the Mountain-
Torrent she was hanging motionless in air, for the Ice-King had
kissed her.
So cold was it that even the animals and the birds did not know
what to make of it.
"Ugh!" snarled the Wolf, as he limped through the brushwood
with his tail between his legs, "this is perfectly monstrous weather.
Why doesn't the Government look to it?"
"Weet! weet! weet!" twittered the green Linnets, "the old Earth
is dead, and they have laid her out in her white shroud."
"The Earth is going to be married, and this is her bridal
dress," whispered the Turtle-doves to each other. Their little pink feet
were quite frost-bitten, but they felt that it was their duty to take a
romantic view of the situation.
"Nonsense!" growled the Wolf. "I tell you that it is all the fault
of the Government, and if you don't believe me I shall eat you." The
Wolf had a thoroughly practical mind, and was never at a loss for a
good argument.
"Well, for my own part," said the Woodpecker, who was a born
philosopher, "I don't care an atomic theory for explanations. If a thing
is so, it is so, and at present it is terribly cold."
Terribly cold it certainly was. The little Squirrels, who lived
inside the tall fir-tree, kept rubbing each other's noses to keep
themselves warm, and the Rabbits curled themselves up in their
holes, and did not venture even to look out of doors. The only people
who seemed to enjoy it were the great horned Owls. Their teachers
were quite stiff with rime, but they did not mind, and they rolled their
large yellow eyes, and called out to each other across the forest, "Tu-