APRIL 4: Billie’s Springtime
“I’d like to tell my story,” said Billie to the Fairy Wondrous Secrets. “People are always wondering what babies think about and what they are planning to do when they grow up—if they are planning to do anything or not. They wonder so much about us, and so I’d like to tell my story. I don’t know about other babies. But I would like to tell about myself, if no one minds.”
“I’d like to hear,” said the Fairy Wondrous Secrets.
Now Billie was in a baby-carriage which was out on the front porch of a little house in the country. Billie’s mother was busy and so was Billie’s daddy, but Billie, they knew, was quite safe in the carriage on the porch where the soft spring air was blowing.
No one was around but the Fairy Wondrous Secrets and if any one had come around the Fairy Wondrous Secrets would have vanished quickly.
“I’m really a little girl,” Billie began, “though my name is something like a boy’s name, I believe. You see my great big daddy’s name is Bill and my mother wanted to name me after him. She couldn’t have my real name Billie, but she had every one call me that, so it’s my daytime every-day name, and my best, dress-up name is Mary Ann, or Marion or some such fine name after my mother.
“I came to the world in December,” said Billie. “You see, Fairy, I thought it would be fun to arrive in the world when everything was so exciting. Christmas was coming on and it was very gay and merry.
“I’ve had a nice winter, but now is the best time I’ve known, for it’s springtime. And I’ll tell you, Fairy Wondrous Secrets, I feel as though it were all my own springtime.
“I feel the soft, warm wind blow over my little pink cheeks which every one admires so much and I smile and I croon and I make soft little singing sounds as the trees do. And I look around to smile at the trees and the bushes, too, and to let them see my blue eyes. I ask them if they think my eyes look like the blue sky, for the bushes and the trees are always looking up at the sky, so they should surely know.
“I can see the yellow forsythia upon the bushes, and how gay and lovely it is. The lilacs are in bud, and there are white blossoms on the bushes. Back of our house there are some waterfalls and they laugh and gurgle as they dash over the rocks, something the way I laugh and gurgle.
“I believe it is their way of kicking with fun. I kick with fun when my mother puts me in the wash-basin every morning. The wash-basin, Fairy Wondrous Secrets, is my bathtub, and I splash and kick and laugh and have such a good time! I don’t care if the water spills over the floor any more than I imagine the waterfalls care that they spill water over the rocks. They enjoy it! So do I!
“I can see the ducks and hear them quack, quack. I hear that sometimes they lay seven eggs a day. The chickens and the hens and the roosters walk about and chatter, and one day a lady passed and said ‘Hello,’ to a chicken and the chicken got up from the ground most politely as a mannerly person would do, I’m told.
“The pussy-willows are out and the skunk-cabbage is in bloom. There are red flowers and yellow flowers and little star flowers. The trees are full of buds or little leaves or blossoms of different colors. There is a little turtle who is sunning himself by the brook near-by and who is an interesting creature, I have heard. He wears a shell over his back as I wear a little knitted jacket.
“At night I hear the crickets when I wake up for my bottle. And I believe these creatures all like the country, too. The chickens and the ducks say that in the cities they aren’t wanted and they wouldn’t be allowed to wander about, so they wouldn’t leave the country for anything.
“And one evening I saw a moon in the sky. My daddy told me it was a moon and surely he knows! And over the moon there was a bright gold star, and I made a wish. This was my wish: that other babies might have happy homes as I have, where they don’t want to cry, because there is no reason to cry. I’m well looked after, I’m never spoilt and they love me; so why should I cry? But what I’m thinking about mostly, these days, is of how lucky I am to have such a daddy and mother and to see the beautiful springtime in the country.”