Page:Rewards and Fairies (Kipling, 1910).djvu/27

Rh it something about a fox — last year. Oh, I nearly had it then!’ Dan cried.

‘Be quiet!’ said Una, prancing excitedly. ‘There was something happened before we met the fox last year. Hills! Broken Hills — the play at the theatre — see what you see ’

‘I remember now,’ Dan shouted. ‘It’s as plain as the nose on your face — Pook’s Hill — Puck’s Hill —Puck!’

‘I remember, too,’ said Una. ‘And it’s Midsummer Day again!’

The young fern on a knoll rustled, and Puck walked out, chewing a green-topped rush.

‘Good Midsummer Morning to you! Here’s a happy meeting,’ said he. They shook hands all round, and asked questions.

‘You’ve wintered well,’ he said after a while, and looked them up and down. ‘Nothing much wrong with you, seemingly.’

‘They’ve put us into boots,’ said Una. ‘Look at my feet — they’re all pale white, and my toes are squdged together awfully.’

‘Yes — boots make a difference,’ Puck wriggled his brown, square, hairy foot, and cropped a dandelion flower between the big toe and the next.

‘I could do that — last year,’ Dan said dismally, as he tried and failed. ‘And boots simply ruin one’s climbing.’

‘There must be some advantage to them, I suppose,’ said Puck, ‘or folk wouldn’t wear them. Shall we come this way?’