Page:What to do for Uncle Sam; a first book of citizenship (IA whattodoforuncle00bail).pdf/19



A long while after you have given up the hope of ever seeing a real fairy, or a real brownie, or Santa Claus, you know just how they look. There are pictures of these story-book people that keep them in your minds. As you turn the pages and see a fairy’s wings, or a brownie’s cap, or old Santa’s pack it seems as if you must have touched them somewhere outside of the book. And you come, at last, to believe in them as you never did when you were younger. The woods in the spring are full of fairies; they fly down to you with the birds and hide from you in the flowers. There is a brownie wherever industry and thrift rule in a home. And Santa Claus lives in the Christmas kindness of your father and mother.

That is one strange thing about the world. Some of the greatest and best forces in it have to be dressed up in our own minds, just as you put jewels on a fairy, and a beard on Santa Claus. It makes these picture people greater for us, Rh