The Fantasy

Story ID:	682
Written by:	Carol J Garriott
Organization:	home/retired
Story type:	Fiction
Location:	Madison Kansas USA
Year:	1952

This essay, written when I was 17, was submitted in 1952 to The American Girl Magazine for their "By You" competition. I received $10 for the Top Fiction Award. I was such a fanciful, imaginative child! Four years later, in 1956, I received a letter from a girl in Ireland, wishing to be a pen pal, who had read "The Fantasy" in The Junior Digest. Not having even heard of this magazine, I asked if she could send me a copy, which she did. On page 2 of this small magazine it says: "Junior Digest is designed especially for young people. Its aim is to present a bright and varied selection of articles, stories and features collected from sources in all parts of the world." That seems to explain how my little story made its way to someone in Ireland! I'm sorry to say I've lost touch with that pen pal of long ago.

The Fantasy
I first saw Spring on an early morning in April. She was dancing, slim and willowy, up the garden path, singing the song of the birds. Her voice was all the sweet sounds that one hears in spring: the sigh of the evening breeze, the tinkle of water running over the stones, and the melody of the feathered friends. A pale, blue-white mist surrounded her; she was clothed in a long, flowing garment, simple yet dazzlingly white. Her tiny slippered feet seemed merely to brush the ground as she glided down the path, stopping now and then to brush a flower or a leaf with her lips. A radiant, tranquil smile beamed on her exquisite face, framed by the long golden hair which cascaded daintily to her shoulders, and down her back in a beautiful mass of curls. She came on until she reached the well; there she paused. A ray of sunshine slanted through the treetops and touched her hair, transforming it suddenly into a million pinpoint stars of gold. I blinked, looked again, and saw only the sunlight sparkling on the stream that sang close by.

Summer came across the meadow just as the dinner bell was ringing at noon in early June. I paused by the whitewashed fence and watched her come. The golden-brown braids that topped her head were a fitting crown for the oval, suntanned face. She came across the meadow with a purposeful stride, her sturdy figure casting, oddly, no shadow at all. She wore a simple, cotton dress that came to just below her knees. She looked calm, unhurried, and capable. The sun beat full upon her stately, golden-brown being as she stood on the crest of the hill, in conplete command of the situation, her eyes very steady and calm. I felt a hand on my arm and turned. It was Anna wishing me to come to dinner. I looked once more toward the meadow and saw only the breeze bending the grasses with invisible foootsteps, and the stately form of a cottonwood silhouetted against the summer sky on the crest of the hill.

I saw Autumn on an early evening in October. The sun's warming rays were waning, and one could feel the chill of night closing in. He came skipping through the woods, a merry little cuss indeed. He was clad in a brown-and-gold suit, ragged around the edges, and a tiny, peaked cap sat jauntily atop his head. He had an armful of red-brown leaves, one of which he occasionally dropped along the path. He passed the browning trees triumphantly, but when he came to an evergreen, he glared at it, showing scorn and anger for the trees that defied his hand. He sprang across the brook, whistling. Odd, but one could scarcely pick it out from the trill of the birds. He was light, and happy-to-lucky, tripping merrily onwards. He ducked behind a tree, and did not reappear. Peering behind the trunk, I saw only the gray-green moss that clung to the bark. The little man was gone, but autumn lingered on in the dying breeze, the setting sun, the brown whispering trees, the tiny brook that tinkled onward, in the forest folk that scurried and hurried on their way.

Old Man Winter came in early December. I was chopping wood out in the yard when I first saw him. He was tall and lean with a mass of snowy hair atop his head and a long flowing beard that matched. His laugh was like the wind, wild and free, and his eyes sparkled with a fire of life and spoke of vim and vigor. On the surface he was as gentle and goodnatured as a pussy willow, but deep down inside he could be cruel and harsh. He was mighty and powerful, the spokesman for the wind and snow and sleet, but also did he speak of sleigh rides in the evenings after school, long lovely walks through freshly fallen show. He had a double character and one cannot condemn one without the other.

One cannot say the winter is all bad, or spring, or summer, or fall. True, each season has its bad points: Spring--chill rainy days in early March; Summer--blistering, scording days and sudden storms in July; Autumn--bare, chill days in October. But, before one condemns any of the seasons, remember the delicate loveliness of the world awakening in Spring, the soft evenings and beautiful mellow days of Summer, the wonderful memories of weiner roasts in Fall, the tranquil beauty of a sleigh ride through a snow-laden countryside under the spell of Old Man Winter.