The easter hare

Last year we discovered an egg some weeks afterwards; luckily it was a glass one filled with sweeties; for if it had been of chocolate, we could not have eaten it, after it had lain on the damp mould, where the snails and worms would have crawled over it. Some of the eggs are made of chocolate or marzipan or sugar, and some are real eggs coloured blue or red or brown, or even sometimes with pictures on them."

"We had two dear little baskets with dollies in them, and a big Easter Hare made of gingerbread, as well as the eggs this year," said Barbara. "We hunt and hunt in every corner of the garden, and then we divide our treasures afterwards on two plates, so that is quite fair."

"You are lucky children, why does not the Hare come to England?" said Patsie. "I am sure little English children would appreciate him too!"

"Well," said Gretel answering in verse:

"My dear mother says to me,

That he will not cross the sea;

That he fears his eggs would break

And his precious goods might shake.

He's a fairy you must know,

Little Barbara tells you so;

When he cocks his ears and blinks,

Then of Easter eggs he thinks."

"Yes," interrupted Barbara, "we really and truly saw him one Easter Sunday morning when we came back from church, just at the end of our street, where the gardens join the fields. He had a friend with him, or perhaps it was Mrs Easter Hare. They both looked very alarmed when they saw us, and tore off as fast as they could scuttle, and hid in the corn-fields. I can't remember if he had his red coat on, can you, Gretel?"

"No I don't think he had, he was quietly dressed in his brown fur suit, with a white tail to the coat," said Gretel.

Now mother had been puzzled for some time to think whatever connection there could be between Easter Day and the Hare, and she could not find out. But the other day a kind friend told her: she could never have been able to think of it herself, it is such a queer reason. The legend is that as the Hare always sleeps with its eyes open, it was the only living creature that witnessed the Resurrection of our Blessed Lord, and therefore for ever afterwards it has become associated with Easter.