[LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS]
The April Baby’s Book of Tunes
with
The Story of how they came to be Written
Once upon a time there were three little girls called April, May, and June. Their mother thought it simpler to call them after the months they were born in, instead of having to worry over a choice between Jane, or Susan, or Mary, or any of the ordinary girl-names. She had meant to call the eldest one Jane, because it was such a short, tidy little name; but an aunt who was staying with her nearly cried, the bare idea made her so unhappy. You see, the aunt was very fond of Shakespeare, and wanted the baby to be called Ophelia, and there is a great difference between the sound of Ophelia and the sound of Jane; but the mother didn't want to have a baby called Ophelia, and didn't want to argue either, so she settled it by having it christened after the month it was born in, and everybody said how queer.
Once she had begun doing that, of course she had to go on; but luckily the stork didn't bring any more babies after the June one, or I don't know what would have happened. How could you call a baby February, for instance? These babies lived in Germany, and that is why the stork brought them. In England you are dug up out of a parsley-bed, but in Germany you are brought by a stork, who flies through the air holding you in his beak, and you wriggle all the time like a little pink worm, and then he taps at the window of the house you are bound for, and puts you solemnly into the nice warm cushion that is sure to be ready for you, and you are rolled round and round in flannel things, and tied comfortably on to the cushion, and left to get your breath and collect your wits after the quick journey across the sky. That is exactly what happened to April, and May, and June. They often told their mother about it, and said they could remember it quite well.
They were about five, and six, and seven years old in the winter week I am going to tell you about. It was the week before Easter, when it oughtn't to have been winter at all; but strange things happen in the way of weather in those far-away forests where they live, and after having been quite like spring for a long while, it turned suddenly very cold.