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"Daddy, will you help me make
something special for Mum for Christmas? I don’t know what to give her,"
Holly begged.
He looked at his beautiful little
girl. Her golden curls were tied in pigtails with yellow ribbons at the
ends. She was wearing a pale yellow dress and a white cardigan over it.
"Sure, sunshine, I’ll help you make something. Why don’t we do a collage?"
he suggested.
"What’s that?" she asked, curiously.
"We can get a piece of wood and glue
all sorts of things to it, like pinecones, seeds, acorns, feathers, and
leaves. You know how much your mum loves nature."
"Oh, Daddy, that’s a lovely idea,"
she smiled. A thought came to her mind, "But it’s winter time now. Where
will we find all these things?" Holly wondered.
"I have a box full of wonderful
little things like that. Come to my room and I’ll take the box down from
the shelf," he said.
Holly followed him into the room.
The box was heavy and he had difficulty taking it down from the shelf.
"Wow, Daddy, that’s a big box. I’m sure we’ll find something in there,"
Holly giggled.
He emptied the box on the bed.
"Let’s see here, we’ve got some acorns," he said, handing them to her.
"Ah, there are some pinecones and seeds." He made a pile to the side.
"What’s that?" Holly asked, pointing
to a few long, brownish-red feathers. "I’ve never seen such big feathers!"
He picked them up and smiled. "I had
forgotten about those. Would you like to hear a story about me, when I was
a wee lad?"
"Yes, Daddy."
"One day I went outside to play. Oh
it was bitter cold. My mum made me wear a heavy coat, gloves, a scarf and
hat and of course, warm boots. There were woods behind our house and a big
pond. There were always ducks and geese landing in it in the summer,
splashing and quacking."
Holly giggled. "I like ducks,
Daddy."
"In the winter, the pond would get
ice. You know how cold northern Scotland gets in winter," he laughed.
"Brrrrrr," she said, rubbing her
arms.
"I went into the woods and I saw
something moving near the edge of the pond," he continued.
"What was it, Daddy? Was it a duck
that forgot to fly south?" Holly asked.
"I walked closer and saw that it was
a pheasant."
"A pheasant? Is that a bird?"
"Pheasants are beautiful birds with
long tail feathers and their necks and heads shimmer and sparkle in the
sunlight," he sighed, remembering.
"That sounds pretty. I wish I could
see a pheasant."
"There was something wrong with the
bird. I thought it had a broken wing. It should have flown away when I got
near, but it didn’t. It stayed still," he said.
"Did the pheasant have a broken
wing? That’s sad," she frowned.
"I saw that it was all caught up in
some netting. Bits of string were wrapped around its legs and body and it
couldn’t move. It was very week and starving."
"What did you do?"
"I walked right up to it and picked
it up. Luckily I was wearing gloves and a coat because it bit me. It was
frightened and thought I was going to hurt it," he said.
"Poor bird," Holly pouted. "You were
just trying to help it, weren’t you, Daddy?"
"I carried it back to the house.
Your grandpa came outside and helped me cut the netting off. I’ll never
forget the look in that bird’s eyes when it felt the string being taken
off. As soon as it was untangled, I let it go. It flew into the air. I
felt happy inside because I’d saved its life and now it could fly and eat
and live a normal life."
"Daddy, did you pull out its
feathers?" Holly asked, picking up one of the feathers.
"During its struggle with the
string, several of its feathers fell out. I saved them so I could have a
memory."
Holly looked at her dad. His eyes
were filled with tears. "That pheasant is lucky that you found it. Can I
have one of them to keep? I won’t use it for Mum’s collage, I’ll just keep
it forever so I can remember too."
"Sure, sunshine, it’s yours," he
softly spoke.
They spent the afternoon gluing
acorns to the wood. They went outside and gathered some oak leaves and a
few bits of bark. That night, when he went in to kiss Holly goodnight, he
saw the pheasant feather lying on her pillow, next to her face. Her tiny
fingers were wrapped around it. He wiped the tear from his cheek and bent
down and kissed her. On the table next to her bed was the collage they had
worked on that day. He smiled and shut the door behind him.
"Goodnight, Holly." |
