This is her birthday,
  Spring’s little daughter—­
  Spring’s little daughter—­
  This is her birthday.

  Wake now, wake now,
  All you Forest Children,
  Wake for her birthday
  And tie your sandals on.

When he saw them he cried, “Hurrah!  Happy birthday, Ivra!”

At his cry all the little windows in the little moss houses opened and there were the tousled heads of the Forest Children, their eyes blinking sleepily against the gilded morning light.

“Thank you, thank you,” Ivra cried back to the youngest Forest Child.  “Hurry and follow.”

Before they had gone on their way five minutes more the Forest Children were up with them, tugging at buckles and sandal strings as they ran, begging not to be left behind.  Soon they came to Big Pine Hill, a hill deep in the forest with no trees but a giant pine at the top.  The Wind Creatures had built a slide there by brushing away the snow and leaving a broad track of shining blue ice.  Up under the pine were sleds enough for every one, made all of woven hemlock branches.  They needed no runners for the ice was so slippery and the hill so steep anything would go down it fast enough.  Ivra’s Forest Friends must have worked all the day before to make those sleds—­and now her shining face and clasped hands were reward enough.

She was the first to try the hill.  She threw herself on her sled and down she flashed.  At the bottom she tumbled off, and still on her knees shouted up to Eric and the others at the top, “Oh, it’s splendid!  Come on!”

Then the hill was covered with speeding sleds.  The Bird Fairies had none of their own, for they were so little they might have come to harm on that hill.  But they had just as good a time for all of that, catching rides with the others, clinging to shoulders or heads or feet as it happened.

Every one was there, even the Snow Witches who had not been invited.  They came whirling and dancing through the forest almost as soon as the sliding had begun.  Ivra gave them glad welcome in spite of their rough ways and stinging hair.  For she, the only one of all who were there, liked them very well and had made them her comrades often and often on windy winter days.  And they, who cared for nobody, cared for her.  “She is not like anybody,” they explained it to each other. “She is a great little girl.”

But they would not take Ivra’s sled as she wanted them to.  They had not come to spoil her fun.  Instead they raced down the hill behind her or before her, pushing and pulling, their stinging hair in her face.  But that only made her cheeks very red, and she did not mind them at all.  Then she tried sliding down on her feet, with the long line of witches pushing from behind, their hands on each other’s shoulders.  That was the best fun of all, and almost always ended in a tumble before the bottom was reached.  Though the others avoided the witches as much as they could they admired Ivra for such hardy comrading.