The Primrose Ring

The Primrose Ring is the Fiction Short Story Book. The book tells that would it ever have happened at all if Trustee Day had not fallen on the 30th of April — ^which is May Eve, as everybody knows? This is something you must ask of those wiser than I, for I am only the story-teller, sitting in the shadow of the market-place, passing on the tale that comes to my ears. But I can remind you that May Eve is one of the most bewitched and bewitching times of the whole year — treason enough to account for any number of strange happenings; and I can point out to your notice that Margaret MacLean, in charge of Ward C at Saint Margaret's, the flower-seller at the comer of the street that morning with his basket full of primroses. Now primroses are "gentle flowers", as everybody ought to know — which means that the faeries have been using them for thousands of years to work magic; and Margaret MacLean bought the full of her hands that morning. And this brings us back to Trustee Day at Saint Margaret's — which fell on the 30th of April — and to the beginning of the story. Saint Margaret's Free Hospital for Children does not belong to the city. It was built by a rich man as a memorial to his son, a little crippled lad who stayed just long enough to leave behind as a legacy for his father a great crying hunger to minister to all little ailing and crippled bodies.