FOR THE CHILDREN.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 116, 17 May 1924, Page 22

FOR THE CHILDREN.

TE TOKAROA, OR THE FAIRIES' BRIDGE. A LEGEND OF THE WAITEMATA. (By RHONA BODLE.) Once upon a time there dwelt, on tho southern shores of the Waitemata Harbour, a tribe of fairy folk under the leadership of Matiri, the fairy chief. Maori fairies strangely enough were > white, not brown like the Maoris. They lived in the shady bush in mossy treetrunks, where the searching rays of their cruel enemy, the sun, could not find them. They drank the crystal dew on the leaves of the puriri trees, and ate the honey from the kowhai, and shellfish from the mud under the Shining Waters. Altogether they lived happy care-free lives. One warm summer evening Matiri called the old fairies of the tribe to him ! and said, "To-morrow night will be my birthday. Order a grand feast, bigger than any that has ever been held in Fairyland. Also I have something of great importance to tell you and the rest of my people." All that night the fairies toiled, preparing food for the feast. Some of the fairies dug in the mud for pipis, which they gathered into their little kits of magic flax which grew on the branches of the trees. Others gathered honey from the kowhai and the starry clematis, and the rest collected the sparkling mountain dew in ht. D e scallop shells. The next evening everything was made ready. The tui and the bellbird were trilling their sweetest songa when Matiri took his seat on the mossy root of a tree. After the feasting was over, the chief rose to his feet and seid in his clear voice, "My people, over on the other side of the Shining Waters is a beautiful land of flowers, where little creeks tinkle between the trees and ferns with a sound like tui's liquid notee, and where j the Maoris will never disturb us with their cries and shouts as they hunt our friend the kiwi. All this was told to mc by the wise old owl, who has seen and heard all this of which I speak. We have no canoes, my people, we cannot swin_, our wings do not have the strength to fly so far, but we can build a. bridge of scoria from the mountain, i'ou must remember that if the bridge is not built in one night we may not _ross over." "We'll build a bridge," they shouted eagerly. Then spoke Matiri, "Go and gather flax. Instead jf sleeping during the day make kits to :arry the scoria in." "Yes, yes," assented his subjects with .nthusiasm and they went and gathered Jax. i The next evening, a little before i moon-rise, they assembled under the jiant Pohutukawa overhanging the : _hining Water, and received their orders ' < rom Matiri. All the fairies tripped i :o the mountain and brought back 11 ■tones and rocks to make the bridge. Even the children worked as they sang I; Lo cheer each other as they carried ; i icoria down to the sea, where they built • he long stone bridge out over the water. 11 -.11 through the night they laboured ! ( steadily. The fairies working near|j he end of the bridge could see the ti- j j .fee and the kowhai, the kauri trees and i • he clematis, and the ferns and the rata ) in the other side. They could hear the , .ell-bird pouring out soothing music, • j jut best of all that came to their tired I ( ars, was the tinkling of the creek on j ■ .he pebbles of that envied land. I. "Courage, my people," called Matiri. I -j 'But a little while before it is finished." , "Yes," answered a despairing voice , imong the workers. "But a little I, vhile before the sun rises, 0, Matiri." ' Matiri looked to the east. There he •ould see a pale glow growing gradually , irighter. Then he looked at the moon. 1 'Oh how pale she is," he thought. "Can ye finish our bridge?" * The other fairies, too, had seen the ' eastern glow. They thought as they *' vorked frantically, "How near that • icautiful country is, yet how far away." ' The children stopped singing and all ' dopped talking as they put their renaming energies to building the bridge. Suddenly Matiri shouted, "Flee for 1 rour lives. The sun has risen and the j jridge is not finished." ' The fairy folk, full of disappointment, l ibandoned tbe scene of their labour, and ' led to the shelter of the friendly bush. After their defeat the fairies disappeared and the Maori warriors saw them 10 more at their revels, but to this day

1 remains the Bridge of the Fairies called by the Maoris, Te Tokaroa or the Long Rock, which at low tide can be seen from the city shore reaching almost across to Kauri Point. THE MAN WHO HUNTED FOF GOLD. There once lived a man and his wife on a farm near a pretty wood, by the side of which flowed a rippling brook. The farm was small, and the man and his wife worked very hard, tilling the fields and tending their fowls and pigs and .goats, and taking their produce to the market. They had one son, of whom they were very proud. The son, whose name was Colin, did not like hard work. He hated the farm, and would sit near the stream on summer J days fishing, or wander about in the woods, dreaming idly of the days when he would be old enough to leave his father and mother and go away to far lands to seek his fortune. He told his father and mother of his dreams and plans, and they, thinking that he was wiser than themselves, and being fond of him, worked harder still so that he could have money to pay for education in the big town some miles away. At last the 'boy grew restless and weary of his quiet country home, and one day told his mother that he was about to set out to a foreign land, where it was said that men had only to dig up the ground, and find gold. "There will be no need for mc to plough and sow seed and to wait and work and reap the harvest and thresh the corn, as you do," he said, "for gold is there for the digging, -and so is silver, and I am going to discover these riches for myself." His parents were very sorrowful, but, thinking him clever and of superior intelligence, they gave him most of their I little hoard of money, and he set out on his quest for treasure. He wrote home to his parents now and then, telling them of his many adventures and often asking for more money for, though he was always on the point of finding gold and silver, somehow he did not manage to discover it just where he expected. At last his mother fell ill, and a message was sent to the eon, Colin, asking him to return. Every day his mother asked if he had arrived, until one day a message came to say that he was sorry, but that he had heard of a wonderful place a few hundred miles further on from the town where he was staying, where there was a large quantity of silver hidden in the ground,, and he was hurrying away to dig it up. His mother, sorely disappointed, asked no more for her son, and next day she died. A short time later the father also died, and the farm now belonged to the wandering Colin. He received the news of the death of his parents. just at a time when he was destitute and penniless, for the sliver mine had proved a failure. He heard of another place where there was- said to be tons of gold, and he only wanted a sum of money to enable him to set out on this new venture, so he sent a letter to the agent in his native town and asked him to sell his little farmstead. This was promptly done, and he received the money and again set out for the land of gold. He did not find any, for others had got there before him, and there was not enough to make many men rich. He had spent all the money that the farm had brought, and be began to feel lonely. He had an attack of illness, and when he recovered, he set out, trying at last to find work. Xo one wanted him in the city, so at last he tramped and trudged about until he came to his native place. He had determined to go and ask the people who had bought his father's farm to allow him to work in the fields. He found the place greatly changed. Scores of men were busy near the road that led to wood, and he was surprised to find a railroad. Asking many questions, he learned that the man who had bought the little farm had discovered gold near the little stream and had dug until he found a rich vein. He was now a wealthy man, and would not sell the land for all the money men could offer. Colin had wandered round the world in search of wealth, and it had been at home all the time, if he only had had the wisdom to look for it.