FOR THE GIRLS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 162, 10 July 1926, Page 25

FOR THE GIRLS.

THE GOLDEN LAND OF MAKE BELIEVE. A LETTER FROM WENDY. " Auckland Star " Office. My Dear Girls, — I expect you were wondering where your special corner is coming in this page. I was simply thrilled to bits, when the Editor said I might write to you also. For, like the walrus in the Alice books, 1 have just been dying to talk to you of many things, if not exactly " Ships and shoes and sealing wax, cabbages and Kings." I always think Mr. Carrol's Alice is a little like Wendy, don't you?—so motherly and sweet. Well, about the " things " I want to talk about. In this page we hope to have just the happiest times together; we are going to have competitions, and I hope to be able to tell you about lovely new games for your next party, and I want you to write to mc and tell mc all about yourselves and your interests, and if you give mc your address I will drop you a line if it is something special, or else I will slip an answer into the " Mail Bag " column for you. What a tremendously exciting thing it is to be a girl in 1926, isn't it? Girls have cast away their sombre old brown chrysalis that poor grandma just had to live in, and have fluttered out like beautiful bright butterflies to astonish the world. Girlhood's crowded hour is here, you stand with all your beautiful youth upon the mountain top, you may reach out with both hands and take what you will. What are you going to do with your wonderful freedom? No, I don't mean to be maiden auntish or preachey, but in this wonderful age of aeroplanes, motor cars, wireless; this age of rush and rush and bustle there seems so little time to stay young. Now, in this page we mean to take Mr. Barries " Peter Pan " for our model, and, like him, we are going to positively refuse to grow up. We mean, if we can, to call all the little fairies back, which speed has sent packing, and linger a little longer, and even be a little foolish together, in the " Golden Land of Make Believe." But if you are a very modern and up-to-date miss, you will think us rather silly and old-fashioned, and won't be bothered with us, I expect. We shall be sorry for that, because there are really a Tot of old-fashioned things in this world that are lovely, and which we can't possibly modernise. Babies, for instance they are oldfashioned enough, goodness knows—yet what bundles of fascination they are, and how you all run a mile to see a new one. It's the same old baby really, just as old as the hills, but ever so new and lovesome. Well, to get back to some of the "things" 1 want to talk about.j I am going to ask the Editor if he -will, a little later on, give a prize for girl* under sixteen for the best New Zealand fairy story. We want very much to cultivate in every girl and boy a love of the literature of your own land. Now, a short time ago, Mr. Pember Reeves, the New Zealand author, whom you must have heard about, came over here to visit the land he lived in aa a boy, and he was simply enchanted with it, and said in all his worldwide travels he had never seen a land so beautiful. He thought it was rather a pity more was not written in story form about the legends and fairy tales of our lovely New Zealand. So there is a chance for you all. He also said he had never seen such beautiful, intelligent and healthy boys and girls as the young N. Zedders. This i> a bouquet for you. For what do you think our New Zealand 'would have been like in the Long Ago without its fairy folk? The Maoris, who are a picturesque and poetic race, peopled their hills, forests, and lakes with the " fair people," as they called them. There were water kelpies, and wood elves, bush fairies and taniwhas, and the tinkling silvery sound of their fairy music was often heard floeting clown the bush-clad hills and over moon-lit lakes. Water kelpies have an alluring sound to mc. I'm sure you are all dying to begin a story about them right away. There are little books you can get at the booksellers about the bush folk and fairies of New Zealand which are quite worth saving up one's sixpences for. So we are going to believe in fairies, aren't we? So clap your hands, like Peter said, all those who believe, to save poor Tinker Bell. Ah! That's right. Thank you. I hear just thousands of hands clapping. The world's a Jolly old place, isn't it? Good-bye till next week. Don't forget to write.

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