GOOD-NIGHT STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 108, 10 May 1927, Page 11

GOOD-NIGHT STORIES.

DORIS HAS A CHAT WITH THE LITTLE MEADOW LADY (Told by BLANCHE SILVER for "PETEE PAN.") "Oh! Oh! Oh!" Doris cried, as she spied the lovely red dovere growing by the roadside. "What lovely, beautiful blossoms! I don't believe I've ever seen them so large and. beautiful before. What makes them so lovely this year, Happy Giggles ?" she asked the wee elfin by her side. "Aren't they just lovely?" "Thank you, little girl," laughed a soft voice before the elfin could answer Doris' question. "That's what all the birds are telling me, too; that they have never seen my blossoms quite so beautiful before. I guess I'll have to give Billy Bumblebee and his relatives the credit for my pretty blossoms. Don't you think so, Happy Giggles?"

"I don't know but what you are right, Mrs. Clover," replied the elfin. "You see Doris lives in the big house at the end

of this road, and she has seen your blooms before. I have never seen them quite so lovely myself. So the Bumblebee family has been helping you? I'm mighty glad to hear that." Doris laughed. "Now, just tell me please, how a bumblebee can help you to have lovely blossoms? Isn't that funny?" and Doris laughed merrily. • meadows, he promised." "Then I suppose he told all Mβ friends, and they all came for honey, too," laughed Happy Giggles. "Just what I did," buzzed Mr. Bumblebee, as he lighted on one of the lovely red clovers. "And I guess Mrs. Clover is very glad that I did, too," he buzzed merrily. His great heavy body was so heavy the wee mouth at the end of the red tube opened and Doris and Happy Giggles saw Mr. Bumblebee draw out the sweetened juices from the honey-well without any trouble at all. "Dust me with all the pollen you want. Mrs. Clover, and I'll carry it to your friends." Mrs. Clover laughed merrily and dusted Mr. Bumblebee so thickly that he could hardly fly.. "One doesn't mind helping anyone who is so willing to help others," laughed Mrs. Clover. "Xow, if you'd like some of my blossoms, help yourself, Doris. I must get busy and send more honey to my honey-well." Doris picked a handful of the lovely large red clovers and ran home with them for her mamma. "I don't mind telling you," replied Mrs. Clover. "When I first came to this meadow to live I had no callers but the butterflies. Now, don't mistake me, I love each and every butterfly, that sails over the meadows, but for all the help they gave me they might just as well not have sipped at my honey well. You see butterflies and bumblebees are about the only fellows who have tongues long enough to reach the bottoms of my honey well, they are down so deep in the bottom of each of these little tube-like petals. The first year I was here the butterflies tried to help me, but the only place I could leave any pollen was on

their tongues, and just as sure as they would draw their tongues out they would \ scrape the pollen off again. That way 1 I never could send any pollen to my I relatives, and I suppose that was why I ". ' never received any from my cousins. That year all the clovers were puny looking' and not at all pretty. Then one day a bumblebee stopped to ask for a sip of honey. I gave it to him, and by the ! time he withdrew his long tongue I had ' dusted his whole body with pollen. At ! first he looked angry]; but Trhen I asked him to take it to ihy relatives across the '