GOOD-NIGHT STORIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 118, 21 May 1928, Page 10

GOOD-NIGHT STORIES.

The Queer Little Plant with Ten Little Pockets. (TuM by BLANCHE SILVER for PETER PAN.) When Willy Bee discovered the stranger blooming beside the mountainside he stopped to chat. "Well, well, Stranger, welcome to these meadows," Willy Bee buzzed merrily. "I hope you will like ourfriends here." "Thank you, Willy Bee." laughed the lovely blossom lady. "This patch of leaves on the ground here is just the kind of stuff I like to grow in. I'm Mrs.. Laurel. Sonife folks call rtie Calico Bush because my blossoms look so much like a goods Called calico. People in Europe call me Kalmia. I don't know just why. What in the world is that you have on your legs there?"

"Why, my pockets are so full of pollen they are running over/' laughed Willy Bee. "Sometimes I think it's unwise to have pockets in one's legs. Yon can't carry enough .pollen in them. Well, that's one thing you plants don't have to worry about. You haven't any pockets." s

ns that it?" laughed the Stranger. "Well, I see you don't know much ifcbont lis Laurel Blossoms. Why, Willy have ten little pockets in every tiny blossom you see on my bush—ten little pockets, and everyone filled with treasures. I was just wishing I could send some pollen to my relatives on the other side of. the hill."

"IH take it over for you myself," said Willy Bee. . "I've never been so fat away from the bee hive, but I know. Mother won't care as long as I'm helping someone else. Will it be another plane just like you?" > . • "Just like me," replied Mrs. Laurel Plant. "Now come a wee bit closer to my blossom."

Willy Bee sailed down upon one of the pretty calico blossoms. His hind leg touched one of Mrs. Laurel's hair triggers. Bang, sounded in Willy Bee's ears. He sailed up quickly. "What's the big idea?" he demanded, shaking all over. "Shooting me? I haven't done you any harm."

Mrs. Laurel Plant was laughing so| hard she could hardly talk. "Why, Willy Bee, I wasn't shooting you. Come here now and let me show you something." Willy Bee hovered once more over the calico blossoms.

"You just snapped one of the wee triggers that holds in my pollen," laughed Mrs. Laurel Plant. "You see I have ten little pockets in every little blossom, those little pockets are filled with pollen. It only takes the slightest touch to release one of them. Your leg touched one of the hair-triggers and my pollen gun sprinkled you with pollen." "True enough, it did," buzzed Willy Bee merrily, glancing down at his suit covered with orange-coloured pollen. "11l take it right over to your cousin. May I come back again some time, Mrs. Laurel Plant?"

"Indeed you may any time," replied Mrs. Laurel, "and don't forget to tell your friends about the little plant with ten little pockets."

Willy promised not to forget, and spreading his wings, with a merry buzz, he sailed away to pay his respects to Mrs. Laurel on the other side of the mountain.