FOR THE GIRLS

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 308, 29 December 1928, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOR THE GIRLS

THE SPIRIT OF SUMMER.

COMES WITH THE NEW YEAR,

My Dear Girls, I never feel that summer is really with us until the bells have rung in another glad New Year. We have waited anxiously for summer's coming; she is with us now, and has flung down her jewels with generous hand. With brush dipped in azure she has painted sea and sky. True, sh<T lias covered our spring's sott green carpet witli her brush of sienna and brown, and stolen and hidden away the little white blossoms of the manuka. But she has kindled her fires in the treetops we love. The pohutukawas throb and bum with a thousand gems. Ruby red, they are reflected below in the water's sapphire rim. The breeze stirs them and they fall down, fragile fairy things, sailing out on seas of blue. What is more pleasant on a hot summer's day than to sit under a jolly old pohutukawa tree and drink in the honey-sweet perfume of the flowers and dream and drowse and weave fancies? Lulled by its sweetness, the other day, 1 saw: A little brown bird there up m the tree, As sleepy as ever a birdie could be. He crooned, I'm not sleeping, I'm up in this tree. And somebody's sitting up here beside me. And rosy and sweet, as the blossoms you see, Somebody sat away up in that tree. And thought, I'm not dreaming, I'm up in the tree, And a little brown bird is sitting with me. And that's just how I feel on a summer's day! One does not dream long, however, for you are awakened by a sea carnival; happy boys and girls are splashing in the briny, gay and full of colour is their water garb, laughing, chattering, true children of Nature—borne upon the breast of the Sea Mother, they make holiday. On the beach, sheltered by Japanese umbrellas, sit t'o mothen, watching lovesome, brown babies roll in the sand, and kick sturdy young legs in ecstasy, and the atmosphere quivers in the summer heat. But we children of these fortunate isles love it, for we aro true tun worshippers, and cannot have enough of it, and so the happy holiday time goes on untouched by care. And though all you girls are looking forward to the New- Year and all it may hold for you, we cannot let the old year go without a word. In my home we always made a little ceremony of it, and bade good-bya to the old year by gathering round the piano and singing lustily—just ono vsrte is all I have room for: Old Year you must net die. You came to us so readily, You lived with ue so steadily. Old Year you must not die. Such joy as you have seen with us, Old Year you shall not die. I'd love to write lots more, n but there's just space to wish you, GuOi^^ dear girls, just the good old wish— fl, \/» jb^\^Sr A Happy New Year. lA'^^^