THOSE SMALL BOYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

THOSE SMALL BOYS.

(By Nettie. Harrison, 39, Ardmore Road, Heme Bay. Age 16.) Max and Clive came to visit us th r other day. Max is five years old, and Clive is three. Such limbs of mischief you never saw. As soon as they had been here five minutes Max found his way to the washhouse, and cut his linger on Dad's sharp leather knife. My hat! Didn't he scream! While we were bandaging the hurt finger Clive knocked the paint tin over, and, of course, splashed his clean white sajlor suit. Well, we locked the wash-house after taking the precaution to put the axe and gardening tools inside, and sat down to enjoy afternoon tea. The boys were good for the while they ate their cake. After we had,, washed the afternoon tea dishes we strolled into the garden. There were the boys busily engaged in "gardening." Clive was energetically slashing down Dad's coveted sweet peas, and Mum's roses also came in for their share of the slaughter, while Max "grew" them in amongst the tomato seedlings. After a.good hard slapping and scolding tho boys were put on a double bed with instructions to go to sleep like good boys. After an unnaturally long silence Mum peeped in the bedrqoin. They had Sis's valuable pearls strewn over the quilt, and "pjtty" chalk markings on the wall. Mum told them to go outside, and gave them each an old picture book to look at, with the philosophic hope that they would be really and truly good for a time, We went into the front room, but,were not fated to enjoy peace for long. Yells of children and terrified squawks of hens, punctuated with splashes of water, came to our , eai's, We rushed into the bathroom to find Max and Clive endeavouring to "make nice and clean and white" the Black Orpingtons. When the hens were restored to tl)<yr pen and the bathroom cleaned up, the boys' mother decided it was time tp take them home. Beyond Max jamming Give's finger in the gate, .nothing untoward happened in getting the little monkeys off the premises. ' • , We got a letter from the boys' mother to-day, saying that when going home she noticed Clive's pocket unusually bulgy, and when told to empty out the contents several pieees of chocolate cake came to view. Mum wondered why the lid was off the eake tin, and half the cake gone. Those dreadful boys!