FOR THE LITTLE ONES

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 229, 27 September 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

FOR THE LITTLE ONES

THE WAG BY THE WALL. MAKING THE OLD CLOCK GO.

My Dear Little Friends,— I was staying for a few days in a country house with friends, when the family were thrown into consternation by the grandfather clock, which had lived in the hall with them for years and years, refusing to go. It had never done such a thing before. " The family oiled it, wound it up, coaxed it, shook it, but old Wag-by-the-Wall would not budge. "What a bother," they all said, "we must ring up the clock doctor from the village to come out and fix it." Now I have a great love for all clocks—they fascinate me—from the homely, useful alarm which wakes up lazy boys and girls in time for school, to the dignified grandfather kind I have just mentioned. "I_wonder if I could do anything," I thought to myself, as I lingered in the nail that drowsy summer afternoon. A big bumble bee flew in the open door and buzzed around, adding to the general drowsiness, and in the paddocks the baby lambs bleated, sleepily to their mothers. Then I began oiling and coaxing, when suddenly a funny squeaky voice close to my ear said, "Well, I do call that mean." 1 looked up and saw the queerest little elf imaginable perched on top' of the clock. "Yes," he continued, "you can stare, and you had better sit down, for I've quite a lot to say. Too surprised to answer, I sat down upon a chair opposite, "I'm the clock elf," said the small creature, "and a busy time I have of it, tick-tocking, tick-tocking these two hundred years, besides gonging eyery fifteen minutes, twice for thirty and three times for forty-five minutes, then striking the hour. Multiply that by two hundred and what do you get?" he said crossly. "Oh, please don't!" I cried. "I'm not good at sums." "As if that wasn't enough," he went on, "I have to play 'The Blue Bells of Scotland' at the hour as weli." "You must be Scotch to have stood it at all," I murmured. "If I do try to get a rest by running down, some busybody of a human comes and winds me up again. What a life! I ask you, how„would you like to go on tick-tocking and gonging and bluebelling for two hundred years?" _ • "I should hate it," I said sympathetically. "Anyway I've made it up with the big hand and we are going to , strike!" "But that's just what the family want you to do—go on striking." .] "I mean we are going on strike against going on striking," and the ! elf looked very wise. "It's very confusing," I murmured. "The big hand is just as full up as I am, going round and and never getting anywhere. We've downed tools for the last hour, anyway, and I hope that old clock doctor's car breaks down on the way." Vain hope, I heard the toot of a motor horn outside, and the elf, for all his boasting, disappeared inside the clock. "Yes," said the clock doctor, "we will soon fix it. I'll take its inside out and clean it." Poor tick-tock elf, I thought, how unpleasant for him. The operation must have been very successful, for inside an hour old Wag-by-the-Wall was talking again, gonging and striking and bluebelling merrily. And the elf? I can never be _Jrl quite sure if it was the elf I saw or //y } J~jf \*■ — just the big, lazy, humming, drum- fVj/)/aX ming bumble bee that flew into the hall that summer afternoon.