THE SULKY MOONBEAM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 125, 28 May 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE SULKY MOONBEAM.

"Hullo! What lias happened?" squeaked Merry Mouse peering out of his hole. f, Didn't you know ? " said his brother Happy. " The Browne have gone away, and the house ie empty." "And there's nothing to play with?" asked Merry a little sadly. " Not so much as a piece of cheese rind." "What a shame! " Just then a moonbeam came skipping into the room. " You may play ' Hide-and-Scek' with me," she invited. " But there J s nowhere to hide," objected Happy. " Oh, well/ , said the moonbeam sulkily, " of course, if you don't want to play " And she sprang lightly on to the wall.

"We do," the mice cried. " Come down and we'll play with you."

But the moonbeam. tQok no notice. " Serves them right! I won't go down! " sho thought. " Nasty disagreeable crea. tures! " And she crept up the wall till she rested on a little brown clock which was hanging there.

"Goodness gracious! Whatever's that?" squealed Merry staring at the clock.

" Don't you know, eilly ? It's a clock. I expect they forgot to take it away with them. Oh, couldn't we play a lovely game on it if only we'could get there?"

" Yes, but how can we ? " They both sat down to think. "If we called the others and all stood on top of each other, I think one of us might almost reach it," Happy suggested at last.

"And if you brought that piece of cord which you gnawed off the window blind "

"And fixed it to the chain, we could all climb up it. I'll fetch it at once."

In less than forty seconds he was back again, trailing the piece of blue cord behind him. One after another the other mice came popping up through the hole in the floor. In quite a short time they were standing up against the wall, one on top of the other, and Happy was scrambling up their backs holding the cord in his mouth. He could just reach the weight on the end of the chain, and he crawled up it, looking here and there for a place to tie the cord. Just behind the face of the clock was a small gilt ring. "It looks almost as if had been put there on purpose,"-he thought as he fixed the cord on to it.

Then lie went to sit on the weight while the mice caught hold of the cord, each in turn, and started scrambling up it. He chuckled as he watched them. They looked like a string of sausages. Suddenly there was a whirring noise. The mice came down on the floor with a bump, one on top of the other, whil« the weight went whirling up into the air so quickly that Happy nearly fell off it. As it was, he knocked his nose against the wall and his tail against the pendulum. And the pendulum started to swing backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And the clock began to whisper, " Tick-tock, tick-toc.k."

" fioodness mo!" cried the tiniest mouse, pushing his way out of the heap on the floor. "Was it an earthquake?"

And the biggest mouse, who had been to school and knew quite a lot. answered. "We've wound up the clock."

"Poor thing! It must be quite lonely hanging there all by itself. But we'll come back every night to wind it up."

"And some day I expect the Browns wljl come back to fetch it. This is the best game we've ever played! " cried Mcrrv as tTiey went home.

And the moonbeam, who had been quite forgotten slid down off her perch and went away.

"I'll never sulk aprain," she thought, "because it's no fun sitting all by yourself when you might be playing with the others."