STORY OF TUPPENCE,

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

STORY OF TUPPENCE,

She was so very small. The-children all loved her just because she was so tiny, and so cuddly, and so deliriously snugglcsome. You could not give a name to anything so small; giving a special name to anyone seems so important as this small kitten. When she first wandered into the garden where the children played she had a face like a pansy, with milky blue eyes that blinked inquiringly. And she was just the size of Tuppence. .So that is. what the children called her for ever after. • One day Tuppence went leaping and scampering over the lawn in chase of a leaf from the plane tree. The wind j tossed the leaf over her head, and when ! she sprang to catch it, it drifted back to the ground just ahead of her. When she touched it with her velvety paw it made a little crackly noise that sounded like a chuckle. This alarmed Tuppence so much that she took several steps backward and arched her back until it was the shape of a U., During this pause the leaf gave a little crisp crackle that ! sounded like "Ha, ha," and next moment it had whirled up right over the fence. Tuppence sprang after it, and was just in time to see it flutter back toward the j tree from which it had evidently fallen. Up the tree went Tuppence like a flash. But she found herself surrounded by thousands of leaves all so alike that it was impossible to distinguish one from another. And then, as she gazed about I her, she saw that all the leaves had faces; they were really little brown j gnomes, and elves. They kept dancing all the time, a:nd whispering secrets to one another. "I wish I knew what the leaves are whispering about; I can't understand a word," exclaimed Tuppence,' feeling lonely and a little frightened because the whispering grew louder and louder, and 1 the leaves moved so fast that she felt quite dizzy. When she turned to climb down from the tree she found that she was Very much higher than she had imagined, and the leaves had closed in behind her in great swaying curtains which had come alive with little grinning faces that chuckled and whistled, and whispered terrible secrets to one anotlir. Poor Tuppence was just about to gve a piercing "mieuow" when something tapped her gently on the nose. Trembling with ; fear, she looked up and saw a beautiful green and yellow butterfly. "Do you want to know what the loaves are saying?" asked the butterfly. "Yes, please," said Tuppence. She wanted to say tha.t all she wished was to get down on to the ground again, but was afraid the grinning leaves might hear her and would know how frightened she was.

"Do as they do," murmured the butter

"But I oannot prow on a stalk, and cannot chuckle, or even laugh," replied Tuppence. But by this time the butterfly had fluttered away. Next moment a bee came bumbling by. "Do you want to understand the leaves?" he asked, "Yes, indeed I do," replied Tuppence. "Well, imitate them," murmured the bee as it flew off to work. "But I can't look like a leaf, I'm the wrong shape," replied the bewildered kitten. Just at that moment she slipped a little and nearly overbalanced. As ehe swayed lightly, rocking gently in the wind, she caught a few of the leaves' whispered words. "Of co use," she exclaimed happily herself, "now I know what I must do to understand the leaves. I must danco with them!" So the kitten danced with the leaves, keeping time with the. breeze, swaying, trembling, fluttering; and ae she danced the whisperings were quite easy, to understand.

Presently Tuppence grew too tired to dance any more, and was just about to give a sad long "mieouw" of sheer weariness when one of the little green leaves whispered to her:

"If you want to go home, old Brownie is here ready to take you. Just catch hold of him, shut your eyes, and, say, 'Whisk me by the whiskers.'"

To licr delight Tuppence recognised the old brown leaf she had been chasing in the o-ardei.- It was now murmuring in little* crackly chuckles beside her.

So she just tupped Brownie gently with her velvet paw, and whispered, "Whisk me by the whiskers," and the mext moment she found herself safely back in tile garden where the children were searching -for her in all kinds of places, calling 'Tubs, puss" as they tumbled about among the bushes.

Tuppence did not tell the children a word about her adventures, but let herself be petted and "stroked, and very eagerly lapped up the saucer -of milk she was .given. Which is usually the way with kittens.