GOOD-NIGHT STORIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

GOOD-NIGHT STORIES

MISTRESS MAY LEARNS THAT] OFTTIMES THE FAULT-FINDER HAS FAULTS. (By MAX TRELL.) Do you find fault? Do you say: "Hum, she's too fat!"—or "He's too thin?" Do you? You shouldn't, my dear, you really shouldn't, for one of these days you will be punished. And can you guess by whom? By your own shadow. It happened in the case of little May. It can happen in your case, too. Little May was a nice girl. Except for the fact that she found fault with others, she had no faults herself. Now this constant fault-finding of hers pained her shadow, whose name was Yam (which is May turned around,

"If only I could break my mistress of this habit," Yam would say to, the others. * But they could only shake their heads. What could they suggest? It was useless to advise Yam to try to speak to her mistress. Real children don't, as a general rule, hear their shadows when they talk to them. It was useless also to tell Yam to write her mistress a letter. Yam had once tried, but the pencil had been so heavy that she had almost broken in half trying to lift it. It isn't so pleasant to be broken in half, especially for a shadow who must always be sure to be •whole so as not to go two places at the same time. Then Yam went around asking advice of others. She asked the tin soldier and the doll and Mr. Jack-in-the-Box, who always sprang to answer, and the thermometer and Prince, the dog, and the canary and a few other things like books ami matches and the ice-box, ■which usually don't answer unless they're asked in a very particular way. But though they all did answer, they all answered the same. The answer •was: "We don't know." Poor Yam. She sat herself down on the edge of the bedstead after her mis-

tress had gone to sleep and thought and thought. It was very late at night and therefore just still enough for thinking. Bye and bye the moonlight came streaming in through the curtains and she got up and stood against the wall so as to get out of the way. Being a shadow she never liked to stand in the direct way of any kind of light. And while she was thinking, her mistress was dreaming. She was dreaming about herself. She was dreaming that instead of other persons being "too small" or "too fat" or "too this/' or "too that," it was she herself who was at fault. So unpleasant was the dream that she opened her eyes and Consternation! There on the wall she saw the exact image of herself. But what an image it was! It was too large —much, much too large. She didn't realise that it was the moonlight which made her shadow look so large. She turned away, dreading to look at herself any longer. To her dismay she now found her shadow on the back wall and this time she was short and fat—much too short and fat. And wherever she looked there she saw her shadow Yam, who not knowing what to make of her mistress' strange actions, had kept springing from wall to wall to see what she meant to do. And the moonlight streaming in through the fluttering curtain made her take all manner of queer shapes. From that night on little May was a different girl. She never found fault again. And Yam was very happy even though she didn't know who was responsible for the change.