Finn's Journey.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 175, 25 July 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

Finn's Journey.

(Continued from previous page.) After a while a patch of pa'.e moonlight appeared just beyond the tree, and by its! light Finn could make out the shadowy trunks of trees, and the dark, swinging things which were the vines and creepers. Then he heard another sound, a queer wliispery singing which seemed to come from a very long away away. Finn pricked up his little pointed ears. His curiosity was aroused at once. What could it be? In a twinkling he was out in that patch of moonlight, peering this way and'stha-t, and listening his hardest. Then several things happened at once. Hordes of tiny shadows swept upon him, forming a ryjg about him in the moonlight. They chattered shrilly, shaking their fuzzy heads at him, and brandishing little spears right under his nose. Poor Finn! His eyes were j/opping wide open with surprise and fright. He had never even imagined anything like thi3. He peered closer at the shadows. They were tiny brown elves, with grass skirts, and feathers in their wiry black hair. They poked very red tongues at him, and made faces which gave him odd tingling feelings down his spine. They looked as though they would bite on the slightest pretext.

Finn was thinking rapidly. Ha was a brave little fellow at heart, and he knew he would have to fac» whatever was coming. So he stepped forward and said politely:

"Good evening to you. My name's Finn, and I'm from Ireland. Who are you?"

"Wow!" said the elves, or something' like it at anyrate. "Wow?" said Finn, doubtfully. "Shure, that's a funny name to —" But he got no further, for with- shrill yells they leapt upon him, bore him to the

ground, and climbed all over him. Finn was nearly suffocated, but his Irish blood was up. With a wild and fearsome yell he threw four or five.elves off him and sprang into the fight. "Wow!" he said, fiercely, orabbinjr one of them by the hair, "I'll teach you what an Irishman can do, Mr."Wow!"

Dozens of little brown hands tugged and scratched at him, but gradually he fought his way out and took to his heels out of the foreet.

It .was hours later that a wearily limping'little leprechaun in a tattered green coat clambered on board the ship, and so subdued was he on the voyage lionie to Ireland, that the sailors declared that "the ghost" must have left the ship.

When the potato patch came in sight at last. Finn simply galloped, so glad was he to see it. He took off the tattered remains of his verv smartest suit, cast them out of the door of his little house, and got into bed. Drawing the blanket ur> around his chin, he murmured—"Begorra! But 'tis finished entirely with wandering I am!" i

But as he said it, there was a twinkle in his blue eye that makes me doubt him. What do you think?