OUR STORY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 54, 25 August 1939, Page 6

OUR STORY

MR SQUIRREL'S HUNT

Patty looked out between the white curtains of her bedroom window at the yellow leaves upon the horse-chestnut tree. They made a little golden patch above the garden path. The horse-chestnut tree 'was the first one in the garden to turn yellow and tlrop its leaves. Already they had made a bright carpet about the foot of the tree. Patty was get. ting ready to rake them into a pile to help daddy clean the path.

Along with fulling leaves and brown horse-chestnut time, canv; school bells and meeting old friends. School was to begin the next week. Patty had been looking" iip her reading books and papers ever since she had jumped out of bed that morning. They stood now in a neat little pile on her table beside the window. ''Only one thing was missing'' sh? told mother when they were looking them over. "The key to my pencil box. •" Patty had worn the bright little key on a red ribbon about her neck all the year before. But the very last day of school it had slipped out of sight. "The ribbon broke or I laid it somewhere," she had said. She tried to remember. But it was no use. "Maybe it will turn up during llr; summer,'' mother had said. And so thc3' h a <l left it.

But although both mother and Patty had kept their eyes open 110 bright little key had turned up. "1 guess I'lJ have to have a new one made or buy a new pencil box,'" Patty told mother as she slipped into her apron down in, the kitchen to make ready to go out and rake the leaves.

The sun outside was warm as & •V-'ovc. The garden seemed to sleep and rest sifter its summer's work. Patty hummed a little song to the pull of her rake along the dirt path. A fox-scfiiirrel hopped across the grass, and jumped to run up the chestnut tree. ''Chit! Chit! Chit!'" lie spoke to Patty. ''These are busy days for me'' Patty stood watching him bite at tlie stem of a horse chestnut. £>oon he would run down and hide it some where among the bushes. As Patty looked up at him a flash of something higher among tin- branch;,; of the tree caught her eye. Patty look, ed again. Then she saw a surprise

something. Above Mr Squinvl in a fork of the tree was a birds nest. rr he leaves had hidden it all but now it showed itself.. It sat like a little bowl of mud ami grass in the fork of the branches. So that is where all those babv 1 ob ns lived this summer!'' P.:ttv Then the thing t H ii: • <ir; t caught h.-r eye ii. sh-ti ; g, Ul , like a tiny 'ight there amn/.g the

branches. Patty looked again. Then she gave a little'cry of surprise. "My pencil box key'."' she cried. "Way up there in the tree!" Sure enough there on its red ribbon hanging from the very bottom of Mrs Robin's nest there in the fork of the horse chestnut tree was the bright little key that Patty had looked for all summer. "Mrs Robin liked the red ribbon," laughed Patty as she ran to tell mother. ''It's the colour she chose for her own waist. That night when Patty and Daddy came out to see the golden leaves that she had raked into a pile beside the garden path, Daddy brought the ladder along. He climbed up to where the nest rested in the fork of the tree and cut the red ribbon to IcJ the key drop. It fell with a flash and rang against a stone in the path at Patty's, feet. ''If I knew Mrs Robin's nest number down, in the south-land," she said to Daddy t "I would write her a letter and thank her for keeping m.y key all summer. "And I must gather a pile of acorns for Mr Squirrel to thank him for showing me where it was just in time for school."