Hoffer’s Hay Fever

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 218, 10 June 1933, Page 19

Hoffer’s Hay Fever

The Smallest Dragon an the Murky Forest

One morning the trees in the Murky Forest woke to the sound of jabbering and scuffling—most unusual, for no forest folk lived there, and no birds built their nests on the branches of the dark and gloomy, grumbling forest trees. The tallest pine spoke: "Who disturbs the peace of the Murky Forest?” "Oouh,” said a small, scared voice. “Please, sir, it's me, sir—Hoffer, sir. I’m lost!” I

“And who may you be, small Hoffer person’’ “I am the smallest dragon, and I live in the land of ‘Where-you-please,’ with all my aunts and uncles, and other relations.” “Then why have you come here to break the silence of our melancholy? You have trespassed, and must pay the penalty ! Shooyah !I”

At the magic word the leaves fell from their branches, and whirled round and round poor Hoffer. They tickled his nose and tickled his ears, made him sneeze and cough, and squirm aud roll. They burled him in a swirling, twirling mass of leaves, drove him before them, unable to see, till he bumped his head against the tree trunks. Then the trees reached down their branches and swung the small dragon

into the air, rocked him until he was so very miserable that he didn’t mind what happened next; then all the grasses shot their seeds at him till he sneezed, and sneezed any sneezed. “Yahshoo!” said the tallest pine. There was stillness in the forest. The leaves hung on their branches, the grasses were still—only Hoffer moved’ slowly and sadly out of the Murky Forest, sneezing and sneezing.