Laughs And Smiles

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 124, 19 February 1938, Page 9 (Supplement)

Laughs And Smiles

Noise Like Bagpipes.

Last Saturday we went, to Masterton to hear the I’ipe Band and to see the clans marching. It was ff great contest, and they all marched beautifully, swinging their kilts and playing their bagpipes. They all deserved first prizes. Some had come some distance and been up very early. When we got back home mother was hunting for her leather bag. and we heard the sound of bagpipes in the distance, it seemed Then we looked out of the window, and there was Smiler marching up and down the back-yard, head erect, checks blown out and making a noise which was an imitation of the bagpipes. Round his waist was a striped towel to imitate the kilt; from his shoulder was another towel, and wrapped up in another towel was mother's leather bag, the handles just appearing near his hand, tied on to a long stick. But how we laughed and laughed.— Dad’s Cobber (11), Carterton. Walls Have Ears. When I came back from my holiday Daddy said. “Next time you go on your ’ holiday, please take Tiny, your cat, with you, because he mews around for you while you are away.” To-day I went to the gate to get the paper, and I was looking at the cartoon on my way back. "Dad Dad 1” I shouted, “Mr. Paterson must have heard what you said, because he has gone on holidaj- for three weeks and taken his cat with him!” Then they all laughed.— Smiler (8), Carterton. “Tip-up” Ducks. Have you ever seen ducklings on the water? I’m sure'you have, and don’t they make you laugh and laugh again when they put their funny little heads so suddenly under the water and leave their feet above the water? When I first saw them do this I was walking by the Avon in Christchurch, as it ran through the gardens; about, me was beauty, and then. gravely along the

bank came six round little ducklings. Just as gravely they entered the water. Suddenly, as I watched, one tipped up just like a "tip-up” truck, I thought. Soon I was laughing delightedly as one and then the other “tipped up.” Now, when I think of that place I think of it as something in which beauty and laughter were combined, and is that not a very rare thing? After all, what is beauty, if, somewhere, there is not lurking laughter?— Lilac Lady (16), Wellington. Funny Things. I laughed when my two kittens were having their drink of milk at the cow bail. One had no tin of milk, so he quietly put his paw across the other kitten's face and pushed it awtfy from the milk. Then he drank himself. I laughed when one of my pen-friends wrote and asked me to send her some New Zealand rocks, as she is making a collection of rocks. Yes, there were lots of laughs this week, big ones, little ones: too many to write them all down.— Peter (16), Havelock North. - Easy Laughter. What would the world be like without the merry ring of children’s laughter, the deep-throated chuckles and hearty laughs of the older people and that funny, dear little gurgling laugh of a baby? / Happily it does not take much to make me laugh. I thoroughly enjoy Mr. Paterson’s cartoons! and, before setting off for school, always take a peep at that part of the paper, to put me in a good humour for the day. Of course, at times I laugh when I should not. As, for instance, on the historic occasion when my brother unwittingly threw a berry which found a resting-place on his father’s nose. Mr. G. K. Chesterton, lan Hay and P. G. Wodehouse cause me to chuckle endlessly.— Annie Laurie (15), Wellington.