Little Folk

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 133, 2 December 1922, Page 18

Little Folk

BABY PERIWINKLE AND

BOY PURPLE

[All Rights Reseirved.]

Ho. 21,

(Written for "The Post" by Edith Howes.)

Baby Periwinkle ■walked round tba come? to aea what the seaweed was -like in the next pool. .That was just what hie mother had told him not to do. "Stay in yoor own pood," was her advice when tho child-ran, -were leaving her to look after themoelves. "Here we have g!811 ''! °^ Bea' weed and we we {airly safe. You never know what enemy may lurk round bho corner. And whatever you do keep away from whelks. They are your worst enemies." Yet, after all that good advice, Baby Periwinkle walked round the'corner. He> crept eagerly along in hie tiny snaushelL Such an adventure, going off by himself like - thic! Perfectly delightful I Yet he liepi" a sharp look out with his little black eyes. Not a whelk was to bo seen. The pool lay shallow and still, •with dumps of deMcious seaweed growing about it. He explored it; a few chitons and limpets and baby fishes, all harmless Eke himself; not a. whelk I Aha I Mother v/as wrong, quits wrong. This was » splendid place; he would stay hem So .there he settled, feeding on the delicious seaweed day by day and growing fast. And he never noticed a oluster of little white huts in a crevice between two rocks. If he had notioed them he wouldn't have known them to be dangerous, wise though he thought himself. They were cube-shaped huts, made of strong, white parchment, standing side by side on. the rock. They had neither doors nor windows, so it was hard to see what could be the use of thorn. Yet somebody lived in theiji, for at the very moment that Baby Periwinkle entered _ the pool there was a scraping and rasping going on inside the roof of more than one of the little huts; somebody inside was trying to get out. The rasping went on. Presently a hoi© was made in the first hut, then it was torn wider and wider, then Boy Purple came out through the roof. He was a tiny whelk, only just hatched. His delicate snail-shell was as yet quite transparent ; his pretty, creamy body _ and bright, black eyes showed through it as glainly as if it had been made of glass, [ere and there a narrow purpla tingo showed in the shell's transparency.

Now it could be seen that there were four others like him in the hut, all just hatohed from the egg. They $n& &9 inside walls of ths hut -were all tinged and . Bplashed with purple dye, for they wore of that family of whelks .who for this reason are called the' Purples. The dye is in thoir bodies, in their ess cases, in their shells.

Boy Punple stood on the roof and looked! about him. "Come on!" he-called. "It ia splendid out here." So the others followed him out, and they, all ran about and explored the rock and found tiny things to oat. When they were tired they orept down into their little hut' again and! I rested. ;

So for some days' the hut w«s their home; then one by one as they grew bigg&r and more bold they -wandered away and did not return. From the other hute, too, the babies -wandered out, and Boon thoy all stood empty. Most of them crept down into the pool beyond, for that way the rook was smooth and easy, but Boy Purple clambered up the rugged way and came into the pool where Baby Periwinkle was. Here the two lived for months before they mot. Perhaps that was not strange, for Baby Periwinkle hunt? feeding in the seaweed bushes most of his time, while Boy Purple crept about the rocks and in and out the crevices. They met on the smooth sea-floor in the middle of the pool, each creeping on his broad snail-foot from opposite direotions. Both had grcrrt-n sunprieingly, and their shells were bigger and stronger and; opaque. Baby Periwinkle had a hard, stony door, green and white, and rounded/ like a cat's eye; Boy Purple had a thin brown, oval door of horn. He had, too, a groove in the lip of his shell in whioh his siphon lay. ( With his siphon he oiiuld! draw in -water over his gills and let it out again while bis mouth was otherwise engaged. Baby Periwinkle had no siphon. 0 how nice you smell!" Boy Purple oried. "How delicious you small 1 And I>m very hungry." Baby Periwinkle said nothing. Swiftly he pulled in his head and horns and soft snail-foot, pulling his stony door tight shut. "It doosn't matter," said Boy Purple, "I oan reach you however tightly you shut yourself up." His door was' widely open, his head and horns thrust out. JJe came closer, held Baby Periwinkle with his strong apail-foot. From between his horns he pushed out his mouth; it was long, pale pink, supple, and rather like a pretty and very tiny elephant's trunk. In its rounded end was his coiled file-tongue, Bet with thousands of s'trongt, hoofked 1 teeth. Placing the extended mouth against Baby •Periwinkle's shell, he began to move hin tongue round and round, round and round, rasping, cutting, slowly boring.

Baby Periwinkle iras helpless. To move away he must put out his soft foot, which would be at onoe 6eized upon by this savage enemy. He could only lie still, w-rule that terrible rasping went on. So his mother was right after all I Oh, why had he not listened to her warning? Why had he walked round that fatal corner? Boy Purple did not loosen his hold. All day and all that night he filed and filed, till-the shell was pierced. Then through the hole he pushed his trunk-like mouth and bit by bit he ate .up Baby Periwinkle, drawing- in his rich, delicious juices. The Ihird day had com© before the meal was v i i 'At th.° end Babr Periwinkle's shell la.y empty in the pool, a npn,t round hole drilled in its side to tell the tragio tale.

'Boy Purple crawled aws.y,.very ful] and very happy. "I love perrvrinkle," hs said, and orepfc into a crevice and lay there lor a fortnight before he needed 'another meal. - \