GREEN CABBAGE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 14

GREEN CABBAGE

■; : Hilda Hare was one of the sweetest jj fereatures you could ever meet. She *< Wasn't exactly pretty, but she had a •| Charming disposition, and she manag- ;; ed her home well and her children i; well, and, best of all, she managed her ; husband. '

•j ; Now that, since I know Henfy Hari; eld Hare remarkably well, was somei thing to be proud of. He was eertaini Jy the best-looking animal in the wood , where they lived. Indeed, he was ""beautiful. You should have seen him. —?°r instance, winter and summer, wet i'&S* toe, he went out in a tail-coat trimgS»ed with gilt buttons. The high, stiff ; A collars he chose set his silky whiskers 't,* ff io perfection. His big bow ties '^•were made in any bright material. Hilda was marvellous at securing bar- ; J?ains which he sent to his tailor. His (smartly-cut waistcoats were striped. jln his own opinion, and, as he thought, in. the opinion of everybody else, there never been a hare born with bet'i;ser shaped legs than his own, so he JiJ^ore tightly-fitting trousers which V jehowed off his calves to perfection. •.«■«■ Hilda never disturbed him in the ;'fcibrning until after the children had kjT^one to school (they had nine boys s^and three girls), and then she took up Jiiiis; shaving water and turned on his .i siath.' . V

*.}\L Tllis went on ft>r years, and then VJEenry Harold began to eat too much. -i4-)ne morning he was,strolling through H the woods, swinging his cane, 'when lie ijr'.'e'ame across a fine cabbage patch. He ■■>J*3ls hungry,.and he snapped off a fine, iTSfat leaf and chewed it. It was so li.good that he had another. That', so Pto speak, was the end of him. He •.-- to that patch every morning. He was firm with himself and said that "ie would eat one, and one onlyj but from, two stalks a day it got to three stalks a day, until finally I really shouldn't like to tell you how many he ate at once. And then, going to the back door one morning to shout to him to come to his dinner, Hilda ■was surprised to see her elegant husband sitting on a mound of grass eat!iing for all he was worth.

;'.,.:; "I thought you were up to some- »~ thing," she said when he came in. ■KjA'l've been noticing for some time now s l'—low fat you've been getting." :T:: "Fat! " Henry Harold roared. "Me He stood up straight with his farms' down at his sides anu his head .*--.-»"6 h '. When he tried to squint down ii s*t his feet he was amazed to find his [tummy in the way. "It's the summer," he said lamely. "Most people put on no end of weight in the summer. I wonder I haven't done it years v:ago."

"I am sure you know best," Hilda »;•'Mid" sweetly.' "Here's your lunch all !:. icady for you." |ii "I don't want it," he said huffily, ;'.. fea he banged the dining-room door and Jj etumped upstairs. He stood in front /, of his wardrobe glass for a long time. £ Indeed, Hilda was right. His legs, in•T, stead of being so perfectly rounded, S; "were getting a little podgy. And ;ji could, it. be true that he had become W\ bo fat that the ends of his braces :=> showed under his tightly-stretched iv -waistcoat? . Yes, they did. Henry ■!=:, Harold sat down with a bump. What ji' could he do? Of course, he could give .'?;,. Ip the cabbage stalks. He tried to •~~T>e firm with himself for another half:Jhour, and then, while Hilda was singing with the ironing, he picked up his ynmbrella (he thought it looked like lain) and darted out. lie was so vain that he really could not believe that he was getting enormous. And every following day, after his visit to the cabbage patch, he looked at himself anxiously in the glass. He could see very little difference in such a short space of time, and he wore his braces looser, and hoped that Hilda would think that he had taken notice of what ehe had said. Ana then one day a sad thing happened. Henry Harold could not get into his own house. As usual, he had Bpent the morning on the cabbage patch, when he pushed open the front jfloor he found that he could get no "■further. Hilda was more sympathetic than he had dared hoped that she would be. She hurried to him, and without a smile on her face got out the gardening fork and~ dug the door larger. "He Blithered in, highly discomfited. "Whatever am I going to do?" he eaid, wretchedly. . . "You might take some exercise," Hilda suggested. - . ■■ ■■ "Oh,' I could never do that.. It jrould kill me." ...,-. "What nonsense. 'For instance, you Might turn.'the mangle for me and do the hard washing and scrub down the hall. There's absolutely nothing like it for keeping an elegant figure.?' • And so Harold Hare turned the mangle and did the hard washing au< scrubbed down the hall and soon was delighted to find that he could eat just as much young green cabbago as ever he wanted. "My dear," said he, as, he stood the mirror some weeks later, adgusting his tie. "My dear," he said as he slipped easily into the coat of his perfectly-cut dress suit, "I-.certain-ly showed extraordinary wisdom when I married you."

A JOLLY WORLD TO LIVE IN. .

DEAR EVERYONE,— Look at "Something to Make." . . . Isn't a jolly idea? Nancy is a wise little person who doesn't let things go by for ever. She knows that Times will come whe n she will want ever so badly to remember ... a party time perhaps when Truly jolly games and tricks and sweets to make just have to be discovered ... and so she makes a Treasure-trove of such things in a little old exercise book. Every week there's something . .. something precious that mustn't be lost ... so out come the scissors and her very own paste pot and they are her's forever. It's great fun making your own books like that. If you want an extra-specially one you can do it this way: Buy some full sheets of brown paper . . . coloured is pretty but more expensive . . . fold it to a big book size, tie a ribbon down the centre, fold and then cut the leaves. Your cover can be just as interesting as you make it, and your title anything at all. There you can paste all your precious clippings in. neat columns and illustrate them with tiny pictures cut from old magazines. It's the cosiest of wet day jobs. I know, 'cause I've done it and done it, and still have some of the precious volumes tucked away with my treasure things. Yours, FAIRIEL.

I Here. I I You. ask me how I know that Spring has come. i | / cannot say, \ | Except perhaps I felt her gently pass. I 1 Her dainty feet scarce touched the ground, 1 = And yet, the grass she lightly trod i 1 Is emerald strewn, § | And just before I saw tlie evening star, | | * When all the world ivas hushed at vespers hour, t ! i / heard — or else maybe I dreamed 1 heard — I | Down in a distant copse, the first blackbird. \ & • • k