"APPLE PIE OR CUSTARD"

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 94, 22 April 1933, Page 20

"APPLE PIE OR CUSTARD"

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(Original, by "Lassie.")

MAEJOBIE ELIZABETH sighed with puro contentment as she snuggled . down into bed. She felt far too wide-awake for sleep, this small person with the blue-grey eyes and rosy cheeks. Her glance roved with, ■ pleasure round the little bedroom that was her "very own." Gay golden, crocuses in the wallpaper, curtains, of apple-green silk, and her special treasures of books in a row near the bed. The bed itself was the object of particular care. As a smaller girl still, when learning to make a bed was a nevr adventure, she used to turn into a very " 'citing' wild animal, who pounced on sheets and blankets and tore them apart most ferociously. Aud then she would become a kind-hearted fairy who would fit them together again once more. Even now, she loved to hoist the mattress on one shoulder like a sack of treasure, and carry it outside for thp sunshine to make it light and puffy. As she turned on her side, rubbing one foot up and down to feel the smooth coolness of the sheet, she could just see a picture hanging near the door—an illustration from one of her favourite fairy tales, "The Eeal Princess." And' she smiled to herself as she thought of the way the woodcutter's wife was so sure the maiden was a Real Princess and not an impostor— by placing one dried pea under the sixteen feather mattresses on the great four-poster bed, to see whether her guest would feel its presence and have her rest spoilt thereby. (Now Maijorie Elizabeth herself had rather the sad fault of not making her mind up firmly enough -when a decision was needed—which was a pity.) She turned again, much more drowsily, this time, and was just on the borderland between sleep and waking, when a little voice, somewhat muffled, roused her, coming from above. To her dismay, she found she could not sit up to see more clearly, because something very soft, very warm, and yet very firm held her down. There, just above her chin were piled the sixteen feather beds from the fairy tale picture. A blue one, a pink one, a striped one, another of many-coloured patchwork, and many more —but poor Marjoric Elizabeth, was in no mood to admire them now. Again the little voice spoke, and this time she realised it was coming from the very top of the pile out of her sight, and that the speaker was tile tiny figure of the woodcutter's wife herself. "And why, pray, should you be so ready to laugh at me because I was sure I knew a Eeal Princess from a false one? Is it not better and more considerate to know one's mind, and be able to give a ready and definite answer when necessary!" And Marjorie Elizabeth thought of the many times when she hadn't been able to say "Yes" or "No" because she couldn't make her mind up. In a very small voice she answered, "Indeed, it is. And I AM sorry I laughed at you, truly I am. I didn't mean to be unkind. DO please let me show you how much I mean it." ■. She struggled to throw off the feather beds and sit up, and then the most surprising thing happened! In a moment the feather beds had disappeared, and so had the woodcutter's wife! She looked around her —there was the picture just as usual. She could see it plainly now, for moonlight was streaming in, and a little breeze fluttered the curtains at the window. She sat there a moment, a quaint little figure, in the midst of the rumpled blankets, thinking. "Yes," her thoughts ran, "the woodcutter's wife was right. And tomorrow, if I'm asked at dinner, 'Apple pie or custnrdl' I won't say, 'Either, please.' And it is evident that lying on.my back with my plait doubled under my shoulder is proof that I, too, am very like the Real Princess." With this, she turned her pillow over, snuggled down onco more, and in about two twos, was sound asleep. And when the Man in the Moon looked in for the last time before he went to bed himself at daybreak, she hadn't stirred so much as an eyelid!