GOLLYWOG LAND

Evening Star, Issue 21974, 9 March 1935, Page 5

GOLLYWOG LAND

All the people who live in Gollywog Land are'either Gollysor Wogs, and all the Gollys are cousins to the Wogs. ' “I’m a bit tired of living in a land where everybody’s either your sister or your brother or your cousin or your aunt or you ■utlcl6. , said Tom Wog to himself one day. “ I’d like to have an adventure in some other land. He i walked about discontentedly, wishing for a change of some sort, but for the life of him he couldn’t tell how to get away. At last he talked it over with one of his cousins, Will Golly. Will was a happy, contented sort of person, and when Tom stopped him one day and said: .... “ Here, Will, wouldn’t you like to get away somewhere? ” he looked down at him in' amazement. “Why, lam getting away I he said. “ I’m driving Dobbin into the next road.” _ „ ~ “ And back again, I suppose? said Tom scornfully . . , “ Oh, yes, or course,” said Will cheerfully. Tom laughed. “ Oh, you don’t understand, he said. “ I mean, wouldn’t you like to_ leave Gollywog Land and get away into a new country? ” “My gracious, nol I should to scared to death! There might be all sorts of wild creatures knocking about, or I might lose my way hack, or—“Oh, well, I’m going anyway!” “You don’t say so!” said Will, making his round eyes even rounder in his astonishment. “ Thfe place I. want to go to is Picture Land—you know, the places you see in pictures that people paint on pieces of canvas like this I nave under my arm,” said Tom, “ but the trouble is, I don’t know the way.” “ Well, I should think the best thing to do is to make a picture of a road, and then it’ll be Picture road, and Picture road must lead to Picture Land. It couldn't lead anywhere else. So just put a gate in . the end of the road, walk through that gate, and—well, there you are: ” • As he walked away Tom thought about what Will had said, and the more he thought about it, the more he began to think that perhaps he was right. So at last he sat down, put up his easel, stood the canvas on it, took out his painting brushes, and began to paint a picture of a road with a gate at the end. When he had finished he couldn’t quite see how to get through the gate. Ha sat and thought, and thought, and thought, and then at last he said: “ Why, of course! ” Then, putting down his brushes very carefully, ho made a hole in the canvas just in tlie middle of the gateway that ne had painted, and gradually tore away the canvas to the right and to the left. And there was the ojien gate. Putting down the canvas on the ground, Tom stepped into the hole—and, lo and behold! there he was in Picture Land on the other side of the canvas! He walked swiftly along Picture road and just round a bend on the right he found himself face to face with a row of neat little houses. On the doorstep of one there sat a little Picture Girl, and in her arms she was nursing a gollywog! “Why, it’s the very image of me—or I’m the very image of it!” Tom thought to himself. He hid behind a small bush and watched the little Picture Girl play iug with the Picture Gollywog, until at last she grew tired of it and put it down on the step beside her. A few minutes afterwards she ran indoors. Tom waited for several minutes to see if she were coming back. But she seemed to be staying indoors. So, looking carefully to the right and to the left, Tom crept up to where the Picture Gollywog fay sprawling on the step and picked it up in his arms. “ After all. I suppose you are some sort of a relation of mine,” he said, “ and I don’t like to think of you being left out here in the cold all night, i’ll find a better place for you.” But just at that moment Tom heard someone coming along the passage inside the house. Quick as lightning he ran down the front garden, out into Picture road, round the bend to the left, and there in front of him was Picture Gate. Inside it ho stepped, and ill a very few minutes he was safely back in Gollywog Land. “ Well, this has been a wonderful adventure!” he said to himself. Later on that evening he discovered that the Picture Gollywog could talk his own language. “ I want to thank you, Cousin Tom,” she said. “ Are you one of our family, then?” asked Tom. “Yes,” she answered, “weren’t you ever told the story of Gertie Golly who grew discontented and tried to get away from Gollywog Land?” Tom nodded. “ Well, that was me. 1 managed to get away, but I couldn’t get back. Oh, Tom, home’s best after all.”-

“I wonder!” said Tom. “Oh, well, perhaps you’re right.” And no one in Gollywog Lana ever heard how the little Picture Girl, remembering her Gollywog too late, went out to find it. Tin. “Mummy,” she said, ‘I know I leit it there. No one’s been to ihe door since I came in, yet it’s wnat ever can have happened to it? “ I’m sure I can’t think, her mother replied, “ but perhaps it’ll be a lesson to you not to leave your things about. I r m always telling you you 11 lose them.” • . , Wouldn’t the little girl be surprised if she knew what had really happened. I suppose you don’t ever leave your toys about, by any chance, do you?