THE CASTLE PLEDGE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 November 1925, Page 20

THE CASTLE PLEDGE.

I promise to smile every time I can, and to chase all the frowns into the dark cave, where the Smile Giant will kill

them with his Magic Sword Happiness.

Mv Dear Smiles, —

You know I love trees, and they are our very dear friends. I have something new to tell you about them. I went for a wal in the bush the other day and this, was my discovery. iere tv a a paper and twig dance. I’d never seen one before, so I perc ie on the arm of a tree friend, repeated the moonshine magic- words and became invisible. “We’ve seen the world, the lands, the seas; we’v e been in factories, in shops, in ships, in trams, in niotoi lorries, " e ' Pieces strange machinery. Come, some, Ire free!”. Thus spake the p.eces of paper who. danced about at the; foot- of a state y “Who are you? Yet you have given the correct password to enter our forestry,” the grand old tree replied. “'Patience, and I shall tell my story. In another forest a, wasp once made his nest — 1 ” ~ “Whati’s a wasp? He does hot interest me,” mterrup e He does,” said the paper. “He is a little creature resembling a bee, but. he has a longer body. -Children read about him and have°pictures of him in books, too. Well, the wasp’s nest was made from Mts of decayed wood he had gathered together and mixed up. He and his children after him lived like Idas for a lo„g"ine, until one day a priest found the nest. Poor wasps; the nest was taken, and others, too. “Why?” “The wasp’s- nest was really a paper nest, and this man usedv the nests for paper after he. had mixed some sawdust and shavings with them. The result was very good paper. Later, other men ega to make paper from wood pulp, until to-day millions of trees are cut into logs and go into a mill, which turns them into pulp. Look at that stump quite near to you. When you were just a stripling, do you not remember my growing there? Do you not remember the children who came to play round me? Then one day a man earn with axe and saw and I fell. You tried to help me, but weie not strong enough to put me back. “Yes! yes; I remember. What happened to you when that bullock-team took you away?”

with thousandsI—no, 1 —no, millions of other logs I 'nent to« a big factorv. We all went into a -place where we were squeezed' up. Then all the gum a.ncl other unnecessary ingredients were taken out of our pulp, which was washed, and put into bleaching tanks to be made white. Our small fibres were next pressed together until thej became long sheets of paper. The drying rollers pressedand polished us, and we came out ready to be seat to a printer’s. Here we were printed, put through more machines and rollers until there s hard V any of me left at all. I am so glad that those children brought me home to-day.” With this the paper took up its dance again. When h,e lay down to rest I slipped down from the tree to look more closely at him. H e was just like this paper you are reading. Look at it, and at brown paper, and you will' see the fibres, but you will find it less easy to believe that your very best shiny picture-story, book was once a" tree growing in a forest. Rags and certain grasses, are also used in the manufacture of liigh-elass paper.

The word “paper” comes from the Egyptian papyrus, a kind of bulrush, from which these people made their paper. There is ever so much more to tell you about paper, and I’ve said nothing at all about printing. It must wait. I have heard people say there are too many newsoapers in New Zealand. But, the more papers a country sees, the more books it reads, the be the intellectual standard of that country. Thoughts on paper mean energy of brain. Without paper t<o put them down on, many, valuable thoughts and! ideas.would be lost to the world. Paper turns a nation from a savage state into a civilised one. I’m glad I went to the bush that day, for I’ve something else to thank the trees for, and we shall all be thankful to the little wasp who made Ins nest of wood-paper and so gave the world so much. Now is it bedtime? Love from, — i iSMILE QUEEN.