A TIDY GARDEN

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 9 March 1935, Page 10

A TIDY GARDEN

MODELS OF PERFECTION. The gardener was a tidy man. His lawns were models of perfection. Not a blade of grass was out of place, and bis clippers snipped and snipped at the borders until they resembled polished marble, carved into classical curves and corners. The little beetles scuttled away before him and buried themselves in the wild place that lay among the trees.

At the side of the lawn stood a summer house, a neat building hung with flower baskets and fnrnished with carefully dusted chairs. Lady visitors who were invited to sit there and feast their eyes upon the beauty of the garden did so with complete confidence, knowing that that tidy gardener had so prepared the place for them that their delicate frocks could come to no harm. The spindle-legged spiders hurried away before his broom and slung theilr webs between the tips of long grasses that grew beneath the trees. Only the choicest flowers were permitted to stand in the well-kept beds, each bearing its splendid name upon a neat tag. They were watered twice a day from a revolving spray, and were carefully fed with special food from a large tin. The little wild flowers with common names, or perhaps no names at all, had learnt from past experience that they were not welcomed in the tidy garden, and betook themselves off to the comfort of the wild stretch of undergrowth that lay between the interest of the gardener.

The small boy who belonged to the tidy garden thought it the most beautiful place outside of a story book that lie had yec found. He loved the soft stretches of perfect green, and pretended he was a rabbit, loppety-lopping across the grass. He pretended he was a father Tabbit, who must make a home for his family deep down in the ground, and spent all one afternoon tunnelling. It was terribly sad to find that the lawn was not intended for rabbits, and that it would take weeks to obliterate the marks he had made. So he pretended he was a father bear, who lived with, three little bears in the summer house. He fixed the chairs together to make a cot for the baby bears, and painted them white like his own cot in the nursery. All this, it seemed, was very wrong, and it took the tidy gardener hours to paint the chairs a proper green again.

He wasn’t allowed to pick the flowers, or even to walk on the beds in order to smell them; and, deciding that the beautiful garden was difficult for boys, he wandered away to the wild place beneath the trees. He walked with long, swishing strides, -without lifting his feet from the ground, and felt the grass brush like cool water against his knees. And. then he sat down with the flowers smelling sweet against his face, and each bloom humming and buzzing with tiny wild things. And then he lay flat on his back and watched the spiders weaving a fairy thatch above his head, and pretended he was a father spider living in a wonderful house of silk.

A Lot of Nonsense. (To be read aloud quickly.) The other day (and that’s the one following the one before) a hiker set off on a hike (not a bike), and that means he had to foot it; so as he had only his two feet he couldn’t make each step a yard, for that’s three. He journeyed towards the sea that he couldn’t see, and at last sat down to rest right on a parallel of longitude just where- it crossed a line of latitude, and never had the least notion on what he was sitting.

This busy fellow next boarded a bus, although he hadn’t even a. plank, then t plunged into a bank and received a I cheque, but that never stopped him-t. Indeed, it pnly helped him to go fasterf and go far, so that at last he the Land’s End, and you all knowf where that is, and what has to be then, don’t you? j A Pocket Miracle. ' It is probable that the United States police will shortly be supplied with pocket wireless sets. The whole device is contained in n small box which iits the pocket and holds, among other things, a miniature valve and tiny batteries. The policeman will also be provided with a pair of collapsible ear-phones, and the aerial will consist of a short wire stretching from the lapel of his coat. i When an alarm is broadcast from headquarters a tiny lamp in the policeman’s jacket will light up; this is the signal to listen-in. He will take out his ear-phones and, provided he is not more than three and a-half miles away, will be able to listen to any announcements from his station. Mistress: Why haven’t you made the tea ? Bridget: There’s none left in the caddy, mum. Mistress: But- why didn’t you say so before? Bridget: We had some then.