Children's Corner

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 15, 4 September 1930, Page 4

Children's Corner

JINKS.

It was Tommy's birthday, and , he was just six years old. He woke very early and heard the birds- singing- and saw the sun peeping through the curtains. ''Come out, Tommy," sang the ■birds. . He lay and listened to them for a little" while and then jumped, out *oft bed and looked out of the -window. I Everything looked so jolly, that he made lip his miiuLto dress without anybody's . help and go - out into the garden; but it took him quite a long time to get ready, for the buttons seemed to have grown in the night, and the buttonholes to have shrunk. Still he .managed to fasten one or two, but his. socks were inside out, and Jie f org^| Jo^ptti^on: .a^col^ lax or brush his hair.; [. Very quietly \& . opened his door-and rept downstairs. Down in the hall he could hear • the grand-father clock ticking, "tieivtock, tick-toek," but as he passed the kitchen he heard a, new sound He stopped ayjd listened. It was .a soft whimpering sound, and- for a minute Tommy was frightened; Then he turned the handle of the door and went in. He almost shouted with delight at wh^, he saw;-for.there in a, box; on the floor sat the dearest little puppy he. had ever seen. His coat was rough and curly and all white. except for one black '-patch over one eye. As Tommy came in he stopped whining and looked lip, and his little stump of a tail began to wag. "Oh, you darling," cried Tommy picking him up and laughing when the little dog licked his face. "I wonder where you came from?" "Oh, I know," he said, putting the puppy down and jumping round him, clapping his '^ands softly. ' ' You are my birthday present; I've someone to play with at- last." ,; As though he understood, the puppy scampered round the kitchen, and Tommy picked him up and put him in his box again. Then he sat down to think. "What shall I call him?" he said to himself. He thought of all the dogs' names he knew, but could not decide. * • '* I know, you shall choose your own name," he told the puppy, who sat looking at him anxiously. "I will say all the names I <i&n think of, and when I say the one you like, you must bark.'' He said the names slowly one after the other, but the puppy sat quite still looking solemnly at him. "Oh, well, never mind,, come along with me and we will have high jinks together." As he said tnis the puppy began to bark, and scratched at the sides of his box trying to get out. "Hurrah!" cried Tommy., as the puppy rolled out over the side. ;' I '11 call you Jinks. Come along." He opened the door mto the garden and went out, and Jinks followed. . The garden was a lovely place for a little boy and a dog."' They raced up and down the paths and round and round the lawn, till they were tired. It was while they were' resting that Tommy thought of the wood. It lay at the end of the garden just over the fence. Tommy was not allowed in the wood. Nurse talked of traps; and even Daddy talked of a man called Keeper, but he forgot all about this. He wanted to explore with his new playmate, and as soon as he thought of.it iip he got. , "Come on. Jinks, we are explorers going into an unknown forest," he said, lifting the puppy through the fence and squeezing through 'after him.

All the little wood people had been up for hours,-and as Tommy stood there he could hear them moving about in the bushes. Suddenly a rabbit ran across the path, and Jinks, pricking up his ears, was after it like a shot. "Come here. Jinks," shouted Tommy, but the puppy was too excited to listen. Off he went, wondering what the funny little! furry thing was that moved so fast." He had never seen anything like it before, and wasn't going to lose the fun now. . - .. .Tommy rdn too, but soon lost sight of Jinks. At first he was afraid he had lost him, but pre-: seiitly heard a scamper through the bushes and, Jinks came bounding up to him, panting, with his tongue hanging out and looking very pleased with himself. '•'Well, come along, we'd better go home to breakfast," Tommy .told him, and started down the path he had just come up: but they had-run so far- that he fonnd %%Msl^ : ?^^Y*sfo$ <& way- to turn.'; '. • \ -■; ''■:;■■' . ■■. - ... . \ After wandering about tor a ?< long time Tommy guessed he was lost, and I'm afraid he was nearly crying. After'all, he was only a littlaboy.; , ■. , _ " t musn't cry on my birthday, Jinks," he Wd, sitting down to rest on a fallen log, "else I'll cry every day for a year, and then wouldn't .they think I, was a baby:" V ■ - ■ ' :'■ :' : v Jinks sat clos&vto Tommy, every, now and i^etf-^fickmg his hands. %q 'was tired after his chase through the wood, .and quite happy lying in a patch of sunlight that came through the trees. Presently he began to see that something was wrong, and tried very hard in his little doggy way to understand.

This new playmate kept saying, "We are lost, Jinks." What did lost mean, he wondered. He had never heard the word before.

Presently, as he felt rather hungry he thought it time to go back, so getting up, he wagged his tail asking Tommy to start.

Tommy got up and Jinks began to run nome the way they had come. You see, being a ;dog, though only a little one, lie could find his way back quite easily; but, of course, he couldn't know that Tommy didn't know the way too,

So he ran on, looking round every now and then to see if his little friend.was following him.

"Why, Jiriks^ I believe you are taking me home," Tommy said—

then -with a shout, "There's the garden and Daddy looking at his roses." He left the path they were on, and ran through the bushes towards the house, and this time._ Jinks followed. They were nearly out of the wood when he heard a yelp of pain and saw the puppy caught in a trap. The poor little fellow -was trying to.get' out, crying all the time. ■V Daddy," shouted Tommy, "come quickly." Mr. Grant, hearing his little son's voice, came running into the wood and found Tommy really crying this time, trying to ■free the little dog. "Oh, Tommy," he said reproach fully, as he knelt by the trap, "I thought you had been told never to come in this wood?" "I know,'' sobbed Tommy. " Poor Jinks, will he die ?■" "I don't think so,"' said his father as he forced open the trap, an gently lifted the little dog.. His back was bruised* where the cruel trap haxl caught him, and he lay very quiet *as the two walked to' the house- • :>.' 1 Mrs. Grant saw them as they I came: up "the/ garden. j = Many happy returns, Tommy! Why, what's this 1" she a&ded. i/'Grying oil your birthdayi" .Then she saw the puppy, and ask,ed what had. happened. / b No 'bile wanted any breakfast —Jinks was put on a cushion and Mr. Grant 'phoned to a doctor wild knew all about animals, and asked Kirn to come at once. It seemed hours to Tommy before he heard the doctor's car, and he ran out to meet ttie k,indfaced man, saying, "Please doctor, make Jinks 'better, please do!" "All right, little man," said the doctor. He touched the puppy with very, gentle fingers, and then looked up with a smile. "He'll be running about in a day or two, little man," he told [Tommy. ''These are nasty bruises but they will soon be well." Tommy never forgot that day. "I'll never go where I'm told not any more," he said to his mother, "it isn't worth it." For two or three days Jinks lay on his cushion, and most of the time Tommy sat with him. Then one day he got up and walked rather stiffly across the room. Tommy, held his breath as he watched him, but having sniffed all round as though to find oxit

where he was, the piippy went back to his cushion and went to sleep. It was nearly two weeks before Jinks was quite well, and then he and Tommy made up for all they had missed by a glorious day in the country with Daddy and Mummy. They found a wood where there were no traps, and Jinks chased rabbits and barked at birds, and then he and Tommy explored tiil they were tired. As they went home in the car Mr. Grant, turned round to see why they were so quiet,,. and there was Tommy fast asleep in his mother's arms, while Jinks snored happily in his.