COG STORIES

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6809, 12 January 1929, Page 14

COG STORIES

ME. APPLESEED HAS A SALE. Mr Applcseed, the hedgehog, was having a sale in his shop. Everything was to be sold off cheap to make room for new toys before Christinas. Mr. Applcseed was very excited. He was running around with his collar oil and his beautiful little cherry-coloured vest unbuttoned. Up a ladder one minute and under the table the next with only the tips of his slippers sticking out. Then a pot of paper roses fell down on his head and he knocked over a large jar of red and blue marbles with his elbow. “Tut, tut, tut,” said Mr Applcseed. “Michael, my boy, come quickly.” Michael ran in from out front of the shop. He had been Tinging a bell by the sign. Big Sale Everybody Come Lots of Fun.

Michael was a bashful white mouse who did odd jobs for Mr Applcseed. When he w-asn.’t working he lay under the mulberry bush and made little bashful mouse-poems. But Mr Applcseed kept him hopping most every minute. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” Mr Applcseed kept whispering to himself, and they hurry, hurry, hurried till everything was Toady . Then Mr Applcseed buttoned up his vest and combed his whiskers. Michael brushed the mulmerry juice off his upper lip and shined his shoes. “Are we all TCady?” Mr Applesced looked around the shop at all the neat piles of handkerchiefs and rubber balls and mittens and spoons and green feather dusters and jars of pickles and strings of beads and sticks of candy, and all things to please birds and small beaeties.

Michael opened the door. Three squirrels and a cricket and a hen who had been leaning against it, fell inward on the floor. Mr Applesced picked them. up . and brushed them off. Then everyone came piling in—mice and birds and muskrats and bunnies and flies and two kittens and a teddy bear. Tho shop buzzed and business was good. Mr Appleseed stood on a chair and shouted, “This way, this way —peanut butter and sugar buns —garters and knitting needles —everything cheap —Come buy! Come buy!” Everyone bought and bought and Michael did up the parcels in purple wrapping paper. A beetle came and set up a stand outside and sold waffles with maple syrup. They smelled so good that everyone bought one and so the beetle earned enough money to buy her little boy-beetle a sled for Christmas. It was late at night before everything was sold, down to the last green gumdrop and a pair of long yellow gloves which a sparrow bought. Then Mr Applcseed sat down on a barrel and Michael leaned against the broom.

“Very successful indeed,” said Mr Applesced looking at tho bags and bags filled with pennies. Ho blew out the candles, one by one, said goodnight to the snail who made her home behind the cracker jar, and then ho locked the little blue door and went off home, happy beyond words. But Michael Mouse took tho lady beetle’s arm and they strolled away singing together—little shrill notes that trailed behind them like ribbons.