FOR THE CHILDREN

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 21 October 1911, Page 3

FOR THE CHILDREN

THE FIRST APPLE PIE

The princess was looking up at the appletree, when—plop ! down fell an apple at her feet! it was not a common, ordinary apple, or it would not ha»-c been growing there, but a golden pippin. "Oh dear !"~ said the princess, picking it- up. "I hjtpe you haven't hurt your'self."

"They dared me do it," said the a,pple.—"the other apples, you know. They said I should be afraid to let go my stalk and jump. And now I have done it, and I'm sorry, for someone will want to eat me, and I am not nearly ripe enough!" "I will hide ypu," said the princess. "Where?" asked the apple. "I don't know," she answered. "But it shali be somewhere where no one will think of looking for you." And she ran into the palace to look for a hiding place. But whenever she opened a- bcx or a cupboard the appl* cried, "That won't do. "Someone will be sure to find me there !" The (princess went all over the palace, upstairs and down, looking for a safe hiding-place for the apple: and at last she came to the kitchen. The chief cook was rolling tout paste t.ith a golden rol-ling-pin to make a roly-poly pudding wath golden syrup in it for the princess's dinner. She was still looking about for a hid-ing-place, when cue of the silver saucepans boiled over, and the chi-_f cook left off rolling the paste to attend to it. The instant his back was turned the .princess picked up a piece of paste and wrapped thi- apple up in it. "No one will think of looking for you there," she whispered. Then she saw that the door of an oven, cut of which a, cook had just taken a tray of tarts, was open, and she popped the apple in, to hide it twice over, and went away feeling quite satisfied-. ~ , , ~ "Dear me, what is this,? ' asked the 'king at dinner, as he caught sight, of a round brown thing on a dish. "I don't know, vour Majesty, was .he answer. "Hhe Vnitf ccok said he found it in the oven." "It looks rather like a baked suowoa'.l." said the king. "But it smel.s "ood Give me a knife, and I'll tee. ° "Mv dear," said the queen, "pray be careful. Suppose it should go atf juddenly and blow us up." "Pooh." said the king boldiy. Who "is afraid?" And he cut it in two wrtn ■a single stroke of the knife. "Why. dear me," he said, "it aooks like ah aspple. And yet it can't be. j! or how could an apple get inside— -— "If vou please, papa, "put in the irincess" "I think it must b e the apple I had. It wasn't ripe, you know, and I I was afraid scmeone would eat it. But perhajps it won't mind much now :t is cooked. And I think I should hke a piece. v . The aiext- dav the king said: "Tell the chief cook to a«k the princess to be so good as to show how to hide s:me more apples. - " And that is how apples pies were first invented.