FOR THE CHILDREN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18173, 19 August 1922, Page 8 (Supplement)

FOR THE CHILDREN

7 LIZZIE LmTET. 'si BMTH iHOWIS. (All Bights Reserved.) r . There is often an odd one in a family, and Lizzie was the odd one in the Limpet family. The others; soon after they were hatched and hal crept out from their little egg skins, settled down comfortably. They made their shallow homes in the racks and lived in them, enlarging f them as theythemselves grew bigger. At night, when devouring sea birds were asleep, they crept out to the seaweed beds and feasted, then returned, each to his own little home. But Lizzie was different. She wouldn't settle down. She wouL.h't make a home and live in it. "No," she 7 said, "I don't see why I should. I am not going' to sit still in one place. That life jis far too slow for me. I am going to wander out and see the world. There is a great wide beach here. Why should one never explore more than a tiny corner of it? ' No, I am not going to settle down." " But wandering about is so dangerous !" exclaimed the others. " I can take care of myself," said Lizzie disdainfully. "lam not afraid." And off she roamed. " That child will come to a dreadful end," remarked the old limpets one to another. But nobody teied to stop fcfcr. for nobody had any authority over hor. There is no family life among the limpets. The mothers glue the eggs into the best rock corners they can find and there they leave them. The babies must look after themselves from the moment they are hatched, and they do just what they like. Those with true limpet sense settle down like Lizzie's brothers and sisters, but Lizzie hadn't true limpet sense. She was perfectly happy, however, and perfectly sure of herself. " Silly stick-at-homes!" she said. " I wouldn't be like them for anything." /" She was creeping over the floor of a narrow rock pool, her little hat-like shell, securely covering her pale creamy body, • her flat creamy foot, her knowing little creamy head and fine creamy horns. Though her shell was not like a snail's shell, she herself underneath it was very like a tiny pale snail, so tiny that a sweet pea seed hollowed out would have held two of her. Buty tiny though she was, somebody wanted her for dinner, for a» she went walking over the bits of broken shell that littered 1 the floor something moved beneath her and began to drag at her.

It was an anemone. The bits of broken shell were stuck all.over its rim so that no one should know it was there, and Lizzie had walked on to the rim. Fortunately she was near the outer edge, and the anemone in its greed drew in so fast that the little limpet fell off the edge, and so was caved. She hurried off as fast as she could. " Oh, dear, dear I What a fright it gave me," she said. " I must watch where I am going." She came to a patch of delicious green sea lettuce. She crept up it and clung with her strong flat foot while she feasted. Her teeth were set in row's along her threadlike tongue, and her tongue was three times as long as herself. It was coiled round and round in a little bag in her* body, with one end free to come up through her mouth and to cut her sea- ; weed food. As that end wore out mors' tongue unrolled itself and came forward to do ?t» worlt. It was all yery convenient." 'i v "' : ■"■ ■ "■•■ ' ' : '

When she was full fed she crept into a crevice of a rock and rested while a new rim formed itself round her little shell, for she was growing fast, and she needed more room. The new rim of shell was made by a thick limy juice that came out of her Bkin and hardened in the water. Then on she wsnt and on, from rock to rock and pool to pool, eating and growing day by day until she had again to enlarge her shell.

All this time she had taken good care of herself, keeping of anemones and starfishes and the many other creatures jj that would have enjoyed her soft juury body for dinner. -As she grew bigger Sea birds began to notice her, and many and many a narrow escape she had from them. All she could do was to sit ddwn hard on the rocky sea floor and remain perfectly still till the bird bad passed. She began to think ft would be better to ■; have a safe home Into which she might: withdraw herself. Then the storm came. From far across' the sea a v great wind blew, raging and howling,|:aha lashing the sea into fury, i The sky grew black, rain and sleet hissed down dp*cm the waves; high against the rockß broke: gjnnt breakers, rolling in and . raounfcu% and falling in thunderous cata- "; racUi of foam, and sweeping all loose life away down into the deeper waters. | The thousands of limpets on the rocks? drew "tfiemselves tightly into their little homes and endured the storm. There they were safe. No thundering breaker, '." however violent, could dislodge them, nor harm them under their strong cone shells. But Lizzie, where was she? Hard though she tried to cling, the first fierce wave had picked her up and flung her far into the boiling sea, and now she was being carried hither and thither at the mercy !- of the storm. She was dazed andthelp-] less, batttered and afraid. Oh, wny had j she not made, a safe home for herself? Again she was picked upland ffang, I rolling forward in a mountainous' wave, i lifted higher and higher to be dashed at ' last in the face of the towering;, cliff, and . to fall -with the tumbling -water to the \ rocks'below She was dazed and half dead, but strangely and happily she had been washed into a rock crack .which was wide,enough to- receive and yet narrow enough to shelter her. Here she clung till the storm had passed. When the pounding of the waves hafl ceased she said: " I have learned my lesson. I am going to make, a home and settle down." With her strong foot she pulled tiny flakes off the rock, and with her strong filing tongue she rasped at the rock, until she Had made a little shallow pit into which her body and the edsres of her shell would tightly fit. This was her home. From here she would wander down to the seaweed beds and feast; here she would return for rest and safety when the feast was over. No enemy could harm her now, no storms dislodge her, for the edges of her shell were below the surface of the rock. Secure beneath thr shell she sat, at ease in her rounded fortress whatever storms might race. She had settled down. " Time she didT' said the others.

•*v ::.-'t WH]:CH MADE A DIFFERENCE. The schoolmaster wanted to know.. -whyJim had absented himself from school'for/, a whole .weok. '.'-*'*- " H "But she's past his fourteenth year, ain't he?" said Jim's mother- " And me , and Me father thinks he has \ enough." > A "Nonsense,"' said the schoolmasteV "it: didn't finish my education till I was .eighteen." "Oh," said Jim ? s mother, "but our , Jim's got brains" THE NEW SPEUJNG. I ' ' ■ ' ■ ~.■■■■' "Oh, mamma!" exclaimed little Gertrude, "I can spell ' nothing,' and that's a big word, isn't it?" " A preuy big one for a little maid your age," replied Her mother. " you spell ' nothing' i" "Z.X.M.!" "Why, darling, that isnt right!" "Yes, it is," said Qertrude> ally. "iißaidto grandma, ' Wum, does I Z.XM, spell? ' and she aaid 'Nothing.'"