BEDTIME TALES

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12199, 25 July 1925, Page 16

BEDTIME TALES

THE SMILING HOUSE

Buddy and Biddy had often looked at the little house next door, ■ that had stood empty as long as they dould remember. It looked ' as if it had been somebody’s dear little home once upon a time, .But, oh, it did look so forlorn now! The yard was full of torn, dirty ’■papers and dead leaves; an old broken chair leaned drearily against the front of the house; the windows were streaked with dirt and the old-fashipned knocker on the doqr was so dingy you could, ■hardly see it* Now. as the twins sat on their own doorstep and .Iboked across into the next yard, they could not help thinking how different it- looked from their own spick-and-span home. “Oh* Buddy,” said his twin sister, Biddy, “that house looks so ’ lonesome. When we come home from school our house just seems to smile at you, but that poor little house looks as if it would cry.” “Well, I’ll tell you,” answered Buddy, who was always getting’ ideas, ‘let’s make it smile. If we would wash its face and comb its hair it might cheer up.” “What do you mean, ‘wash its face and comb"its hair’ ?” asked Biddy, who didn't always know what her brother was talking'about, but who was always ready to enter into his plans. “Why, its face is the front of the house, the porch and windows, and its hair is the grass in the yard. Come to think of it, I guess 'it needs a hair-cut. too,” By the time he had finished talking, Buddy was already on the way to the cellar, where they kept their own special rakes, and Biddy was trotting after, just as usual. In less time'than it takes to tell they were over into the next yard. * First they picked up all the old papers, and then they raked up all the dead leaves. Then they, told Mummy what they were (doing,.and she supplied a broom and soap, water, and clean rags. She even let Buddy take the lawn mower, which he had just learned “’to use in their own front yard, and while she sat on the porch ana ‘’' watched'he mowed the’ tiny yard in front of the little house. While ~i ;h e was doing that Biddy was washing the two little front windows until they fairly sparkled, and then she tried washing. the ; doorknocker. She had to rub with might and main on that, but when she had finished it shone beautifully. Finally they swept, the porch "ctnd the little sidewalk, carried "the broken chair to the backyard, it didn’t show, and raked up the grass that Buddy had' cut. Then they went down to the corner, and walked up to the house just to see how, nice it looked. “Oh, it looks so happy now, Buddy,” said Biddy, “so sort of foved, you know.” “Sure does,’’ said her brother, and they were so busy looking t it that they'didn't hear the man who came up behind them and topped; as it he were going into the little yard. He stared at the. ttle house for a minute, and then turned to Buddy and Biddy. | “I say, children,’* he said, “you don’t happen to know who :eps:this place looking so nice, do you?” “Well,” said Buddy, trying hard to be very truthful, “up to now ‘body has kept it looking 1 nice at all, but we thought it looked vfully discouraged so we fixed it up a little. It was pretty hard >rk,” he added, rememberintr. how warm he had been. but it: was worth it,” put in Biddy. “Can’t you see .it liling at you?” she asked the friendly gentleman. . “Indeed, I can, kiddie,” he answered. ‘“I’ll tell you something, is is the house I lived in when I was a very little boy, and until 'a.s .grown up. I had to hve in another city then, but I never sold ’ house, just because I had heen so very happy in it. 1 came i to-day because I wanted to see the old place again, and I was f afraid I d find it in such a mess .that I’d wish I had not come. ;tead, I find it with a welcome for me, all^because of you youngrs. So, you see. you have made two smiles to-day—one for the ise and one for me.”