MR AND MRS HEDGEHOG'S CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1950, 4 April 1889, Page 35

MR AND MRS HEDGEHOG'S CHRISTMAS DINNER.

Christmas Day arrived, with snow thick on the ground and very cold. Mr and Mrs Hedgehog dressed themselves with very great care, and with very great" trouble, too, for the lady found that her style of figure did not at all suit the fashionable Jcostume, and aa for poor Hedgehog, it was a dreadful struggle to get his clothes on, for his bristles were very much in the way, and would stick through the cloth, and his shiny shoes pinched him cruelly. But pride must haye 1 a pinch, and so they valiantly overcame their difficulties and started off through the deep snow towards Beech Tree Hall. A queer couple they looked as they trudged uncomfortably along, and Farmer Mole, who happened to get a peep at them as they passed, chuckled to himself as he noticed their hungry, melancholy looks.. When they arrived at the hall another difficulty faced them. They had heard that the hall was situated at the top of a slope, but they had no idea until then that the slope was nothing more nor less tban the trunk of a huge tree which, towered straight up aloft. The Squirrels had both thought of this when they invited the Hedgehogs, and the latter couple would certainly have had to go home again had not a Squirrel living close by been roused by the scratching and scrambling, and given them a friendly tail up to the entrance of Sir Rodent's mansion. Never did Mr and Mrs Hedgehog feel so utterly dissatisfied with each other's personal appearance as when they shuffled into the room where their host and hostess were waiting to receive them, Mr Hedgehog' blushed with shame when he noticed the contrast between his wife, with her comical, awkward figure, and her ill-fitting gown, and Lady Squirrel, with her easy, well-bred grace, her slim waist, and her elegant .costume, with its flowing, bushy train. As for Mrs H , she felt quite cross with her good man when she saw how piggy be looked, and how badly his coat fitted, and how baggy his trousers were, and how the. bristles would stick out all over him. And Sir Rodent was so different, sfcl'aristocfatic-looking, such beautiful eyes, and so well dressed, that she resolved to give her husband a piece of her mind whetf they" got home about his neglect of Jws personal appearance, and his low, vulgar, manners.The memory of the dinner that followed was ever- afterwards a nightmare to the two hungry guests. Everything around them was refinedand elegant. The room and the table were ' decorated with beautiful flowers preserved iii some mysterious way, and with exquisitely- coloured- and marked birds' eggs festooned around the walls, and the whole was illumined by a soft phosphorescent light which seemed to glow from the ceiling. The Hedgehogs told their friends afterwards thatithis light came from hundreds of glowworms, but Farmer Mole said that was nonsense, it was only rotten wood. They drank out. of nutshells, cut and polished until they- looked like crystal, and everything was so unlike their own home surroundings that they felt like fish out of water, and did not know what to do or where to look or what to say. But the eating part was worse than all. To the poor bewildered pair there seemed to be nothing but nuts, and nuts, and nuts ! Hazel nuts, filberts, beech nuts, and even Barcelona nuts, composed the succesive courses. The host and hostess with their sharp white teeth opened their nuts and ate with evident enjoyment, but the poor Hedgehogs grew hungrier and hungrier. In vain they longed for the luscious worm, the delicate beetle with the crackly skin, the crushed snake, or even the humble snail. Alas I there were none of these delicious viands, but only nuts, and nuts, and nuts I (2b be continued).