FOR YOUNG FOLK

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10294, 21 July 1926, Page 7

FOR YOUNG FOLK

m. JACKO CLIMBS THE CHIMNEY Mrs Jacko nearly cried with vexation when alie went into the parlour one day and found the tire was smoking. “It’s too bad,” she exclaimed. “A nice state the place will be in—just when I've finished the spring-clean-ing, too.” It wasn’t at all a windy day, and Mrs Jacko couldn’t make out why the fire should smoke. She was trying to peep up the chimney when Jacko came bounding into the room. “Coo. It’s the birds,” lie said. “They’re building a nest ” Mrs Jacko' was very angry. She said he ought to have told her about it before. “1 don’t say that we shouldn't all be kind to the birds,” she added, “but there’s a place* for everything, and I can’t have the fire smoking. Just look at the mess everything is. in i” She told Jacko to fetch a long stick, for, as she said, the kindest thing to do was to destroy the nest that was being built. But just at that moment she remembered the dinner, and rushed into the kitchen to see if her saucepans were boiling over. And when she came back, some hours later, nothing was to be seen of Jacko but his legs. He had poured some water on the file and gone up the chimney ! Mrs Jacko was furious. “Come down at once, you wretched boy!” she shrieked. “You’ll be black from head to toe, and just think of the soot you will bring down.” And she rushed round the room and began covering up everything with sheets of newspaper. But Jacko had no intention of coming down. It was great fun up the chimney, even though the bird s nest wasn’t much to look at. And when he heard angry shouts down below, and knew Mrs Jacko had called his father, he climbed out of the chimney on t 0 the roof. Of course, nobody could follow him up there, and for half an hour he had the- time of his life. He found he could walk the whole length of the street along the roofs of the houses. Then he iodised that quite a crowd had collected in the street be-lew-—and down the chimney lie slid again. But when he landed on the hearthrug three old ladies rushed out of the room shrieking. He had come down the wrong chimney into a strange house!