MUTUAL PERPLEXITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 26

MUTUAL PERPLEXITY

THE SINGER He was only a little lad, Barefoot and brown, With large eyes, wondering and sad. And dark locks waving down. Tie sang, but his heart was sad At the heedless hurrying town: He was only a little lad. Barefoot and brown. There were tears in his childish voice, Tears as he sang and played; No mother or friend had heard The plaintive songs he made. And ever sweet when the day grew dim, And the bells began to ring— Nobody knew the dreams he had— He was only a barefoot lad. —Fanny Birch, Ponsonby (aged 14). KINDNESS Our mother says she’s happy. When her little ones are kind To any little boy or girl, Or creature that they find. She says to have a kind heart Is the greatest gift of all, And it is only meanness To laugh when others fall. To help all wounded creatures. And the lame dog at the stile, These are the things, says mother, That make life seem worth while. —Reg Donald, Matamata (aged 13). NIGHT UNDER THE STARS The air was filled with music. It was rustling in the pines, whispering with the wind, crashing on the shore with the sea. Strains of soft harmony seemed to be spilling from the very stars. At sunset the great sky had been ablaze with gold and crimson. Here P was tumbled on the clouds, .rid there blown in streaks by the wind. T 1 sea had caught the colour in her watermeshes and there it flamed almost as splendidly as it did overhead. On the wet sand dim reflections of *d and red glimmered and faded as the se rolled in and out, and even the pnray dashing from the rocks and the white foam on the crest of the waves wt aglint with the flame of it. But the colour had faded now. The slow sun had sunk in the west; the gold which showed up the pines in silhouette was now grey, against which they stood out just as dim, dark shapes. This was the pause between sunset and moonrise, the calm which falls on the—world between the gold and the silver. A lull came over the sea and the never-weary wind was still. Softly the pines were cradling their boughs to rest, and the birds were dumb. Nature’s behest had been heard by the evening star, “While thou drawest the Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew On every flower that shuts its sweet eves In timely sleep. Let thy West Wind sleep on The la.ke; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes And wash the dusk with silver.*’ —Fitzie Morris, Epsom (aged 14). THE REASON Traveller (at country hotel): Here, landlord, call your dog off. I've made him go away thrSe times already, but he al-.vays returns and glares at me. Landlord: Well, sir, I expect you are eating off the plate he usually has.

Little Tony was told to go to sleep at once, and not to open his eyes any more. Later he was found with his eyes still open. When asked why he had not kept them shut, he said: “Well, I only- opened ’em to see if they was shut properly.”