CHILDREN’S STORY

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6440, 19 January 1924, Page 6

CHILDREN’S STORY

NIGHT AND THE STARS (BY GREGORY CLARK.) All our best organised friends and relatives say he should be put to bed at six o’clock. But there is a grandmother in the * family (his'great-grandmother), who has raised nine of her own, has supervised the raising of thirty grandchildren, and is still the final authority in the case of a promising crop of a dozen great-grandchildren, to whom s I carried my appeal, with great cerek mony, as one goes to the privy coun--5 cil and the foot of the throne. And the appeal was sustained. “It is not the hour which matters, alone,” said the great-grandmother, l “but the regularity of the hour. If : you want to keep him up till seven : o’clock do so, but make seven o’clock : his regular bedtime.” : I bore this glorious judgment home, : and published it abroad amongst the : Pharisees, the observers of blind laws. : And he and I celebrated the tri- : umph in our own fashion. E All summer—which is more than :' his memory can span, being only two E —he has gone to bed in daylight, be- : cause of daylight-saving time. As j the bright day waned he slipped away \ with it, and came not back to us till l the world was bright once more. If = he had ever waked and seen the dark i he had been too sleepy to think about ■ it. Electric lights and light were not 3 phenomena to him. Darkness was a I mystery of indoors. 1 On that first night we enjoyed the 1 judgment of great-grandmother we | rose from the table at ten to seven, I and as was our ancient custom we ; proceeded to round up the horses and' cattle and the numerous jungle beasts from the broad pampas and far-flung prairie of the living-room floor. He is a kindly master to his dumb creatures. He takes them to bed with 1 him. a But Wo-Wo, the beautiful Arab B steed that is his favourite mount was nowhere to be seen. We called him. 3 We whistled the melodious note that usually brought him galloping. We sought him in hill and valley, behind chair and davenport, and even in the great cave of the fireplace. Wo-Wo was missing, and time was, short. It suddenly occurred to Wo-Wo’s anxious master that the dear beast might have been left out on the verandah. AncT I followed him at top < speed to the dooiv I did not know that I was about to * unveil a mystery. I had no conception of the shock I was about to administer to this tiny intrepid hunter. But I flung open the door, and it was dark. He poised himself on the door-sill, ( a picture of amazement. Coming from the brightly-lighted room, he faced the dark. “Gone!” he whispered. The world was gone. The bright interesting street had been swallowed l up. * But even as he stared it came back, > dimly, faintly. Far off, familiar patches of the scene were lighted by the street lamps. With great stealth he stepped out on to the verandah. There stood Wo-Wo, the faithful charger; but his master gave him a passing glance. The master’s eyes were wide upon a shadow world. One hand reached back and uprwai’d seeking mine. I took it, and he drew me forward to the steps. Down the steps we crept, in silence and in stealth. He stooped and felt the grass. He looked up into the dark mass of the oaks on the lawn, and they whispered and rustled. He touched their rough trunks. He ran out to the pavement to look back' at the house, strange and remote, with its glowing windows. He rushed to the hydangea bush which hides the iron pipe on the lawn; he found the pipe, squatting* like a fairy thing, and patted its cold round head. Down the alley he ventured and looked for the bright garden,. painted with autumn flowers. He could see them, he could feel them, but their 'brightness had fled. Still speechless, he came out to the lawn again, stood still in the midst of all this vast mystery, and looking up at me with wide shining eyes, he breathed a profound sigh. And then he saw the stars. First one. Then another. And then in all their countless nuillions. His little face raised and still, he turned slowly on his hel and gazed breathless on this luminous inspiration of countless ages of human hearts. “Een. . . . lula. . . he said, in the softened ’cello voice he uses in addressing flowers and dogs and ants, and all the simple companions of his day. He was seeking a word, a sound that would express the loveliness of the stars.. . 5, . “Noona. . . mama—een. „ .

"Star,” I said, in a somewhat husky voice. “Tar,” he answered. “Tar.” That was days ago. Each night when we rise from table our ranch duties are hastily performed, and then, since the nights are chill, we put on our coats and caps, and bidding our mothers farewell, for it is a mysterious and far adventure on which we are bent (though a flying ten minutes to me), we set forth to see the night and the stars and the dim spirits of the world of day. Yesterday ‘ noon he hid Mow, the celluloid kitten, under the hydrangea bush beside the squatting fairy pipe. And when we went out in the night, as a shepheard who seeks the lamb that is lost, he called Mow all up and down the far hills of the lawn, up the alley and out in the back mountains of the neighbour’s terrace. And at last, hearing some answer to his call too faint for my ears, he went straightway to the hydrangea bush and took Mow into his arms with cries of rejoicing and thanksgiving. I am watching the calendar. For in a few nights, if it is clear, there shall hang in the tender western sky the silver shaving of the moon.”