Mrs PIGEON, OF KENSINGTON

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20930, 8 January 1938, Page 15

Mrs PIGEON, OF KENSINGTON

(ALL ABOUT AN ADVENTURE IN THE GARDENS)

It had been a very exciting summer for Mrs Pigeon, quite the most exciting summer she had ever spent. First of all the soldiers had come to Kensington Gardens and had put up their tents beside the very paths where she had been accustomed to walk quietly in the early mornings before the gates were opened for the children and their nannies.

At first Mrs Pigeon had felt quite troubled about it, but when she overheard the soldiers talking one day and learnt that they had come to London because of the Coronation of the King and Queen, she had, of course, been reconciled to the change In her dearlyloved home.

Then the Coronation itself had come. Mrs Pigeon had had a splendid view of It from the top of the tallest tree near the Marble Arch. It was a sight she would never forget, and a story she would tell and retell to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they clustered about her on long •winter evenings..

But now the Gardens had become their familiar selves again, and all the children, including her special friends Rosamond and Robina Redcoat, and their little brother Robert, had come back from their summer holidays looking like little brown children. Rosamond and Robina had a lovely new green and orange ball with which they were playing on the grass beside the Round Pond, and Robert was bowling his hoop beside the little pathway which led to the Broad Walk from the Pond. He was not big enough yet to join in his sisters’ games, but if the ball came his way he would throw it back to them again.

It was just at the moment when Petronella Pigeon was strutting beside Robert, saying how glad she was to see him, and telling him about all the exciting things that had happened in the Gardens that summer, that the new green and orange ball rolled to Robert’s feet. Robert picked it up, and then a most unfortunate thing happened. It was just the sort of thing that might have happened to you or to me if we had just met Mrs Pigeon again after months and months and months, and were feeling very excited about it. Robert threw the ball as hard as he could, but Instead of going in front it went behind, and when he turned round, there it was bobbing about on the pond, quite a long way from shore, in fact, Robert had never thrown a ball so far before.

“Never mind, my lamb, never mind," said Mrs Pigeon as Robert turned an anguished face to her. “Mrs Pigeon wil! see what she can do about it. It was a very fine throw, a very fine throw indeed,” she continued, as Rosamond and Robina came running up to ask why their little brother had thrown their ball into the pond. “It’s our Mrs Pigeon,” said Robert hurriedly, pointing a chubby finger at her to distract their attention. “Look, she’s flying off to see what she can do about it”. And sure enough she was. “Come on, Daniel," Mrs Pigeon called to a little black duck who was bobbing about beside the green and orange treasure, “we've got to get this ball back to my friends, the Redcoats, somehow or other. It was a very good throw of Robert’s—just a little bit in the wrong direction, that was all.” “That’s quite easy,” answered Daniel Duck in reply to the first part of her remark. And he started to push the ball along through the water with his bill while Mrs Pigeon flew beside him, cheering him on. Nannie was on the shore ready to receive the ball, and all the little Redcoats shouted, “Thank you, Mr Duck,” in chorus, and then, “Thank you, Mrs Pigeon, thank you both very much indeed!”

“Bless those children, it’s like old timer, to have them back again,” Mrs Pigeon cooed, as she flew off to tell her own children, Pamela and Peregrine, that the Gardens were just like their old selves again now that the Redcoats had come back to Town.