FLIES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16543, 29 September 1921, Page 6

FLIES.

(By WALT MASON.) I sat to-day, with my Aunt Lillian, and counted passing flies; we counted up to fourteen million, then quit the job, with sighs. I hoped to find decreasing numbers, I’d swatted flies so much; I’d often missed my meals andslumbers, to put the flies in dutch. For years I’d read the health board papers, denouncing flies as crimes; and you beheld my swatting capers, and praised my zeal betimes. I thought the health board sports were posted, I held their counsel grand; and up and down the house I coasted, my swatstick in my hand. And as I toiled I called on others to help the grand crusade; I called on babes and doting mothers to kill flies with a spado. I called on ancient aunts and uncles and said to them, 44 Oh, cheel Forget your spavins and carbuncles, and kill some flies with me I” I called upon my idle neighbours, who sat beneath their vines, to join me in my useful labours, or elsetake in their 6igns. I bored all people with my clamour, I bored them with my cries, to take a shotgun or a hammer and kill a lot of flies. I sat today, with my Aunt Lillian, to count the buzzing bands; wo counted up to fourteen million, and then threw up our hands. My swatter on the wall is pasted, above the kitchen door; I feel that all my toil was wasted, and I shall swat no more.