For the Children

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17223, 14 December 1923, Page 15

For the Children

DAISIES—DAISIES. : “ Oh, dear me!” sighed a. little daisy. “ I haven’t a single thing to do.” She went to the mirror and ' smiled at herself—for she was a pretty 1 little daisy, with pink cheeks and blue i eyes. She put her frilly bonnet on the s back of her curls. and took a long ! time to tie the strings just so. Then s she picked up her little sunshade and * walked out of the little door of the cottaage by the side of the river. She ; locked the door, put the key under the mat, and went skipping off across the meadow. By andn by she came to a daisy who was writing busily with her pad on her knee. “ Excuse me,” said the little daisy, “but will you come and play with ' me?” “Can’t,” said the other daisy. “I haven’t time.” “ "What are you doing?” “I’m writing stories! Shoo! Run away and don’t talk to me.” The little daisv walked on till she came to the second daisy. She was painting the portrait of a bee who sat on a dandelion “ Please come and play with me,” asked the litle daisy “ My dear child,” sadi the artistdaisy, turning around so fast that she upset a pot of paint, “ I have no time to play My time is worth a dollar a minute” “Gracious!” said the daisy, and went off. disappointed The next daisy she passed was playing sweetly on a flute “ No, I can’t play with you. I’m busy taking my music lesson,” she said, with the little daisy begged her to come with her. “Oh. dear!” said the daisy and sat down under a milkweed plant. “ Everyone in this whole world is busy except me.” “Why don’t you get busy, too, then?’ asked an ant who .was walking by just then with a wheelbarrow, full of sand. “ There’s always something that needs to be done. What do you do all day at home?” “Oh,” said the daisy, “I sing by the river, and I sew on my bonnet strings when they come off.” “ Is that all?” asked ihe ant. “ Well, sometimes I look in the mirror.” “ Fiddle.” said the ant. “ What a waste of time. Good-by! I must get on with my work now. Take my advice and get l?usy.” The daisy put her chin in her hands and thought hard. After a while. she y hopped up with a smile. “ I’ve got it. I’ll give singing concerts.” So that same evening she scurried around and rented a little forest glade. She set out the toadstools in neat rows, and then went round to all her friends, telling them to come and hear her SUNBEAMS AT NIGHT. “ Rummy-looking crowd,” thought the moon to itself as it gazed in upon a mysterious party in Sunbeams office one night. “ The lady’s all right, also the gentleman and the boy ; but what’s the idea of the Dragon, the blue pencil

and the pastepot?—talking just like human beings!” “ Yes,” the blue pencil was saying, “ I think I am very important. For instance, if I were missing, what would the editor do? Nothing, but rushing about in a fluster disturbing everyone, and trying to put up with a pen or an ordinary black pencil. Ha ! ha ! Lot of work he’d do then—l don’t think!” And it broke off chuckling to itself as though it had made the World’s Best Joke. The editor took up the conversation in a worried tone. “I can’t help wishing those pages were made of elastic or something. Oh, yes, I know it’s ridiculous, but look how much more we could print if they would only stretch!” “ Hear, hearl” said the paste-pot, who was too busy licking up paste from a small sp.ucer to say anything more sensible. “ Huh!” grunted the Dragon, rolling his eye towards tho Editor. “ You’re always whining about having to turn down so many stories. Weakness, I call it, Why can’t you be strong (Here he swelled perceptibly.) Are you afraid of the ’Beamers, you little midge?” “ B-but it seems so heartless,” moaned the Editor. “It is heartless,” confirmed the Chief Sunbeamer suddenly. “ Heartless, nothing!” roajred the Dragon, “you can’t publish them all, can you?” “That’s true,’ answered the C.S. sweetly, “but still, we don’t like to see young ’Beamers disappointed, because we love them!” “ Hear, hear!” yelled the paste-pot and the blue pencil, while the Dragon looked abashed. But Peter the Office Boy slipped his arm around him: “Dragon loves ’Beamers too,” he said; “ but doesn’t like to show it.” “I believe he does now,” said the C.S. “ Do you love my ’Beamers, Dragon?” she asked. “ I—l ” The Dragon was rather embarrassed. “ Confess! confess!” yelled the others in chorus. Then the Dragon broke down entirely. - . “I do love them,” he sobbed. “ But—but s-someone has to eat the rejected M-MSS, an’—an*—an* it’s always me.” , The others cheered him. “ Anyhow.” said Peter, “what’s the good of \lB always howling for more space in Sunbeams? It’s the best in the world as it is. “Hear, hear! Motion’s carried!” chorused the others. And as the moon sailed away on its course it muttered to itself: “Strange people these of ‘Sunbeams.’ Wonder if they’re as mad in the daytime when their own Sun is shining!” GINGE IN SOCIETY. “ An* it’s on Friday fortnight, an’ we c’n dance till twelve, an’ it’s going t’ be bo,ska.” wound up Bennie. ‘ B’t I carn’t dance, y’ know I carn't,” answered Ginger. “ Well, I’ll teach v’ orl I know,” replied Bennie. So every afternoon

ifter school, Ginge could be seen trying very hard to master the steps. “ It’s a bloomin’ nuisance havin’ t’ wash y’self orl over agan fer a silly al* dance,” mused Ginge, while getting ready on the eventful evening. “ 1 don’ think them girls deserve it,” aud lie turned round in front of his mother for final inspection. “ Now, don’t you be later than a, quarter past twelve,” she cautioned as he dashed out the door. Arriving at the hall, Ginge stood on the steps hesitating a little, then marched boldly up. At the door he encountered Min, “ looking fit t’kill,” he thought to himself. A thought suddenly flashed across his mind. “ Er—Good evenin’, Min! Er—c’n I have the supper dance, Min? An’, an’—c’n J. see you home?” he finished up. “Yes, if you like,” answered Min, with a giggle, and then marched off go ms where else. That light was a perfect nightmare to our hero. As usual, he seemed to do everything wrong, and when he danced he kept treading, on his fair partner’s toes, much to tho young lady’s distress. Then, at 6upper, ho spilt an ice-cream aodu over one young lady’s beautiful evening frock—at which the poor maiden burst into tears. Ginge felt very uncomfortable, but still, he thought ho vas lucky ; for, if he had spilt it over Min’s frock, then that would have been the end of everything; so he brightened up a bit. At length the evening’s frolic ended, and Ginge set out to take his young lady home. And as Min had just lately changed her residence, Ginge found himself walking in a new quarter of the town. ‘Ain’t it a lovely moon?” he asked, after a while. “It’s lovely,” agreed Min “An’ look at orl th’ stars!” continued Ginge. “ Er—will I take y’r arm, Min?” he asked. And the blushing maid agreed. “ Er—Min—will—will—y’ ” “ Here’s where I live,” broke in Min, “ an’ thank you fer bringin’ me home.” “ Aw, don’t mention it, it—was lovely.” replied Ginge. Oh, that walk home! Ginge will never forget it. Up one hill, down another, round this corner, round the next one, and still he didn’t seem near home. Why, there was Min’s little white gate again. He had been walking round in a circle A small, tired, dusty little boy arrived home in the early honrs of the morning' and crept silently upstairs to bed, unheeding the sleeping figure in the armchair, with a strap in his hand. But next morning his last words as he left for school. ‘ ‘BEES! REES ! BEES! ” “Humm!” said Pa Snooks loudly, over his paper. “Yes?” murmured his amiable wife, Louisa Mathilda, as she looked up from the difficult task of darning a new heel into little Georgie’s sock. “Tilda, my dear,” continued Mr S., “ I have decided to buy a hive of bees. On reading this article in the paper, t find it is a pleasant and profitable occupation.” “My!” gasped his wife, “but whal will we do with them?” “We shall get- honey from them honey, that glorious, golden ” “ All right. You go and oitfer then from the bee farm,” hastily interrupter Mrs S. (she always cut Mr Snooks shori if he tried to he ooetical). In a few days the bees arrived, anc

all went .well until one evening Mfi. Snooks suggested that they should go out and rob the bees. So they sallied forth, armed with a dish to hold the honey and a lantern, and even little Georgie was allowed to stay up and watch the exciting event. “ Now, Tilda,” said Pa Snooks to his Mathilda, when they reached the hive. “ You lift the lid off and let little Alan ah Clare hold the lantern, while I slip my hand in and draw out the comb.” Very cautiously Mr S. helped raise the lid, and slipped his hand gently in. But with a sudden yell he drew it out again—not grasping the comb, bn* instead a handful of furious bees! la a second all was confusion. The whole hive seemed to become suddenly fond of Pa Snooks. They climbed down his neck, they tangled themselves in his hair and whiskers, they even went for exploring trips down his slippers; while he, poor soul, went tearing round and round the yard as though he were train-* ing for a marathon, while Ma raced after him. vainly trying to 6quash the " bees by hitting at them with the smoking lantern. From the redoubled roars of Mr S. it was obvious that he would., probably he squashed long before the" last bee was dealt -with. While little Georgie was improving ll the shining hour by falling into the rubbish pit, Mrs Snooks was now chasing her minor half with a hose, water ing him as he ran. until the poor man dropped exhausted and hysterical on - to a heap of bone dust, thoughtfully \ left there by the gardener. By this \ time the bees were dead, thanks to Mrs Snooks’s fierce onslaught, and the perfume of the bone dust; but Mrs S. still careering around the yard ing water into the darkness, that poor Pa Snooks was still running in front of her. It might have gone on this way for ever, had not Mrs S.’s feet at last caught in the rose, and she tripped and joined her son in the rubbish pit! MAD ADVENTURE. Bill and I had determined to getieven with my cousin over some joke* he had played, and so it happenedthat one day, while Steve was out for a walk, he sighted a cart. “Hi!” he yelled, “ where are you going?” The driver said he was going to town and offered our cousin a lift, if he wanted »it. Steve climbed in. “ I suppose you leaxn arithmetic at school,” said the driver after a short silence. “Oh! Yes,” replied Steve- “ Well, if it takes one hundred yard* of white silk to make an elephant a black waistcoat, how long will it take six lame black beetles to crawl through a barrel of treacle?” “ I-I’m sure I can’t say,” said the astonished Steve. ‘ ‘ Oh! I suppose you know more about literature.” continued the driver. “ "Which part of Shakespeare’s * Paradise Lost ’ deals with the French Revolution ?” Steve was now convinced that he was dealing with a madman. “ I c-c-can’t say,” he stuttered. “ What !** roared the driver. “ I see you’ve been wasting your time at sport! Well, weTI see how you can - swim !” By this time they had reached a " river. “ In. you go!” roared the driver, and with one despairing look at the ! madman, Steve leaped miserably into [ the river. : “ Ha! Ha!” laughed the “ madman,” taking off his whiskers —revealing the 1 face of my brother Bill! » . \