THE SANTA CLAUS IMPULSE TAKES US ALL TO TOYLAND.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 301, 19 December 1931, Page 8

THE SANTA CLAUS IMPULSE TAKES US ALL TO TOYLAND.

To-day’s Signed Article.

Children Roam Through Enchanted Aisles with a Wistful Solemnity. By Bernice Shackleton. Our most gentle little printer’s devil was perhaps responsible in the first instance. He had a suspiciously innocent air that morning as he held out a box of matches. A box, indeed, but where one looked for matches the realistically inquisitive nose of a wee grey mouse popped out with alarming suddenness. That boy’s merry eyes were blue and sparkling like the eyes of Billy Boy and Jenny, and he quivered provocatively.. Then an encounter with a couple of young musketeersjwaggering through the Square, with all the noise and glamour of battle, and the sharp firing of corks from red and yellow popguns stirred still further the Father Christmas impulse.

JTOR IF THERE IS ONE THING that Billy Boy appreciates at this moment it is primitive artillery. His mother has recovered by this time from the first shock of finding her young hopeful with stiff first finger and wagging thumb pursuing backdoor tradesmen shouting, “I’ll shoot you! I’ll shoot you ! ” Thus it was that, while conceding somewhat to parental pacifism the pop-gun seemed a harmless inspiration, and thus it was, too, that I found myself in the afternoon climbing*.the stairway to Wonderland and, looking back, gazed into the eager face of a little old-fashioned girl leading a little old-fashioned man impatiently upward. Her wide hat was thrust back from a freckled forehead on to the long frizzy hair that had never known the scissors. The old man, breathless also, bent over his stick to the unaccustomed exertion, but when he looked up his nose was beaked like Punch and it had the same ruddy glow. “Here they are. Here’s Granny!” sang the impelling child, stepping into toyland, and she was soon lost in the absorbing throng. One had to look at the children before one looked at the toys for fear of treading on some serious experimenter, for here and there a’child dropped down on to the floor

the better to examine a bright locomotive, or the jerky behaviour of an animated doll. It was only a round red head bobbing up or an articulate enthusiast that warned one. The solemnity of it all. A little chap in an Eton collar bent over a motor-car with a large teddy bear at the wheel. He made a pretty pic-

ture seemingly fraternising with Teddy. But was that really the attraction. His hand moved exploringly over the bonnet of the car, and then it was seen that his interest was the concentrated interest of the mechanic. Dogs, dolls, toy gramophones, tops, whistles, drums, table games, jig-saw puzzles, trains, motor-cars, aeroplanes that looped the loop, animals that behaved according to their kind, clowns that tumbled down ladders or whirled umbrellas on their noses, dismal Desmonds drooping their ears so drearily, false faces, cathedrals with playing organs, cricket sets, tools, boats, miniature regiments and a whole world of longed-for things to fill the dreams of every child from now to Christmas Day. But it seems an almost cruel thing to set children down in those enchanted aisles. The little hands stretch out towards forbidden things and childish eyes grow wide with wonder and appealing looks. Little chins lift up and fasten to the counter as if their wishes sealed them there.^ To me the memory of the dancing eyes of Billy Boy and Jenny were like will o’ the wisps leading me on in a maze of indecision. A doll for Jenny—little roguish, common-

doll for her to croon to. There were rows and rows of them, all pink and fresh in silks, satins, cottons and, yes, even rags. But they were too pink and fresh. I remembered home-made Bridget with her retouched eyebrows and mouth like a scarlet heart that have now taken the place of features lost in past ablutions.

Or how could these strange creatures with smiling supercilious vacancy replace, or even share, the affection that is so lavishly bestowed on Mrs Hippo? Mrs Hippo is a lady of character. Her head once held a respected place in the nursery menagerie until it was lopped off. Then she was given a squat, matronly body, tidily aproned, and her ears learned the formalities of a lacy mopcap. It is strange to see a child’s whimsical tastes. One little tot’s attention was riveted upon a podgy chocolate coloured doll, with beads round its neck, and a gaudy grass skirt around its “ middle,” and she cried excitedly:

“Oh, mummy! Isn’t this one lovely!” Peculiar admiration, unless she wants to play at missionaries. There was a box of whistles, the shapes of goblin men, a colourful pixie band, and someone hastened to demonstrate, then put the whistle back with the rest. Many others moving past through the dust of the day had done the same; but as I love Billy Boy’s clean lips I bought him a big drum.

Half an hour later, as I left the toy department and passed a pile of carpets, the long parcel that held the tumbling clown and his ladder, projecting too far from my arms, tipped the carpets over in similar series of tumbling tricks and a whole world of nursery characters fell . to the floor—Brer Rabbit, Boy Blue, Miss Muffet, Jack Horner, Willie Winkle, the Old Woman that lived in a Shoe —they were all there, familiarly woven into the hearth rugs. Truly the Christmas season is only meant for the very young or the very old or those who are slightly mad, for, the rest of the day, the most reasonable rhyme ever made seemed to be:

Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, The cow jumped over the moon, The little dog laughted to see such sport, And the dish ran away with the spoon.