FOR YOUNG FOLKS.

Waipa Post, Volume VII, Issue 321, 9 June 1914, Page 6

FOR YOUNG FOLKS.

THE ELUSIVE RING. This is a good game for any number of players, and all you require foi it is a long piece of tape and a email ring. Thread the ring on tho tape and knot tho two ends together. The tape should bo sufficiently long so that when the players stand round in a circle, each one can hold on without being too close to his neighbour. Ono person stands in tho centre of tho circle, and tho game is for him to find out who has the ring. Tha others should keep moving their hands along tho tape continually, and so pass the ring from one to another as quickly as possible. If the one in the centre thinks a certain player has tho ring, he should stop the game and ask him to "deliver." If ho has guessod rightly the two ckango places, but ishould he have made a mistake, he must pay a forfeit and continue the game. WHAT MAGGIE KNEW, School Inspector (to the infant class): "Now, talking of hens, can a hen swim?" "Yes," said Maggie, with a signi. ficant nod of the head. "What! Do you say a 'hen car swim?" "Yes," with repeated nod. Tho infant mistress was appealed to regarding the instruction imparted to tho class. "Maggie," said the mistress, "surely you cannot bo thinking. Do you say a hen can swim?" "Yes," replied Maggie, with per sis, tent and insistent nod. The head master next entered the room, and the inspector called his attention to Maggie's repeated answer. Head Master (to Maggie): "Do you mean to say a lion can swim?" "Yes," said Maggie again. "Did you ever see a hen swim?" "Yes, a water-hen," replied Maggie. Then the inspector realised that he had still something to learn.

THE HAPPY MAN. Once upon a time there was a King| who fell ill, and as none of his doctorsj could cure him he cut off their heads) and sent for more. Two famous doc- 1 tors came at last and put their heads together (for they were quite determined not to lose them). One of them said that the King was quite well, so he was hanged immediately, but the other knew better. He told the King- that he w&uld soon recover if he could sleep one night in the shirt of a happy man. Well, messengers were sent all over the country to look for a happy man's shirt, but try as hard as they might they couldn't discover a man who hadn't a single thing to worry himEven the richest nobles in the land were bothered about their servants, or their ships, or their digestions, or the doings of their eldest sons. At last the messengers, who did not dare to return to the King emptyhanded, found a ragged beggar man sitting on a gate, and he was whistling so merrily that the messenger? thought "Here at last is a man without a care in the world!" So they offered him a sackful of gold in exchange for his shirt, even if it was a ragged one. Then the beggar man whistled no longer, but burst into tears. "Alas, sirs," said he; "I haven't got a shirt to my back!" So the messengers gave it up as a bad job and ran away to sea, and since they never came back again the King had to make up his mind to get well and be happy himself, and escape from the difficulty that way.

THE LABYRINTH. When the world was quite young and a great many very strange things happened in it, there lived a King of Crete, called Minos, who kept a dreadful monster as a pet. This beast was called the Minotaur, and it had the body of a man and the bead of a bull. The people of Crete hated it and wanted to kill it, so as to keep it safe from them King Minos had a wonderful cage built for it—really one of the most wonderful buildings there ever was in the world. In the middle was a great courtyard for the Minotaur to live in, and leading away from this were so many long, complicated passages that no one who did not hold the clue could find his way through them, but was sure to be tired out and die on the way. It was called the', labyrinth. Great high walls surround- 1 ed it ,and on the to> was a tower where the Minotaur could climb' and stand looking out to sea, thinking such queer thoughts, half beast thoughts and half man thoughts all mixed together, and the ppor creature couldn't make out the meaning of things at all. One day he was standing there watching a boat with black sails which had just arrived on the sea shore, and wondering when his keepers would bring him his next meal, when' he heard a noise behind him and looking round saw a young man holding a short, sharp sword. The Minotaur gave a fearful bellow and rushed at him, and then a great fight began. The young man, whose name was Theseus, was horribly gored, but in the end he managed to kill the Minotaur, and made his escape back into his own country.