FOR THE CHILDREN

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15272, 23 June 1923, Page 14 (Supplement)

FOR THE CHILDREN

{By "Pater Pan. ”)

TO BABY.

(C. F. Verrall, Cambridge)

Oh, lovely child! a mystic bond A sacred pledge, 'Tween hearts, whose love is borne beyond The World’s far edge.

No earthly wealth can e’er replace That baby smile, When in your mother’s fond embrace You rest awhile.

Oh, wonder you have the power To grieve or please Two hearts, that fill your every hour With love and ease.

Into their lives, my little friend Bring faith and love, And pray that you may ne’er offend The One above.

THE LITTLE GYPSY DANCER.

(By Olive Civil, Te Awamutu.)

It was towards evening; the air after the heat of the day was cooling and a faint breeze stirred among the leaves of the trees above. The sun was sinking and vivid colours streaked the darkening sky, casting fantastio shadows by the way as a caravan drawn by two weary horses made its way slowly along the deserted. road towards the village . On the steps of the caravan sat a little girl of about twelve. She was wrapped in thought and her dark silky curls floated about her face as the breeze wafted towards her. She was thin and her large brown eyes had a wistful expression. She was beautiful, but there was nothing about he? which suggested the gipsy and yet she rode In a gipsy caravan. It was evident that she was admiring the glorious sunset, but her thoughts were not pleasant ones as revealed by the firm set of her lips. It was Azetta, known at the fairs as "Queen of the Gipsy Dancers." Her reverie was broken by the lurch of the caravan as it came to a sudden standstill beneath the trees and a gruff voice called to her saying "Now Zetta, hurry up and see to the tea for its ’lgh time we ’ad someat to eat." The girl rose with a sigh and was soon busy preparing their evening meal. Her only other companion it seemed was an old woman who squatted on the floor' smoking an evilsmelling pipe, while occasionally she paused to give an order in a very gruff voice. The caravan belonged to Ben Dickson and his wife and they were to join a company of gipsies in the village next morning to attend the village fair. They claimed to be Azetta’s parents and though rough in their manner towards her were never unkind. Still Azetta was not happy; as the months wore on, her life among the noise and racket of gipsy caravans and fairs grew unbearable and she longed to get away where she could have peace and quietness. She was different she knew from the other gipsy girls who loved their gay and adventurous life, and always as she passed by pretty homesteads, she envied the children who played about them. Both Ben and his wife were aware of her distaste for the life she led, but determined she should not leave it. But no 1 they could not afford to lose Azetta, for the proceeds of her dancing at the fairs enabled them lo live quite comfortably without working. . Next morning, day dawned brignt and clear and by the time Ben Dickson’s caravan drew up at the grounds, preparations for the fair were in full swing.. As they passed by, one and all paused in their work to steal a glimpse at the beautiful little maid standing at the door of the caravan, and Dickson well aware of their covert looks of admiration wore an air of proud proprietorship. It was not long before their own tent was erected and everything prepared for the day’s entertainment. Crowds, attracted by the child’s brilliant beauty enhanced by the gaudy colours of her dancing frock, flocked inside the tent where the performance was t 0 take place. Dickson rubbed his hands together in avaricious satisfaction; he had done well to venture forth after all; it was eight years since the night they had so hurriedly encamped after the fair and he had been afraid to enter the town for fear of detection. No one seemed to recognise him however, and everything was as it should be. His satisfaction, however, was short-lived, he had reckoned without fate. A tall and beautiful lady accompanied by an equally handsome gentleman, strolling by caught sight of Azetta as she stood on the platform tioisted before the tent. She paused and touching her husband on the arm exclaimed, "Oh, Charles, look at that beautiful child! surely she is not a gipsy, and yet she is in the care of that horrible old man.” At that moment Azetta slipped from her stand and was about to disappear inside the tent when, as though compelled by some unknown power, she stood and looked straight through the crowd at the lady who was regarding her so closely. It was but the fraction of a second and she was gone. The tall lady caught her breath; where had she seen those clear brown eyes before? Her voice sounded rather agitated as she spoke “Come Charles I must see more of that child, does she not seem strangely familiar to you?” and they made their way to the interior of the tent. As Azetta danced lightly and swiftly in time to the flute which a ragged gipsy boy was playing, her eyes wandered restlessly round the onlookers as If in search of soirfeone, and at last

finding the sweet face of the strange lady, remained there. As Ben Dickson watched frdfti. the door, his shrewd eyes missing nothing, he noticed the child’s strange gaze and finding its object gave a violent start. Beckoning his wife to his side he asked in a frightened whisper “The likeness between Zetta and that man d’ye see it? There going to be trouble so let’s be ready to dear."

Azetta, her supple young body swaying to and fro to the wild music, danoed ever nearer to the lady and gentleman who were watching her every movement so intensely. As she turned, the lady caught sight of the birthmark on her left arm, Shaped like a pear; clutching her husband wildly by the arm, she said in a voice scarce aibove a whisper “Look! the birthmark on her arm I ’Tis our little . little Marie" and the shook being too great she fainted., Everything in the little tent was pandemonium; all wondered why the little gift had oeased to dance so abruptly and seeing the cause, were all curious to know what was amiss. Gradually, however, the tent was cleared and only the strange lady and geutleman remained. Bon Dickson and his wife, well knowing how soon the police would be on their tracks, had fled among the orowd before anyone was aware jof their flight, i The lady and gentleman, who turned out to be Lord and Lady Trevellyn then questioned Azetta eagerly about her past life, and the lady stretched out her hands and drew her gently towards her saying “My own little girl, after all these weary years to find you at last," and she kissed her many times. Lord Trevellyn was delighted at finding his little daughter, and the fact that her gipsy life had not tended to coarsen or spoil her was a great joy to them both. Every year Lady Trevellyn had haunted the fairs in the hope that she might find a traoe of her little daughter for it was at a fair that little Marje, who was in charge of a nurse was lost. The nurse stopping to speak to some friends for the moment, had left the child looking at some animals nearby, but after a few minutes when she returned to the spot, the child was nowhere to be seen. It had been the general impression that the gipsies had stolen her, but although a search had been made in every gipsy camp for miles around, no trace had been found of the missing child. That Azetta was their child, they did not doubt. The gipsies’ flight without their belongings, was confirmation enough of their guilt and the birthmark on the child’s arm was clear proofs To Azetta il( was all like a fairy dream; she could not realise that after all she was not a common gipsy, but the only child of one of the oldest families in England. To think that she should come to live in one of the beautiful homes she had so often envied, and to have a father and mother who really loved her I She often wondered where the gipsies who had stolen her were hiding, and how they had so cleverly managed to elude the police in spite of their efforts to capture them. Secretly she was pleased, she had no wish to see the only parents she had known from babyhood spend the rest of their lives in prison. It was true they had wronged her, but they had in their rough way been kind to her and she forgave them. Gradually her unhappy childhood spent among gipsy camps and fairs faded from her memory as does a bad dream, and in her beautiful home, her fond parents more than atoned for what she had suffered in the past. The End. NEW WAY OF GETTING POWER. NOVEL METHOD OF USING THE SUN’S ENERGY. The problem of utilising the direct beat of the Sun has exercised tho ingenuity of many engineers, and numerous attempts have been made from time to time to utilise this energy for power purposes. In America there are some queer contrlvaoces for concentrating tho Sun’s rays in huge mirrors and boiling water with the heat. The steam is used to work a small engine. Appliances of this kind, however, are too costly and too inefficient to become ol any commercial Importance.

An Italian engineer has now come forward with a scheme based on an entirely different principle. He proposes to vaporise substances, like ammonia, that turn into vapour at very low temperatures. His idea Is to erect a turbine on the margin of a lake and circulate ammonia or a similar substance between a generator heated by the warm water drawn from the surface of the lake an<J a condenser cooled by the colder water drawn from the bottom. The difference in temperature between the two layers of water would, it is estimated, range from ten to twenty, degrees Centigrade. This is not a very wide range, but the inventor claims that the simplicity and cheapness of the plant would make the power produced of so small a cost that this would compensate for the lowness of efficiency.

He calculates that from the great lakes of Como and Maggiore, which in summer have a surface temperature of 23 or 24 degrees Centigrade and a bottom temperature of G degrees Centigrade, about 4000 miLlion kilowatts might be generated in the four months from May to September at a cost of only one-seventh of a penny per kilowatt. Applied to tropical lakes with higher surface temperatures the system would, of course, give even better results.

y NATURAL HISTORY. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. To whom Doe# the Treasure Found In Tutankhamen's Tomb Belong? To the Egyptian Government, who will no doubt retain the bulk of it; but probably the authorities will allow Lord Carnarvon’s heirs to retain certain articles as a matter of courtesy in return for what he has done in discovering them. What Is Ebony? Ebony is the name given to various woods noted for their dark colour and hardness. The name means a stone, a reference to the hardness. The best kind of ebony is the heart-wood of a tree that grows in India and Ceylon, and 'is known to botanical soience as Diospyros ebenum. What Is Basalt? This is a general name given to a number of dark, volcanic rocks that vary considerably. They all consist, however, of a mass of minute crystals. BUsalt is often found in the form of colum«s, as at the Giant’s Causeway, in Ireland, and at Fin gal’s Cave, in the Island of Staffs, Scotland. How Is the Heat of a Heavenly Body Measured? By means of a very delicate instrument called a thermo-couple. Two bars of different metal are welded at one extremity, and the other ends are joined by a wire. The heating of the joint sends an electric current through the wire, and so sensitive can these Instruments be made that the heat of a star hundreds of millions of miles away can be measured by them.