IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17632, 9 February 1929, Page 6

IN THE DRIFT OF LIFE

(By “ Seeker.”)

“WINGS.” “Auntie, jer know what? We went to the pictures last night—me and M„m and Dad,”, said Bobbie Piper bursting in breathlessly on Aunt Selina, who «» In I*****.!” morning's cooking. _ Elsie couldn t come, ’cos she's too little.’ _ “Aren’t von tired after staying up so late?” "asked Aunt, while Bobby smirked over ihe enormous superiority of six years and three-quarters over he answered decisively.; “Gee, it was corker! All sorts of aeroplanes and war. Gee! Do you think; , I could fly in an aeroplane when I m a | big man, Auntie Lena?" 1 “I expect you will some day. , “Gee ! Wouldn't it be corker! And : one fellow in an aeroplane shot, another aeroplane and it fell down and down and down and down and smash! iu.o a house.” "And what happened to the poor man that was flying in it? Was be killed?” “Oo! He was hurt awful. And they took him into a house, and he died. And everyone was sorry, and all the people were crying and blowing their Moses. But I didn't cry.—What’s that • you’re cooking, Auntie? Is it those corker buns?” Aunt smiled and pulled out the oven shelf so that Bobby could see and smell for himself. The hoy controlled his watering mouth as the cakes disappeared hack into the oven. 1 “And there was two men had a fight, and “But wasn’t it all fighting?" asked! Aun t. “I mean hitting one another. It wa3i decent,” said Bobby. “But Mummyi didn't like that part.” 1 After a pause and a hungry, inquir-. ing look at the oven door, Bobby asked, "Auntie, do some people like being sad?” “Why, dear?” ' “Well, coming home in the bus Mrs Maginnity said it was the loveliest picture she’d seen for ever so long, and she’d had such a lovely cry! Do people like to cry?” “Well, dear, you'd better ask Mrs Maginnity.” Aunt tried to turn tha subject, but Bobby was not to ba diverted. “Oo —jer know—Mrs Maginnily’s Daddy and Mr Appleby nearly had a fight in the bus. Anyway they looked like it. Someone asked Mr Appleby didn’t lie like Ihe picture, and he said 'Murder! No, I don’t like it,’ and everybody looked cross at him, and he talked about men in wet’ holes under the ground and bits of flesh and rats and slinks and starving children. Stinks is a nasty word, isn’t it, Auntie? Mummy says 1 mustn’t say it. But Mr Appleby said it. And he said we’d all get poison gas in the next war. And Mrs Maginnity looked angry, and Mr Maginnity said a man must light for his country. And Mr Appleby looked at me and said, ‘How would you like to sec that child writhing with poison gas? And everyone looked angry (ill Mummy said, 'lsn’t it a lovely night?’ But, gee, it was a corker picture!*’ Tile finished cakes were brought out of the oven. “Would you like one, Bobby?” asked Aunt Selina, pretending to be in doubt. 'Yes, please, but I didn’t ask, did I?" said Bobby. “You wouldn’t like to shoot another aeroplane \then you go flying, would you, dear?” “00, yes,” said Bobby. “I’d shoot him before he could shoot me, then it'd be all right.” Aunt Selina laughed a little. "Bobby," she said, “you’ll make a first-rate general or Minister of War, if —if you only take care never to grow up. Rut I suppose you will grow up, and then what’ll come to you in this silly old world I don’t know.” ■* * * * MEAN THEFTS. When a townsman goes to live in the country, one of the joys of life is to be able to leave tilings here, there and everywhere and never consider the possibility of loss by stealing. It is very sad news that comes from a country correspondent telling of sneaks taking goods left at the farmers' gates. Explanations may be found: In the holiday .season it is usual for a few to get loose and make themselves a torment lo farmers by carelessly lighting fires, robbing orchards, and so forth. And we naturally expect an increase of thieving in a period of distress and unemployment. Men wandering from the towns in search of work are inclined to imagine that all farmers are bloated aristocrats. They are often ignorant of die monkey on the farmer’s hack. They see only his green fields and prosperous herds and think him fair game to prey upon. In a sense it is remarkable that there is so little dishonesty, when so many people are going about convinced that Ihey arc victims of injustice and inhifmanII y. We halo to see ihe happiness of mutual trust in any way diminished, but there is a price to pay for that happiness. If you keep a child hungry and then leave it within easy reach of a juicy orange, with nobody watching. you know what to expect. BETWEEN YOU AND ME. To Hie bright boy who alters ihe scores on the Times’ notice board: Now, I’ve got you! And those cricket fiends told me lo give it to you good and hot. But between you and me. I'm wondering whether they never knocked at people's front doors and ran away when they were boys—■ or whether they never trailed a shilling on the end of a string and pulled it back when someone tried to pick it up. The tiling that surprises me is that the hoys nowadays do so little? of Die old silly tricks that we used to do. i wfcnt for a bathe the other day, and there wasn't a hit of mess in the dressing shed. Why, the first tiling some boys would do in a dressng shed when we were kids was to throw orange peels and peanut shells and dirty paper around. 1 guess hoys must have found better ways of amusing themselves these days. You don’t think Fin dealing out much of a ton-gue-thrasliing, ell? The point is this: Your little joke of spoiling the score board has whiskers on it—-it’s positively mouldy with age. You ought to go home and hale yourself that you couldn’t think up anything more original than what we old bites used to do umpty years ago. * * * «• SADIE BUYS A BOOK. Sadie: “I’m going out to buy a book.” Gertie: “A book! What on earth are you going to do with a book?” , “(.ill, my husband bought me Ilia * most wonderful reading-lamp yesterday.”—Lltii.