BLOWING BUBBLES AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 5, 30 January 1892, Page 119

BLOWING BUBBLES AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

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[TTLE Peter and Prudie and Lyddie Sprague were keeping house while mamma and papa went to town. To be sure there was Grandpapa Sprague, but he was taking his afternoon nap in his room, so he did not count.

They had played ‘hide the thimble,’ ‘ ring-around-a-rosy,’and Lyddie and Prudie had danced till their little toes ached, to the huni-a-hum- humoi Peter's jewsharp. Then Lyddie had said : * Let’s blow bubbles !’ ‘ Oh, yes, let’s !’ cried Prudie. So Lyddie got the long, new clay pipes and Prudie a bowl of soapsuds and set it on the hearth of the broad, low chimney so they need not wet the floor, for the little girls had learned not to make work. But it was found, after one or two trials, that the bubbles were too thin, and Prudie had to make another journey to the soap cask. Then they began blowing bubbles in good earnest—such big, strong ones ! They would soar like tiny balloons, now up, now down, as Peter and Prudie and Lyddie puffed and chased them about the room. By and bye one dived into the black chimney and disapC eared. Then there was more fun, sending them off up its road, sooty throat, and watching them sail out at the patch of blue at the top and rushing out to see them fl >at off. Then Peter proposed smoking into the bubbles, as grandpapa did once for them. Grandpapa’s pipe lay on the mantel all ‘ charged ’ and ready to light when he should get up. Prudie wanted to do this part of it. ‘ Huh ! girls don’t smoke !’ cried Peter, loftily. ‘Mrs Potter smokes! I’ve seen her! And she was a girl once, anyway !’ retorted Prudie. ‘ Well, it’s squinched her all up,' insisted Peter. Prudie didn’t want to be squinched like Mrs Potter, neither did Lyddie, so Peter put a live coal from the stove into the top of the pipe and puffed away manfully. The stem was very short and he burned the tip of his freckled nose once so that a tiny blister came upon it. For a time they had great sport, watching the nnlkylooking bubbles float gracefully off, to the consternation of whole nestfuls of claim.ley-swallows, some of them tumbling out of their nests in affright, down on to the children's heads. However, pretty soon Peter laid up the pipe, plunged his fat, brown lists deep into his pockets and scowled dreadfully. Then his face turned very white and he began to whine dismally. Lyddie and Prudie, very much frightened, brought him parsley leaves to chew. But poor Peter was too sick to chew them. Just then grandpapa came out and Lyddie ran to him with the doleful tale. ‘Tut! It's grandpapa's pipe! Naughty thing for little boys—and big ones, too, I suspect !’ ‘ But does it make you feel like Peter’’ queried Lyddie. • Oh, it did once,’ laughed grandpapa. ‘ What made you want to do it again, then ?’ asked the little girl. ‘ The land knows, 1 don’t !' groaned grandpapa, looking with pity at Peter’s distress. ‘ Will Peter want to do so any more?’ persisted Prudie, pinching a mint leaf and holding it to his pale nose. ‘Oh, dear me, I hope not,’ cried grandpapa, sternly, throwing his pipe against the sooty chimney back and breaking it all to pieces. ‘There, now, Peter, you and grandpapa will take the pledge not to smoke any more as long as we live. Shall we, sonny ?’ ‘ Ye-e es, s s ir !’ gasped little Peter, between his qualms, When mamma came home ami saw grandpapa’s old pipe lying in the chimney ami grandpapa himself trudging over the hill into the pines, she said he had gone oft' to tight a battle.

Prudie and Lyddie and Peter could not believe that dear old grandpapa wanted to tight anybody. They wondered what mamma meant. Do understand ?