OUR STORY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 55, 12 March 1943, Page 6

OUR STORY

THE DOOR CALLED IMAGINATION There was once, a little girl who often went through a door called Imagination. If you have found that door you Avill never be lonely! This little girl had once lived on a big farm where there, were fourteen cats—gingers, blacks and tabbies— regiments of hens and ducks and goslings, armies of cows, and at least eight, horses and ten or twelve dogs. Really! Then the little girl Went to live in a city—and she missed the inhabitants: of the: farmyard. One evening,, when she lay in bed ' looking out at a blank wall, she took out her specialy key, unlocked the door of Imagination, and passed through with some children to Ani-mal-land. At first the animals were a bit. disgusted to think that their country was going to be invaded by human beings. Peter the. horse, when the children came through the gate, stared very hard at. them. What could be the sense of their walking about on two legs? Still, they seemed to be able to get about. Peter decided that in spite of Joan's strangely-shaped (to him) head, she ■was quite a nice, guest, and as- time passed he found she had a way of just happening along when his nose bag had slipped, off and he could not, for the life of him, discover how to get it back again. Swain, the dog, thought Eric*s passion for a teddy bear that he carried about all day was 1 most amazing. Swain, who rounded up sheep, could not imagine himself carrying around an object that did not move, unless it. could be eaten, like a piece of. meat or a bone, or brought into the fold like a lamb: but he decided this strange liking for the teddybear on the part of Eric was a matter of little importance, since the. boy could play a topping -gamii of ball with him. None of his animal pals could toss it so well as Eric could. Snipe and Sluggard, the cats, at first eyed. Joan and Eric and Bill with contempt. What a noise they made when they walked. Still, a,s they did not have to lie in wait for mice, did it matter much? Snipe and Sluggard, lolling by the fire, soon knew that Bill had gentle hands. As soon as they felt his fingers against their ears, they knew he loved them. Joan had a ball of wool, too, and she would often tangle, it, for Sluggard, to chase. What .fun tlie\* had! What —fun— they had! How—jolly the animals were! How —good—the human beings—! The little girl had fallen asleep, and she dreamed that she was giving a tea party in the backyard to all the friends of Eric and Joan and Bill, including the teddy bear. And they made her feel wclcomc! ' And the funniest part, of it all was this: The little girl had been rather a faut-finding sort of little g*'r] who usually came home from school and told her mother how Bessie Smith was a stuck-up thing, always admiring her thick i>laits, and

how Tom Jones was alwnys braggin about liis brother in the Air Forcc and how Tessic Ellis never coverei her mouth when she yawned ii school, and liow Rita Craig toll tales, and Bob O'Shea never cleanei his boots. Yet, whenever she return ed through the door of Imaginatioi she .spoke more kindly as thougl she had been tokl a beautiful storj and was just beginning to understand its meaning. After she had. been- to Animalland and. had seen the. children* welcomed, she never found fault witl her schoolmates. No doubt she hac discovered the boy with the ball,, the girls who just happened along at the right time, and the lad with the gentle hands. Anyway, I am sure she knows that really great people quick to < see faults in themselves, arc slow to see wrong in others. And they do not think that every one who does not behave cxactly like they do, is wrong! Quite the contrary! f