THE “GOOD ENDEAVOUR" LEAGUE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 41, 16 June 1947, Page 6

THE “GOOD ENDEAVOUR" LEAGUE

FOR YOUNG READERS ONLY

lAboard for the Goodwill Cruise

What ho, what ho, ma hearties! Well here we are back again. What a nasty lot of rain we have had lately. I put on my raincoat, sou’wester and big sea boots and went down to the beach to see how the “Good Endeavour” was weathering the storm. The old ship was pitching and tossing in great style believe me. Still she has weathered many worse storms in her time so I have no fears for her safety. Butinsky is much better now and his cold is nearly gone. You will notice a new feature this week, “Animal Parade.” Each week you will read about a new animal, and I’m sure you will enjoy the feature very much indeed. Now a word to all our story writers. I haven’t had any stories for some time now. All those who would- like to see their story appear on this page set to work please. That seems to be all for this week so cheerio until next Monday. P.T.W.

OUR STORY SPARKS GETS THE JOB His keenness for wireless had got him nick-named “Sparks.” Few seemed to remember his proper name. What is remembered about him is his thoroughness in doing any job, his willingness to learn from any one, and anything. He had one ambition—to become a wireless operator.

“Sparks” knew that keenness alone does not qualify any one for a job. One of the questions put to an applicant for employment is “What can you do?” He had made up his mind not to be stumped by that After leaving school he continued to study all about wireless. Night schools thrilled him. While his chums were chasing a balL about the play-fields, or wasting their time and money in the cinema, he was listening to lecturers whose knowledge fed his hungry mind. To know, that a wireless signal can encircle the globe in the fifth of a second was to him a marvel. He longed for the day when he would sit in a well-equipped ship’s cabin receiving and sending such signals. In the meantime he applied himself to the study of valves, coils, wave lengths, codes and all other technical things associated with wireless. A period in the Air Training Corps gave him the opportunity of learning Morse. One day the Mayor of the town visited the cadets at their training. He found a lot of boys hard at work on the Morse buzzers. “Sparks” was the keenest in any of the groups. “Do you know anything about Morse, sir?” said one boy to the distinguished visitor, more bold than the rest.

“A little,” answered His Worship, and he offered to take on everybody in the room and to give five shillings to any boy who could, beat him. The officer in charge took the Mayor on one side. “Better be careful, sir,” he said. “These boys are pretty hot, you know. Some of them can do 14 words a minute.”

Quietly chuckling to himself, the Mayor repeated his offer, and the friendly contest started. “Sparks” and his friends were easily outdone, for:His Worship used to be a post office telegraph clerk with a Morse speed of 35 words a minute. One day - “Sparks’s” eagle eye picked out from the “Situations Vacant” column the item he had long hunted. A shipping company wanted a wireless operator.

When he arrived at their office he found the waiting-room already filled with a group of applicants. They seemed a happy and friendly lot, and their chatter and laughter filled the room. “Sparks” never very good at meeting new people, sat apart and waited. Suddenly he sat upright, alert! What was that peculiar noise that seemed to keep breaking in above the buzz of the noisy conversation? He summoned all his powers of concentration and listened. It seemed like dots and dashes being repeated. It was-a message! By an intense effort he picked out the sense, and all at once walked into an office marked “Private.”

The other applicants, surprised at his action, and none too pleased, stopped their chatter. “That’s a bit cheeky,” said one of them. “He \yas the last here, and he goes in ahead of us!”

“He’ll not be in long,” said another. “No one would employ a boy who goes dashing in before being asked.”

PETER THE WHALER WHALE JSLAND

But “Sparks” was a good while in that private room, and when he came out he was all smiles. “Say,” said one of the group, “what do you mean getting in ahead of us? We were here first.” “Yes,” said “Sparks,” “but none of you was listening. I got the job because I got the message.” “What message?” they asked in surprise. “The message that came through the loudspeaker on that wall,” answered “Sparks.” “It said, ‘The man I need must always be on the alert. The first man who gets this message and comes direct into my private office will be placed on one of my ships as. operator.”

MIRACLES DO HAPPEN If you were to ask Mr Pete Bird of Kentucky, U.S.A., if he believes in miracles he would certainly say yes. One day forty-two years ago Mr Bird was chopping wood when a chip flew and hit him in the eye. A cataract formed and eventually he became blind in that eye. Recently, when Mr Bird was again chopping wood, a chip struck the same eye. It tore the cataract loose and he is now able to see again. ANIMAL PARADE THE JACKAL Even if you are particularly fond of animals you would find it hard to like the jackal. The natives of India regard him as a four-legged vulture, for he lives chiefly on carrion. He will shadow a wounded animal until it dies and he haunts the burial grounds and battlefields, waiting until it is safe to leap upon the dead bodies. It is strange to think that this cowardly animal is related to the fearless wolf, but he is rather like the wolf in appearance, with the pointed muzzle and bushy tail of the fox. Through the day, jackals lie concealed in their burrows, but at night, they come out in packs to hunt sheep and antelopes. If other food is scare they prowl through the villages eating the rubbish on the streets, and whenever they can, stealing poultry and the smaller livestock. The jackal is certainly a true scavenger. SOME CLEVER INSECTS The children of a black spider in the New England States are carried about by their mother on her back, but at the first alarm each young spider jumps' from the mother’s back, and all go off in different directions. But first each is attached by a silken thread, and by means of these apron-strings the children find their way back when the danger has passed. Parasol ants clip out pieces of leaf and carry them like parasols in a procession to their homes. There they cut them up very fine and, placing them in great rounded chambers as large as a man’s head, connected with one another by tunnels, make them into a mass. A fungus grows oh this material, and this the ants eat. When the leafy matter will grow no more fungus the chamber is deserted;

Some of the miner wasps, while excavating a burrow, live in the vestibule and pass the night there. But the Ammophila sabulosa does not. She has a lock-up shop. When her work is over for the day she shuts up shop by stopping the entrance with a small stone, and goes away for the night.

The young caterpillar of the puss moth, which feeds on the upper surface of the glossy leaves of sallow, willow, and poplar, spins a carpet of silk on the leaf, in which the hooks of its feet may catch, and so enable it to feed without being jerked off by the wind. ANIMAL WISDOM Strangely, wild creatures are not only coloured to conform to their surroundings, but apparently are conscious of it, being aware if they remain quite immobile they will not be discovered. While not being responsible for their dress they do manifest intelligence by taking proper advantage of it. Men have been known to pick a flower close beside a tan-skinned fawn lying quietly among the yellowed grasses, and unless the terrified little creature moved its eyes, the man never saw it. Hunters in Africa have beat the

sulphur-coloured herbage for lions when they have been hidden amongst its foliage close by. Monkeys go to sleep clustered together in groups beneath widespeading leaves, their rounded brown bodies (heads concealed) resembling a bunch of coconuts, in the tropical dusk of the forest.

In the same locality also is the sloth, the most defenceless creature known, but hanging upside down from some branch, its movements so slow as to be almost invisible, spore of the long Spanish moss attach themselves to its own long hair and grow, partially covering it with this deceiving blanket. On its side also is a brown spot that looks not unlike the end of a broken branch, and there you are. You might watch it a long time before realising it was a live animal. Desert animals in most cases are the colour of the sands, and seem to appreciate that their surest defence is to remain perfectly still when approached by an enemy.