AN OPEN-AIR PAGE FOR BIG BOYS AND GIRLS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 1, 23 March 1927, Page 10

AN OPEN-AIR PAGE FOR BIG BOYS AND GIRLS

VERY SPACIOUS WAS THE WIGWAM. MADE OF DEER-SKIN DRESSED AND WHITENED

The little leaves rustled in the wind, the lazy waters of the lake came lapping the warm shores, night went out on noiseless moceasins and the first ray of sunshine looked in at the Wigwam. And softly, softly over the Lake of Many Raters came the Spirit of the Open Spaces out of the rose and gold and. silver of the morning. 1 Hither, Hither,” whispered the little leaves trembling in the sun.

“Hither, Hither,” sighed the Lake of Many Waters.” “ Hither, Hither,” breathed the spacious white walls of the Wigwam.

And knowing the ways of the forest, the secret tracks of night, the footprints of the morning, the voices of many waters, the whispering of leaf to leaf, the calling of birds in'the branches, the dim, blue spirals of wood-smoke in the twilight, and the hidden longing that sleeps in the heart of all that is lovely, the Spirit of the Open Spaces stepped from her dream canoe into her best loved territory. The Spirit of the Open Spaces is known to us all. Her nets encircle the world. The glint of a sail will rouse her from sleep, the twitter of a bird from some leafy recess, the span of a rainbow, the glimmer of a new moon in the evening sky. At the lifting of a finger she can lure men to the four corners of the earth. “ Back and forth shall ply the dream canoe,” she said, “ on the Lake of Many Waters, and the'Wigwam shall become a meeting place for those of my kind. Here we shall gather and here shall great friendships he made. And in the forest we shall follow the winged feet of Adventure and decipher the footprints of the night and the morning. “ The little leaves shall tell of our coming, of the hopes we have brought to fruition, of the deeds we have done, and the making of great chiefs and many braves.” And so out of the rose and gold and silver of the morning, with leaf whispering to leaf, from the Lake of Many Waters, the Spirit of the Open Spaces came softly on her fringed and beaded moccasins into the spacious interior of the Wigwam. —REDFEATHER.