A LITTLE WORLD FOR LITTLE PEOPLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 68, 11 June 1927, Page 25 (Supplement)

A LITTLE WORLD FOR LITTLE PEOPLE

THE HAPPINESS TREE U AXCE upon a time,” began the Dawn Lady, “there was a U wonderful garden . . “ Hush! ’ said the Little Thought, “this is going to be a story.” “ It is probably going to be a fairy tale,” said the Doorkeeper. “ They usually start like that.” “ But I can never understand how once can be upon a time,” murmured the man who keeps the Joy Shop. “It seems to me such a strange way to start a story. Don’t you think so?” “ But it’s the proper introduction,” said the Little Thought. “It lets you know that something more is going to be said. Every story must start somehow. If the Dawn Lady had just said, * There was a wonderful garden,’ you and the Doorkeeper might have gone on talking.” “ Once upon a time,” rejieated the Dawn Lady, very patiently, “there was a wonderful garden. It was always Springtime there. All the people who lived there were children. In a large bed grew the Happiness Tree and no one could pass it without smiling. It had a magic influence on the garden, and not a sad face was to be found there. “ Well, one day a little old man called Trouble, came to the garden and knocked with his stick on the gate. The children were all very frightened. “ ‘Here is a man with an axe,’ they cried. ‘He has come to cut down the Happiness Tree.’ “ ‘ Let me in,’ said Trouble. ‘No gate is ever locked against me.’ “ Vainly they pleaded with him to go away. “ ‘Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards,’ he said and came thrusting his v'ay in, his wicked-looking axe over his shoulder. “ But as he approached the Happiness Tree a sudden change came over him. His sullen frown melted to a smile and the gleaming axe turned into a knapsack! “Perplexed he gazed at the children. ‘You are playing a trick on me,’ he said.

“ ‘ Let us fill your knapsack with the seed Happiness Tree,’ begged the children, ‘so that it may grow in the four corners of the world.’

“And that is just exactly what they did. That is why the seed of happiness is always carried about in the knapsack of Trouble and why there is always sunshine in the world.” “ I like that story,” said the Little Thought, “especially as we have one of those trees in Happy town, but Trouble can never come here with his axe. He could not findliis w r ay down Tiptoe Street. By the way, Dawn Lady, the last of the competition mail-bags arrived to-day. Shall I help you to cut the string?”

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