THE DOG STAR

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 98, 16 July 1927, Page 21

THE DOG STAR

Of course, you’ve all heard of the Dog Star? But I wonder if you know why it’s called that? Well, this is the story of it. There was once a funny old man called Mr. Peebles, and he lived all by himself in a little house with his dog Timothy. I’m sorry to say that he wasn’t very kind to his dog. He only gave him a meal every other day and often he used to beat him for no reason at all. Timothy often thought he would like to run away, but old Mr. Peebles guessed that he’d go if he got the chance, so he always used to take him out on a lead and keep him tied up when he was at home. One day, he went out to do his little bit of shopping and it was very wet and windy. What with his basket and his umbrella and Timothy tugging at his lead, old Mr. Peebles found it rather difficult to get along until he hit upon a brilliant idea. He put the handle of the umbrella through the loop at the end of Tim’s lead and so could hold them both with one hand. But just as he was thinking how clever he was, something happened. A big gust of wind came along, filled the umbrella and blew it right out of Mr. Peebles’s hand. Up. up went the umbrella, and up, up went Timothy, too. away into the sky. At last the umbrella bumped into something and Timothy looked and saw that it was a nice little star. “Just the place for me,” he thought, “nice and peaceful—and surely that’s a rabbit I see over there.” So he hung the umbrella on one of the points of the star, caught a rabbit sleep. And he’s so happy on his star that he’s stayed there ever since.