BROWNIE BEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 110, 30 July 1927, Page 27

BROWNIE BEN

j Once upon a time there was a little wee brownie named Ben, who lived in the top of a big pine tree in the middle of a cool green forest. One day, as ho sat at the door of his little house, sewing up a tear in liis coat with a green pine needle, he heard someone singing and laughing. He looked down through the branches of the pine tree and saw coming along the path three children with a woman who carried a big. big lunch basket. They were Mary and Billy and little Annette, with Sarah the nurse“Oh, look!” cried Mary. “Here’s a lovely place for the picnic, right under this tree.” “Fine!” cried Billy. “You can sit here. Sarah, and rest, while we go hunt for ferns down by the little brook.” “Give us each an apple before we go, Sarah, dear,” Mary begged, and Sarah opened the big, big basket ajid took out three red apples. “Goody, goody!” cried little Annette- “I’m so glad we’re having a picnic!” And off the children scampered, while Sarah sat down at the foot of the tree to take a nap, quite forgetting to put the cover back on the basket. “Now. what in the world can a picnic be?” thought Brownie Ben, peeping down from the top of the tree. “Where do they keep it? I expect it must be in the basket with the apples because I can’t see it anywhere else.” He crept down the tree very carefully to the lowest branch, and then crawled out until he was right over the basket. “Now,” he thought, “if I look very hard—” “Bang! Bang!” went a sudden clap of thunder. It startled Brownie Ben so that he lost his hold on the lowest branch and dropped—pop!—right into the basket. It startled Nurse Sarah too. She jumped up right away, and called, “Come, come, children, quickly! There is going to be a storm. We must hurry home before it rains!” The children came scampering. Nurse Sarah picked up the lunch basket, put on the cover, and, almost before Brownie Ben knew what had happened, they were all rushing down the path. The apples bumped up against him and bruised him a bit, while once he thought a big pile of sandwiches was going to tumble right on his head! He was glad when they reached the children’s home and Nurse Sarah put the basket down in- a corner of the porch. It took him five and a-half minutes to catch his breath, and by that time the rain had commenced to pour down. “Oh, dear,” wailed little Annette, “it will be so wet we can’t go back to the woods to-day at all.” “But I’ve got to go back.” thought Brownie Ben. “How shall I ever get out of this basket?” He peeped through the holes in the basket-work, and saw something that almost made him forget his troubles. Billy had brought out his scooter and was running it up and down on the porch. Brownie Ben had never seen a scooter. He thought it was a wonderful thing. “When I get out of here,” 1m thought. “I am going to get one just like it and go whizzing down the paths in the woods. But how am I ever going to get out?” A little sparrow flew on the porch to pick up some crumbs. Brownie Ben called to him, “Mr. Sparrow, won’t you please lift up the top of the basket and help me out?” “Not I,” called back the sparrow. “I’m too busy,” and away he flew. A little mouse came running along the porch. “Mrs. Mouse, won’t you please lift up the top of the basket and help me out?” “Not I,” called back the mouse. “I’m too busy.” Then the fresh breeze came blowing against the basket, cool and pleasant after the rain. She whispered in to Brownie Ben, “Why don’t you do something? Why don’t you try to help yourself out? That’s the best way.” “That’s an idea!” said Brownie Ben. He looked around him in the basket. Tliqre were, oh, so many sandwiches! Why couldn't he pile them one on top of another, like steps, until he could reach the top of the basket? At least he could tryIt was hard work because the sandwiches were nearly as big as Brownie Ben himself, but he pulled and tugged. Once, the top of one of them came off, just as Brownie Ben stepped on it. He pulled and he pulled, but he was stuck. It was a jelly sandwich, and his feet got stuck so fast he could hardly pull them put, and he had to try several times. At last he got it all ready, a beautiful sandwich stairway! He climbed up, and pushed and pushed at the corner with his head until finally—pop!—off it came. “Oh, look!” cried the children. “The top has come off the basket! Just look! Sarah, come and see!” But Brownie Ben didn’t wait for Sarah or for anyone else to come and see. He jumped down from the basket and scampered off as fast as he could to the pine woods. The rain had stopped now, and the sun was shining when he reached home. How happy he was to be back! With pine cones for wheels and a stiff hig fern to steer with, he made a fine scooter like Billy’s. He tied a bluebell that grew by the brook on the front, to ring so that all the wood-folks would hurry up and get out of the way when they heard him come whizzing along the path. All day lsng he raced happily up and down and up and down the paths of the cool green forest. “I see you’re safe back home," the breeze called to him, “and I see that you’ve made your own scooter, too!” “Yes, indeed,” Brownie Ben called back. “You were right, Miss Breeze. You can get things done as soon as you try to help yourself—and it is loads of fun, too!” And Brownie Ben went whizzing away on his scooter. “What are those little mounds?” asked a tourist, looking over the fence of a field, dotted with mole-hills. “Umpty-tumps,” answered the English rustic. "But what are umpty-tumps?” “Tumps what the Umpty makes,” answered the rustic. “But what is the Umpty?” “Why, it’s what makes the tumps, of course!” MEMBERSHIP CARDS Children of 15 and under are invited to send their names, ages and addresses to the Dawn Lady, Happy Town, THE SUN Office, Auckland, when a Membership Card will reach them at an early date.