A LITTLE WORLD FOR LITTLE PEOPLE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 200, 12 November 1927, Page 27 (Supplement)

A LITTLE WORLD FOR LITTLE PEOPLE

UNDER THE HAPPINESS TREE

B(jT what is Sixpence ’ asked the Joy Shop man, leaning against the )trunk of the Happiness Tree, his eyes wanderio the Joy Shop where everything is free and the clink of neV has never sounded in the till. “It’s six pennies made into a little round silver coin with a ■ ; , a don one side and a tail on the other,” said the Little Thought, mportantly. ‘‘l .have watched the Sunbeams spending them in ;e outside world. .Sixpence will buy six caramel bars or six ict creams. Some children just look in the shop windows i3 d can’t buy anything. They have no money, so they just have o watch the other children having the caramel bars and ice The ones that, look in the shop windows are sometimes pry thin and hungry. T hey have no shoes on their feet and some- . their elbows are showing through their jacket sleeves. .. . He Dawn Lady and the Sunbeams are going to help them, and ,o am 1- The Sunbeams are going to send the sixpences that 3 ey buy ice creams with, you are going to count them and the Doorkeeper is going to lock them away in the Plaee-of-You-\>ver-Can-Tell. Then, when the box is full, we are going to give one* that look in the shop windows a holiday in the country. The Dawn Lady has just been writing all about it for the Happy Town page. ’ "T,his is a splendid idea,” said the Joy Shop man, softly. -It wifi bring happiness to numbers of little children in the out.ile world. Xo one can be happy without proper food, and the n?s that are not very strong will grow healthy again.” “I should think so,” said Doctor Spring Sunshine, “and my ~inion is worth having, even though I am giving up my practice to Summertime, M.D.” “I’ve got the box,” said the Doorkeeper. “It’s a beautiful big ns, and it stands on a shelf in the Place-of-You-Never-Can-Tell. , Da«n Lady has covered the bottom of it with sixpences and .. Sunbeams are going to send theirs until it is full to the brim.” “How do you know?” asked the Joy Shop man.

The Doorkeeper smiled mysteriously. “Because 1 know the Mmbeams,” he said at length. “I often read their letters and—why, bless you, well, they’re Sunbeams.”