THE COTTON PLANT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 288, 25 February 1928, Page 27

THE COTTON PLANT

At the margin of a swamp in India lived a very large spider. A strong and active fellow, with a bite as venomous as a snake’s fangs, he brooked no nonsense from the world of small creatures over whom he reigned like a king. There came to live in those parts a fairy, so small as scarcely to be noticed. Her uncle had lately left her in his will a bee’s sting, and with this as spindle she busily wove gossamer fabrics so fine as to excite the envy of King Spider who rather fancied himself at such work. At last he resolved that the fairy and her spinning must be put an end to. Seeing him coming, the fairy fled in terror but, though the spider was rather old and very fat, he could still run at a great rate. The fairy implored help from a mouse, a toad and other creatures that ‘she passed; but these were too afraid of that awful bite to interfere. At her last gasp she sprang into a flower, whose petals, as night was falling fast, closed over her. The spider could not force them open, so he spun a web around them and crouched down to wait.

He laid siege to the flower till its petals withered and fell off, but there was no fairy to be seen, and in great rage, he bit himself and died. In a day or two however, the round seed pod that had formed inside the flower burst open, and the fairy sprang out leaving behind her hanging from the open capsule, a mass of waving snowy cotton woven during her captivity. Ever since the seeds of this plant (gossypium) have yielded all the cotton men needed. LITTLE CLAIRE SWEET There was a little girl And her name was Claire Sweet. She never would look Beforei crossing the street. She leaped from the kerbstone, Did heedless young Claire, Just missing large trucks By the width of a hair.

Said the traffic policeman, “You really must look,” And he frowned very hard And his finger he shook. Cars came from the left And cars came from the right, And for once in her life Foolish Claire had a fright. A horse who was going * As fast as he could Galloped straight to the spot Where the frightened Claire stood. But he suddenly halted, Stock still in his track, And lifting Claire up Tossed her right on his back.