THE BOTTOM SHELF

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 554, 5 January 1929, Page 25

THE BOTTOM SHELF

Peter climbed up the steep little stairs which led to the apple-room and there, as he expected, he found mother. She was on her knees, sorting- out the rosy, yellow, russet-brown, and green fruit. “Can I help?” the little boy asked, and his mother looked at him thoughtfully. “Yes,” she answered. “Look! You can sort out all the big ones from this pile, and all those which are as small as or smaller than this one,” and she held up a little rosy-cheeked beauty, “shall be your very own, and you can lay them on the bottom shelf.” Peter set to work, and he went on and on until the bottom shelf was full of little round apples. He felt quite proud of them, but when his mother saw that he was tired she told him to run away. Peter wandered through the. farm, and soon he came to the high road. Just at the corner a tired-looking woman and a pale little boy were sitting. “You couldn’t tell us where we could get a drink, could you?” the woman asked. “Why, yes,” Peter answered. He took the woman and little boy back to the farm, and when he was once more in the attic, telling his mother about them, he caught sight of the bottom shelf. “Mother!” he cried, “I will give them my apples!” And so, while the woman and little boy were drinking milk and eating cake, the apples were put into a little “It will be heavy,” he said; but his mother answered that it would not matter because the woman and boy were going to ride to town in the milk cart. They carried the apples down; and when Peter gave them away he said, “Please let your little boy have the very small ones for liis own, but you can sell the others.” ‘Thank you!” the woman said. “You are very, very kind.” And when Peter went "back to the apple room he fully realised the joy of giving as he looked at that empty bottom shelf.

overheard “You are foolish. Fancy trying to drive a nail into the wall with a clothes-brush. Why don’t you use your head?”

WELCOME TO HAPPY TOWN T YLA Innes, Auckland; Ray Davies, Herne Bay; Joan McLaren, Auckland; Craig Cunningham, Grey Lynn; Audrey Murphy, Ponsonby; Marguerita Rhoda Bentley, Morrinsville; Keith Simons, Otahuhu; Margaret Hanley, Huntly.