A Little World for Little People

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 590, 16 February 1929, Page 29

A Little World for Little People

friendship is a steady light shining in dark places

Til E "TWICE-TWOS”

"I'M afraid I shall never be a very good scholar,” said the Little 1 Thought, with a deep sigh. "Rut you have never been to school,” laughed the Doorkeeper. tweaking playfully at the little fellow’s ear. “Oh, yes, I have,” murmured the Little Thought. “I went this morning. .Just after daybreak I flew in at a Sunbeam’s window to see if be would come out and play with me. I had thought of a beautiful new game called ‘ileivdrop cricket,’ but my little friend couldn't come. He had to go to school. I watched him wash his face and dabble his hands, brush his teeth and comb his liair, then he ate his porridge out of a picture plate and went to school. Instead of trying to play ‘dewdrop cricket’ all by myself I went with him. He said I could. The' children do strange tilings in school. They call out ‘present, present, present.’ just as if it is Christmas time and they have tables that don’t look like tables at all. They’re made of figures.” “I know,” nodded the Doorkeeper. “They’re the twice-twos.” “Then,” went on the Little Thought, “the teacher tells them about a cat that wouldn’t sit anywhere but on a mat and asks them to spell things. Some of them put their hands up because they know, hut there are others who just stare out of the window ” / “And did you do any lessons?” “I tried to work a sum that was on the blackboard. It said: ’A boy bought a bag of apples and gave his brother half of them. He had ten left. How many did he have at first?’ There were no apples there to count, so I couldn’t find the answer. Lunchtime was fine fun. Some of the hoys gave away two sandwiches for one piece of cake and hardly any of them ate the crusts. Then some of them ran across the road and bought sweets. The others all crowded round them, and said, ‘You know me,’ But, although they were quite well acquainted, some of the lucky ones looked at the others as if they were complete strangers. Wasn’t that curious?” “Very curious. And were there many Sunbeams at that school?” “Oh, yes, I counted numbers of them. They are all in new classes and they look very brown after the holidays. What is this strange picture, Mister Doorkeeper? It is all made up of little squares, and it is for a competition.”

“Yes,” answered the Doorkeeper, “I have been studying it carefully. If you will run across and borrow the Dawn Lady’s scissors, I shall put it together for you.”