THE BABY WITH DIMPLES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 602, 2 March 1929, Page 29

THE BABY WITH DIMPLES

Once, long: ago, there was a baby born —a wee, smiling baby boy. liis ears were like tiny pink shells that are found on the sea-shore, his lips were like a sweet red rose, and in his pretty pink cheeks he had dimples where the fairies had poked their lingers. His eyes were bits of the blue sky. his hair was the soft down from the thistle, and his nose was very small. His little body, arms and legs were plump and soft. One night Peter, as the baby was called, was lying in his cradle. His mother and father were standing over by the window talking. This is what he heard: “Peter will grow a big boy. I think he will be like you.” “ Yes, dear, but he has your eyes and mouth.” Peter pondered this for .a long time. Was he to grow up—too big to be cuddled in his mother’s arms, too big to lie in his little cradle? Was he?

That night the fairies came i asked Peter the same question. “> he said, “I don’t want to grow up. always want to be small.”

“Peter,” chorused the fairies, “Peter, we will come for you to-morrow night and take you away to a land where you will never grow old. and where you will never grow tall like your father.” He said good-bye to his mother the next day. although it sounded like “Goo-goo.” At the last moment he didn’t want to go. He could hear the fairies calling softly, “Peter, Peter, are you coming?” He didn’t want to grow a big boy, he didn’t want to grow old . . . Yes, he wanted to go. He crept to the window and the fairies took him away and he never went home again. His mother was sad for a long time, but, gradually, she forgot about Peter, for there was another baby in the blue cradle —another baby with dimples and smiles. —Margaret Anderson (aged 14). A PAPER TRICK This is a good catch. First ask your friend if four from four leaves nothing. He’s bound to say, “Why. of course.” “Really,” you reply. “Well, do you know that I can take four from four and leave eight?” He’ll want to know how you manage it. and then you show him. Get a square of paper and show him the four corners. Then take up a pair of scissors and cut off each of the corners. Then show him the paper again. “Now there are eight corners.” you point out, and he has to admit that you have managed to make four corners eight.

HOW HE SAW IT Sighed a Sawfish, “I’d like to find trees Shooting up from the beds of our seas. Thero are weeds there enough. But I want stouter stuff — Give me something to saw, if you please!” ON HER BEST BEHAVIOUR Visitor: “Why are you so quiet. Betty?” Betty: “Because Mother has promised mo a shilling if I sit here quite still and don’t remark about your peculiar nose.”