JIM SKILLING

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

JIM SKILLING

There once was a boy And his name was Jim Skilling, lie bought a new pencil, It cost him a shilling; He taught it to draw Lovely parallel lines, Triangles and circles And other designs.

It was really so clever, So bright and so blue, It achieved every task That he set it to do; And good little Jim At the end of each day Would sharpen it neatlj And put it away. Now that wonderful pent :: Could draw very well, But, going one better, Jim taught it to spell, And to work out his sums When the answers came v And to do writing lessons, So tiresome and long. Now, Jim had a friend Who was rather a dunce, And he lent him the pencil To try just for once.

But wasn’t it strange?— t Not a thing would it do, But look most attractive And shining and blue. ... When you come to consider That pencil and Jim, ‘ Don’t you think it reflects Half the credit on him? BABY BOY • Baby Boy was in liis pram, under the old oak in the garden, supposed to be asleep, but he had something far more interesting to do than that. He was waiting for his fairy, April, to take him to Fairyland. (You must know that every baby has a fairy.) Just as he was giving up all hope of April coming, that little sprite appeared on the hood of his pram. She told Baby Boy to shut his blue eyes and to feel, one by one, his chubby fingers. After that he would be in Fairyland. Baby Boy did this right up to the seventh finger, then, being curious to see what would happen, he opened his eves. . . . Plomp! he landed on something hard, then sat up and looked about him. Everywhere he could see horrid little men with ugly faces. Baby Boy was not used to seeing ugly faces, so he jumped up and began to run away, but all the little men ran after him, and he was very frightened. Suddenly Baby Boy found himself back in his pram under the oak in the garden with his mummy bending over him. and quickly he resolved never to disobey again. _.. —Lorna Finlayson (aged 10). IN CONFERENCE There has been a white rabbit running about our place for some da3*s. He is quite a stranger to us, and we do not know to whom he belongs. This morning I went out and found him sitting close to the pigeons’ cage, surveying them witli big pink eyes—and 1 wondered what secrets, in unknown language, he was imparting to them. —Jean Mclndoe (aged 14). WELCOME TO HAPPY TOWN IVTEG VAUGHAN, Grey Lynn; Muriel Banfield, Cambridge; John Smallbone, Ashburton; Jack Marr, Manurewa; Joyce Webb, Ngongotaha; Keith Mortimer, Huntly; Eva McDowell, Runciman; Peggy Whistanee, Ponsonby; Doris Sefton, Huntly; Robert Pickering Newbold, Epsom; Peter Monkley, Turua; Valerie Lennard, Auckland.