Under the “Totem-Pole”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 831, 27 November 1929, Page 16

Under the “Totem-Pole”

Letters to Redfeather are answered as follow: —Bird Charmer: Here is a. remembered Brave pausing under the Totem Pole. You will find that All Saints’ news in the Girl Guides’ Corner. I hope you will enter for the Wig-warn Christmas competitions. . . . Still Pool: Your company has done excellent work for the new Guide Home in England, Still Pool. How sad that your Labour Day hike had to be postponed. My best wishes to all the Guides in First Whangarei. . . . Little Star: That lantern lecture this evening should be very entertaining, Little Star, *nd I shall look forward to hearing all about it. Many thanks for your interesting notes. . . . Gleaming Shell: Greetings and welcome to this new Suva Brave. You will always find a place in our friendly circle. Perhaps you would like some Wigwam correspondents. I shall always look forward to hearing from you. . . . Red Star: No, you didn’t expect to see Redfeather at your tepee, did yofi, Red Star? Surprises are the spice of life, I think. It was wonderful to find you looking so much stronger. A special wish for the little fkithful one. . . . Flying Cloud: So you raced the sun out of bed and had to find your way about with a torch? All the world seems to be standing on tiptoe in the very early morning, doesn’t it, Flying Cloud? Lie-abeds miss half the joy of life. Did you retire early that same evening? . . . Dancing Star: Yes, examinations seem to be the order of the day Dancing Stg.r. I hope you will pass yours, but something tells me that you will. What a pleasant week-end the Takapuna Guides had at Otimai.

THE IDEAL LIFE

The soft blue night was pricked by a thousand twinkling stars. Eleven chimes drifted across the meadows from many an old tower. The gas lamps, flickering in the streets, were pale and few, and the measured tread of a policeman on his beat, the hoot of an owl in one of its night haunts, the stamping of horses’ hoofs from a stable nearby were the only sounds disturbing the silence. On the corner of an old cobbled street stood an inn. It was quaintly built in the old-fashioned English style. Through the upper windows came the glimmer of a lamp throwing weird, twisting shadows on the cobble stones below. This was a place where men loved to gather. Even now in the musty, smoke-filled parlour several men, some old, some young were telling tales. One was a humorist, and he was displaying his wit. One was an artist, another a poet, still another a naturalist who loved to wander among the glories of nature. The conversation had drifted into a discussion of the “ideal life.” The humorist remarked that to gladden the hearts of sad people with his merry wit was his idea of “the life.” He is famous now. “To paint pictures of wonderful beauty and in return win fame and wealth is mine,” spoke the artist. Some years ago he died penniless. The poet said: “Oh, how I long to stir the hearts of men. When to the heights I’ve climbed that to me will be ‘the life’.” Today he" is numbered among the greatest of his kind. “What say you?” someone asked the naturalist. “I?” he answered. “I would like to live by the wayside in some old country town and build a house on green pastures with shady nooks and running streams. Trees of different kinds I’d plant the sturdy oak, drooping willows and whispering elms —and long for the day when they would give shade to many a wayworn brother. A friend to man I’d be.” No fame or wealth did he claim; instead, he gained the love of his fellow-men. —Flying Beetle (Leslie Crago).