RAINBOW BABIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1004, 21 June 1930, Page 33

RAINBOW BABIES

One© upon a time there lived on a big fluffy cloud seven blue-eyed babies. Their mother was the Sky Lady, and she loved them all very dearly. They never grew any older, even though they could run about, and perhaps that is why sh© was so fond of them. At night they slept all in a row with a downy piece of cloud for a coverlet, and their mother would sit beside them threading star necklaces and singing soft little lullabies so that their dreams would b© happy; but during the day they played all kinds of pranks. They would steal the colours from the sunshine and make ribbons for their hair, or paint their cloud home with all the tints of the rainbow'. Now tl.i© Sun saw all this and he thought of a plan by which these tricks could bo put to good use. Calling the babies he named them after all the colours they had stolen and dressed them in long fluttering robes of the same hues. Then he gave each one a pot of magic paint. “There is a very dull place called Earth,” he said. “You must go there and give the people all the colours of the sunshine.” So away they flew, all dressed in

colours to match their names, Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Bed, and carrying their paint-pots carefully so that the precious colours would not be spilt. The Sky Lady called after them as they flew past, but they all just turned and waved goodbye. In a little while the earth became a beautiful place, and wonderful flowers appeared in the gardens. Green worked night and day colouring trees and all the grass that grew in the fields and on the hillsides. Indigo shaded the leaves and flower centres, Yellow. Orange and Red splashed their colours at random, and Violet and Blue hurried hero and there looking for tiny blossoms- to paint. “What a wonderful world we live in,” said the mortals, but the poor Sky Lady sat on her cloud with her hands over her face and tears trickling through her fingers. She had forgotten how to thread star necklaces and sing lullabies. Her cloud house looked as dull as the earth had been before her babies had gone to live there. One day the babies looked up from their work. “Look,” they said, “our mother, the Sky Lady, is weeping. Let us go up and dry her tears.” Joining hands they streamed up fr.om the earth, leaving a trail of colour as they flew, and soon the Sky Lady was kissing them on© by one. “Oh,” cried the mortals. “A rainbow!” And that is what happens. When the Sky Lady weeps for her little lost babies, they all fly up to comfort her, and when they return to Earth she remembers the lullabies and smiles a misty smile. —W.S.T.