HOW FLOWERS BECOME COLOURED

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1070, 6 September 1930, Page 29

HOW FLOWERS BECOME COLOURED

FIRST-PRIZE STO R )

Long ago there lived a little fairy, who, from morning till night, played among the clouds in the sky. Often she would pluck small handfuls of white softness from the clouds, and at sunset she gathered an abundance of fleeciness in beautiful shades of rosy red, gold, rich purple and many other pretty colours. She was a bold and adventurous little fairy and, in spite of the warning of her father, the Sun, she often skipped vary near the edge of the sky, until one day she became even more daring than usual, and her dainty little feet - tripped right over the edge. With a frightened cry she clutched ■ at the sky’s edge to save herself from j falling, but she succeeded only in bring- j ing .away two tiny handfuls of blueFor some time the little sky-child j was too terrified to do anything hut j allow' her body to fall limply earthward. Soon, however, her fear was re- i placed by her natural merriment, and : it was not long before she was blithely . laughing and using her rainbow wings ! to convey her speedily to the emeraldgreen world below, where she anticipated a grand adventure. When she came near enough to see the Mowers and trees on the earth plainly, her big blue eyes grew round with wonderment, for, unlike her sky home with its ever-changing hues, its rainbows and its sunset, dawn and thunder clouds, this earth below* her was one shade of deep emerald-green with no other colour whatever throughout the whole length and breadth of it. In amazement the fairy daintily landed in a little garden and was just about to seat herself on a leaf and puzzle it out when she saw a little earth child with a sweet-faced doll enter the garden. She walked slowly, head down, and her otherwise pretty features were puckered into a frown. Looking round at the flowers about her. the fairy noticed that they, too, seemed i unhappy. Suddenly she realised what j it was that ailed the child as w’ell as | the Mowers. They were tired of the ! everlasting greenness of everything, ! which must have proved most monotonous to those living on the earth

amid it all. For a while the sky-child was more j i puzzled than ever, then her exquisite » i little face Mushed daintily pink as once j I again it was brightened with her happy i i smile. From the folds of her soft i gown she produced handful after handful of Meecy cloud, which had been stored there in her carefree play while ;in the sky. Softly she called the earth-child, who at first was surprised !to see the fairy, but who soon was gaily laughing and eagerly talking with ! her. Together the two, one eartily, the l other from the sky, w’here all are im- : mortal, at the sky-child’s suggestion i distributed among the flowers in that earthly garden all the various hues that the sky-child had brought with her. The little handfuls of blueness, which the sky-child had clutched from J the edge of the sky in an endeavour to 1 save herself from falling, were used too, and with the little that was over the children coloured the earth-child’s doll’s eyes. This, together with the rosy red which had accidentally been spilt on her cheeks, made the beauty of the doll even more exquisite than before. When the two children had finished, the garden was so beautiful that it attracted many bees, who, finding its gaiety contagious, soon made the world into the bright, flowerbedecked place that it is today. —Dulcie Rigden, aged 15.