Clyde's Lion.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 18, 1 May 1902, Page 29

Clyde's Lion.

' S'posing,' said little Clyde, 'that a great big, big lion should get after me when I was out in the woods, 'n I clum'd up a tree, and — and threw a club down and hit him on the mouth! I bet he'd run away pretty fast then, wouldn't he ? ' ' ph, I'm afraid n,ot,' Clyde's pap.a answered. ' You wouldn't be able to throw the club hard enough .to hjurt a lion very much.' ' Well, you know, I might break off a great — great— awful big limb and let it fall right down on the lion's back. I giuess that would make him get out of there pretty, fast, wouldn't it ? ' 'It might, but how could you break off a big limb like that ? Why, you couldn't break off. a branch even as thick as one of my fingers.' « Well, but I might stay up there till I would grow big and strong, you see. And then I bet I .could do 'No, you wouldn't be able to do it even 'then. I couldn't break off a limb that would be heavy enoiigSi to hurt a lion if it fell on him.' -' Couldn't I even if I g.ot to be as big as a giant ? ' ' I don't lonow— (hardly. ' ' Well, giants can master lions, can't they ? '■ ' Not when the lions have a, fair show or happen to be angryClyde thopght the matter over for a moment an.d_thon resumed : ■' Would the lion be sitting under the tree with his mouth wide open all this time waiting for me to fall into it ■? '■ ' Very likely.' ' And could he swallow me with just one gulp ? ' 'He might make two or three mouthfuls of ■ you, unless he happened to be an extra large lion. ' Yes, but I'd wait up there for a whole year till he got so hungry he'd have to go away somewhere else or get starved.' ' And don't yo|u suppose that you would get pretty hungry and perhaps starve yourself if you. stayed up the tree a whole year ? ' ' Well, but you see they might be a lot of blackberry bushes grow up around the tree, 'n' I could eat the blackjberries.' 'Oh ! You might get sleepy, too. That would be dangerous. If you ever closed your eyes and got to no/ddingr— down y,o,u would g,o.'

It looked for a moment as if this miight end the argument, but little Clyde was not to be caught napping by any ordinary old lion in that way, and after a brief consideration of the matter said : ' Yes, but you see before I clum'd up that tree some other little - boy might have been out there flying nis kite and the string, might have got fast on the limbs and broke, so I could take it. and tie myself to the tree, and then I wouldn't fall when I went to sleep.' His papa had to admit then that Clyde would be too much for the lion ; the light was p.ut out and in about sixty-three seconds a little boy was fast asleep, while a little boy's papa was being scolded by a little boy's mamma for permitting ' a child to go to bed with his head full of such horrible trash.' ,