Tárogató, 1950 (13. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1950-11-01 / 5. szám

*

14 TÁROGATÓ

dows. Then they found it! “Oh! Mum, come quick! We’ve found the loveliest room!” they shouted. “Look! It’s like an aeroplane!” shrilled Peter. “We’re right up in the air, and see, when we open the door-windows, the trees and the sky move in! ”

“And I can still see my Running Rill,” trilled Pattié. “Oh! What a lov-e-ly house, Daddy! I’m so glad you moved us here!” He caught her up and hugged her.

“We’re on the roof here, aren’t we, Dad?” asked Peter, in a grown-up voice.

“Of the garage, Chum,” answered Daddy.

“ ’Twill be a delightful room for family fun,” said Mother, with satisfaction.

Daddy’s face simply shone! He had been anxious in case they might not like the new home. He had wished Mummie might have been with him to help make the decision, but now everything was “Hunkidorie”—Daddy’s word for just right!

“We haven’t seen downstairs,” shouted Peter, bounding off followed by the others. “Pat-tie! Come quick! We’ve got a porch on stilts!”

“It does seem to be on stilts,” Mummie agreed, coming out of the diningroom to the porch that jutted to the very edge of the ravine. “It does”, she repeated; “built like this, with the drop of the hill below. Sh!” she cautioned presently. “Look—quiet! Don’t frighten him!”

“O o-o-o-h!” breathed the small Posts. “What is he, Daddy?”

“A cardinal. He and his little wifebird have a house in our locust trees, somewhere. Hark! He’s singing to her,” Daddy Whispered back.

“Running Rill! An aeroplane room! and such lov-e-ly birdies! Oh! but you did find us a lov-e-ly house, Daddy. Didn’t he, Mummie?”

Mummie nodded to Pattié, saying, as she did so, “I think it’s time now to move our clothes in. Come, Daddy, and you, Peterkin—you can help too. Pattié may open and close doors as her share.”

“We’ve a house on a hill,

And from our window-sill You might think we were travelling on air—

For our locust trees, tall,

Stretch right out to our wall,

And the blue sky peeps in—I declare!

“At the foot of our hill Laughs a gay little rill;

No fish there—just music and song! But who cares for fish?

This house is our dish

And we’ll live in it all our life long!”

sang Daddy, happily, as he trundled the trunks and boxes and bags upstairs.

THE FISH THAT WALKS By Winifred Colwell Neilson

Benny was to spend a few weeks at the seashore, and now he was walking with Uncle Jim along the wet sands. Away, away out, they could see the tide line, and Benny knew that when the tide turned it would come in and cover up where they were now walking. Benny’s feet were bare.

“It’s funny to be walking on the bed of the ocean,” he laughed.

“Yes, it is something we cannot do when the tide is in,” said Uncle Jim. Then he added, suddenly, “Benny, did you ever see a fish walking?”

“A fish can’t walk! You are pulling my leg, Uncle Jim.”

“Look over there and you will see that I am not,” pointed Uncle Jim.

Benny looked, and sure enough there was a little fish using the two long fins under its chin as if they were feet.

Benny ran on his own two bare feet just as fast as he could, and he was just in time to see the little fish plop into a good-sized pool near by.

“The pool he was in was drying up, so he was looking for another pool to live in until the tide comes in again,” said Uncle Jim.

“I can’t see him in this pool”, said Benny.

“Maybe he is hiding behind that rock,” said Uncle Jim. “And if he is hiding there he won’t come out.

“Well, we saw him,” said Benny happily, and as they went along, he laughed at the thought of a fish walking. Uncle Jim told him the name of the fish was a blenny, and it lived in the rocky pools