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Show IS Daddy s Fairy Tale 5yAARY GRAHAM BOWER RIVER'S TALK It was tnornlnz and a rather dark Little Map person who called .himself -Mi Old Castles. an appetizing breakfast and then he wandered far down through Rumania Ru-mania until he skirted the northern part of Bulgaria where he saw a sign pointing to the Balkan mountains. But his friend Danube was wandering along, between the two, and he decided de-cided to stay with Danube. "I became so sleepy last night," David said, "but I would like to hear some more of your story. River Danube." Danube rushed along, gurgling happily hap-pily at David's speech. David had to hurry to keep up with him. "My mouth is here In Rumania. I don't suppose you'd like to have a mouth in one place and your course in another, but then you're a boy and I'm a river." "Well," said David, "I have my mouth In one place, and my feet, for example, in another." "To be sure," said Danube, "1 hadn't thought of that before." "Still they're not so far apart as your mouth and source are." "It would be hard to be such a wanderer wan-derer as 1 am, unless one were a river." Danube went on. "Oh. how I love my life I I water the valleys of central Europe, I make Hungary so rich and so fertile and I adore my changes of scenery. Sometimes I like to see only fields and sometimes I want tumbling water falls and magnificent mag-nificent cataracts, and rugged, rocky scenery and great trees, and old castles. cas-tles. So I have all kinds of scenery. Through Austria I have the loveliest of scenery. "There's my river relative the Rhine. Rhine isn't as big as I am, but Rhine Is very famous. He rises up among the Alpine glaciers right under the snow, and goes dashing down the mountains to Lake Constance. Con-stance. He gets out of the lake and then takes another huge tumble at Schaffhausen, over the greatest falls of Europe and then he goes In more dignified fashion on to Basel where he turns north. He has lots of love of scenery, too, and of business, and he loves old legends which have been woven around him, and history, too. "I tell you about Rhine so you won't think I'm too conceited as I also love to tell you of my Interesting life. "There has been a famous waltz writ-ten writ-ten about mt called the Blue Danube waltz, and I love that tune, oh, how I love that tune. Some times you will think you hear me singing it, anii maybe you'll be right ! Of course I'm not always blue. Sometimes very muddy, anc now and again I'n green and now anc a aiagyar ana suiu he belonged to an Important race In Hungary, woke David up by calling call-ing him Mr. David Adventurer. "We have polite ways," he said, "and we love titles. We call our father Mr. Father, and our elder brother Mr. Elder Brother, and our little sister sis-ter Miss Younger Sister." This Map person was wearing wear-ing a suit of bright colors. David was given Mm i 'l&.r-r" again I'm gray, and The Rhine 8 often I'm quite, Very Famous, quite yellow. "I meet people of many races, of many languages and of different customs cus-toms as I wander through my various homes. I see great .cliffs on either side of me, or smooth, even meadows. "Oh, Danube hasn't a dull life, David. No, In no possible way could you ever call ray life dull." |