JOY ALONG THE WAY: PUSSY CAT, PUSSYCAT: OFF TO SEE THE QUEEN OR FRIGHTEN A LITTLE MOUSE?

So, little Lauren, now half a head taller than I am, is off to London to study at one of the colleges there. How can this be? A time warp? Why, only a few months ago she, breathlessly, told me the story of the Velveteen Rabbit as we walked through the Park. It took the whole former racetrack and several side roads.

Perhaps I've been sleeping like Rip. but, no, I've been mindful of the passing events in her life. I sometimes changed her diapers and filled her bottle with apple juice. A few weeks later, so it seemed, she sat at a book signing party with me and printed her name in large letters right under her name which appeared in the dedication line. Dressed in a little, dark-colored velvet dress which accentuated her blond hair, she was the star of the afternoon until the cookies and punch seemed more fascinating.

Still later, but not much, we rummaged through the scrap bag to find bits of calico to cover our little houses we made of assorted cardboard boxes, or bits of lace to edge a stuffed sachet. Rose and gardenia were her favorite oils she applied to the sachets' cotton stuffing.

We walked through the park many times, collecting acorns, oak puff balls, persimmons, hedgeapples. Out of the curious, green hedegeapples we made funny, squat, little persons, thumbtacks for eyes and buttons, furniture leg rollers for feet.

The attic held a fascination for her. She would find suitable old clothing, hats, scarfs, purses, shoes and dress up to mimic some character we could always recognize. There would be a baseball player, a ballet dancer, a nun, a bag woman, etc.

Then, seemingly only a few days later, she was playing an instrument in her high school band and in no time at all, prancing up and down the football field, drum major for her high school band.

At a Christmas church service, from the pulpit, she narrated, seamlessly, a pantomime entitled, "Something's Going On Down in Bethlehem."

Then, graduation and off to Drury College where she is leaning toward being a speech therapist. This latter prompted me to say, "Maybe, when you get to London you can convince those Brits to loosen up with their tightly clipped language and restore the h' to some perfectly good words like happy, heaven and humorous."

Seated around the bon voyage supper table, we all though we needed to chip in with little snippets of advice: Remember, what you get here for one dollar will cost you a dollar and sixty-five cents over there. Don't go anywhere alone. Always walk assertively as if you know just where you're going and what you plan to do when you get there. Keep an eye on your backpack. I chimed in with, "Don't go near Lambeth Swamp," acting as if I knew what I was talking about. Actually I lifted that advice from a book I'm reading. "And be sure to visit the Lake Country," I further advised. "Wander lonely as a cloud and see a host of golden daffodils. Find the old church where Grey wrote his Elegy, lay a hand on a stone and remind yourself that, Many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air'."

Two of my nephews and a niece have been to London recently. One came back, impressed by the Queen's jewels, another by the fog, and a third, perhaps I should say "unimpressed" by the fact that in some historical center where he was listening to the recorded voice of Churchill reviewing World War II, Churchill barely mentioned Eisenhower.

When Lauren gets back next summer, we'll sit in the porch swing and I'll ask her what she did in London. Her reply may be as long or longer than the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, or as tight and clipped as, "Pussy Mum, I didn't see the Queen, nor did I frighten a little mouse under a chair."

REJOICE!

Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.