HOW THE LEAVES CAME DOWN It is quite time to go to bed." "Ah!" begged each silly, pouting leaf, "Let us a little longer stay; Dear Father Tree, behold our grief! 'Tis such a very pleasant day, We do not want to go away." So, just for one more merry day To the great Tree the leaflets clung, Frolicked and danced, and had their way, Upon the autumn breezes swung, Whispering all their sports among "Perhaps the great Tree will forget, But the great Tree did no such thing; "Come, children, all to bed," he cried; Fluttering and rustling everywhere, I saw them; on the ground they lay, White bedclothes heaped upon her arm, The great bare Tree looked down and smiled. Replied, "Goodnight," and murmurèd, "It is so nice to go to bed!" Susan Coolidge (1845-1905] A Legend of the Northland A LEGEND OF THE NORTHLAND AWAY, away in the Northland, Where the hours of the day are few, Where they harness the swift reindeer And the children look like bear's cubs They tell them a curious story- Once, when the good Saint Peter He came to the door of a cottage, Where a little woman was making cakes, And being faint with fasting, For the day was almost done, He asked her, from her store of cakes, So she made a very little cake, But as it baking lay, She looked at it, and thought it seemed Too large to give away. Therefore she kneaded another, And still a smaller one; But it looked, when she turned it over, As large as the first had done. 143 Then she took a tiny scrap of dough, And rolled and rolled it flat; And baked it thin as a wafer- For she said, "My cakes that seem too small Are yet too large to give away." Then good Saint Peter grew angry, Was enough to provoke a saint. And he said, "You are far too selfish "Now, you shall build as the birds do, Then up she went through the chimney, And out of the top flew a woodpecker, She had a scarlet cap on her head, And that was left the same,. But all the rest of her clothes were burned Black as a coal in the flame. And every country school-boy Has seen her in the wood, Where she lives in the trees till this very day, Boring and boring for food. And this is the lesson she teaches: Live not for yourself alone, Lest the needs you will not pity Shall one day be your own. The Cricket's Story 145 Give plenty of what is given to you, Listen to pity's call; Don't think the little you give is great, And the much you get is small. Now, my little boy, remember that, And try to be kind and good, When you see the woodpecker's sooty dress, And see her scarlet hood. You mayn't be changed to a bird though you live As selfishly as you can; But you will be changed to a smaller thing— A mean and selfish man. Phoebe Cary [1824-1871] THE CRICKET'S STORY THE high and mighty lord of Glendare, Ah, what shall my lord of the manor do? Inviting, in his majestical way, Her pupils to sing at his grand soiree, That perchance among them my lord might find Some singer to whom his heart inclined. What wonder, then, when the evening came, And the castle gardens were all aflame While the famous choir of Glendare Bog, The overture closed with a crash-then, hark! And courtesied low o'er a huge bouquet Of crimson clover-heads, culled by the dozen, By some brown-coated, plebeian cousin. But you should have heard the red Robin sing |