BARN-DOOR INN.

We were tired of travel one afternoon,

And stopped at the sign of “The Great Barn-Door,”

And Jimmy and Alice took rooms in the loft,

While I had mine on the second floor.

Jimmy and Alice went climbing high

Over the rafters above my head,

And peeped thro’ the swallow-holes out at the sky.

—If Mother had seen them, what would she have said?

But I stayed down in the soft new hay,

And the sun crept in thro’ a yellow chink,

And a long beam found me out where I lay,

And tickled my eyes till it made them blink.

The dust-motes circled and whirled and danced,

And my pillow was soft and warm and deep,

And the hay smelled sweet, and it somehow chanced

That there in the mow I fell asleep.

And I dreamed a dream full of swallows’ wings,

And elfish motes in the dusty air,

And thousands of other wonderful things;

Till Jimmy and Alice found me there.