With nodding head and waving arms, the angry creature seemed;
It threatened her, it mocked at her, with gestures and grimace
That made her shrink with terror from its serpent-like embrace.
They kissed the trembling little one, they held her in their arms,
And tried in every way they could to quiet her alarms,
And said, “Oh, what a foolish little goose you are to be
So nervous and so terrified at nothing but a tree!”
They made her go up close to it, and put her arms around
The trunk and see how firmly it was fastened in the ground;
They told her all about the roots that clung down deeper yet,