[ SAARCHINKOLD!]
| SAARCHINKOLD! Nose to window, Still as a mouse, Watching grampa “Bank the house.” Out of the barrow he shovels the tan, And he piles and packs it as hard as he can “All about the house’s feet,” Says “Phunny-kind,” Nose to the window, Eager and sweet. Now she comes to the entry door: “Grampa—what are you do that for? Are you puttin’ stockin’s on to the house?” (Found her tongue, has Still-as-a-Mouse.) |
| Grandpa twinkles out of his eyes, Straightens his aching back, and tries To look as solemn as Phunny-kind. But the child says: “Grampa, is it the wind That keeps you a-shakin’ an’ shakin’ so?” Then the old man, shaking the more, says: “No! But I’m bankin’ the house, Miss Locks-o-gold, To keep out the dreadful— Sa-archin’ Cold!” And away he chuckles, barrow and all: “’Mazin’ thing,” he says, “to be small! Folks says the best things ’t ever they do Afore they git old ’nough to know!” Phunny-kind puzzles her queer, wee brain As slowly she toddles in again: —“Is she a nawful, ugly, old Giant—or what—this ‘Sa-archinkold?’” |
She stands by the clock in the corner, now:
“I wonder,” she says, “does the old clock know?”
But the great clock
Ticks!
And the grim clock
Tocks!
Away at the top of his ghostly box;