He took the sarpent in his hand,
And then ran home to Molly Bland,
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!
O Molly dear, and don't you see,
This pesky sarpent that bit me?
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!
O Johnny dear, why did you go,
Way down in the meadow fot to mow?
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!
O Molly dear, I thought you knowed
'Twas daddy's grass, and it must be mowed,
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-n an-incty, noddy O!
Now all young men a warning take,
And don't get bit by a rattlesnake.
Li-tu-di-nan-incty, tu-di-nan-incty, noddy O!"
All of them told me stories, read to me, and Frank, one of my big gone-away brothers, sent me the prettiest little book. It had a green cover with gold on the back, and it was full of stories and poems, not so very hard, because I could read every one of them, with help on a few words. The piece I liked best was poetry. If it hadn't been for that, I'm afraid, I was having such a good time, I'd have lain there until I forgot how to walk, with all of them trying to see who could be nicest to me. The ones who really could, were Laddie and the Princess, except mother. Laddie lifted me most carefully, the Princess told the best stories, but after all, if the burning and choking grew so bad I could scarcely stand it, mother could lay her hand on my head and say, "Poor child," in a way that made me work to keep on breathing. Maybe I only THOUGHT I loved Laddie best. I guess if I had been forced to take my choice when I had the fever, I'd have stuck pretty tight to mother. Even Dr. Fenner said if I pulled through she'd have to make me. I might have been lying there yet, if it hadn't been for the book Frank sent me, with the poetry piece in it. It began:
"Somewhere on a sunny bank, buttercups are bright,
Somewhere 'mid the frozen grass, peeps the daisy white."
I read that so often I could repeat it quite as well with the book shut as open, and every time I read it, I wanted outdoors worse. In one place it ran:
"Welcome, yellow buttercups, welcome daisies white,
Ye are in my spirit visioned a delight.
Coming in the springtime of sunny hours to tell,
Speaking to our hearts of Him who doeth all things well."
That piece helped me out of bed, and the blue gander screaming opened the door. It was funny about it too. I don't know WHY it worked on me that way; it just kept singing in my heart all day, and I could shut my eyes and go to sleep seeing buttercups in a gold sheet all over our Big Hill, although there never was a single one there; and meadows full of daisies, which were things father said were a pest he couldn't tolerate, because they spread so, and he grubbed up every one he found. Yet that piece filled our meadow until I imagined I could roll on daisies. They might be a pest to farmers, but sheets of them were pretty good if you were burning with fever. Between the buttercups and the daisies I left the bed with a light head and wobbly legs.