“I wish you wouldn’t interrupt me, Punk! But what do I see? Yes, I know it’s your turn now, but just wait a minute! What do I see? Another majestic air-ship, sailing gloriously toward me! That’s you, Punky! Now we’ll see-saw together, tiddledies up and down, and play the balloons are meeting. Ha! we meet! we salute in mid-air. I wave my gilded banner—”
Here one balloon lost his balance and tumbled off, and the other tumbled on top of him, and there they both lay in a heap on the lawn.
“Anybody killed?” asked the elder brother, looking up from his hoeing.
“I—guess—not!” said Punkydoodle, rising slowly and feeling himself all over. “Jollapin is all right, ’cause he has plenty of fat to fall on, but I got a pretty good thump, I can tell you.”
“Too bad!” said the elder brother. “You need a change, dear boys; suppose you go and weed the pansy-bed, to take your minds off your injuries.”
NANCY’S NIGHTMARE
I am the doll that Nancy broke!
Hadn’t been hers a week.
Punch me behind, and I sweetly spoke;
Rosy and fair was my cheek.
Now my head is rolled in a corner far,
My body lies here in another;
And if this is what human children are,
I never will live with another.
I am the book that Nancy read
For twenty minutes together.
Now I am standing here on my head,
While she’s gone to look at the weather.
My leaves are crushed in the cruellest way,
There’s jam on my opening page,
And I would not live with Miss Nancy Gay,
Though I should not be read for an age.
I am the frock that Nancy wore
Last night at her birthday feast.
I am the frock that Nancy tore
In seventeen places, at least.
My buttons are scattering far and near,
My trimming is torn to rags;
And if I were Miss Nancy’s mother dear,
I’d dress her in calico bags!
We are the words that Nancy said
When these things were called to her view.
All of us ought to be painted red,
And some of us are not true.
We splutter and mutter and snarl and snap,
We smoulder and smoke and blaze.
And if she’d not meet with some sad mishap,
Miss Nancy must mend her ways.
