They are out at play. It is a most long recess, but I do know a pig is a cochon, and a mouse is a mulot and a baby deer is a daine and a duck is a canard and a turkey is a dindon and a fish is a poisson and a colt is a poulain and a blackbird is a merle. So I do know, for Angel Father always did call them so. He knows. He knows what things are. But no one hereabouts does call things by the names Angel Father did. Sometimes I do have thinks this world is a different world to live in. I do have lonesome feels.
This is a most long recess. While here I do sit I do hear the talkings of the more big girls outside the window most near unto my desk. The children are playing Black Man and the ones more little are playing tag. I have thinks as how nice it would be to be having talks with Good King Edward I and lovely Queen Eleanor of Castile and Peter Paul Rubens and Brave Horatius and Lars Porsena of Clusium and Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus and Aphrodite. And I do think this is a most long recess.
I still do have hearings of the talkings of the girls outside the windows. The more old girls are talking what they want. Martha says she wants a bow. I don’t have seeings why she wants another one. Both her braids were tied back this morningtime with a new bow, and its color was the color of the blossoms of camarine. Lola says she wants a white silk dress. She says her life will be complete when she does have on a white silk dress—a white silk dress with a little ruffle around the neck and one around each sleeve. She says she will be a great lady then; and she says all the children will gather around her and sing when she has her white silk dress on. And while they sing and while she does have her white silk dress on, she will stand up and stretch out her arms and bestow her blessing on all the people like the deacon does in the church at the mill town.
Now teacher is come to the door. She does say, “Opal, you may eat your lunch—at your desk.” I did have hungry feels and all this is noon-time instead of short recess-time. It so has been a long recess-time. I did have thinks when came noon-time of all the things I would do down by the rivière.
Now I do gather seeds along the road and in the field. I lay in rows side by side the seeds I gather. With them I do play comparer. I look near looks at them. I do so to see how they look not like one another. Some are big and some are not so. And some are more large than others are large. And some do have wrinkles on them. And some have little wings and some do have silken sails. Many so of all I did see on my way coming home from school on this eventime, and too I did see four gray squirrels and two chipmunks; and when I was come near the meeting of the roads I saw a tramper coming down the railroad track where the dinky engine comes with cars of lumbers from the upper camps.
This tramper—he did have a big roll on his back and he walked steps on the ties in a slow tired way. When I was come more near to the track, I did have thinks he might have hungry feels. Most trampers do. While I was having thinks about it, I took the lid off my dinner-pail. There was just a half a piece of bread and butter left. I was saving that. I was saving it to make divides between Peter Paul Rubens and Aphrodite and Felix Mendelssohn and Louis II, le Grand Condé, and the rest of us. I did look looks from that piece of bread and butter in the dinner-pail to the tramper going down the railroad track. I did have little feels of the big hungry feels he might be having. I ran a quick run to catch up with him.
He was glad for it. He ate it in two bites, and I came a quick way to our lane. I went along it. I made a stop by a hazel bush. I did stop to watch a caterpillar making his cradle. He did not move about while he did make it. He did roll himself up in a leaf. That almost hid him. He did weave white silk about him. I think it must be an interesting life to live a caterpillar life. Some days I do think I would like to be a caterpillar and by-and-by make a silk cradle. The silk a caterpillar makes its cradle from does come from its mouth. I have seen it so. But not so have I seen come the silk the spider does make its web of. This silk does come from the back part of the back of the spider.
When I was come to the house we live in, I did do the works the mamma did have for me to do. Then I made begins to fill the wood-box. When I did have ten sticks piled on its top, I looked to the door where the mamma was talking with Elsie. I did have sorry feels for the mamma. I heard her say she lost ten minutes. I did have wants to help her find them. I looked looks under the cupboard, and they were not there. I looked looks in the cook-table drawers, and they were not there. I looked looks into every machine-that-sews drawer, and I did n’t find them. I crawled under the bed, but I had no seeing of them. Then I did look looks in all the corners of the house that we do live in. I looked looks all about. But I did n’t find them. I have wonders where those ten minutes the mamma lost are gone. While I did look more looks about for them, she did say for me to get out of her way. I so did.
I went to look for the fairies. I went to the near woods. I hid behind the trees and made little runs to big logs. I walked along the logs and I went among the ferns. I did tiptoe among the ferns. I looked looks about. I did touch fern-fronds and I did have feels of their gentle movements. I came to a big root. I hid in it. I so did to wait waits for the fairies that come among the big trees.
While I did wait waits, I did have thinks about that letter I did write on the other day for more color pencils that I do have needs of to print with. I thought I would go to the moss-box by the old log. I thought I would have goes there to see if the [fairies] yet did find my letter. I went. The letter—it was gone. Then I did have joy feels all over. The color pencils—they were come. There was a blue one and a green one and a yellow one. And there was a purple one and a brown one and a red one. I did look looks at them a long time. It was so nice, the quick way the fairies did bring them.