While I was standing up more sticks of woods for more trees in forêt de Chantilly, the baby did have wake-ups. I went to sing it to sleep. I sang it about Good King Edward I. When I went again into the kitchen, there was Louis II, le Grand Condé, and Felix Mendelssohn and Nannerl Mozart all in the forêt de Chantilly. They were at the begins of the route du Connétable. They were nibbling nibbles at the two lions there of cheese. Already they did have ragged noses, where all of the three mouses did nibble nibbles. I have thinks I will have to make lions of stone for the begins of route du Connétable. The baby had wakes-up again. I did sing it to sleep with chant d’automne.
Now I sit here and I print. The baby sleeps on. The wind comes creeping in under the door. It calls, “Come, come, petite Françoise, come.” It calls to me to come go exploring. It sings of the things that are to be found under leaves. It whispers the dreams of the tall fir trees. It does pipe the gentle song the forest sings on gray days. I hear all the voices calling me. I listen—but I cannot go.
Now are come the days of brown leaves. They fall from the trees. They flutter on the ground. When the brown leaves flutter, they are saying little things. They talk with the wind. I hear them tell of their borning days when they did come into the world as leaves. And they whisper of the hoods they wore then. I saw them. I use to count them on the way to school. To-day they were talking of the time before their borning days of this springtime. They talked on and on, and I did listen on to what they were telling the wind and the earth in their whisperings. They told how they were a part of earth and air before their tree-borning days. And now they are going back. In gray days of winter they go back to the earth again. But they do not die.
And in the morning of to-day it was that I did listen to these talkings of the brown leaves. Then I faced about. I turned my face and all of me to the way that leads to the house we live in, for there was much works to be done.
When I was come to the house I went around and I did walk in the back doorway. The mamma was n’t in. I took long looks about to see what works I best do first. There was washed-up dishes in a bake-pan, so I did dish-towel them all and put them away. There was needs to climb upon a chair and upon a box, to put those dishes where they ought to be put. While I was up there, I took looks about to see what there was. I saw a cake of bon ami. Bon ami is to give things a shine-up. And this morning I gave the knives a shine-up and the forks too. Then I tried bon ami on the black kettles and the bake-pans. It did not give unto them such nice appears, so I gave them a shine-up with vaseline. After that I did take the broom from its place, and I gave the floor a good brooming. I broomed the boards up and down and cross-ways. There was not a speck of dirt on them left. What I did sweep off with the broom, I did place into a shoe-box lid and dust it in the stove. Then the floor did look clean like the mamma does say it ought to look all the time. I put the broom back in its place where the mamma does say it ought to be.
Then I did look looks from the floor to the window. I thought I better clean the window too while I was fixing things. Just when I started to put bon ami on the window, I did look out to see what I could see. I saw Agamemnon Menelaus Dindon going in a slow walk by. He was giving his neck a stretch-out. He gave it another one, and when he made a swallow his throat did look appears of croup. And croup does always have needs of being fixed up. So I laid down the bon ami, and I went and I did pour a whole lot of coal-oil down the throat of Agamemnon Menelaus Dindon. That was to make his croup go away. Now he will be feeling well feels real soon. He did n’t want to take the coal-oil. I had to hold him tight. Some turkey gobblers can kick most hard.
When I did have him fixed I thought I better take looks about to see if any more folks did have croup appears. I yet did have some coal-oil left in the bottle. Few folks were about, and none did have croup looks. So I did go again to the cleaning of the window. When that was done in the proper way the mamma says it ought to be done, I did stop to eat some bread and milk, for it was after dinner-time and it was a long time before supper-time.
After that I went out in the wood-shed where the papa keeps his tools. He keeps them in a big box. Some days he forgets to lock the box. Those days I have very interesting times in the wood-shed. There are all kinds of queer-looking things in that tool-box. Just when I did have the lid open the mamma did call.
She was come again home, and she sent me back to Elsie’s to get the tidy she was crocheting that she did forget and leave there. So I did go the way that does lead to the house of Elsie. It is not far from the house we live in, and Elsie has not been married long. She only has one baby. She has much liking for it. Elsie is a very young girl—a very young girl to be married, the mamma says. To-day when I came to the house of Elsie, she was trotting on her knee that dear baby boy the angels brought her when she did live at the other camp where we did live too. To him she was singing a song. It was—