[IN THE BARN.]
Whenever there's a rainy day
They send us to the barn to play
From after lunch till supper-time.
And there they let us run and climb
And tumble in the hay and straw—
Such funny tricks you never saw!
We overhaul the piles of junk,
We open every battered trunk,
And every corner we explore
As if we'd never searched before;
We play at burglars or at thieves,
And crawl along beneath the eaves,
Or else we are a garrison
Besieged, outnumbered ten to one,
And from the windows we repel
The foe that hides beyond the well.
And sometimes, if there's no one by
(If John has gone down to the sty
Or to the pasture for the cow,
Or—if John's absent, anyhow),
We take old Dobbin from the stall—
Which we ought never do at all—
And play at circus, while the horse
Plods around a ring, of course,
With one of us upon his back;
Another makes the long whip crack;
A third—the lucky one—is clown;
And all the girls have to sit down
On seats that have been put about,
And they must clap their hands and shout.
Oh, circus is the greatest fun!
When John goes out, it's always done.
Albert Lee.
[THE RAVELLED MITTEN.]
BY SOPHIE SWETT.
(In Two Parts.)
II.
Tilly Coombs watched the sled as it went crunching and jingling up the hill, and then entered her house, with a long sigh that the party was over.