"BO-PEEP."
THE STORY OF DOLLY AND POLLY.
Dear little Rosa had bright golden hair,
And she sang so sweetly to Dolly;
But "Little Bo-peep, little Bo-peep,"
Was re-echoed incessant from Polly,
Who swung in his cage, as happy as she,
And free from all care as Miss Dolly;
He seemed to enjoy her innocent glee.
But Rosa grew angry with Polly:
"You have no right at all thus to mock me," she said;
"Besides, you're disturbing my Dolly;"
And then she threw over the bird's scarlet head
Her apron, and silent was Polly.
Gayly the lullaby music she trilled,
Triumphantly swaying her rocker,
While poor disgraced Poll, in his dark cage stilled,
Did nothing but think of his cracker.
At last little Rosa, with soft pinky cheek,
Slept, twining her arms around Dolly,
Forgetting in dreams that real naughty freak
She had just had with poor banished Polly.
While he, growing tired of the dark cloistered cell,
And missing the sound of the rocker,
Concluded the world was under a spell,
Because no one had brought him a cracker.
Then screeched he in loud and parroty voice.
Rosa started, and down went her Dolly,
All broken—her beautiful holiday choice!
Still she blamed not the bird, but her folly.
Shut up in the dark, so gloomy, while she
Sang "Little Bo-peep" blithe and jolly.
"How I wish I had let you sing too, pretty bird!
Then I would not have broken my Dolly."
A. E. T.
Elkmont, Alabama.
I live in a little railroad town in the northern part of Alabama. I have a black rabbit and a white one. Their names are Jesse and Bessie. They are very cunning. I keep them in a little paled yard. They have a little house in the centre of the yard. I have a cat named Ed. When he wants to come in, he will shake the door until some one lets him in. When I roll a rock on the ground, he will run after it. I have seventeen chickens. I went fishing to-day, and caught fifty-one, but they were little fellows.
Ernest W.
Baltimore, Maryland.