[POEMS BY TWO LITTLE AMERICAN GIRLS.]
[ELAINE AND DORA READ GOODALE, the two sisters some of whose poems are here given for the benefit of the readers of ST. NICHOLAS, are children of thirteen and ten years of age.
Their home, where their infancy and childhood have been passed, is on a large and isolated farm, lying upon the broad slopes of the beautiful Berkshire hills of western Massachusetts, and is quaintly called "Sky Farm."
Here, in a simple country life, divided between books and nature, they began, almost as soon as they began to talk, to express in verse what they saw and felt, rhyme and rhythm seeming to come by instinct. Living largely out-of-doors, vigorous and healthful in body as in mind, they draw pleasure and instruction from all about them.
One of their chief delights is to wander over the lovely hills and meadows adjoining Sky Farm. Peeping into mossy dells, where wild flowers love to hide, hunting the early arbutus, the queen harebell, or the blue gentian, they learn the secrets of nature, and these they pour forth in song as simply and as naturally as the birds sing.]
SOME VERSES, WRITTEN BY DORA, ON A HUMMING-BIRD'S NEST,
WHICH SHE FOUND OVER HER STOCKING ON CHRISTMAS MORNING.
When June was bright with roses fair,