A Jolly Jingle-Book | Page 5

bear will not go,
When the kitten is lost or the puppy is bad,

When Mary hates learning to sew,
Then up to the nursery
book-shelves we climb,
For trouble time's always a picture-book
time!

And there in the pictures the world seems so gay,
And everything
always goes right.
The gardens are sunny, the children at play,

There's seldom a picture-book night.
No wonder we love to sit cosily
curled,
Forgetting our woes in the picture-book world.
The dear, merry pages! we know them so well,
And when they are
folded away,
Our troubles have vanished as if by a spell,
And
nothing is wrong with the day.
The nursery book-shelves are easy to
climb,
And no time is better than picture-book time!
HANNAH G. FERNALD.
THE TOPSY-TURVY DOLL
Topsy-Turvy came to me
On our last year's Christmas tree.
She is
just the queerest doll,
Much the strangest of them all.
Now you see
her, cheeks of red,
Muslin cap upon her head,
Bright blue eyes and
golden hair,
Never face more sweet and fair.
Presto! change! She's
black as night,
Woolly hair all curling tight,
Coal-black eyes, thick
lips of red,
Bright bandanna on her head.
She's not two, as you'd
suppose,
When Topsy comes, Miss Turvy goes.
Perhaps it's as it is
with me.
Sometimes another child there'll be,
And mother says,
"Where is my Flo?
I wish that naughty girl would go."
REBECCA DEMING MOORE.
POOR OLD BOOKS
The poor old books that nobody reads,
How lonely their days must be!

They stand up high on the dusty shelves,
Waiting and wishing,
beside themselves,--
And nobody cares but me.
They have no
pictures, they are no good,
But I'd read them through, if I only could.
The poor old books! They are fat and dull,
Their covers are dark and
queer;
But every time I push the door,
And patter across the library

floor,
They seem to cry, "Here, oh here!"
And I feel so sad for their
lonely looks
That I hate to take down my picture-books.
The nice new books on the lower shelves
Are giddy in gold and red;

And they are happy and proud and gay,
For somebody reads in
them every day,
And carries them up to bed.
But when I am big I'm
going to read
The books that nobody else will heed.
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN.
SYMPATHY
Sometimes the world's asleep so soon
When all the winds are still,

That I can see the little moon
Come peeping o'er the hill.
It looks so small and scared and white,
The way I feel in bed
When
I have just put out the light
And covered up my head.
It half seems wishing it had stayed,
And half creeps softly out.

"Dear moon," I say, "don't be afraid!
No bogies are about."
[Illustration: Sympathy]
A SPRING SONG
Out in the woods,
Where the wild birds sing,
It is all alive
With
the happy spring.
It gets in my feet,
And the first I know
They are dancing-glad,

And away they go.
I race with the brook
Till my breath is gone,
And it laughs at me

As it races on.
I rock with the trees,
And I sway and swing,
And make believe
I
am part of the spring.

SECRETS
I know a man that's big and tall,
With glasses on his nose,
And
canes and shiny hats and all
Such grown-up things as those;
But we
have secrets I won't tell!
Here in the nursery,
Before they ring the
dinner-bells
He's just a boy like me.
He comes home from the office, where
They think he's just a man

The same as they are, with his hair
All slick and spick and span.
Oh,
don't I make it in a mess!
It makes us scream for joy.
"Sh--sh!" he
says, "they mustn't guess
I'm nothing but a boy!"
And sometimes when the doorbell rings,
The girl knocks at the door.

"An' is the doctor in?" she sings,
A dozen times or more.

"Good-by, old man!" he says. "That bell
Means business. Here's your
toy!"
And off he goes. I'll never tell
He's nothing but a boy.
[Illustration: Secrets]
SOMEBODY DID IT
Hunting, hunting, high and low,
Where do the caps and "tammies" go?

Ned's--he hung it, he knows he did,
Right on a nail, and it went and
hid!
Rob's--"Well, mother, I'm almost sure
I hung it"--"Right on the
parlor floor?"
"_Where_ is my 'Tam'?" cried Margery;
And the
household echoes, "Where _can_ it be?"
"Somebody does it!" Yes, they do!
And not a person to "lay things
to!"
Ned will sputter and Rob complain,
And Margery weeps till it
looks like rain;
And the family puts its glasses on
And hunts and
hunts till the day is gone;
Somebody! wicked old Somebody!
No
end of trouble you make for me.
Hunting, hunting, here and there!
Rob's was under the Morris-chair;

Ned's, by a strange coincidence,
_Was_ on a nail--of the garden

fence;
And Margery's little pink Tam-o'-shanter
I chanced to spy in
a morning saunter
Out through the barn, where 'tis wont to hide

When they've been having a "hay-mow slide."
IN SUMMER
When all the roads are white with dust,
And thirsty flowers complain,

Our little lassie cries, "I must
Go carry round the rain."
As up and down the garden plots
With busy feet she treads,
The
pansies and forget-me-nots
Lift up their drooping heads.
She waters all the lilies tall,
The fragrant mignonette,
And
hollyhocks beside the wall--
Not one does