Under the Tree | Page 5

man on the top of a sort of cart
Was clapping his hands and making
a talk.
And the elephant came--he can step pretty far--
It made us
laugh to see him walk.
Three beautiful ladies came riding by,
And each one had on a golden
dress,
And each one had a golden whip.
They were queens of Sheba,
I guess.
A big wild man was in a cage,
And he had some snakes going over
his feet.
And somebody said "He eats them alive!"
But I didn't see
him eat.
STRANGE TREE
Away beyond the Jarboe house
I saw a different kind of tree.
Its
trunk was old and large and bent,
And I could feel it look at me.
The road was going on and on
Beyond to reach some other place.
I
saw a tree that looked at me,
And yet it did not have a face.
It looked at me with all its limbs;
It looked at me with all its bark.

The yellow wrinkles on its sides
Were bent and dark.
And then I ran to get away,
But when I stopped to turn and see,
The
tree was bending to the side
And leaning out to look at me.

THE BRANCH
We stopped at the branch on the way to the hill.
We stopped at the
water a while and played.
We hid our things by the osage tree
And
took off our shoes and stockings to wade.
There is sand at the bottom that bites at your feet,
And there is a rock
where the waterfall goes.
You can poke your foot in the foamy part

And feel how the water runs over your toes.
The little black spiders that walk on the top
Of the water are hard and
stiff and cool.
And I saw some wiggletails going around,
And some
slippery minnows that live in the pool.
And where it is smooth there is moss on a stone,
And where it is
shallow and almost dry
The rocks are broken and hot in the sun,

And a rough little water goes hurrying by.
THE WORM
Dickie found a broken spade
And said he'd dig himself a well;
And
then Charles took a piece of tin,
And I was digging with a shell.
Then Will said he would dig one too.
We shaped them out and made
them wide,
And I dug up a piece of clod
That had a little worm
inside.
We watched him pucker up himself
And stretch himself to walk away.

He tried to go inside the dirt,
But Dickie made him wait and stay.
His shining skin was soft and wet.
I poked him once to see him
squirm.
And then Will said, "I wonder if
He knows that he's a
worm."
And then we sat back on our feet
And wondered for a little bit.
And
we forgot to dig our wells
Awhile, and tried to answer it.

And while we tried to find it out,
He puckered in a little wad,
And
then he stretched himself again
And went back home inside the clod.
A CHILD ASLEEP
I looked for him everywhere
Because I wanted him to play;
And
then I found him on his bed
Asleep, but it was day.
His eyes were shut behind the lids--
He couldn't lift them up to see.

And I looked at him very long,
And something in him looked at me.
And he was something like a cat
That is asleep, or like a dog;
Or
like a thing that's in the woods
All day behind a log.
And then I was afraid of it,
Of something that was sleeping there.
I
didn't even say his name,
But I came down the stair.
LITTLE BUSH
(A Song)
A little bush
At the picnic place,
A little bush could talk to me.
I ran away
And hid myself,
And I found a bush that could talk to
me,
A smooth little bush said a word to me.
AT THE WATER
I liked to go to the branch today;
I liked to play with the wiggletails
there.
And five little smells and one big smell
Were going round in
the air.
One was the water, a little cold smell,
And one was mud and that was
more,
And one was the smell of cool wet moss,
And one was some
fennel up on the shore.

And the one big smell came out of the mint,
And one was something
I couldn't tell.
And the five little ones and the big one
All went
together very well.
WATER NOISES
When I am playing by myself,
And all the boys are lost around,

Then I can hear the water go;
It makes a little talking sound.
Along the rocks below the tree,
I see it ripple up and wink;
And I
can hear it saying on,
"And do you think? And do you think?"
A bug shoots by that snaps and ticks,
And a bird flies up beside the
tree
To go into the sky to sing.
I hear it say, "Killdee, killdee!"
Or else a yellow cow comes down
To splash a while and have a drink.

But when she goes I still can hear
The water say, "And do you
think?"
AMONG THE RUSHES
I saw a curly leaf and it