Under the Tree | Page 7

and down.
She comes along the pavement walk,?And in a moment she is gone.?She hardly ever looks at us,?But once she smiled and looked at John.
And so we run to see her pass?And watch her through the fence, and I?Can hear the others whispering,?"Miss Josephine is going by."
SHELLS IN ROCK
I've been along the quarry road,?And I have watched men digging wells,?And everywhere it was the same--?The stones were full of little shells.
And they are packed away in rock;?They're under sand and under clay;?And some one said that they were left?When the ocean went away.
I saw them in the stones that make?A church, and in a bridge.?They're hidden in the solid rock?But they show along the edge.
You see them in foundation stones;?They show in creeks and waterfalls;?And once I saw them on the jail--?More little shells in walls.
We walk on them when we walk on roads;?And they're packed under all the hills.?Suppose the sea should come back here?And gather up its shells.
HORSE
His bridle hung around the post.?The sun and the leaves made spots come down;?I looked close at him through the fence;?The post was drab and he was brown.
His nose was long and hard and still,?And on his lip were specks like chalk.?But once he opened up his eyes,?And he began to talk.
He didn't talk out with his mouth;?He didn't talk with words or noise.?The talk was there along his nose;?It seemed and then it was.
He said the day was hot and slow,?And he said he didn't like the flies;?They made him have to shake his skin,?And they got drowned in his eyes.
He said that drab was just about?The same as brown, but he was not?A post, he said, to hold a fence.?"I'm horse," he said, "that's what!"
And then he shut his eyes again.?As still as they had been before.?He said for me to run along?And not to bother him any more.
AUGUST NIGHT
We had to wait for the heat to pass,?And I was lying on the grass,
While Mother sat outside the door,?And I saw how many stars there were.
Beyond the tree, beyond the air,?And more and more were always there.
So many that I think they must?Be sprinkled on the sky like dust.
A dust is coming through the sky!?And I felt myself begin to cry.
So many of them and so small,?Suppose I cannot know them all.
THREE DOMINICAN NUNS
One day they came; I heard their feet.?They made a tapping on the street.
And as they passed before our trees,?Their shawls blew out in curves like threes,?And bent again in twos and L's;
The wind blew on their rosaries?And made them ring like little bells.
MY HEART
My heart is beating up and down,?Is walking like some heavy feet.?My heart is going every day,?And I can hear it jump and beat.
At night before I go to sleep,?I feel it beating in my head;?I hear it jumping in my neck?And in the pillow on my bed.
And then I make some little words?To go along and say with it--?_The men are sailing home from Troy,?And all the lamps are lit._
_The men are sailing home from Troy,?And all the lamps are lit._
THE HENS
The night was coming very fast;?It reached the gate as I ran past.
The pigeons had gone to the tower of the church?And all the hens were on their perch,
Up in the barn, and I thought I heard?A piece of a little purring word.
I stopped inside, waiting and staying,?To try to hear what the hens were saying.
They were asking something, that was plain,?Asking it over and over again.
One of them moved and turned around,?Her feathers made a ruffled sound,
A ruffled sound, like a bushful of birds,?And she said her little asking words.
She pushed her head close into her wing,?But nothing answered anything.
The end of _Under the Tree_
End of Project Gutenberg's Under the Tree, by Elizabeth Madox Roberts
? END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDER THE TREE ***
? This file should be named 20909.txt or 20909.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
? http://www.gutenberg.org/2/0/9/0/20909/
Produced by David Garcia and the Online Distributed?Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was?produced from images generously made available by The?Kentuckiana Digital Library)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You