| Share page |
|
774 |
THE SNOW MAN |
||
|
Yard Dog. ' I have suffered from it myself, but I got over it. Off ! Off ! ' he barked ; and he added, ' the weather is going to change.'
And the weather did change ; it began to thaw.
The warmth increased, and the Snow Man decreased. He said nothing and made no complaint—and that's an infallible sign.
One morning he broke down. And, behold, where he had stood, something like a broomstick remained sticking up out of the ground. It was the pole round which the boys had built him up.
* Ah ! now I can understand why he had such an intense longing,' said the Yard Dog. ' The Snow Man has had a stove-rake in his body, and that's what moved within him. Now he has got over that too. Off ! Off ! '
And soon they had got over the winter.
' Off ! Off !' barked the Yard Dog ; but the little girls in the house sang :
' Spring out, green woodruff, fresh and fair; Thy woolly gloves, O willow, bear. Come, lark and cuckoo, come and sing, Already now we greet the Spring. I sing as well: twit-twit! cuckoo ! Come, darling Sun, and greet us too.'
And nobody thought any more of the Snow Man. |
|||
|
IN THE DUCK-YARD
A duck arrived from Portugal. Some said from Spain, but that's all the same. She was called the Portuguese, and laid eggs, and was killed and cooked, and that was her career. But the ducklings which crept forth from her eggs were afterwards also called Portuguese, and there is something in that. Now, of the whole family there was only one left in the duck-yard, a yard to which the chickens had access likewise, and where the cock strutted about with infinite pride.
1 He annoys me with his loud crowing ! ' observed the Portuguese Duck. ' But he is a handsome bird, there 's |
|||