279 "Susan Coolidge" was the pseudonym used by Sarah C. Woolsey (1845-1905). She wrote numerous tales and verses for young people, and her series of Katy Books was widely known and enjoyed. The poem that follows is a very familiar one, and its treatment of its theme may be compared with that in Henry Ward Beecher's little prose apologue (No. 249).

HOW THE LEAVES CAME DOWN

"SUSAN COOLIDGE "

I'll tell you how the leaves came down:
The great Tree to his children said,
"You're getting sleepy, Yellow and
Brown,

Yes, very sleepy, little Red;
It is quite time to go to bed."

"Ah!" begged each silly, pouting leaf,

"Let us a little longer stay; Dear Father Tree, behold our grief! 'Tis such a very pleasant day, We do not want to go away."

So, just for one more merry day

To the great Tree the leaflets clung, Frolicked and danced and had their way Upon the autumn breezes swung, Whispering all their sports among,

"Perhaps the great Tree will forget

And let us stay until the spring, If we all beg and coax and fret."

But the great Tree did no such thing; He smiled to hear their whispering.

"Come, children all, to bed," he cried; And ere the leaves could urge their prayer,

He shook his head, and far and wide, Fluttering and rustling everywhere, Down sped the leaflets through the air.

I saw them; on the ground they lay,
Golden and red, a huddled swarm,
Waiting till one from far away,
White bedclothes heaped up on her

arm,

Should come to wrap them safe and

warm.

The great bare Tree looked down and smiled.

"Good-night, dear little leaves," he said;

And from below each sleepy child Replied, "Good-night," and murmurèd,

"It is so nice to go to bed."

The poems for young readers produced by the sisters Alice Cary (1820-1871) and Phoebe Cary (1824-1871) constitute the most successful body of juvenile verse yet produced in this country. One of Alice Cary's poems, "An Order for a Picture," is of a very distinguished quality, but as its appeal is largely to mature readers, two of Phoebe Cary's poems of simpler quality are chosen for use here. The first of these marks, by means of three illustrations within the range of children's observation, a very common defect of child nature and is, by the force of these illustrations, a good lesson in practical ethics. The appeal of the second is to that inherent ideal of disinterested heroism which is so strong in children. The setting of the story amidst the ever-present threat of the sea affords a good chance for the teacher to do effective work in emphasizing the geographical background. This should be done, however, not as geography merely, but with the attention on the human elements involved.

280

THEY DID N'T THINK

PHOEBE CARY

Once a trap was baited With a piece of cheese;

Which tickled so a little mouse
It almost made him sneeze;
An old rat said, "There's danger,
Be careful where you go!"
"Nonsense!" said the other,
"I don't think you know!"
So he walked in boldly—
Nobody in sight;
First he took a nibble,

Then he took a bite;
Close the trap together
Snapped as quick as wink,
Catching mousey fast there,
'Cause he did n't think.

Once a little turkey,

Fond of her own way,
Would n't ask the old ones

Where to go or stay;
She said, "I'm not a baby,
Here I am half-grown;
Surely, I am big enough

To run about alone!"
Off she went, but somebody

Hiding saw her pass;
Soon like snow her feathers

Covered all the grass. So she made a supper

For a sly young mink, 'Cause she was so headstrong That she would n't think.

Once there was a robin
Lived outside the door,
Who wanted to go inside

And hop upon the floor. "Ho, no," said the mother, "You must stay with me; Little birds are safest

Sitting in a tree." "I don't care," said Robin, And gave his tail a fling, "I don't think the old folks Know quite everything."

Down he flew, and Kitty seized him,
Before he'd time to blink.
"Oh," he cried, "I'm sorry,
But I did n't think."

Now my little children,
You who read this song,
Don't you see what trouble
Comes of thinking wrong?
And can't you take a warning
From their dreadful fate
Who began their thinking
When it was too late?
Don't think there's always safety
Where no danger shows,
Don't suppose you know more

Than anybody knows;

But when you're warned of ruin,

Pause upon the brink,

And don't go under headlong, 'Cause you did n't think.

281

THE LEAK IN THE DIKE

A Story of Holland

PHOEBE CARY

The good dame looked from her cottage
At the close of the pleasant day,
And cheerily called to her little son
Outside the door at play:

"Come, Peter, come! I want you to go, While there is light to see,

To the hut of the blind old man who lives
Across the dike, for me;

And take these cakes I made for him-
They are hot and smoking yet;
You have time enough to go and come
Before the sun is set.”

Then the good-wife turned to her labor, Humming a simple song,

And thought of her husband, working hard

At the sluices all day long;

Shading her anxious eyes;

And saw the shadows deepen

And birds to their homes come back,

Grows faint that cry to hear,

And the bravest man in all the land

Turns white with mortal fear.

For he knows the smallest leak may grow
To a flood in a single night;
And he knows the strength of the cruel

sea

When loosed in its angry might.

And the boy! He has seen the danger, And, shouting a wild alarm,

He forces back the weight of the sea

With the strength of his single arm! He listens for the joyful sound

Of a footstep passing nigh;

And lays his ear to the ground, to catch The answer to his cry.

And he hears the rough winds blowing,

And the waters rise and fall,
But never an answer comes to him,
Save the echo of his call.
He sees no hope, no succor,

His feeble voice is lost;

Yet what shall he do but watch and wait, Though he perish at his post!

So, faintly calling and crying

Till the sun is under the sea; Crying and moaning till the stars

Come out for company;

He thinks of his brother and sister,

Asleep in their safe warm bed; He thinks of his father and mother, Of himself as dying—and dead; And of how, when the night is over,

They must come and find him at last: But he never thinks he can leave the place Where duty holds him fast.

The good dame in the cottage

Is up and astir with the light,
For the thought of her little Peter
Has been with her all night.
And now she watches the pathway,
As yester eve she had done;

But what does she see so strange and black

Against the rising sun?

Her neighbors are bearing between them
Something straight to her door;

Her child is coming home, but not
As he ever came before!

"He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!"
And the startled father hears,
And comes and looks the way she looks,
And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers
Thrills the stricken man and wife
"Give thanks, for your son has saved our
land,

And God has saved his life!"
So, there in the morning sunshine

They knelt about the boy;
And every head was bared and bent
In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still,
When the sea roars like a flood,
Their boys are taught what a boy can do
Who is brave and true and good.
For every man in that country

Takes his son by the hand,
And tells him of little Peter,

Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero,
Remembered through the years:
But never one whose name so oft

Is named with loving tears.
And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,
And told to the child on the knee,
So long as the dikes of Holland

Divide the land from the sea!

The world's greatest writer of verse for children, Robert Louis Stevenson, was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. After he was twenty-five years old he spent much of the rest of his short life traveling in search of health. From 1889 to the time of his death in 1894 he resided in Samoa. The verses given here (Nos. 282-295) are

taken from his famous book, A Child's Garden of Verses, which, says Professor Saintsbury, "is, perhaps, the most perfectly natural book of the kind. It was supplemented later by other poems for children; and some of his work outside this, culminating in the widely known epitaph Home is the sailor, home from sea, And the hunter home from the hill, has the rarely combined merits of simplicity, sincerity, music, and strength." One of the best of Stevenson's poems for children outside the Child's Garden of Verses is the powerfully dramatic story called Heather Ale. In attempting to solve the secret of Stevenson's supremacy, Edmund Gosse calls attention to the "curiously candid and confidential attitude of mind" in these poems, to the "extraordinary clearness and precision Iwith which the immature fancies of eager childhood" are reproduced, and particularly, to the fact that they give us "a transcript of that child-mind which we have all possessed and enjoyed, but of which no one, except Mr. Stevenson, seems to have carried away a photograph." It is this ability to hand on a photographic transcript of the child's way of seeing things that, according to Mr. Gosse, puts Stevenson in a class which contains only two other members, Hans Christian Andersen in nursery stories, and Juliana Horatia Ewing in the more realistic prose tale. Children find expressed in these poems their own active fancies. It has been objected to them that the child pictured there is a lonely child, but every child, like every mature person, has an inner world of dreams and experiences in which he delights now and then to dwell. The presence of the qualities mentioned put at least two of Stevenson's prose romances among the most splendid adventure stories for young people, Treasure Island and Kidnapped. Perhaps no book is more popular among pupils of the seventh and eighth grades than the former. It has been called a

"sublimated dime novel," that is, it has all the decidedly attractive features of the "dime novel" plus the fine art of storytelling which is always lacking in that sensational type of story.

282

WHOLE DUTY OF CHILDREN

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A child should always say what's true,
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table;
At least as far as he is able.

283 THE COW

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.

She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,

The pleasant light of day;

And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers,

She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

284

TIME TO RISE

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

A birdie with a yellow bill
Hopped upon the window-sill,
Cocked his shining eye and said:

"Ain't you 'shamed, you sleepy-head?"

285 RAIN

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The rain is raining all around,
It falls on field and tree,
It rains on the umbrellas here,
And on the ships at sea.