A fun-ny old fel-low is Win-ter, I trow,
A mer-ry old fel-low for glee:
He paints all the no-ses a beau-ti-ful
hue,
He counts all our fin-gers, and pinch-es
them too;
Our toes he gets hold of through stock-ing
and shoe;
For a fun-ny old fel-low is
he.
Old Win-ter is blow-ing his gusts a-long,
And mer-ri-ly shak-ing the
tree:
From morn-ing to night he will sing us
his song,
Now moan-ing and short, now bold-ly and
long;
His voice it is loud, for his lungs are
so strong,
And a mer-ry old fel-low is
he.
Old Win-ter’s a rough old chap to
some,
As rough as ev-er you’ll
see.
“I with-er the flow-ers when-ev-er
I come,
I qui-et the brook that went laugh-ing
a-long,
I drive all the birds off to find a new
home
I’m as rough as rough
can be.”
A cun-ning old fel-low is Winter, they
say,—
A cun-ning old fel-low is
he:
He peeps in the crev-i-ces day by day,
To see how we’re pass-ing our time
a-way,
And mark all our do-ing from so-ber to
gay;
I’m a-fraid he is peep-ing
at me!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The hard lesson.
“I can nev-er, nev-er learn it,” said Bell; and she burst in-to tears.
“Car-rie has learned it,” said Miss Gray; “and I am sure you can. Try, try a-gain.”
“Yes, Bell,” said Car-rie; “and then per-haps we can have a romp in the hay-field. You will have to hur-ry, for the men are cart-ing it in-to the barn.”
Thus urged, Bell made a fresh ef-fort; and soon the les-son was learned and re-cit-ed.
Off scam-pered the two girls to the hay-field. Soon Miss Gray fol-lowed, but there was noth-ing to be seen of them. She looked all a-bout, and at last walked up to the man who was load-ing the hay on the cart.
[Illustration]
“Can you see an-y thing of two lit-tle girls from where you are?” she asked.
“I don’t see them,” he an-swered, stand-ing up and look-ing a-round.
Miss Gray turned a-way, when all at once she heard a laugh be-hind her. She looked back, and there were the laugh-ing fa-ces of Bell and Car-rie. They had been on the cart, all hid-den un-der the hay in or-der to play a lit-tle joke on Miss Gray. Then they scram-bled down, and came run-ning to her.
The man on the cart smiled to see their fun. Then he said sadly, “Dear me, I wish my lit-tle lass could run a-bout like that.”
[Illustration]
“Is she ill?” asked Car-rie.
“Yes,” said the man; “but she is get-ting bet-ter now.”
“We’ll ask mam-ma to take us to see her,” said Bell.
The ver-y next day their mam-ma did take them. They found Ruth sit-ting pil-lowed up in a chair, ver-y pale and white. Bell had picked her a bunch of flow-ers, which she seemed ver-y glad to get; and the three girls soon be-came good friends. Car-ree found a lit-tle gray kitten with which she played.