“Something must be done,” she said to herself. “That new little boy-baby will get quite ill if we can’t think of something to please him soon.”
She did not know that a very unexpected little deliverer was at hand. The two babies were now alone in the nursery, and Patience, having finished her tidying up, sat down to her sewing.
Patience lifted him on her lap, popped him down with a bounce, kissed him, and began,—
“Tic, tac, too, The little horse has lost his shoe, Here a nail, and there a nail, Here a nail, and there a nail, Tic, tac, too!”
When the other children returned to the nursery, they heard peals of merry baby laughter; and this was the fashion in which a little boy won his name.
We used to play a great deal about the pasture fence. It was a high rail fence and we used to take a little pole in both hands as a balancing pole, and run along on the top. Carefully we balanced ourselves as we ran! But finally we would tip first one way and then the other, and then, with a little laughing scream, off we’d topple!
Sometimes we would put a board through the fence and have a fine time at “seesaw.” Up one of us would go, high in the air, and down would go the other with a thud!
We used to play that the pasture fence was a huge cupboard. Each rail was a shelf. Many of those rail-shelves were loaded down with bits of broken dishes, shining pebbles, bits of green moss that we called “pincushions,” and white clam-shells full of strawberries, or raspberries, or little dark juicy choke-cherries. The contents of the clam-shells were for the birds. If we found a clam-shell lying on the ground, we believed with all our little hearts that a little winged creature had been fed from our cupboard.
Sometimes we would carry on a thriving millinery store out at the pasture fence. We would make queer little bonnets out of birch-bark. Then we would sew wildflowers on the bonnets and lay them on the rails of the fence for sale. Such a number of those funny little bonnets as would be on exhibition on our rail-counters!
One of the big upright posts of our rail fence was hollow a little way down. One day we found on the ground a nest full of birdlings; one of them was dead, and a little green snake had almost reached the nest. The mother-bird was flying about crying pitifully. I snatched the nest away and carried it O, so carefully to the pasture fence and put it down in the hollow of the fence-post. Then we went a bit away and waited. Pretty soon there was a little rush of wings; and soon the mother-bird settled down in that hollow post just as cunning as could be. And that dear little family staid in that hollow post until the baby-birds grew up and flew away.