The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
Shining Hours
COME AND PLAY.
COME AND PLAY!
Play-ful kit-tens! see them spring-ing
Light-ly up my fa-vor-ite tree;
Now they spy the ham-mock swing-ing—
In they scram-ble-one, two, three.
For a while they sit de-mure-ly,
In a dain-ty fluffy row,
Then they gaze a-bout—why sure-ly,
There stands pa-tient Spot be-low.
“Come!” I fan-cy they are say-ing;
“See, it is not far to climb:
’Mid the branch-es i-dly sway-ing,
We are hav-ing such a time!
“You shall have a wel-come hear-ty
Here with-in the leaf-y shade.
What! you will not join our par-ty?
Sil-ly pup, you are a-fraid!”
But a meek re-proach is ly-ing
In those eyes so brown and large;
One can al-most hear him cry-ing,
“I have mas-ter’s stick in charge!”
Pret-ty, mirth-ful, sau-cy crea-tures—
Let them play their mer-ry part!
How can their light kit-ten-na-tures
Un-der-stand his faith-ful heart?
That night Edith insisted on taking the old idol to bedwith her as of old. Aunt Bell over-heard her talking to it.
“I love you bushels. You are the beautifulest dolly inall the world. And I don’t care if you haven’t dot two arms,and fine clothes, and a parasol. You’ve dot me, and I’vedot you, and we’ll just do on loving each other. Dat newdolly can sit in the parlor, but you’se my every day chum.”
Edith showed the new dolly to all her friends, but wouldn’tplay with it for many days. Like a genuine little woman,she wanted to be loyal to her first love.
