Page:Rootabaga Pigeons by Carl Sandburg.pdf/131

 the flowers would whisper, "She is lovelier than we are." And the other peonies would answer in a whisper, "It must be so, it must  be  so."

Now there was a ballplayer named Spuds, came one night to take her riding, out to a valley where the peacocks always cry before it rains, where the frogs always gamble with the golden dice after midnight.

And out in that valley they came to a tall tree shooting spraggly to the sky. And high up in the spraggly shoots, where the lisp of the leaves whispers, there a moon had drifted down and was caught in the branches.

"Spuds, climb up and pick that moon for me," Pink Peony sang reckless. And the ballplayer jumped out of the car, climbed up the tall tree, up and up till he was high and far in the spraggly branches where the moon had drifted down and was caught.

Climbing down, he handed the girl a silver