Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/260

 CHAPTER XXIX

How Opal Feels the Heat of the Sun, and Decorates a Goodly Number of the White Poker-Chips of the Chore Boy. 

I did n't get to finish the exploration trip over the river, because just as I was starting around the house-corner, after I did do my morning work early, the mamma grabbed me. She did tie me to the wood-shed corner with a piece of clothes-line. So we could n't play together, she did tie to another corner that very wise crow Lars Porsena of Clusium. To the corner beyond the next corner, to the corner that was the most longways off, she did tie him. But we played peek-a-boo around the middle corner. I'd lean just as far over as I could with the rope a-pulling back my arms. Real quick, I'd stretch my neck and peek and nod to Lars Porsena of Clusium. Then he of Clusium would flutter and say, "How-do-you-do," in squeaky crow tones.

The day was growing warm. When it grew awful hot my arms did have feelings too sore to lean over any more. I sat down by the wood-shed wall and I did watch the passers-by. First went along Clementine, the Plymouth Rock hen. Then along stepped Napoleon, the Rhode Island red rooster. By-and-by I did hear Solomon Grundy squealing in the pig-pen. Then a butterfly did rest on the