Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/269

 swing it goes not so. It goes only a little ways. To-day I did swing my arm four long swings and three short swings and two more long swings. The chickens were glad to have it so. They did pick up that wheat in a hurry way.

Then I went into the kitchen to get the egg-turner to pat the dirt down good around that tomato plant that's been dabbling its toes in the brook and is now planted again. Just when I got it most patted down right, so it looked real proper—just then the mamma stepped behind me. She turned me over her knee. She would n't listen to explanations. She just applied that egg-turner to the back part of me. Now I feel too much sore to sit down, so I lean over a stump to print this. I have thinks I will go goes to the house of Dear Love.

I so did. I went through the near woods and into the far woods. In my going I went by where the man of the long step that whistles most all of the time does gather ferns for the pensée girl with the far-away look in her eyes. There little ferns grow tall and big ferns grow very tall. And sunbeams and shadows are among them before gray-light-time. It is the same place where the man that wears gray neckties and is kind to mice did dig up little ferns to make fern wishes to the fairies when I put letters in the moss-box by the old log. But now we dig not up little ferns here. We find them in another place. We have feels the fairies would like it, and these ferns grow there for the pensée