Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/94

 they wore then. I saw them. I use to count them on the way to school. To-day they were talking of the time before their borning days of this springtime. They talked on and on, and I did listen on to what they were telling the wind and the earth in their whisperings. They told how they were a part of earth and air before their tree-borning days. And now they are going back. In gray days of winter they go back to the earth again. But they do not die.

And in the morning of to-day it was that I did listen to these talkings of the brown leaves. Then I faced about. I turned my face and all of me to the way that leads to the house we live in, for there was much works to be done.

When I was come to the house I went around and I did walk in the back doorway. The mamma was n't in. I took long looks about to see what works I best do first. There was washed-up dishes in a bake-pan, so I did dish-towel them all and put them away. There was needs to climb upon a chair and upon a box, to put those dishes where they ought to be put. While I was up there, I took looks about to see what there was. I saw a cake of bon ami. Bon ami is to give things a shine-up. And this morning I gave the knives a shine-up and the forks too. Then I tried bon ami on the black kettles and the bake-pans. It did not give unto them such nice appears, so I gave them a shine-up with vaseline. After that I did take the broom from its