Читать книгу Gray Lady and the Birds: Stories of the Bird Year for Home and School - Mabel Osgood Wright - Страница 23

I knew a charming little girl,

Who’d say, “Oh, see that flower!”

Whenever in the garden

Or woods she spent an hour.

And sometimes she would listen,

And say, “Oh, hear that bird!”

Whenever in the forest

Its clear, sweet note was heard.

But then I knew another—

Much wiser, don’t you think?

Who never called a bird a “bird”;

But said “the bobolink”

Or “oriole” or “robin”

Or “wren,” as it might be;

She called them all by their first names,

So intimate was she.

And in the woods or garden

She never picked a “flower”;

But “anemones,” “hepaticas,”

Or “pansies,” by the hour.

Both little girls loved birds and flowers,

But one love was the best:

I need not point the moral;

I’m sure you see the rest.

For would it not be very queer,

If when, perhaps, you came,

Your parents had not thought worth while

To give you any name?

I think you would be quite upset,

And feel your brain a-whirl,

If you were not “Matilda Ann,”

But just “a little girl”!

—Alice W. Rollins, in the Independent.

SNOWY HERON