THE MERCHANT*

Rabindranath Tagore

Imagine, mother, that you are to stay at home and I am to travel into strange lands. Imagine that my boat is ready at the landing, fully laden.

Now think well, mother, before you say what I shall bring for you when I come back.

Mother, do you want heaps and heaps of gold? There, by the banks of golden streams, fields are full of golden harvest.

And in the shade of the forest path the golden champa flowers drop on the ground.

I will gather them all for you in many hundred

baskets.

Mother, do you want pearls big as the raindrops of autumn?

I shall cross to the pearl island shore.

There in the early morning light, pearls tremble on the meadow flowers, pearls drop on the grass, and pearls are scattered on the sand in spray by the wild sea-waves.

My brother shall have a pair of horses with wings to fly among the clouds.

For father I shall bring a magic pen that, without his knowing, will write of itself.

For you, mother, I must have the casket and jewel that cost seven kings their kingdoms.

*From The Crescent Moon. Copyright, 1913. Used by the courteous permission of The Macmillan Company.

A SEA-SONG FROM THE SHORE*

James Whitcomb Riley

I wish, as he sails
Through the tropical gales,
He would catch me a sea-bird, too,
With its silver wings

And the song it sings,

And its breast of down and dew!

I wish he would catch me a
Little mermaid,

Some island where he lands,

With her dripping curls,

And her crown of pearls,

And the looking-glass in her hands!

*Copyright used by special permission of The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

"Come, little leaves," said the wind one day. "Come over the meadows with me and play; Put on your dresses of red and gold,

For summer is gone and the days grow cold."

Soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call,
Down they came fluttering, one and all;
Over the brown fields they danced and flew,
Singing the sweet little songs they knew.
"Cricket, good-by, we've been friends so long,
Little brook, sing us your farewell song;
Say you are sorry to see us go;

Ah, you will miss us, right well we know."

Dancing and whirling, the little leaves went, Winter had called them and they were content; Soon, fast asleep in their earthy beds,

The snow laid a coverlid over their heads.

into the

After breakfast Catherine goes out into meadows with her little brother Jack. When they start out the day is as young and fresh as they are. The sky is not exactly blue; it is rather a gray, but a gray that is softer than all the blues in the world. Catherine's eyes are the very same gray, and seem made out of a piece of the morning sky.

*From Boys and Girls; copyright, 1913. Used by permission of the publishers,
Duffield & Company.

Catherine and Jack go quite alone into the meadows. Their mother is a farmer's wife and has work to do at the farm. They have no nurse to take them out, but then they don't need one. They know the way; they know the woods and the fields and the hills equally well. Catherine can even tell the time of day from seeing where the sun is in the sky, and she has knowledge of all kinds of nature's secrets that city children never dream of. Little Jack himself knows many things about the woods and ponds and mountains, for he has the soul of a true little country boy.

The meadows Catherine and Jack go through are full of flowers, and on the way Catherine picks a bouquet of the pretty blossoms. She gathers blue flowers and poppies and cowslips, as well as buttercups, or stew pans, as some call them. She gathers the dark spikes of the milk weed and stork's bills and lilies of the valley, whose little bells give out such a delicious odor when stirred by the least bit of wind. Catherine loves the flowers because they are beautiful. She loves them, too, because they make such lovely ornaments. She is only a simple little country girl, with her pretty