_"One, Two, Three"_[A]

It was an old, old, old, old lady
And a boy that was half-past three,
And the way that they played together
Was beautiful to see.

She couldn't go romping and jumping,
And the boy, no more could he;
For he was a thin little fellow,
With a thin little twisted knee.

They sat in the yellow sunlight,
Out under the maple tree,
And the game that they played I'll tell you,
Just as it was told to me.

It was Hide-and-Go-Seek they were playing.
Though you'd never have known it to be--
With an old, old, old, old lady
And a boy with a twisted knee.

The boy would bend his face down
On his little sound right knee.
And he guessed where she was hiding
In guesses One, Two, Three.

"You are in the china closet!"
He would cry and laugh with glee--
It wasn't the china closet,
But he still had Two and Three.

"You are up in papa's big bedroom,
In the chest with the queer old key,"
And she said: "You are warm and warmer;
But you are not quite right," said she.

"It can't be the little cupboard
Where mamma's things used to be--
So it must be in the clothes press, Gran'ma,"
And he found her with his Three.

Then she covered her face with her fingers,
That were wrinkled and white and wee,
And she guessed where the boy was hiding,
With a One and a Two and a Three.

And they never had stirred from their places
Right under the maple tree--
This old, old, old, old lady
And the boy with the lame little knee--
This dear, dear, dear old lady
And the boy who was half-past three.

Henry C. Bunner.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] _From "The Poems of H. C. Bunner." Copyright, 1889, by Charles
Scribner's Sons._

_What May Happen to a Thimble_

Come about the meadow,
Hunt here and there,
Where's mother's thimble?
Can you tell where?
Jane saw her wearing it,
Fan saw it fall,
Ned isn't sure
That she dropp'd it at all.

Has a mouse carried it
Down to her hole--
Home full of twilight,
Shady, small soul?
Can she be