distinct a bit; then did not go to bed again, but waited for the
night.

"Just after dusk a thing occurred, unfortunate for every bird: a
wild, wild wind came romping in (it was a dreadful prank), and with
a swoop, in boisterous play, swept all the envelopes away.

"The poor owls cried, 'Alackaday, we shan't know whom to thank!'

"Next morning all the crows came out and pranced about and glanced
about, expecting greetings from their friends, and praise, and
everything; but when they got no single word of gratitude from any
bird, they held a meeting in the trees that made the whole woods
ring.

"Oh, well, it surely seemed a shame, but no one really was to
blame; and this year all the birds around (I heard it from a wren)
will put their mail most carefully safe in a holeproof hollow tree.
And every crow is going to be a happy crow again!"

Little Ann was enchanted with the February house; she planned in her own
mind to copy it in chocolate and taffy.

"I'd like to see upstairs,--the beds and bureaus and things,--" she said
shyly, "if you don't mind my looking--"

A big clock began to boom somewhere near.

"My looking--" repeated Ann. "Dear me suz, I'm caught again! What shall I
say?"

Then all at once she said:--

"My looking-glass is like a pool,
As still and clear, as blank and cool.

"It fronts the clean white nursery wall,
With no look on its face at all.

"But when in front of it I go,
Why, there I am, from top to toe.

"Oh, just suppose I hurried there
Some day to brush my tousled hair,

"And stood and stared, and could not see
One single, single sign of me!"

When it was nearly time to leave the February house, Ann remarked that
Amos had talked in prose straight along ever since they came.

Amos smiled proudly. "So I have," he said. He was about to go on to say
that he wondered if he would be caught at all, when--whiz! with a scramble
and a scuffle a cuckoo rushed out of a clock just above his head and
bobbed intently up and down twelve times. Amos had got only as far as
"wonder." "Wonder--wonder--" he stammered, as he heard the clock.
"Wonder--wonder--

"Wonder if George Washington
Did just the way we do?
Wonder if he slid on ice,
And now and then broke through;
Slid on ice, and fought with snow,
And whittled hickory sticks,
Called