' the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue,
An' the lampwick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo!
An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray,
An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,--
You better mind yer parents, and yer teachers fond and dear,
An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear,
An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about,
Er the Gobble-uns'll git you
Ef you
Don't
Watch
Out!

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

(_From "Riley Child Rhymes," copyright, 1899. Used by special permission
of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company._)

* * * * *

THE CHATTERBOX

From morning to night 't was Lucy's delight
To chatter and talk without stopping;
There was not a day but she rattled away,
Like water forever a-dropping!

As soon as she rose, while she put on her clothes,
'Twas vain to endeavor to still her;
Nor once did she lack to continue her clack,
Till again she lay down on her pillow.

You'll think now, perhaps, there would have been gaps,
If she hadn't been wonderful clever;
That her sense was so great, and so witty her pate
That it would be forthcoming forever.

But that's quite absurd; for have you not heard,
Much tongue and few brains are connected,
That they are supposed to think least who talk most,
And their wisdom is always suspected?

While Lucy was young, had she bridled her tongue
With a little good sense and exertion,
Who knows but she might have been our delight,
Instead of our jest and aversion?

ANN TAYLOR

* * * * *

THE VOICE OF SPRING

I come, I come! ye have called me long;
I come o'er the mountains, with light and song.
Ye may trace my step o'er the waking earth
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest bowers,
And the ancient graves and the fallen fanes
Are veiled with wreathes on Italian plains;
But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have lo