Rain, rain, rain! How it did rain! The great drops ran down the glass in
streams. Tom, Jack, and lit-tle Meg watched it for a long time. "O dear!"
they said at last, "do you think it will nev-er clear? We want to go out
and play."
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"Why do you not go up to the gar-ret, and play?" asked their mam-ma.
That struck them as a fine plan; and off they trooped, pound-ing up
the bare stairs with their nois-y feet. They found three old brooms,
and be-gan to play soldier,--Tom first, then Jack, with Meg last of
all. The gar-ret was ver-y large; and their mam-ma could hear them
as they tramped a-long, and could hear Tom's com-mand to right a-bout
face when they had reached the farth-er end.
By and by they tired of play-ing sol-dier; and then they pulled down
some old dress-es and hats that hung on a peg, and put them on, and
made be-lieve that they were grown peo-ple. Then, out of an old box,
they dragged a scrap-book full of pic-tures, and sat them down to
look them o-ver.
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Mean-time their friend Rose had come, all wrapped up, through the
rain, to make them a call. She brought a bas-ket, in which were her
two kit-tens.
"The chil-dren are in the gar-ret," said their mam-ma.
So Rose ran up to find them. She did find them; but what do you
think?--they were fast a-sleep.
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Sweet is the voice that calls
From bab-bling wa-ter-falls
In mead-ows where the down-y
seeds are fly-ing,
And soft the breez-es blow,
And ed-dy-ing come and go,
In fad-ed gar-dens where the
rose is dy-ing