"'What is your favorite color?' 'One-hoss.'"
"'Do you mean, my friend, for a one-hoss shay,
Or the horse himself,--black, roan, or bay?
In truth, I think I can hardly say;
I believe, for a nag, "I bet on the gray."
"'For a shay, I would rather not have yellow,
Or any outright, staring color,
That makes the crowd look after a fellow,
And the little _gamins_ hoot and bellow.
"'Do you mean for ribbons? or gowns? or eyes?
Or flowers? or gems? or in sunset skies?
For many questions, as many replies,
Drops of a rainbow take rainbow dyes.
"'The world is full, and the world is bright;
Each thing to its nature parts the light;
And each for its own to the Perfect sight
Wears that which is comely, and sweet, and right.'"
"O, Mr. Geoffrey! That's lovely!" cried the girl voices, all around
him. And Ada made a pair of great eyes at her father, and said,--
"What an awful humbug you have been, papa! To have kept the other
side up with care all your life! Who ever suspected _that_ of you?"
Diana and Hazel were not taken so much by surprise, their mother
had improvised little nursery jingles for them all their baby days,
and had played Crambo with them since; so they were very confident
with their "Now, mother:" and looked calmly for something
creditable.
"'What is your favorite name?'" read Mrs. Ripwinkley. "And the word
is 'Stuff.'"
"'When I was a little child,
Looking very meek and mild,
I liked grand, heroic names,--
Of warriors, or stately dames:
Zenobia, and Cleopatra;
(No rhyme for that this side Sumatra;)
Wallace, and Helen Mar,--Clotilda,
Berengaria, and Brunhilda;
Maximilian; Alexandra;
Hector, Juno, and Cassandra;
Charlemagne and Britomarte,
Washington and Bonaparte;
Victoria and Guinevere,
And Lady Clara Vere de Vere.
--Shall I go on with all this stuff,
Or do you think it is enough?
I cannot tell you what dear name
I love the best; I play a game;
And tender earnest doth belong
To quiet speech, not silly song.'"
"That's just like mother; I should have stopped as soon as I'd got
the 'stuff' in; but she always shapes off with a little morriowl,"
said Hazel. "Now, Desire!"
Desire frantically scribbled a long line at the end of what she had
written; below, that is, a great black morass of scratches that
represented significantly the "Slough of Despond" she had got into
over the winding up, and then gave,--
"'Which way would you rather travel,--north or south?'
'Goosey-gander.'"
"'O, goosey-gander!
If I might wander,
It should be toward the sun;
The blessed South
Should fill my mouth
With ripeness just begun.
For bleak hills, bare,
With stunted, spare,
And scrubby, piney trees,
Her gardens rare,
And vineyards fair,
And her rose-scented breeze.
For fearful blast,
Skies overcast,
And sudden blare and scare
Long, stormless moons,
And placid noons,
And--all sorts of comfortablenesses,--there!'"
"That makes me think of father's horse running away with him once,"
said Helena, "when he had to head him right up against a brick wall,
and knock everything all to smash before he could stop!"
"Anybody else?"
"Miss Kincaid, I think," said Mr. Geoffrey. He had been watching
Dorris's face through the play, flashing and smiling with the
excitement of her rhyming, and the slender, nervous fingers twisting
tremulously the penciled slip while she had listened to the others.
"If it isn't all rubbed out," said Dorris, coloring and laughing to
find how badly she had been treating her own effusion.
"You see it _was_ rather an awful question,--'What do you want
most?' And the word is, 'Thirteen.'"