Read "The Straw Parlor" by Eugene Field online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Way up at the top of a big stack of straw / Was the cunningest parlor that ever you saw! / And there could you lie when aweary of play / And gossip or laze in the coziest way; / No matter how careworn or sorry one's mood / No worldly distraction presumed to intrude. / As a refuge from onerous mundane ado / I think I approve of straw parlors, don't you?
A swallow with jewels aflame on her breast / On that straw parlor's ceiling had builded her nest; / And she flew in and out all the happy day long, / And twittered the soothingest lullaby song. / Now some might suppose that that beautiful bird / Performed for her babies the music they heard; / _I_ reckon she twittered her repertoire through / For the folk in the little straw parlor, don't you?