Explore "A Book for Kids" by C.J. Dennis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Very few grown-up people understand houses. Only children understand / them properly, and, if I understand them just a little, it is because / I knew Sym. Sym and his wife, Emily Ann, lived in the Little Red / House. It was built on a rather big mountain, and there were no other / houses near it. At one time, long ago, the mountain had been covered / all over with a great forest; but men had cut the trees down, all but / one big Blue-gum, which grew near the Little Red House. The Blue-gum / and the Little Red House were great friends, and often had long talks / together. The Blue-gum was a very old tree -- over a hundred years / old -- and he was proud of it, and often used to tell of the time, long / ago, when blackfellows hunted 'possums in his branches. That was / before the white men came to the mountain, and before there were any / houses near it.
Once upon a time I put a verse about the mountain and the Little Red / House into a book of rhymes which I wrote for grown ups. I don't / think they thought much about it. Very likely they said, "0h, it's / just a house on a hill," and then forgot it, because they were too / busy about other things.