Explore "The Peter-Bird" by Eugene Field on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Out of the woods by the creek cometh a calling for Peter, / And from the orchard a voice echoes and echoes it over; / Down in the pasture the sheep hear that strange crying for Peter, / Over the meadows that call is aye and forever repeated. / So let me tell you the tale, when, where, and how it all happened, / And, when the story is told, let us pay heed to the lesson.
Once on a time, long ago, lived in the State of Kentucky / One that was reckoned a witch -- full of strange spells and devices; / Nightly she wandered the woods, searching for charms voodooistic -- / Scorpions, lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons, and plantains! / Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets and adders -- / These were the guides of that witch through the dank deeps of the forest. / Then, with her roots and her herbs, back to her cave in the morning / Ambled that hussy to brew spells of unspeakable evil; / And, when the people awoke, seeing that hillside and valley / Sweltered in swathes as of mist -- "Look! " they would whisper in terror -- / "Look! the old witch is at work brewing her spells of great evil! " / Then would they pray till the sun, darting his rays through the vapor, / Lifted the smoke from the earth and baffled the witch's intentions.