The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation by Annie Fellows Johnston

IT was a Sabbath afternoon in October, sunny and still, with a purple / haze resting on the distant woodlands across the river. A warm odour of / ripe apples floated across the old peach orchard, for a few rare / pippin-trees stood in its midst, flaunting the last of their fruitage / from gnarled limbs, or hiding it in the sear grass underneath.

Here and there groups of bareheaded girls wandered in the sun-flecked / shade, exchanging confidences and stooping now and then to pounce / joyfully upon some apple that had hitherto evaded discovery. Betty, who / had been reading aloud for nearly an hour to a little group under one of / the largest trees, closed her book with a yawn. Lloyd and Kitty leaned / lazily back against the mossy trunk, and Allison, with her arms around / her knees, gazed dreamily across the river. The only one who did not / seem to have fallen under the drowsy spell of the Indian summer / afternoon was Gay. Up in the tree above them, she lay stretched out / along a limb, peering down through the leaves like a saucy squirrel.

"What a Sleepy Hollow tale that was!" she exclaimed. "It just suits the / day, but it has hypnotized all of you. Do wake up and be sociable."

She began breaking off bits of twigs and dropping them down on the heads / below. One struck Lloyd's ear, and she brushed it off impatiently, / thinking it was a bug. Gay laughed and began teasingly:

"There was a young maiden named Lloyd, / / Whom reptiles always annoyed. / / An innocent worm would cause her to squirm, / / And cloyed -- toyed -- employed

I'm stuck, Betty. Come to the rescue with a rhyme."

"So with germicide she's overjoyed," supplied Betty, promptly.

"That's all right," said Kitty, waking up. "Let's each make a Limerick. / Five minutes is the limit, and the one that hasn't his little verse / ready when the time is up will have to answer truthfully any question / the others agree to ask."

"No," objected Lloyd. "I'd be suah to be it. I can make the rhymes, but / the lines limp too dreadfully for any use."

"We won't count that," promised Kitty, looking at her chatelaine watch. / "Now, one, two, three! Fire away!"

There was silence for a little space, broken only by the soft cooing of / a far-away dove. Then Betty looked up with a satisfied smile. The / anxious pucker smoothed out of Lloyd's forehead, and Allison nodded her / readiness.

"Lloyd first," called Kitty, looking at her watch again.

A mischievous smile brought the dimples to the Little Colonel's face as / she began:

"There's a girl in our school called Kitty, / / Evidently not from the city. / / With screeches and squawkin's / / She upset the nerves of poah old Hawkins. / / Oh, her behaviour was not at all pretty."

A burst of laughter greeted Lloyd's attempt at verse-making, for the / subject which she had chosen recalled one of Kitty's outbreaks the first / week of school, when the temptation to upset Hawkins's dignity was more / than she could resist. No one of them who had seen Hawkins's wild exit / from the linen closet the night she hid on the top shelf, and raised / his hair with her blood-curdling moans and spectral warnings (having / blown out his candle from above), could think of the occurrence without / laughing till the tears came to their eyes.

"Now, Allison," said Kitty, when the final giggle had died away. "It's / your turn." Allison referred to the lines she had scribbled on the back / of a magazine:

"There is a young maiden, they say, / / Who grows more beloved every day. / / When we talk or we ramble, there's always a scramble / / To be next to the maid who is _Gay_."

"Whew! Thanks awfully!" came the embarrassed exclamation from the boughs / above, and Betty cried, in surprise: "Why, I wrote about her, too. I / said:

"Like the bow on the strings when she plays, / / So she crosses with music our days. / / Our hearts doth she tune to the gladness of June, / / And the smile that brings sunshine is Gay's."

"My dear, that's no Limerick, that's poetry!" exclaimed Kitty, and Gay / called down: "It's awfully nice of you, girls, but please change the / subject. I'm so covered with confusion that I'm about to fall off this / limb."