The Writings in Prose and Verse of Eugene Field Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1889 Excerpt: ...new, sweet life of the springtime. "I slept horribly," growled the thistle. "I had bad dreams. It was sleep, after all, but it ought to have been death." The thistle never complained again; for just then a four-footed monster stalked through the meadow and plucked and ate the thistle and then stalked gloomily away; which was the last of the sceptical thistle, --truly a most miserable end RODOLPH AND HIS KING "You said the truth, dear old oak-tree " cried the little vine. "It was not death, --it was only a sleep, a sweet, refreshing sleep, and this awakening is very beautiful." They all said so, --the daisy, the violet, the oak-tree, the crickets, the bees, and all the things and creatures of the field and forest that had awakened from their long sleep to swell the beauty and the glory of the springtime. And they talked with the child, and the child heard them. And although the grandsire never spoke to the child about these things, the child learned from the flowers and trees a lesson of the springtime which perhaps the grandsire never knew TELL me, Father," said the child at Rodolph's knee, --"tell me of the king." "There is no king, my child," said Rodolph. "What you have heard are old women's tales. Do not believe them, for there is no king." "But why, then," queried the child, "do all the people praise and call on him; why do the birds sing of the king; and why do the brooks always prattle his name, as they dance from the hills to the sea?" "Nay," answered Rodolph, "you imagine these things; there is no king. Believe me, child, there is no king." So spake Rodolph; but scarcely had he uttered the words when the cricket in the chimney corner chir...