they cried;
The Cat could never catch at all,
However hard he tried.
He chased them up, he chased them down,
He chased them all about;
He chased them round and round and round,
Until his strength gave out.
|
They led him to a shady wood,
To sniff the cooling breeze,
And watch the poly-poddy frogs
A-jumping in the trees.
The frogs were shiny, fat and green;
They sat about in rows,
And held on to the branches by
Their multifarious toes!
|
|
While there they sat, a cheerful shout
Rang out across the sea;
And Fishy-Winkle sighed and said:
“I guess they’re calling me.
“The tide is in, my time is up,
I must go home again;
My brothers six are beckoning me
Across the rolling main.”
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The children followed in his train
As far as they could get,
Until the water got too deep,
And all their clothes too wet.
“Be sure and come again,” they cried,
“To play, some other day.”
And Fishy waved a friendly hand,
From very far away.
|
|
Mistress O’Hara has taken her stand,
With rage in her heart and a stick in her hand;
So fierce is her frown and so wild is her eye,
That poor Yama-Guchi feels ready to die.
|
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Her patience is stretched to the end of its tether,
She knocks all the heads of the children together;
Then—when she’s reduced them to sorrow and tears—
She repents of her harshness—the poor little dears!
|
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She agrees to forget and forgive
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