The Project Gutenberg EBook of St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls,
Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11, by Various

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Title: St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11

Author: Various

Editor: Mary Mapes Dodge

Release Date: December 28, 2005 [EBook #17409]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: SHIPWRECKED. Drawn by J.W. Champney.]

ST. NICHOLAS.

VOL. V.
SEPTEMBER, 1878.
No. 11.

[Copyright, 1878, by Scribner & Co.]

FERN-SEED.

BY CELIA THAXTER.

She filled her shoes with fern-seed,
This foolish little Nell,
And in the summer sunshine
Went dancing down the dell.
For whoso treads on fern-seed,--
So fairy stories tell,--
Becomes invisible at once,
So potent is its spell.
A frog mused by the brook-side:
"Can you see me!" she cried;
He leaped across the water,
A flying leap and wide.
"Oh, that's because I asked him!
I must not speak," she thought,
And skipping o'er the meadow
The shady wood she sought.
The squirrel chattered on the bough,
Nor noticed her at all,
The birds sang high, the birds sang low,
With many a cry and call.
The rabbit nibbled in the grass,
The snake basked in the sun,
The butterflies, like floating flowers,
Wavered and gleamed and shone.
The spider in his hammock swung,
The gay grasshoppers danced;
And now and then a cricket sung,
And shining beetles glanced.
'Twas all because the pretty child
So softly, softly trod,--
You could not hear a foot-fall
Upon the yielding sod.
But she was filled with such delight--
This foolish little Nell!
And with her fern-seed laden shoes,
Danced back across the dell.
"I'll find my mother now," she thought,
"What fun 't will be to call
'Mamma! mamma!' while she can see
No little girl at all!"
She peeped in through the window,
Mamma sat in a dream:
About the quiet, sun-steeped house
All