The Project Gutenberg eBook, Our Boys, by Various

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Title: Our Boys
Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors

Author: Various

Release Date: July 1, 2005 [eBook #16171]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

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OUR BOYS

Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors

by

GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON, MARY E. WILKINS, FRANCES A. HUMPHREY, MARGARET
EYTINGE, MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY, MARY D. BRINE, ETC., ETC., ETC.

Profusely Illustrated

The Saalfield Publishing Company, Akron, Ohio

1904

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

THE CAT-TAIL ARROW

BY CLARA DOTY BATES

Little Sammie made a bow,
Well indeed he loved to whittle,
Shaped it like the half of O--
How he could I scarcely know,
For his fingers were so little.
As he whittled came a sigh:
"If I only had an arrow;
Something light enough to fly
To the tree-tops or the sky!
Then I'd have such fun tomorrow."

Then he thought of all the slim
Things that grow--the hazel bushes,
Willow branches, poplars trim--
And yet nothing suited him
Till he chanced to think of rushes.
He knew well a quiet pool
Where he always paused a minute
On his way to district school,
Just to see the waters cool
And his own bright face within it.

There the cat-tails thickly grew,
With their heads so brown and furry;
They were straight and slender too,
Plenty strong enough he knew,
And he sought them in a hurry.
Such an arrow as he wrought--
Almost passed a boy's believing.
When he drew the bow-string taut,
Out of sight and quick as thought
Up it went, th