and jostle and bother?
Off with you all! Take me back to my mother."

The sunset stood at the gates of the west.
"Follow me, follow me" came from Birdie Brown's breast.

"I am going that way as fast as I can,"
Said the brook, as it sank and turned and ran.

Back to the woods fled the shadows like ghosts:
"If we stay, we shall all be missed from our posts."

Said the wind with a voice that had changed its cheer,
"I was just going there, when you brought me here."

"That's where I live," said the sack-backed squirrel,
And he turned his sack with a swing and a swirl.

Said the cock of the spire, "His father's churchwarden."
Said the brook running faster, "I run through his garden."

Said the mole, "Two hundred worms--there I caught 'em
Last year, and I'm going again next autumn."

Said they all, "If that's where you want us to steer for,
What in earth or in water did you bring us here for?"

"Never you mind," said Little Boy Blue;
"That's what I tell you. If that you won't do,

"I'll get up at once, and go home without you.
I think I will; I begin to doubt you."

He rose; and up rose the snake on its tail,
And hissed three times, half a hiss, half a wail.

Little Boy Blue he tried to go past him;
But wherever he turned, sat the snake and faced him.

"If you don't get out of my way," he said,
"I tell you, snake, I will break your head."

The snake he neither would go nor come;
So he hit him hard with the stick of his drum.

The snake fell down as if he were dead,
And Little Boy Blue set his foot on his head.

And all the creatures they marched before him,
And marshalled him home with a high cockolorum.

And Birdie Brown sang Twirrrr twitter twirrrr twee--
Apples and cherries, roses and honey;
Little Boy Blue has listened to me--
All so jolly and funny.

CHAPTER XXI. SAL'S NANNY

DIAMOND managed with many blunders to read this rhyme to his mother.

"Isn't it nice, mother?" he said.

"Yes, it's pretty," she answered.

"I think it means something," return