The Project Gutenberg eBook of Boys and Girls
Title: Boys and Girls
Author: James W. Foley
Release date: October 21, 2020 [eBook #63514]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Sharon Joiner, Chuck Greif
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)
THE VERSES OF
JAMES W. FOLEY
BOYS AND GIRLS
THE VERSES OF
JAMES W. FOLEY
NEW YORK
E·P·DUTTON & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1905, 1907, 1909, 1910, 1911
BY JAMES W. FOLEY
———
COPYRIGHT, 1913
BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THE·PLIMPTON·PRESS
NORWOOD·MASS·U·S·A·
TO MY WIFE
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
by Reginald Birch
BOYS AND GIRLS
AWAY
As he clattered him down the stair,
And found him a hat for his curly head
And called to a dog somewhere.
Then off like a flash down the shady lane
With a whistle and cry and song;
And back to us ever it came again:
“I won’t be gone very long.”
As we saw him among the trees,
His eyes all bright and his cheeks all red,
A friend of the birds and bees;
Then through the hedges and out of the gate,
For naught in the world goes wrong
With a boy of six or seven or eight—
“I won’t be gone very long.”
“I’m just going out to play.”
And the curly dog barked and the two of them sped
Over the clover away.
He waved us a kiss with a little brown hand
And cries rose from here and there,
For oh, but a boy does understand
A dog and the open air!
“Don’t wait any supper—you see,
I’ll just have a bowl of milk and bread
And my dog he will eat with me.”
Then he swung his hat on its tangled string
Till the curly dog wagged his tail
And romped and played like a boy in spring
And barked him a comrade’s hail.
Oh, Mother of him, don’t cry!
The leaves come green again, yellow and red,
And the years and the years go by.
But sometime he’ll come, as we’ve seen him do,
With the bark of a dog and a song,
For it must be true—oh, it must be true
That he’ll not be gone very long!