The hollow winds begin to blow, The clouds look black, the glass is low, The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, And spiders from their cobwebs creep. Hark! how the chairs and tables crack, Old Betty’s joints are on the rack; Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, The distant hills are looking nigh, How restless are the snorting swine. The busy fly disturbs the kine, “Puss,” on the hearth with velvet paws, Sits wiping o’er her whiskered jaws. Through the clear streams the fishes rise And nimbly catch the incautious flies. The frog has changed his yellow vest, And in a russet coat is drest, My dog, so altered in his taste, Quits mutton bones, on grass to feast, And see yon rooks--how odd their flight, They imitate the gliding kite. And headlong, downwards, seem to fall, As if they felt the piercing ball. ’Twill surely rain; I see, with sorrow Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow. Then, there is the little busy bee:-- How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour And gather honey all the day From every opening flower. How skilfully she builds her nest, How neat she spreads the wax And labors hard to store it well With the sweet food she makes. In works of labor, or of skill, I must be busy too; For idle hands, some mischief still Will ever find to do. Those poems may not be exactly word for word as they are printed in the books; but I am not going to look for the books, to see if they are correct. That would be a desecration of myself and my story, as I have told my readers I am taking my writings from the stores of my memory. Nor, must I run away from school either--to tell stories outside of school. I ran ahead in my classes when I was at school. The master would have a patch of one of our fields every year, to sow potatoes in. My father, on some business of his, took me with him to the master’s house one night; the master had two little girls, daughters; he was telling my father that I was getting on well at school, and that if I continued to be good ’till I grew up to be a big boy, he’d give me his Mary Anne for a little wife. My grandfather and grandmother would come to mass every Sunday. They’d come to our place first, and let the horse be put in the stable till mass was over. I was that time such a prodigy of learning, that my innocent Nannie feared the learning would rise in my head.