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

	PAGE
Away	3
The Reciprocity of Smiles	5
A Domestic Ripple	7
The Adams’s Boys	9
Billy Peeble’s Christmas	11
The Way He Used to Do	16
A Boy’s Vacation Time	18
A Boy’s Choice	20
A Discouraged Kindergartner	22
The Delusion of Ghosts	24
A Story of Self-Sacrifice	25
The Lost Child	28
Doughnutting Time	30
A Modern Miracle	32
Nervoustown	34
Song of Summer Days	36
What Mother Doesn’t Know	37
So Lonesome Now	39
A Little Love Story	41
On a Noiseless Fourth	43
Conscious Ignorance	45
The Playtime of Bachelor Bill	47
How Henry Blake Knows	49
The Land of Blow Bubbles	50
The Gingercake Man	52
Lonesome	54
The Garden of Play	57
We Ain’t Scared of Pa	59
A Pearl of Price	61
Dear Little, Queer Little Man	63
Girl of Mine	65
Chums	67
The Lost Boy	69
Lines to a Baby Girl	71
Little Mischefuss	73
The Travels of Mortimer Brown	75
Adventurers Three	77
When They Love You So	79
Somebody Did	81
The Waders	83
The Prisoned Pupil	85
A Prayer for Jimmy Banks	87
A Child’s Christmas Prayer	89
Henry Blake’s Chum	91
Once Upon a Time	93
The Way to School	95
A Present for Little Boy Blue	97
The Evolution of an Adoption	99
Some Girls that Mamma Knew	101
Gone	103
The Neighbor’s Boys	104
A Quiet Afternoon	106
The Ownerless Toys	108
The Stranger	110
In Vacation Time	112
Bereaved	114
Two Little Maids	117
A New Christmas Carol	118
The Reconciliation of Pa	120
A World without Care	122
Right After School	124
A Plea for Old Friends	127
The Boyville Cadets	129
A Little Boy I Know	132
Asleep at the Circus	135
The Barriers	137
The Plaint of the New Doll	139
A Child’s Almanac	141
The Loser	143
Back to School	146
Disenchantments	148
A Rainy Night	150
Kitchen Miracles	152
Jim Brady’s Big Brother	154
The Scapegoat	156
A Tragedy of Center Field	158
In Swimming	161
An Unusual Chum	163
And Just Then	164
Afterwards	167
Circus Day	168
The Tour of a Smile	170
When Grandpa Plays	172
The Parted Ways	175
A Message Home	177
Lullaby	180
Disguising Toil	182
Little Girl with the Curls	185
My Wonderful Dad	187
Remembrances, Bill	190
The Bereavement	192
In Childhood Time	194
Don’t	196
Extinguished	198
The Uncheered Hero	199
Old Hallowe’en Friends	201
A Refuge in Distress	203
The Lost Heart	205
Verses of a Little Child	208
Golden Days in Slowville	210
The Heart of a Child	213
The Strenuous Life	214
A Song of Motherhood	216
Youth	218
After the Years	220
A Verse to Memory	222
Lest I Forget	224
Echo of a Song	226
Lovers’ Lane	228
Daddy Knows	230
To Children at the Hearth	232
A Toast to the Small Boy	234
An Adventurous Day	236
Poem of the Foragers	238

ILLUSTRATIONS
by Reginald Birch

Song of Summer Days	Frontispiece
The Adams’s Boys	facing page 10
Billy Peeble’s Christmas	14
A Modern Miracle	32
A Little Love Story	42
The Gingercake Man	52
The Waders	84
A Prayer for Jimmy Banks	88
Once Upon A Time	94
The Neighbor’s Boys	104
Asleep at the Circus	136
In Swimming	162
The Parted Ways	176
Lullaby	180
Verses of a Little Child	208
Lover’s Lane	228

BOYS AND GIRLS

AWAY

“I WON’T be long,” the Little Boy said,
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.”

“I won’t be long,” the Little Boy said,
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 won’t be long,” the Little Boy said,
“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!

“I won’t be long,” the Little Boy said,
“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.

“I won’t be long,” the Little Boy said—
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!

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Boys and Girls

BOYS AND GIRLS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS
by Reginald Birch

BOYS AND GIRLS

AWAY

THE RECIPROCITY OF SMILES

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Boys and Girls

BOYS AND GIRLS

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS by Reginald Birch

BOYS AND GIRLS

AWAY

THE RECIPROCITY OF SMILES

ILLUSTRATIONS
by Reginald Birch