Lesson 5 Popping Corn

One autumn night, when the wind was high,

And the rain fell in heavy plashes,

A little boy sat by the kitchen fire,

A-popping corn in the ashes;

And his sister, a curly-haired child of three,

Sat looking on, just close to his knee.

Pop! pop! and the kernels, one by one,

Came out of the embers flying;

The boy held a long pine stick in his hand,

And kept it busily plying;

He stirred the corn and it snapped the more,

And faster jumped to the clean-swept floor.

Part of the kernels flew one way,

And a part hopped out the other;

Some flew plump into the sister's lap,

Some under the stool of the brother;

The little girl gathered them into a heap,

And called them a flock of milk-white sheep.