October 22, 2011

I found this in a box of  my mother's keepsakes after she passed away. She loved sentimental stories and  poetry.  It is very old and wonderful;  and contains no exact date, but my mother noted that it was  in a 3^rd grade reader from 1934.

One, Two, Three__by Henry Cuyler Bunner

It was an old, old, old, old lady

And a boy who was half-past 3;

And the way that they played together

Was beautiful to see.

She couldn’t go running and jumping,

And the boy, no more could he,

For he was a thin little fellow,

With a thin little twisted knee.

They sat in the yellow sunlight,

               Out under the maple tree;

And the game that they played, Ill tell you,

               Just as it was told to me.

It was Hide-and-Go-See they were playing,

Though you’d never have known it to be.

               With an old, old, old, old lady

And a boy with a twisted knee.

The boy would bend his face down

On his one little sound right knee,

And he’d guess where she was hiding

               In guesses One, Two, Three.

You are in the china closet!”

He would cry, and laugh with glee.

               It wasn’t the china closet;

But he still  had Two and Three.

“You are up in Papa’s big bedroom

In the chest with the queer old key!”

And she said: “You are warm and warmer,

But you’re not quite right,” said she.

               It can’t be the little cupboard

Where Momma’s things used to be,

So it must be in the clothes-press, Gran’ma.”

               And he found her with  his Three.

Then she covered her face with her fingers,

That were wrinkled and white and wee,

And she guessed where the boy was hiding

With a One, and Two, and a Three.

And they never  stirred from their places

               Right under the maple tree—

               This old, old, old, old lady

And the boy with the lame little knee,

And the boy that was half-past 3.