there? I declare spring's here, and I never knew it. Did you?" Afterward, when David was gone, it was to his mother that Mr. Riley wrote the beautiful poem about "The Little Boy That Sleeps."
"The little boy that sleeps."
And little David used to draw pictures most anywhere, pictures of soldiers and flags and stacks of arms. And there was one under the south parlor window. It was one day after David went to sleep that workmen came briskly into Lockerbie Street with ladders and pails of paint. And Mr. Riley called, as he walked by, "O Mrs. Cobb, you going to have the house painted?"
And she said, "Yes, Mr. Riley, it's looking pretty bad this spring, and we just thought we must." Then the poet caught his breath hard and said, "Oh, but I wouldn't like to paint those out." And he was looking at David's soldiers.
***
So he has laughed and sorrowed with Lockerbie Street. Is it any wonder that he loves it? There is one house down at the end of the row that is quite new, only fourteen years built, while the rest have been built over forty. The people there thought it would be nice to have the street made modern, improved with cement sidewalks, asphalt pavements and electric lights. The others were talking about it in an
22
