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Hide and Seek

From the Omaha Daily Bee, August 20, 1913. By H. C. Bunner.

It was an old, old, old, old lady,
    And a boy that was half-past three;
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 I’ll tell you,
    Just as it was told to me.

It was Hide-and-Go-Seek they were playing,
    Though you’d never have known it to be—
With an old, old, old, old lady
    And the boy with the 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 still he had Two and Three.

“You are 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 mamma’s things used to be,
So it must be the clothespress, 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 a Two and a Three.

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