Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1855-06-01
Mis1rLIaneons.
From the Albany Register.
A Column for Little People

A Column for Little People.
Annie was a beautiful, bright eysdrOsy- cheek
ed little girl Of five or six years OF age; busy al
ways as a bee, happy and cheerful as a cricket
and her sweet voice rang ont musical and clea
as the song the birds in spring time. A gTea
favorte was Annie. Her gentle and affection
ate ways, so simple, so sincere and truthful
made every body love her. Anne's nurse haC
a fund Of fairy stories, with which she flled tn:
head Of the little girl, who loved nothing sc vel
as to sit under the thick foliage of the honey
suckle and vine roses, that crept up all over the
arbor in the garden, and listen TO the tales O.
Fairy land which the simple minded nurse low
ed right well to be telling.
| A little way, may be twenty rods from the
cottage in which Annie spent her summers, anC
within the enclosure that surrounded it, was a
beautiful spring, that came up from among the
roots Of three or four naples that spread theil
leafy branches above it, making pleasant shade
/ in the heat Of noon. The water in the spring
was two or three feet deep, and clear cold
\ stream wandered away from it, over a white
pebbly bed, to the lake that lay little way be-
yond. All around the spring, and stretching
away te the cottage, was n green lawn: and
| Annie and her little visitors used to have pleas
ant times sporting and playing and runnin g
about on it, like so many lambs. Annie would
w0nder who it was down there looking so sweet
| iy up and smiling so pleasantly upon her from
the midst Of the Waters,-and how the trees
could grow go bright and green, standing, as it
seemed to her. on their tops, away down in the
earth. Her mother was sometimes alarmed
lest her little girl should fall into the spring and
be drowned; but a good Providence that takes
care Of little children, seemed to be always
watching over her.
| The fairy tales Of her nurse would, sometimes
come TO Annie in her dreams, and would seem
10 be not like the stories of the good nurse, but
realities; and she would see and talk with the
Ella things, as though she were awake and
they all around her. One day she was out in
the garden. 1t was a pleasant afternoon in
June, and she was running about, pulling a
blossom here, a pink there, a violet from this
tult and a rose from that bush, making up bo-
quet,-as little girls are apt to do, when they
get loose in garden where all the sweet fow-
erS grow.
All at once she heard piercing little voice
crying in great distress:
Annie! dear Annie! Hasten to me!
Annie! sweet Annie7 oh set me free!
Here in the tanRle thorn,
Ever since break of morn,
With plumsge all soiled and torn,
Helpless I lie!
Come, Annie! come to me-
Haste, Annie! set me free!
Help, or l die!
Turning towards the place whence the voice
seemed to come, Annie saw little bird, like
robin with plumage white as snow, that had got
fast in the clustering and tangled branches of a
thorn bush that grew in the hedge. She parted
the limbs and cut away the thorns until she
could reach the poor little thing. and then she
took il carefully out Of the bush and held il to
her bosom, and il seemed to fondle and nestle
there as lift were so happy!
Well, after a while, Annie sat the little bird
down on the ground, and it hoped gaily about,
and Clipped and sang SO merly, that Annie
was wonderfully delighted; and this was the
ssng Of the little bird, as it huttered its wings
and hoped along, now in the path and now on
the grass, all the time moving towards the
beautiful spring that came up from the roots OF
the maple tree that grew in the corner of the
lawn:
Come with me, Annie dear!
Follow me, do not fear,
Down where the naples grow
Down where the waters flow;
Down with me, there!
There, in the fairy ring,
There will we flowers bring,
There will we dance and sing
Come with me, dear!
Annie had never heard bird talk, and yet
she was neither surprised nor frightened. for
her nurse had told her thousand stories about
little birds talking, sad there was something 50