A Boy and a Brook 



Bernice C. Reynolds 

 Buffalo, N. Y. 



Dear Mother: 



Do you know what a brook is? I always thought it was just a 

 little water running along in a crack in the ground and not any 

 where near big enough to swim in. But it isn't that. Why, the 

 brook makes the crack and I thought the crack was always there. 

 Sis said it wasn't worked out that way and that there were lots 

 of things a brook could tell if you only kept your eyes wide open. 

 That seemed awfully queer to me so while I was down in the 

 meadow yesterday morning looking for new woodchuck holes, I 

 took a good look at the brook there. I didn't see much, only a 

 lot of stones and a little water, lots of grass, green stuff and no new 

 woodchuck holes. 



I didn't think much about it until after dinner when I was 

 wishing the Simpson boys would come home again so's I could have 

 a good game; just the afternoon for one. Then I got to wonder- 

 ing why the meadow brook made such a crooked crack when my 

 geometry book says it would be less trouble to make it in a straight 

 line. I couldn't figure out so I asked Sis all about it. She asked 

 me to take her down to the meadow and perhaps she could explain 

 some of the things to me. I said I'd just as lief go, there being 

 nothing better to do. 



The brook starts from a small spring 'way up in the woods above 

 the meadow so we didn't go that far. We started where the brook 

 just trickles under the upper fence towards the south side of the 

 meadow. Right under the fence it had made a little pocket and 

 the water hardly ran at all. It was very still and clear so you 

 could see all the sticks and stones on the bottom. 



Suddenly we heard something rustling and shaking itself in the 

 wild cherry tree, beside the fence. Everything was so quiet that 

 we couldn't help but hear it. We looked through the leaves, and 

 just over the pool we saw a song sparrow (yes, I did know it was a 

 song sparrow) shaking himself. He's just had a bath, Sis said, 

 right in that water pool. So a brook is big enough after all, for 

 some things to bathe in and have a good time. From the pool, on 

 down the field for a way the water just trickled and hardly found 

 its way through the grass so I got to looking more at the grass 



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