no'-ble-honorable; worthy; above what is mean. tim'-id-not bold; easily frightened. throng-crowd; multitude. WORDS AND PHRASES: rē'-cent 'gayest laddie'' "merry troop" "Hailing the snow'' DARIUS GREEN AND HIS FLYING-MACHINE JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE John Townsend Trowbridge (1827- ), an American writer, lives in Cambridge. He and Lucy Larcom were for a time editors of "Our Young Folks' Magazine. "Trowbridge first saw a flying-machine sixty years after he wrote "Darius Green.'' He was then eighty-three years old. 1 If ever there lived a Yankee lad, Of his coat for a sail, Take a soaring leap from post or rail, He couldn't fly, And flap and flutter and wish and try— He never would do for a hero of mine. 2 An aspiring genius was D. Green: Twisting his tongue as he twisted the strings, To catch the scent, Around some corner, of new-baked pies, That made him look very droll in the face, 3 And wise he must have been, to do more Than ever a genius did before, Excepting Dædalus of yore And his son Icarus, who wore Upon their backs Those wings of wax He had read of in the old almanacs. Darius was clearly of the opinion, Shall navigate The azure as now we sail the sea. Hear how Darius reasoned about it. 4 "Birds can fly, An' why can't I? Must we give in," Says he with a grin, ""T the bluebird an' phoebe Are smarter'n we be? Jest fold our hands an' see the swaller, No bigger'n my thumb, know more than men? Er prove't the bat Has got more brains than's in my hat, He argued further: "Ner I can't see Important's his'n is? "That Icarus Was a silly cuss,— Him an' his daddy Dædalus. They might 'a' knowed wings made o' wax Er suthin' er other." 5 And he said to himself, as he tinkered and planned: "But I ain't goin' to show my hand To mummies that never can understand O' Creation itself afore 't was done!" And in the loft above the shed Himself he locks, with thimble and thread In which he locks These and a hundred other things. 6 His grinning brothers, Reuben and Burke Around the corner to see him work,- Drawing the waxed end through with a jerk, But vainly they mounted each other's backs, And poked through knot-holes and pried through cracks; When he chanced to be dry, Stood always nigh, For Darius was sly! And whenever at work he happened to spy He let a dipper of water fly. "Take that! an' ef ever ye get a peep, Guess ye'll ketch a weasel asleep!" And he sings as he locks His big strong box: Keep wide awake when ye're ketchin' him!" So day after day 8 He stitched and tinkered and hammered away, Till at last 'twas done, |