Maud Lindsay

Little Sleepy Head

O NCE upon a time, early in the morning when the sun was just climbing over the hills and all the clouds were rosy pink, a little child lay asleep in his pretty white bed.

"Wake up, wake up," ticked the clock that stood on the mantel. "Wake up, wake up;" but the child did not hear a word that it said.

"I'll wake him up," said a bird that lived in a tree close by the window. "He throws me crumbs to eat every day, and I will wake him with a song." So the bird sat in the tree and sang and sang, "Wake up, dearie, dearie, dearie," till all the birds in the garden waked up and sang with her; but the little child slept on in his pretty white bed.

He was still asleep when the wind from the South blew through the garden. "I know this little child," said the wind. "I turned his windmill for him yesterday, and I will blow through the window and wake him with a kiss." So the wind blew through the window and kissed him on both cheeks, and blew his curls about his face; but the child did not stir in his pretty white bed.

"He is waiting for me to call him," said the rooster in the barnyard. "Nobody knows him so well as I, for I belong to him, and I will wake him." So the rooster stood on the fence and flapped his wings, and crowed:—

He waked the yellow chickens and the old hen, the pigeons in the pigeon-house, and the little red calf in the barn. Even the lambs in the meadow heard his call; but he did not wake the little child, though he crowed till he was hoarse.

Now by this time the sun was bright in the sky. It shone over the hills and the meadows. It shone in the barnyard where the noisy rooster crowed and in the garden where the birds sang, and it shone through the window right into the little child's face. And then the little child opened his eyes!  "Mamma, Mamma," he called; and his mamma came in at once to dress him. "Who waked my baby child?" asked she; but nobody answered, for not even little Sleepy Head himself knew that it was the sun.