The Weekly Photo Challenge prompt invites us to interpret the theme “Between”. This response is dedicated to my oldest, Susan. When she was a little girl in Kindergarten, she memorized a poem by A. A. Milne (the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories) and performed it for the K-3rd grade Speech and Oratorical Contest of her elementary school. Here is the poem:
Before Tea by A. A. Milne
Emmeline
Has not been seen
For more than week. She slipped between
The two tall trees at the end of the green…
We all went after her. “Emmeline!”
“Emmeline,
I didn’t mean —
I only said that your hands weren’t clean.”
We went to the trees at the end of the green…
But Emmeline
Was not to be seen.
Emmeline
Came slipping between
The two tall trees at the end of the green.
We all ran up to her. “Emmeline!
Where have you been?
Where have you been?
Why, it’s more than week!” And Emmeline
Said, “Sillies, I went and saw the Queen.
She says my hands are purfickly clean!”
Susan did not perform this poem ‘purfickly’. As I recall, she left rather a long pause between the second and third stanzas, perhaps for dramatic effect, perhaps to indicate that some time goes by in that part. The audience began to applaud too early. Nevertheless, her memory was perfect, and she finished in her own time, in her little 5-year old lisp, “Thillieth…”, and I was, of course, inordinately proud of her. I still am. I visited her this past Sunday, and we went for a stroll in the UW Madison Arboretum, where she slipped between the branches of trees — like this:
scillagrace 
…perhaps because she forgot how the third stanza began. Perhaps because she suddenly realized she was speaking in front of an awful lot of people. The world may never know.
Okay, perhaps. I have my own theories. 😉
Very sweet, Scilla. Love the photo and the story.
Thanks, Naomi. It’s nice to have some place to put these “mother moments” when they surface.
And they do keep surfacing, don’t they? When they are old and gray, they will still be our babies!
By the time they’re old and gray, the daisies will be our babies, too! 😉
One of my favourite A A Milne poems, and a lovely story about your precocious daughter.
Thank you! The poetry books included my father’s penciled signature from his childhood on the end papers…a precious heirloom to me.