“That girl and those great clodhoppers!” they say,
“Never will go shod in anything but those boots”,
“Not without the severest persuasion!”
“Gadding about in all weathers,”
“Come rain, wind, shine or snow!”
“Bare-legged an’ all, an’ ‘ardly a stitch on past that old frock”,
“Boots and girl, as much made for mischief as each other”,
“Never known the like for more than one way on an errand”,
“Up and down and round about!”
“When there’s an oak-tree to scramble into”,
“Or chase-and-hide t’ play ‘til the cows comes home!”
“Sooner dawdle down the lane all the school days though!”
“Wastrel”,
“Vagabond”,
“Gadabout-the-hedgerows”,
“Fast as a hare, mind, when the school bell rings for home-time!”
“First to the windfalls”, “First to the old woman’s gate”,
“Fierce as a ferret too, have to watch out, have to take care!”
“Whipped a sapling ‘cross young Willie Tope’s face soon enough last summer”,
“For calling her nothing but a girl!” “The fool!”
“Sly as a fox though”,
“When there’s a pheasant or a chicken for the taking”,
“And an eye as beady as a blackbird’s for a berry in a bush!”
“Or for a mince pie on a window sill, come to that, at this time of year!”
“Or for a baby in a pram, I’ve heard tell.”
“Bold as brass!” “Always was”,
“An’ first, the very first, helter-skelter down the ice-slide by the church!”
“And never mind the vicar upset and on his uppers!”
“Swore it was the devil himself who downed him”,
“Silly old Billy!”
“Brave, though!” “As brave as the best”,
“Last, the very last, she was, stood foursquare, ‘gainst the town lads,
“Fighting them up and down the village, up and down, up and down!”
“Downed, though, at the last”,
“In a blizzard of snowballs!”
But those in the new houses round about just said:
“Here comes more trouble.”
© R. Frank Wilson
(From the book ‘Gleda and the Sparkling-Cloth’ 2005)