THE LITTLE RED HOUSE

Very few grown-up people understand houses. Only children understand
them properly, and, if I understand them just a little, it is because
I knew Sym. Sym and his wife, Emily Ann, lived in the Little Red
House. It was built on a rather big mountain, and there were no other
houses near it. At one time, long ago, the mountain had been covered
all over with a great forest; but men had cut the trees down, all but
one big Blue-gum, which grew near the Little Red House. The Blue-gum
and the Little Red House were great friends, and often had long talks
together. The Blue-gum was a very old tree--over a hundred years
old--and he was proud of it, and often used to tell of the time, long
ago, when blackfellows hunted 'possums in his branches. That was
before the white men came to the mountain, and before there were any
houses near it.

Once upon a time I put a verse about the mountain and the Little Red
House into a book of rhymes which I wrote for grown ups. I don't
think they thought much about it. Very likely they said, "0h, it's
just a house on a hill," and then forgot it, because they were too
busy about other things.

This is the rhyme:

A great mother mountain, and kindly is she,
Who nurses young rivers and sends them to sea.
And, nestled high up on her sheltering lap,