The corn-stalks lean in pointed sheaves,
⁠Bare branches sing against the blue;
The lawn ’s a sea of withered leaves
⁠That shizzle as my feet go through.

And Mike ahead and I behind
⁠Are raking hard as hard can be.
Oh, see them whirling in the wind,
⁠Just like a waterspout at sca!

And I dive in; I jump and twirl,
⁠Caught up from earth and floating off;
And now I plunge where breakers curl,
⁠Engulfed within the ocean’s trough.

I sink, I gasp: for help I 've waved;
⁠But Michael will not turn his head.
Lost, lost in Shizzle Sea!—No, saved!
⁠I 'm “rescued”—on the flower-bed!

Now I 'm a mole. I ’ve tunneled through
⁠That leafy mountain, quite a while,

Just see how straight I burrowed to
⁠The center of that ’normous pile!

Here, wrapped in leaves from foot to head.
⁠Who cares what wind or snow may do?
I ‘'m Bruin making up his bed
⁠To sleep the whole long winter through.

At last our leaves are heaped, and show
⁠Against the dusk in jutting peaks,
Like Indian wigwams, row on row,
⁠Whose smoke ascends in coils and streaks.

They catch, they blaze! The camp ’s aflame!
⁠And I, the hostile chief, Red Cloud,
Steal, crawling slyly, on my game,
⁠To whoop the war-cry long and loud!

Too soon the war-dance ends; too soon
⁠The blaze is sunk in smoldering gray.
Up rakes, and homeward by the moon!
⁠A fine day’s work we "ve done to-day!