Poetry Collection

At Aunty’s House- 1994

Edition of 350

Retail Price $795

Aunty's House, the first edition in the collection Once Upon a Rhyme, is inspired by one of Wendy Lawton's favorite poets, James Whitcomb Riley. She is 16" tall on a 13 joint wooden body. She is dressed in a rose-colored cotton country frock and pinafore. She has carrot-red curls, a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and ocean green eyes. James Whitcomb Riley grew up a simple Hoosier farm boy. "At Aunty's House", like many of his poems, is written in a country vernacular that reflects the simplicity and freshness of children. His poems pulsate with the smells, sights, and sounds of summertime in the country.

One time, when we'z at Aunty's house--

'Way in the country!--where

They's ist but woods--an' pigs, an' cows--

An' all's outdoors an' air!--

An' orchurd-swing; an' churry-trees--

An' churries in 'em!--Yes, an' these--

Here redhead birds steals all they please,

An' tetch 'em ef you dare!--

W'y, wunst, one time, when we wuz there,

We et out on the porch!

Wite where the cellar-door wuz shut

The table wuz, an' I

Let Aunty set by me an' cut

My vittuls up--an' pie.

'Tuz awful funny!--I could see

The redheads in the churry-tree.

An' beehives, where you got to be

So keerful, goin' by:--

An' "Comp'ny" there an' all!--an we--

We et out on the porch!

An' I ist et p'surves an' things

'At Ma don't 'low me to--

An' chicken-gizzurds--(don't like wings

Like Parunts does! do you?)

An' all the time the wind blowed there.

An' I could feel it in my hair.

An' ist smell clover ever'where?--

An' a' old redhead flew

Purt'-nigh wite over my high-chair.

When we et on the porch!

Lucy Gray - 1995

Edition of 350

Retail Price $795

Wordsworth's haunting poem was the inspiration for Lucy Gray, the second edition in our Once Upon a Rhyme series. Lucy Gray is 16" tall on a 13-joint hand-carved wooden body. She carries a perfectly scaled wooden, glass and brass lantern, painstakingly handcrafted in the Lawtons workshop.

Wordsworth, himself, tells us how he came to write Lucy Gray. "Written at Goslar in Germany. It was founded on a circumstance told me by my Sister, of a little girl who, not far from Halifax in Yorkshire, was bewildered in a snow-storm. Her footsteps were traced by her parents to the middle of the lock of a canal and no other vestige of her, backward or forward, could be traced."

Lucy Gray

Written by William Wordsworth

Oft I heard of Lucy Gray:

And, when I crossed the wild,

I chanced to see at break of day

The solitary child.

No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;

She dwelt on a wide moor,

-The sweetest thing that ever grew

Beside a human door!

You yet may spy the fawn at play,

The hare upon the green;

But the sweet face of Lucy Gray

Will never more be seen.

'To-night will be a stormy night-

You to the town must go;

And take a lantern, Child, to light

Your mother through the snow.'

'That, Father! will I gladly do:

'Tis scarcely afternoon-

The Minster-clock has just struck two,

And yonder is the moon!'

At this the Father raised his hook,

And snapped a faggot-band;

He piled his work;-and Lucy took

The lantern in her hand.

Not blither is the mountain roe:

With many a wanton stroke

Her feet disperse the powdery snow,

That rises up like smoke.

The storm came on before its time:

She wandered up and down;

And many a hill did Lucy climb:

But never reached the town.

The wretched parents all that night

Went shouting far and wide;

But there was neither sound nor sight

To serve them for a guide.

At day-break on a hill they stood

That overlooked the moor;

And thence they saw the bridge of wood,

A furlong from their door.

They wept-and, turning homeward, cried,

'In heaven we all shall meet;'

-When in the snow the mother spied

The print of Lucy's feet.

Then downwards from the steep hill's edge

They tracked the footmarks small;

And through the broken hawthorn hedge,

And by the long stone-wall;

And then an open field they crossed:

The marks were still the same;

They tracked them on, nor ever lost;

And to the bridge they came.

They followed from the snowy bank

Those footmarks, one by one,

Into the middle of the plank;

And further there were none!

-Yet some maintain that to this day

She is a living Child;

That you may see sweet Lucy Gray

Upon the lonesome wild.

O'er rough and smooth she trips along,

And never looks behind;

And sings a solitary song

That whistles in the wind.

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