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Little John Turns

Barefoot Friar

OLD WINTER had passed and spring had come. No
Cleafy thickness had yet clad the woodlands, but the
budding leaves hung like a tender mist about the trees. In
the open country the meadow lands lay a sheeny green, the
cornfields a dark velvety color, for they were thick and soft
with the growing blades. The plowboy shouted in the sun,
and in the purple new-turned furrows flocks of birds hunt-
ed for fat worms. All the broad moist earth smiled in the
warm light, and each little green hill clapped its hand for
joy.
On a deer’s hide, stretched on the ground in the open
in front of the greenwood tree, sat Robin Hood basking in
the sun like an old dog fox. Leaning back with his hands
clasped about his knees, he lazily watched Little John roll-
ing a stout bowstring from long strands of hempen thread,
wetting the palms of his hands ever and anon, and rolling
the cord upon his thigh. Near by sat Allan a Dale fitting a
new string to his harp.
Quoth Robin at last, ‘Methinks I would rather roam this
forest in the gentle springtime than be King of all merry
England. What palace in the broad world is as fair as this
sweet woodland just now, and what king in all the world

The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood