The Clothesline

Summary

This chapter is written by  Charlotte Druitt Cole and it tells us about a clothesline and what all she imagines the clothes must be thinking and she uses some very fun examples to explain what she feels the clothes must be thinking. 

Stanza by stanza explanation.

Hand in hand they dance in a row,
Hither and thither, and to and fro,
Flip! Flap! Flop! and away they go —
Fluttering creatures as white as snow,
Like restive horses they caper and prance;
Like fairy-tale witches they wildly dance;
Rounded in front, but hollow behind,
They shiver and skip in the merry March wind.

In the first stanza, the poet says that the clothes look like they are dancing hand in hand and because of the wind it the clothes keep going from one place to another so it looks like they are dancing and because of their movement the poet has used many more examples to explain her thoughts on the movement of the clothes. 

One I saw dancing excitedly,
Struggling so wildly till she was free,
Then, leaving pegs and clothesline behind her,
She flew like a bird, and no one can find her.

in the second stanza, she says that one day she saw one piece of cloth dancing so happily and enthusiastically to get free that when it did finally get free no one could find it anywhere it flew away like a bird. 

I saw her gleam, like a sail, in the sun,
Flipping and flapping and flopping for fun.
Nobody knows where she now can be,
Hid in a ditch, or drowned in the sea.

In the third stanza see the poet continues to speak about the cloth she saw flying she says that it flips and flops for fun and that she saw it gleaming away and how no one knows where the cloth is gone and how they will never be able to find it again. 

She was my handkerchief not long ago,
But she’ll never come back to my pocket, I know.

In the end, she says that the cloth hat that flew away was her handkerchief but it will never come back to her pocked cause it has gone away.