Two Pillows

After an afternoon of tilling the soil, planting azalea bushes and impatients, we thought it would be a could time to watch "Little Bear" and rest.

We chose the episode called Two Pillows.

Little Bear is sick in bed and his father comes into his room, puts a second pillow behind Little Bears' head, and recites a poem from memory that his father always told him when he little and sick. The poem was full of adventures that took place in his bed and it made him feel so much better.

It reminded me of another great children's book by Sylvia Plath, "The Bed Book" which is also wonderfully creative and full of adventure about bedtime and different kinds of beds you could sleep in like a submarine bed.

You can tell how much this little boy loved the poem and the adventures it created.

Here's the delightful poem by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was originally called "The Land of Counterpane", which is a what a bedspread was called a long, long time ago.


The Land of Counterpane

WHEN I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.