She would say to her father Bob, Father I have a complaint to make, my dog Love does not come when I call.
Rose was always thinking. It is easy to think when your name is Rose. Nobody’s name was ever Blue, nobody’s, why not. Rose never thought about that. Rose thought she thought a lot but she never did think about that.
But mountains yes Rose did think about mountains and about blue when it was on the mountains and feathers when clouds like feathers were on the mountains and birds when one little bird and two little birds and three and four and six and seven and ten and seventeen and thirty or forty little birds all came flying and a big bird came flying and the little birds came flying and they flew higher than the big bird and they came down and one and then two and then five and then fifty of them came picking down on the head of the big bird and slowly the big bird came falling down between the mountain and the little birds all went home again. Little birds do go home again after they have scared off the big bird.
How Rose thought when she was thinking. Rose would get all round thinking her eyes her head her mouth her hands, she would get all round while she was thinking and then to relieve her hearing her thinking she would sing.
She sang a song of the mountain.
She sang,
Dear mountain tall mountain real mountain blue mountain yes mountain high mountain all mountain my mountain, I will with my chair come climbing and once there mountain once there I will be thinking, mountain so high, who cares for the sky yes mountain no mountain yes I will be there.
Tears came to her eyes.
Yes mountain she said yes I will be there.
And then as she looked she saw that one mountain had a top and the top was a meadow and the meadow came up to a point and on the point oh dear yes on the point yes Rose would put a chair and she would sit there and yes she did care yes there she would put a chair there there and everywhere she would see everywhere and she would sit on that chair, yes there.
And she did and this was how she did it. All alone she did it. She and the chair there there, and it was not blue there, no dear no it was green there, grass and trees and rocks are green not blue there no blue was there but blue was her favorite color all through.
The first thing about which Rose had to make up her mind was what kind of a chair would she want way up there. She might take a camp stool that would be easiest to carry but that would not look very well up there.
She would want one that would look well way up there and that would be comfortable to sit in because she would be sitting a long time once she really did get all the way up there and it would have to be one that the rain would not harm because clouds are rain and surely there would be clouds up there. No matter how many things Rose thought about there would always be some way it could be done better and a chair dear me, a chair well a chair just had to be there.
When Rose knew she had to climb and climb all the time she knew she would have to go away all day and she knew no matter how she tried that that would not do. She knew she did not know the name of the mountain she would climb she knew it had a nice name, any name is a nice name, just have it be a name and it is a nice name, but the mountain perhaps the mountain did not have a name and if it did not have a name would it be a nice name. And if it had no name could a chair stay there right on top of a mountain that did not have a name.
As Rose thought of this she began to feel very funny she just naturally did begin to feel very very funny.
Do you suppose that Rose is a rose
If her favorite color is blue
Noses can be blue but not roses but Rose was a rose and her favorite color was blue.
And now she had to make up her mind what to do.
Would the chair be a green chair or a blue
The chair she was to take up there
There where
She was to sit on the mountain so high
Right up under the sky
But always remember that the world is round no matter how it does sound. Remember.
So Rose had to do so many things too beside deciding whether her chair should be green or blue.
She had to think about number 142. Why.
Numbers are round.
All she took was the blue chair to go there.
It was a long way to go
And so
From morning to evening she did not get there.
But from evening to morning she did get there she and the blue chair.
It was not a trip she had to grip the blue chair and sometimes it hung by a hair not Rose’s hair but any hair so great had been Rose’s scare.
She had decided about the chair it was a blue chair a blue garden chair otherwise scratches and rain and dew and being carried all through would do a chair harm but not a blue garden chair.
So Rose left early so no one saw her and her chair she held before her and the mountain was high and so was the sky and the world was round and was all ground and she began to go, even so it was a very long way to go even if a mountain does not grow even so, climb a mountain and you will know even if there is no snow. Oh no.
Well shall I go Rose said as she was going, nobody does like to go nobody does say no and so Rose did go, even so she did go.
As she began to go it was early morning you know.
The birds began to stir
And then she heard some birds making funny screams as they flew.
And she thought of cousin Willie but that would not do.
Did the blue garden chair have arms or was it without arms, I am wondering.
A hill is a mountain, a cow is a cat,
A fever is heating and where is she at.
She is climbing the mountain a chair in her arms, and always around her she is full of alarms. Why not, a chair is something but not to talk to when it is too cold to be bold too hot to be cold a lot too white to be blue, too red to be wed. Oh Willie she said and there was no Willie but there was a simple noise just a noise and with a noise there were eyes and with the eyes there was a tail and then from Rose there was a wail, I wish I was not dead said Rose but if I am I will have torn my clothes, blackberries are black and blueberries are blue strawberries are red and so are you, said Rose to Rose and it was all true. She could not sit down on her chair because if she did sit down on her chair she would think she was already there and oh dear she just could not see how high it all could be but she knew oh dear yes she knew and when those birds flew she just could not do so too and she could not sing and cry no matter how much she could try because she was there right in the middle of everything that was around her and how little she could move just a little and a little and the chair was sticking and she was sticking and she could not go down because she would not know where, going down might be anywhere, going up had to be there, oh dear where was Rose she was there really she was there not stuck there but very nearly really very nearly really stuck there. And now everything began and if it had not been on a mountain and if it had not been a chair there where she was she would not care but she did not run she never ran, there was no tin can, she was not hungry oh never that, but everything helped to hold her back, but if she stayed she was afraid, run ran a chair can be a man, oh dear chair do dear chair be a man so I will not be all scare, that is what Rose said trying not to see her own hair. Dear me hair chair ran man, Rose is beginning to feel as funny as she can. Anybody try to climb a mountain all alone with only a blue garden chair to hold there and everything on a mountain that is there and then see what it is that ran. Water yes and birds yes and rats yes and snakes yes and lizards yes and cats yes and cows yes, and trees yes and scratches yes, and sticks yes, and flies yes, and bees yes but not a Rose with a chair, all a Rose with a chair can dare is just not stare but keeping on going up there.
She did.
Was she awake or did she dream that her cousin Willie heard her scream.
She was asleep right there with her arms around her chair.
She never dragged the chair she carried it before and in a way it was a cane, she leaned upon it all the same and she went on climbing and then it was all still, she heard a sound like a trill and then she thought of her cousin Willie and his lion Billie who was never still but it was not that, no not that, it was nothing completely nothing like that, it was something moving perhaps it was just fat. It, fat can burn like that to make a trill and to be all still and to smell like the lion of cousin Will. Anything can happen while you are going up hill. And a mountain is so much harder than a hill and still. Go on.
Rose did go on smelling and breathing and pushing and shoving and rolling, she sometimes just rolled, and moving. Anything on a mountain side is moving, rocks are rolling, stones are turning, twigs are hitting, trees are growing, flowers are showing and animals are glowing that is their eyes are and everywhere there oh dear everywhere there well Rose was there and so was her chair.
How many minutes go around to make a second how many hours go round to make a minute how many days go around to make an hour how many nights go round to make a day and was Rose found. She never had been lost and so how could she be found even if everything did go around and around.
It all grew rosy they call it an alpine glow when it does so but Rose well Rose is her name and blue is her favorite color.
And then she knew yes she had heard it too,
Red at night is a sailor’s delight
Red in the morning is a sailor’s warning,
And said she is it rose or red
And said she is it morning or evening
And said she am I awake or am I in bed,
And said she perhaps a sailor does not know perhaps somebody just told him so.
And then she remembered everything she had heard it was not about a bird it was about a spider,
A spider at night is a delight a spider in the morning is an awful warning,
And then she remembered about if you put shoes on a table it makes awful trouble, but she had not a table she only had a chair and after all she could not take off her shoes there up upon the mountain so high and that funny black that first was blue and then grey up there in the sky, and then she remembered about the moon, if you see the new moon through a window with glass not any trouble will ever pass no it will not and then she remembered just when she was about to be scared that after all she had never cared no she never had cared for any moon so what was the use how it was seen. And then,
Then she remembered if you see a girl or a woman dwarf it is awful more awful than any cough it is just awful awful all awful and then she remembered just before she began to cry, not that she really would cry, she only cried when she sang, and climbing a mountain was too occupying ever to sing so then she remembered that it was true if you saw a female dwarf everything was through everything was over there was nothing to do.
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