# Popping Corn - Source: McGuffey's Fourth Reader (fourth-reader.gutenberg.org), Public domain, William Holmes McGuffey, 1879, via Project Gutenberg - Reading level: Grade 5 - Subjects: Poems, Food - Topics: corn, flew, kernels, little, part, a-popping - Length: 136 words, about 1 min - Original: - Page: - Open in Sprouts: 1\. One autumn night, when the wind was high, And the rain fell in heavy plashes, A little boy sat by the kitchen fire, A-popping corn in the ashes; And his sister, a curly-haired child of three, Sat looking on, just close to his knee. 2\. Pop! pop! and the kernels, one by one, Came out of the embers flying; The boy held a long pine stick in his hand, And kept it busily plying; He stirred the corn and it snapped the more, And faster jumped to the clean-swept floor. 3\. Part of the kernels flew one way, And a part hopped out the other; Some flew plump into the sister's lap, Some under the stool of the brother; The little girl gathered them into a heap, And called them a flock of milk-white sheep.