“Do you think you could walk so far?” said Sally, eyeing his somewhat wabbly legs rather doubtfully. “Besides, what will the Queen say when she returns?”
“I shall not be there to hear,” replied the Polar Bear solemnly. “And as for walking, I can go along with the best of you. Besides, you will find me very useful, for when you are tired, I will spread myself out and you can rest comfortably on my long, soft hair.” He smiled so amiably as he said this that the others at once consented to take him along, and also informed him of the object of their journey.
This confidence ended, they proceeded more briskly than before, and soon the palace was left behind and they found themselves in the open country. At the edge of the town Sally saw a most peculiar looking tree whose queer leaves, some square, some oblong, no two of them alike, were white instead of green, and rustled with a sound like sweetest music as the wind whispered softly through them.
“Oh, what a queer tree!” she exclaimed, hurrying toward it.
“That, my dear, is a letter tree,” said the Sign Post.
“A letter tree?” replied the child blankly. “Then you have no post-office in Toyland?”
“I do not know what a post-office may be,” replied the other. “But here all our letters grow on trees. The loving thoughts of our friends to us, why should they not bloom and bear fruit, the fruit of the heart and brain?”
Much impressed by the eloquence of her companion, Sally was silent, but Bedelia remarked that she had heard of a brain-storm, but that brain-fruit was one too many for her.