“Hoo-oo-oo-oo. Is it you-oo-oo? Is it you-oo-oo?”
Immediately out of the night walked the mother of the squealing pig and the father of the roly-poly pup and the master of the kicking, kicking donkey. And into the sky came the moon. And into the moonlight trooped crowds of boys and girls from the land of dreams, led by the boy and girl the little pig had passed in the morning, more and more of them, till they surrounded the barn and covered the shadows cast by the apple-tree.
The little squealing pig ran to his mother and the roly-poly pup ran to his father and the kicking, kicking donkey ran to his master; and there was great rejoicing. The donkey begged his master for a beating, saying he richly deserved it, and so did the pup and the pig. But the grown-ups said, “They’ll do better next time.”
When the dream children heard this they streamed out into the moonlight back to their dreams, singing,
“The time will come again when pigs will have wings
And pups will grow in the tree-tops,
In that good time donkeys will bray in rhyme,
And fiddles will dance the barn hops.”
And lo and behold! when the fiddle heard them he felt his ill-humor slipping away. And as the old witch owl looked at them his strings mended themselves.
Dancing down the path and out into the moonlight after the children he sounded his sweetest notes in time to their singing; and the little pig and his mother and the roly-poly pup and his father and the donkey and his master followed and took up the children’s song. To the very end of it the fiddle danced and played his merriest. At the turn of the road he looked back at the old witch owl and she was looking at him.