"My heart as a bird has flown away,
(Princess, where? Princess, where?)
Into the land that is always gay,
Out of the land of care.
"But no bird flies alone to bliss,
(Princess, why? Princess, why?)
I have no answer but a kiss,
And then the open sky."
Nobody listened but Tommie, who was an immense black cat, held in great reverence by the villagers, for he had the greenest eyes and the longest whiskers and the heaviest fur of any cat in the kingdom. Moreover, he had hundreds of mice to his credit and no birds, for he was a good and wise grimalkin. Sometimes he talked with his tail and sometimes he opened his pink mouth and said just as plain as words that he had been stalking through the moonlight and had seen old Egbert go limping home as if he had the rheumatism.
So next day Mother Huldah with her little bag of medicines and ointments would go to old Egbert's hut, and sure enough, find him bedridden; or Tommie would tell her that Charlemagne the stork had carried a baby to a poor mother who had no clothes for it. Then Mother Huldah would go to her great cedar chest and take out linen that smelled all sweetly of lavender, and carry it with some good food to the poor woman.
Mother Huldah was so kind and generous that everybody got in the habit of taking things from her without sometimes so much as a "thank you," or an inquiry as to her own health. But the little children loved her because she made them pretty cakes; and told them the stories she used to tell her own children, her two fine sons who were soldiers. These sons sent her the money upon which she lived and out of which she made her little charities, and they wrote her fine brave letters, and every year they came home to see her, bearing beautiful presents from foreign lands, ivory toys and shining silks (which she always gave to some bride) and workboxes of sweet-scented wood richly carved—to show how much they loved her.
One dreadful year a great war broke out, and not long after Mother Huldah heard that her two sons had been killed, and she herself thought she would follow them through grief. But she lived on and as she grew more sorrowful she went less and less to the village, and people began to forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small hoard of money diminishing.
At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage; and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.
So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head and opened his pink mouth, and said he, "Suppose I fetch you a bird just this once."
She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very polite to him. So she replied, "Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!"
"Maybe they will and perhaps they won't," said Tommie, "they're an ungrateful lot."