"What does the jingle of Gold Pieces amount to?—Now if I could be any Sound I wanted to—I'd choose to be the sweet—soft—breathy little stir that a nice little family makes when it wakes up in the morning—so that no matter how much you've worried during the long black night you can feel at once that everything's all right! And that everybody's all there!—In all the world," cried my Mother, "I know of no sweeter sound than the sound of a nice little family—waking up in the morning!"
I turned to Carol's page. I laughed and laughed. "Bubbling Fat is what Carol would like to sound like!" I cried. "The noise that Bubbling Fat makes when you drop doughnuts into it!—But I?—If I could be any lovely Sound I wanted to,—I'd like to be the Sound of Rain on a Tin Roof—at night! All over the world people would be lying awake listening to you! And even if they didn't want to listen they'd have to! Till you were good and ready to stop!"
It took Carol a good while to write down everything about "Gold Pieces" and a "Nice Little Family waking up in the Morning" and "Rain on a Tin Roof."
"The next question is pretty hard," I explained. "Maybe you'd like to be thinking about it.—If you were a Beautiful Sight—that people came miles to see,—what Beautiful Sight in the whole wide world would you choose to be?"
My Father didn't wait a minute. "A Field of Tulips!" he said.
Carol pounded the table with his fists. His face was like an explosion of smiles. He pointed to my Father's page in the Book.
"It's already written!" I said. "We guessed it all the time!"
We turned to my Mother. We saw a little quiver go through my Mother's shoulders.
"I'd choose to be a Storm at Sea!" said my Mother.
"What?" cried my Father.