‘Gladly,’ piped he, ‘especially as you ask it for Gratitude’s sake. We have just received our first great blessing, which I may tell you is a tiny blue egg.’
‘Give the child two notes,’ piped a happy little voice from the nest. ‘My heart is brimming over with joy for the warm wee thing under me.’
‘Thank you for your kindness,’ said Betty. ‘But, if you please, little thrushes, the Wise Woman who lives on Bogee Down above Music Water, who sent me to this wood, said I must only ask for one note from each thrush I heard singing.’
‘That is right,’ chirped the little cock thrush. ‘Always obey those older and wiser than yourself.’
‘Ask the child what she wants thrushes’ notes for,’ chirped the voice from the nest. ‘She didn’t say, did she?’
‘I forgot to tell you that,’ struck in Betty. ‘It is to make a song with.’
‘I thought so,’ piped the little cock thrush, and flying down, he put one of his most delicious notes into the tiny bottle, and in another second he was up on his bush again, singing deeper and more entrancingly than before, gratitude being the keynote and the chief utterance of his song.
Betty went down the wood with that music in her soul, and begged every thrush she heard singing to give her a note of his song.
Whether every bird’s heart was also full of gladness for the freckled blue eggs in its dear little nest we cannot say, but they all gave willingly of their best, and before the child had gone through Trevillador Wood, the bottle of Small People’s crystal was full to the neck with thrush-music.
Coming back, she saw two red squirrels sitting on their haunches at the foot of an oak-tree, eating nuts.