A thrill of happiness coursed through Johannes. This was a miracle!
"Will you be my friend?" he whispered.
That was a queer way of speaking to a stranger. But this was not an every-day case, and he felt as if he had always known this little blue being.
"Yes, Johannes," came the reply, and the voice sounded like the rustling of the reeds in the night wind, or the pattering of rain-drops on the forest leaves.
"What is your name?" asked Johannes.
"I was born in the cup of a wind-flower. Call me Windekind."[1]
Windekind laughed, and looked in Johannes' eyes so merrily that his heart was blissfully cheered.
"To-day is my birthday," said Windekind. "I was born not far away, of the first rays of the moon and the last rays of the sun. They say the sun is feminine.[2] It is not true. The sun is my father."
Johannes determined forthwith to speak of the sun as masculine, the next morning, in school.
"Look! There comes up the round, fair face of my mother. Good evening, Mother! Oh! oh! But she looks both good-natured and distressed!"