“Open eyes!” twenty voices a little way off shouted at once; but when I obeyed, not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me. I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way—the giants had taught them that; but when I raised myself, and looking about in the open shrubless forest, could descry neither hand nor heel, I stared in “blank astonishment.”
The sun was set, and it was fast getting dark, yet presently a multitude of birds began to sing. I lay down to listen, pretty sure that, if I left them alone, the hiders would soon come out again.
The singing grew to a little storm of bird-voices. “Surely the children must have something to do with it!—And yet how could they set the birds singing?” I said to myself as I lay and listened. Soon, however, happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood, I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves, and looked more keenly. Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage, the music died down, a gale of childish laughter rippled the air, and white spots came out in every direction: the trees were full of children! In the wildest merriment they began to descend, some dropping from bough to bough so rapidly that I could scarce believe they had not fallen. I left my litter, and was instantly surrounded—a mark for all the artillery of their jubilant fun. With stately composure the elephants walked away to bed.
“But,” said I, when their uproarious gladness had had scope for a while, “how is it that I never before heard you sing like the birds? Even when I thought it must be you, I could hardly believe it!”
“Ah,” said one of the wildest, “but we were not birds then! We were run-creatures, not fly-creatures! We had our hide-places in the bushes then; but when we came to no-bushes, only trees, we had to build nests! When we built nests, we grew birds, and when we were birds, we had to do birds! We asked them to teach us their noises, and they taught us, and now we are real birds!—Come and see my nest. It’s not big enough for king, but it’s big enough for king to see me in it!”
I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way; when he came, I would try.
“Kings seldom have wings!” I added.
“King! king!” cried one, “oo knows none of us hasn’t no wings—foolis feddery tings! Arms and legs is better.”
“That is true. I can get up without wings—and carry straws in my mouth too, to build my nest with!”
“Oo knows!” he answered, and went away sucking his thumb.