“Bless you!” said he, “I couldn’t do that. I don’t know enough about it myself. Ask the lightning. He is the head manager, and will give you all the lectures you want. Good-by! the sun is getting low, and I must be off.” And he sped away, leaving the woodpecker writing down “telegraph” and “lightning” on one corner of his memoranda.
And now the committee returned, having decided, by unanimous vote, that the mocking-bird should be the leader of the choir, as he could sing any part, and so help along the weak ones whenever he could see the need of it.
There was a pause after the committee had been told all that had happened during their absence, broken at last by Bachelor.
“I’ve been thinking,” said he, “that it might be as well for us to have a reply to Ingersoll.”
“What is that?” they asked, for they were getting used to strange things, and did not seem so surprised at the new word.
“Ingersoll is a man that says there is no God, and he has written a great many things to prove it,” said Bachelor gravely.
The other poor little flowers were too much shocked to say anything, and they all looked at one another dumbly.
“Is he blind?” asked a bird.