In a moment Socky and Sue ran to their new friend, while Master waited near them. The crow spread his wings and seemed to threaten with a scolding chatter. The girl threw the bird in the air and took the hands of the children and drew them to her breast. She held them close and looked into their faces.
"Dear fairies!" said she, impulsively kissing them.
"Tell us where the cranes go with—with the young fairies," Sue managed to say, her hands and voice trembling.
Miss Dunmore sat looking down sadly for a little before she answered. Sue, curiously, felt "the lady's" cheeks that were now rose-red and beautiful.
"I will tell you what my father says," the latter began. "The cranes take them to Slum-bercity on a great marsh and put them in their nests. The heads of the young fairies are bald and smooth and the cranes sit on them as if they were eggs. By-and-by wonderful thoughts and dreams come into them so that the fairies wake up and begin crying for they are very hungry. They remember the spring of milk, but they are so young and helpless they can only reach out their hands and cry for it. Some of the cranes stand on one leg in the marsh and listen. The moment they hear the young fairies crying they fly away to find mothers for them. The unhappy little things are really not fairies any more—they are babies. Some of the cranes come and dance around the nest to keep them quiet, and the babies sit up and open their eyes and begin to laugh, it is so very funny. And that night a big crane sits by the side of each baby and the baby creeps on his back and rides away to his mother. And he is so weary after his ride that he sleeps and is scarcely able to move, and when he wakes and smiles and laughs, he remembers how the cranes danced in the marsh."
Curiously, silently, the children looked into her face, while she, with wonder equal to their own, put her arms around them.
"My father says that there are no people—that we are really nothing but young fairies asleep and dreaming up in the tops of the trees, and that the fairy heaven is not here."
She gazed into the eyes of the boy a moment, all unconscious of his mental limitations. Then she added, "You're nothing but a big fairy—you're so very young."
Socky drew away with a look of injury and threw out his chest.
"I'm six years old," he answered, with dignity. "In a little while I'll be a man."