“Well, I don’t know,” said Ellen, “but I think I’m dreaming, because I’ve often dreamed this way before.”
Teddy thought of this for a little while, but it was not pleasant to think that he was in a dream. After a while he said: “Ellen, don’t you know, if you’re lame you ought to go to a hospital? My mamma says so, and my papa says so too.”
An ugly expression came into Ellen’s face. “That’s all you know about it,” she cried. “You don’t catch me going to a hospital. Why, I heard of a girl that went to a hospital and—”
She was interrupted by a soft burst of laughter, and looking about Teddy saw that he and she had floated right into midst of a group of little children, who were running along the rainbow bridge. They were all such pretty little children, with soft shining faces and bare feet, but they did not quite look like any children that Teddy had ever seen before.
Each little child carried in its hand a bunch of flowers, and they were such flowers as the little boy had never dreamed of. Some of them moved on their stalks, opening and closing their petals softly like the wings of butterflies, some shone like jewels, and some seemed to change and throb as if with a hidden pulse of life.
Ellen, who had stopped floating, caught Teddy by the coat and hung back timidly when she saw the children, but Teddy spoke to the one nearest to him. “Where did you get your flowers?” he asked.
“From the garden at the other end of the rainbow,” said the little child, smiling at him.
“Give me one?”
“Oh, no, I can’t!” answered the child, staring at him with big eyes. “They’re for someone else.”
“Whom are they for?”