"So, so; dear me, he tired," said old David, as, surprised at the unusual silence, he turned to see what Ted was about. "Bless him, he tired very bad with his cliver talk and the pain; ay—but, indeed, he not one to make fuss—no. He a brave little gentleman, Master Ted—ay, indeed," and the kind old man lifted the boy's head so that he should lie more comfortably, and turned his wheelbarrow up on one side to shade him from the sun.
Ted smiled in his sleep as David looked at him. Shall I tell you what made him smile? In his sleep he had got his wish. He dreamt that he was flying. This was the dream that came to him.
He fancied he was running down the garden path with Chevie, when all at once Chevie seemed to disappear, and where he had been there stood a pretty snow-white lamb. With an eager cry Ted darted forward to catch it, and laid his hand on its soft woolly coat, when—it was no lamb but a little cloud he was trying to grasp. And wonderful to say, the little cloud seemed to float towards him and settle itself on his shoulders, and then all of himself Ted seemed to find out that it had turned into wings!
"Ted can fly, Ted can fly!" he cried with delight, or thought he cried. In reality it was just then that David lifted his head, and feeling himself moving, Ted fancied it was the wings lifting him upward, and gave the pleased smile which David noticed. Fly! I should think so. He mounted and mounted, higher and higher, the white wings waving him upwards in the most wonderful way, till at last he found himself right up in the blue sky where he had so wished to be. And ever so many—lots and lots of other little white things were floating or flying about, and, looking closely at them, Ted saw that they were not little clouds as they seemed at first, but wings—all pairs of beautiful white wings, and dear little faces were peeping out from between them. They were all little children like himself.
"Come and play, Ted, come and play. Ted, Ted, Ted!" they cried so loud, that Ted opened his eyes—his real waking eyes, not his dream ones—sharply, and there he was, lying on the soft grass heap, not up in the sky among the cloud-children at all!
At first he was rather disappointed. But as he was thinking to himself whether it was worth while to try to go to sleep again and go on with his dream, he heard himself called as before, "Ted, Ted, Ted."
And looking up he forgot all about everything else when he saw, running down the sloping banks as fast as his legs would carry him, Percy, his dear Percy!
Ted jumped up—even his wounded leg couldn't keep him still now.
"Was it thoo calling me, Percy?" he said. "I was d'eaming, do thoo know—such a funny d'eam? But I'm so glad thoo's come back, Percy. Oh, Ted is so glad."
Then all the day's adventures had to be related—the accident with the scissors and the drive in the wheelbarrow, and the funny dream. And in his turn Percy had to tell of all he had seen and done and heard—the shops he had been at in the little town, and what he had had for luncheon and—and—the numberless trifles that make up the interest of a child's day.