He was rich and learned, no doubt, but he always spoke slightingly of the sun and the pretty flowers because he had never seen them. Thumbelina had to sing to him, “Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home,” and many other pretty songs. And the mole fell in love with her because she had so sweet a voice; but he said nothing yet, for he was very prudent and cautious. A short time before, the mole had dug a long passage under the earth, which led from his house to that of the field mouse, and here he gave the field mouse and Thumbelina permission to walk whenever they liked. But he warned them not to be alarmed at the sight of a dead bird that lay in the passage. It was a perfect bird with a beak and feathers and could not have been dead long. It was lying just where the mole had made his passage. [[91]]The mole took in his mouth a piece of decaying wood, for that will often glow in the dark like fire, and went before them, lighting them through the long, dark passage. When they came to the spot where the dead bird lay, the mole pushed his broad nose through the ceiling, so that the earth gave way and daylight shone into the passage.
In the middle of the path lay a swallow, his pretty wings pressed close to his sides, his feet and head drawn up under his feathers; the poor bird had evidently died of cold. It made little Thumbelina very sad to see it, for she did so love the birds; all through the summer they had sung and twittered for her so beautifully. But the mole pushed it aside with his crooked legs and said: “Now he can’t sing any more! How miserable it must be to be born a little bird! I am thankful that none of my children will ever be birds, for they can do nothing but cry ‘Tweet, tweet,’ and must always die of hunger in the winter.” [[92]]
“Yes, you speak like a sensible man!” exclaimed the field mouse. “What is the use of his twittering if when winter comes he must either starve or be frozen to death? That may be high-bred, but it is certainly not pleasant.”
Thumbelina said nothing, but when the two others had turned their backs on the bird she stooped down and stroked aside the soft feathers which covered the head, and kissed the closed eyelids.
“Perhaps it was he who sang to me so sweetly in the summer,” she said. “How much pleasure it gave me, you dear, pretty bird!”
The mole stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone and escorted the ladies home. But Thumbelina could not sleep that night for thinking of the cold bird; so she got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful blanket of hay. She carried it out and spread it over the dead bird, and piled upon it thistledown which she had found in the field mouse’s room, so that he might lie warmly in the cold earth. [[93]]
“Farewell, pretty bird!” she said; “farewell, and thank you for your beautiful songs in the summer, when all the trees were green and the sun shone down warmly upon us.”
Then she laid her head on the bird’s breast, but she was startled, for it seemed as if something inside the bird went “thump, thump.” It was the bird’s heart; for he was not really dead, only benumbed with the cold, and the warmth had restored him to life. In autumn all the swallows fly away to warmer countries; but if one happens to linger it becomes so stiff with cold that it drops down as if it were dead, and then the snow comes and covers it.
Thumbelina trembled very much; she was quite frightened, for the bird was large, a great deal larger than herself,—she was only an inch high. But she took courage, piled up the down more thickly over the poor swallow, and then took a leaf she had used for her own counterpane and laid it over his head. [[94]]
The next night she stole out again to see him. He was alive but very weak; he could only open his eyes for a moment to look at Thumbelina, who stood by him with the piece of decayed wood in her hand, for she had no other lantern.