"You are a wise child," said the field-mouse. "Under this hedge you will grow in peace. Neither scythe nor spade ever comes here. But you won't be seen, and you won't see the world like your brothers and sisters."
Meantime the others went dancing about in fine style. One of them, high up in the blue air, looked at the little white clouds and fancied himself seen by just as many eyes as they were. "Why, this is even better than I thought," said he. "I never fancied I should sail about the sky!"
After some long sunny days of travel he saw below him a beautiful garden all shut in with walls, in which roses and fruit-trees grew.
"This is the place for me!" he said, and down he went, and perched on the edge of the great drive in front of all the flower-beds and just before the windows of the house. "Nothing could suit me better!" said he. "I shall have plenty of good company, and I have found a very good place to make my home!" So he folded up his downy wings and quickly fell asleep.
Another of the winged children went skipping over the fields, stopping now and then to play with some flower, or just to bask in the sun. After a time she came to a sunny bank of grass on the side of the high-road.
"This is the place for me," she said. "Here I will live and grow, so that all who pass along this road will be certain to think how beautiful I am!"
And so she settled down among the grass, quite happy.
And a third said to herself: "It is good to be of some use in the world!" So when one day the breeze took her to the town, she stopped in a flower-pot full of earth that stood upon the dingy window-sill of a poor little house. "I shall be valued here," she said, "and the poor folks will think a lot of me for growing in such a place. After all, it's a fine thing to make people happy."
So she cuddled down in the flower-pot and went to sleep.