"Well, follow your noses, youngsters;' and you'll find some harvest folk, if ye go far enough."
"He's a great rude boy, Nell, come away," quoth Jemmy to me, taking my hand, and boy-like leading me on. And as we went we met a mite of a boy of about Jemmy's age, with a small bundle of corn on his shoulder, like a miniature man.
"Are you come from the harvest people?" asked Jemmy.
"Yes," was the child's reply.
"And where are they?"
"I don't know; ever so far away. I'm carrying home mother's corn." With that the little man trudged on his way, and we went flitting here and there, I picking corn-flowers, and Jemmy looking for fat toads and shrews. And all the while our shadows standing by our sides warned us of what would befall us ere long.
"I think," said I, presently, "that I'll sit down here by these sheaves awhile;" but ere we had bent our tired little limbs, out flew a beautiful bird from their midst, all blue and gold, and many other tints intermingling to our imaginative eyes, viewing it in the sunlight.
"Oh, Nell, what a beauty!" cried Jemmy, and hand in hand we drew near to admire it, as it poised itself in mid air over our heads. To our childish fancy it was a stranger bird, a wanderer from some foreign clime.
"Oh, if I could sketch it!" I sighed.
"Oh, if I could catch it!" cried more matter-of-fact Jemmy; and then, as the bird flew away, we followed it as if we were charmed, spell-bound.