It was about noon,and I was nearly failing from fatigue and hunger,when I heard a sudden commotion in the brushwood,followed by a burst of the bell-like laughter so dear to my heart.I gave a loud cry of delight and welcome.Immediately rose a trumpeting as of baby-elephants,a neighing as of foals,and a bellowing as of calves,and through the bushes came a crowd of Little Ones,on diminutive horses,on small elephants,on little bears;but the noises came from the riders,not the animals.Mingled with the mounted ones walked the bigger of the boys and girls,among the latter a woman with a baby crowing in her arms.The giants sprang to their lumbering feet,but were instantly saluted with a storm of sharp stones;the horses charged their legs;the bears rose and hugged them at the waist;the elephants threw their trunks round their necks,pulled them down,and gave them such a trampling as they had sometimes given,but never received before.In a moment my ropes were undone,and I was in the arms,seemingly innumerable,of the Little Ones.
For some time I saw no more of the giants.
They made me sit down,and my Lona came,and without a word began to feed me with the loveliest red and yellow fruits.I sat and ate,the whole colony mounting guard until I had done.Then they brought up two of the largest of their elephants,and having placed them side by side,hooked their trunks and tied their tails together.
The docile creatures could have untied their tails with a single shake,and unhooked their trunks by forgetting them;but tails and trunks remained as their little masters had arranged them,and it was clear the elephants understood that they must keep their bodies parallel.I got up,and laid myself in the hollow between their two backs;when the wise animals,counteracting the weight that pushed them apart,leaned against each other,and made for me a most comfortable litter.My feet,it is true,projected beyond their tails,but my head lay pillowed on an ear of each.Then some of the smaller children,mounting for a bodyguard,ranged themselves in a row along the back of each of my bearers;the whole assembly formed itself in train;and the procession began to move.
Whither they were carrying me,I did not try to conjecture;I yielded myself to their pleasure,almost as happy as they.Chattering and laughing and playing glad tricks innumerable at first,the moment they saw I was going to sleep,they became still as judges.
I woke:a sudden musical uproar greeted the opening of my eyes.
We were travelling through the forest in which they found the babies,and which,as I had suspected,stretched all the way from the valley to the hot stream.
A tiny girl sat with her little feet close to my face,and looked down at me coaxingly for a while,then spoke,the rest seeming to hang on her words.
"We make a petisson to king,"she said.
"What is it,my darling?"I asked.
"Sut eyes one minute,"she answered.
"Certainly I will!Here goes!"I replied,and shut my eyes close.
"No,no!not fore I tell oo!"she cried.
I opened them again,and we talked and laughed together for quite another hour.
"Close eyes!"she said suddenly.
I closed my eyes,and kept them close.The elephants stood still.
I heard a soft scurry,a little rustle,and then a silence--for in that world SOME silences ARE heard.
"Open eyes!"twenty voices a little way off shouted at once;but when I obeyed,not a creature was visible except the elephants that bore me.I knew the children marvellously quick in getting out of the way--the giants had taught them that;but when I raised myself,and looking about in the open shrubless forest,could descry neither hand nor heel,I stared in "blank astonishment."The sun was set,and it was fast getting dark,yet presently a multitude of birds began to sing.I lay down to listen,pretty sure that,if I left them alone,the hiders would soon come out again.
The singing grew to a little storm of bird-voices."Surely the children must have something to do with it!--And yet how could they set the birds singing?"I said to myself as I lay and listened.
Soon,however,happening to look up into the tree under which my elephants stood,I thought I spied a little motion among the leaves,and looked more keenly.Sudden white spots appeared in the dark foliage,the music died down,a gale of childish laughter rippled the air,and white spots came out in every direction:the trees were full of children!In the wildest merriment they began to descend,some dropping from bough to bough so rapidly that I could scarce believe they had not fallen.I left my litter,and was instantly surrounded--a mark for all the artillery of their jubilant fun.
With stately composure the elephants walked away to bed.
"But,"said I,when their uproarious gladness had had scope for a while,"how is it that I never before heard you sing like the birds?
Even when I thought it must be you,I could hardly believe it!""Ah,"said one of the wildest,"but we were not birds then!We were run-creatures,not fly-creatures!We had our hide-places in the bushes then;but when we came to no-bushes,only trees,we had to build nests!When we built nests,we grew birds,and when we were birds,we had to do birds!We asked them to teach us their noises,and they taught us,and now we are real birds!--Come and see my nest.It's not big enough for king,but it's big enough for king to see me in it!"I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way;when he came,I would try.
"Kings seldom have wings!"I added.
"King!king!"cried one,"oo knows none of us hasn't no wings--foolis feddery tings!Arms and legs is better.""That is true.I can get up without wings--and carry straws in my mouth too,to build my nest with!""Oo knows!"he answered,and went away sucking his thumb.
A moment after,I heard him calling out of his nest,a great way up a walnut tree of enormous size,"Up adain,king!Dood night!I seepy!"And I heard no more of him till he woke me in the morning.