I lay down by a tree,and one and one or in little groups,the children left me and climbed to their nests.They were always so tired at night and so rested in the morning,that they were equally glad to go to sleep and to get up again.I,although tired also,lay awake:Lona had not bid me good night,and I was sure she would come.
I had been struck,the moment I saw her again,with her resemblance to the princess,and could not doubt her the daughter of whom Adam had told me;but in Lona the dazzling beauty of Lilith was softened by childlikeness,and deepened by the sense of motherhood."She is occupied probably,"I said to myself,"with the child of the woman I met fleeing!"who,she had already told me,was not half mother enough.
She came at length,sat down beside me,and after a few moments of silent delight,expressed mainly by stroking my face and hands,began to tell me everything that had befallen since I went.The moon appeared as we talked,and now and then,through the leaves,lighted for a quivering moment her beautiful face--full of thought,and a care whose love redeemed and glorified it.How such a child should have been born of such a mother--such a woman of such a princess,was hard to understand;but then,happily,she had two parents--say rather,three!She drew my heart by what in me was likest herself,and I loved her as one who,grow to what perfection she might,could only become the more a child.I knew now that Iloved her when I left her,and that the hope of seeing her again had been my main comfort.Every word she spoke seemed to go straight to my heart,and,like the truth itself,make it purer.
She told me that after I left the orchard valley,the giants began to believe a little more in the actual existence of their neighbours,and became in consequence more hostile to them.Sometimes the Little Ones would see them trampling furiously,perceiving or imagining some indication of their presence,while they indeed stood beside,and laughed at their foolish rage.By and by,however,their animosity assumed a more practical shape:they began to destroy the trees on whose fruit the Little Ones lived.This drove the mother of them all to meditate counteraction.Setting the sharpest of them to listen at night,she learned that the giants thought I was hidden somewhere near,intending,as soon as Irecovered my strength,to come in the dark and kill them sleeping.
Thereupon she concluded that the only way to stop the destruction was to give them ground for believing that they had abandoned the place.The Little Ones must remove into the forest--beyond the range of the giants,but within reach of their own trees,which they must visit by night!The main objection to the plan was,that the forest had little or no undergrowth to shelter--or conceal them if necessary.
But she reflected that where birds,there the Little Ones could find habitation.They had eager sympathies with all modes of life,and could learn of the wildest creatures:why should they not take refuge from the cold and their enemies in the tree-tops?why not,having lain in the low brushwood,seek now the lofty foliage?why not build nests where it would not serve to scoop hollows?All that the birds could do,the Little Ones could learn--except,indeed,to fly!
She spoke to them on the subject,and they heard with approval.
They could already climb the trees,and they had often watched the birds building their nests!The trees of the forest,although large,did not look bad!They went up much nearer the sky than those of the giants,and spread out their arms--some even stretched them down--as if inviting them to come and live with them!Perhaps,in the top of the tallest,they might find that bird that laid the baby-eggs,and sat upon them till they were ripe,then tumbled them down to let the little ones out!Yes;they would build sleep-houses in the trees,where no giant would see them,for never by any chance did one throw back his dull head to look up!Then the bad giants would be sure they had left the country,and the Little Ones would gather their own apples and pears and figs and mesples and peaches when they were asleep!
Thus reasoned the Lovers,and eagerly adopted Lona's suggestion--with the result that they were soon as much at home in the tree-tops as the birds themselves,and that the giants came ere long to the conclusion that they had frightened them out of the country--whereupon they forgot their trees,and again almost ceased to believe in the existence of their small neighbours.
Lona asked me whether I had not observed that many of the children were grown.I answered I had not,but could readily believe it.
She assured me it was so,but said the certain evidence that their minds too had grown since their migration upward,had gone far in mitigation of the alarm the discovery had occasioned her.
In the last of the short twilight,and later when the moon was shining,they went down to the valley,and gathered fruit enough to serve them the next day;for the giants never went out in the twilight:that to them was darkness;and they hated the moon:had they been able,they would have extinguished her.But soon the Little Ones found that fruit gathered in the night was not altogether good the next day;so the question arose whether it would not be better,instead of pretending to have left the country,to make the bad giants themselves leave it.