Page 40 (1/2)

Of course I understood No child of an Ixora could miss it—the tree had dropped its seeds in the earth, and no soil is richer than that of a forest after a fire A new tree had been born, and a new mistress

I gave her the seeds It was all I could do

She thought they were very pretty

“BUT YOUR FEATHER,” I WHISPERED, AS A COLD AND snowy lake country fluttered below us like a huge white flock

Lantern shook his glittering head “Ravhi didn’t have it, and it was no use asking her where it went—she reardener I think the Wizard must have taken it when he played Death I feel it still, like an eye or an ear I have misplaced It was not burned, but it is not near, and no one has called me with it”

I flew a little closer to the war in his heat Snow melted from my beak “I’m sorry she couldn’t nest with you, like you wanted,” I said bashfully

He s flakes “Drakes aren’t meant to nest It was a silly hope And if she had, we should never have met, little web-foot, and that would have been very sad”

He fleith rasses andWhen the geese cao with thes, which ide as sunset clouds, as chapel doors or cedar shades, and I was safe froain, and rested in the fronds of pale of the Starlings, and the Storks, and the Seagulls And he did teach lar I never wanted for cherries

For us there was no ti, and the clouds in our mouths I was happy I was his We needed no others I did not cry But after two summers I saw that the trees were faain on the horizon I shivered in fear

“I have brought you back home, little one,” Lantern said, “for there is a new flock, and they are calling on the moon and sun to find you”

“I want to stay with you” I wept, and he heldover me

He shifted wretchedly froray-heart Only those who share feather and beak can reether always Maybe I shouldn’t have taken care of you at all, but you were so poor, and so dear, and I have never had a chick to love You will be all right now, I know it You should have a flock, and a nest I could give you only a burning tree and cold fruit And… there is soer hooked into my breastbone My feather wants me, and I cannot refuse”

“But I don’t want a new flock! And you can refuse; you can turn around and fly the other way as fast as you can”

He sighed, and even his brilliant colors, his oranges and golds that lit my world, seemed muted and dull “It isn’t like that, o I can n

o more fly in the other direction than I can fly underwater”