nicer and more beautiful life, they had
forgotten the word "dead."

"What does that word 'dead' mean?" asked Gaffer Tyl.

"Why, it means that one's no longer alive!" said Tyltyl.

Grandad and Granny only shrugged their shoulders:

"How stupid the Living are, when they speak of the Others!" was all
they said.

And they went over their memories again, rejoicing in being able to
chat.

All old people love discussing old times. The future is finished, as
far as they are concerned; and so they delight in the present and the
past. But we are growing impatient, like Tyltyl; and, instead of
listening to them, we will follow our little friend's movements.

He had jumped off Granny's knees and was poking about in every corner,
delighted at finding all sorts of things which he knew and remembered:

"Nothing is changed, everything is in its old place!" he cried. And,
as he had not been to the old people's home for so long, everything
struck him as much nicer; and he added, in the voice of one who knows,
"Only everything is prettier!... Hullo, there's the clock with the big
hand which I broke the point off and the hole which I made in the
door, the day I found Grandad's gimlet...."

"Yes, you've done some damage in your time!" said Grandad. "And
there's the plum-tree which you were so fond of climbing, when I
wasn't looking...."

Meantime, Tyltyl was not forgetting his errand:

"You haven't the Blue Bird here by chance, I suppose?"

At the same moment, Mytyl, lifting her head, saw a cage:

"Hullo, there's the old blackbird!... Does he still sing?"

As she spoke, the blackbird woke up and began to sing at the top of
his voice.

"You see," said Granny, "as soon as one thinks of him...."

Tyltyl was simply amazed at what he saw:

"But he's blue!" he shouted. "Why, that's the bird, the Blue Bird!...
He's blue, blue, blue as a blue glass marble!... Will you give him to
me?"

The grandparents gladly consented; and, full of triumph, Tyltyl went
and fetched the cage which he had left by the tree. He took hold of
the precious bird with the greatest of care; and it began to hop about
in its new home.

"How pleased the Fairy will be!" said the boy, rejoicing at his
conquest. "And Light too!"

"Come along," said the grandparents. "Come and look at the cow and the
bees."

As the old couple were beginning to toddle across the garden, the
children suddenly asked if their little dead brothers and sisters were
there too.