ind. Our
little master talked to the flowers and they answered him, and we all
had a merry time in the meadow that afternoon, I can tell you. 'Don't
go away, little child,' cried the daisies, 'but stay and be our
playfellow always.' A butterfly came and perched on our master's hand,
and looked up and smiled, and said: 'I 'm not afraid of _you_; you
would n't hurt me, would you?' A little mouse told us there was a
thrush's nest in the bush yonder, and we hurried to see it. The lady
thrush was singing her four babies to sleep. They were strange-looking
babies, with their gaping mouths, bulbing eyes, and scant feathers!
'Do not wake them up,' protested the lady thrush. 'Go a little further
on and you will come to the brook. I will join you presently.' So we
went to the brook."

"Oh, but I would have been afraid," suggested the pen-wiper.

"Afraid of the brook!" cried the little shoe. "Oh, no; what could be
prettier than the brook! We heard it singing in the distance. We
called to it and it bade us welcome. How it smiled in the sunshine!
How restless and furtive and nimble it was, yet full of merry prattling
and noisy song. Our master was overjoyed. He had never seen the brook
before; nor had we, for that matter. 'Let me cool your little feet,'
said the brook, and, without replying, our master waded knee-deep into
the brook. In an instant we were wet through--my mate and I; but how
deliciously cool it was here in the brook, and how smooth and bright
the pebbles were! One of the pebbles told me it had come many, many
miles that day from its home in the hills where the brook was born."

"Pooh, I don't believe it," sneered the vase.

"Presently our master toddled back from out the brook," continued the
little shoe, heedless of the vase's interruption, "and sat among the
cowslips and buttercups on the bank. The brook sang on as merrily as
before. 'Would you like to go sailing?' asked our master of my mate.
'Indeed I would,' replied my mate, and so our master pulled my mate
from his little foot and set it afloat upon the dancing waves of the
brook. My mate was not the least alarmed. It spun around gayly
several times at first and then glided rapidly away. The butterfly
hastened and alighted upon the merry little craft. 'Where are you
going?' I cried. 'I am going down to the sea,' replied my little mate,
with laughter. 'And I am going to marry the rose in the far-away
south,' cried the butterfly. 'B