Song and sweetness, dawn and dew,
All are waiting now for you.
Wake! wake! children, wake!
Here we're singing for your sake.

CHAPTER IV.

JOLLYKALOO.

NOW is not that a pretty song? and so simple, I should think a baby
might understand it. And yet Downy did not seem to understand a word of
it, though the birds that sang it were just outside his window in the
great linden-tree.

He only said, "Oh! so pitty bird finging!" (he cannot say S, so he says
F instead, which sounds very funny). And then he rolled out of bed; and
then Fluff and Puff rolled out of bed. Puff ran to the window and put
back the curtains. The birds were still singing, and the soft May breeze
was blowing, and a perfect gust of song and sweetness came in at the
little old window as she pushed it open.

"Oh! lovely, lovely!" cried Puff. "And look, Fluffy, from this other
window. What a fine play-ground! Oh! Possy, do give us tubby-rubby
quickly, and let us get out of the window!"

"Out of the window!" cried Mrs. Posset; "The child is mad!" but then she
came and looked for herself.

Yes, it was indeed a fine place. One part of the house was lower than
the rest, and this lower part had a flat roof, covered with gravel, and
with an iron railing round it. Two of the nursery windows opened
directly on this sunny flat place, so that it really was a most
delightful spot. In a very few minutes there were three mice tumbling
about on the gravel, and then presently there were two more, for other
windows opened on the flat roof also, and Nibble and Brighteyes were not
the mice to be behindhand when any fun was going on. Ah! that was the
way to get an appetite for breakfast. Jump, dance, run, tumble, till the
rattle sounded from below; then whirr! downstairs all like a flock of
pigeons. They never lost any time in getting from one place to another,
these mice.

"Uncle Jack," said Nibble, "What shall we call this place?"

"This dear, delightful place!" cried Brighteyes.

"Dis dear, 'lightful plafe!" murmured Downy, with his mouth full of
bread-and-butter.

"Well," said Uncle Jack, "now let us see. It certainly ought to have a
name."

"Oh! of course!" said all the mice very decidedly.

"Suppose we call it the Garden House," said Uncle Jack.

"Oh, no!" said Nibble. "That isn't jolly enough, Uncle Jacket! it's such
a _jolly_ place, you know. I want to call it Jollykaloo!"

And then in a chorus rose the five v