Page:Dream Boats and Other Stories.djvu/21



USH! Hush! At night when the lonely call of the whippoorwills made the marsh creep nearer than the other side of the meadow, Ruth Jane Crutchfield, the nurse, lay down on the bed beside David's little boy. She told him about the storks that bring children and leave them among the ferns and the alder bushes back there in the marshes.

As soon as the whippoorwills ceased calling, the spell broke, and the marsh returned again beyond the meadow where Cherry, the Jersey cow, lived.

As the nurse's footsteps faded away in the dark hall, David crept out of his bed and stole into mine and came close to me because it was a cold night.

In a whisper he said, said he: "But where do the storks get 'em?"