Page:Dream Boats and Other Stories.djvu/22

4 And I said, said I: "They come from away up behind the stars, where the Spring comes from. Up there, sits One—(I can't remember much about her, only that she made me think of a dewdrop—not such a dewdrop as you and I can see, but a dewdrop if it were as large as the whole world)—and all the children are in her lap.

"Each one has a little harness made of ribbon. And there are faun babies, and fairy babies, and baby babies. The fauns' harness is purple like grapes, and the fairies' is silver like bubbles in moonlight, and the babies' is just pink and blue; and that's how the stork knows which is which.

"Now, the storks fly up there (it's wonderful the distance storks can fly, isn't it?) and each one takes a baby in his beak by the loop at the top of the harness. Down he starts, and all the way down the baby practises kicking.

"But before they start, the One who is like what a dewdrop would be if it were as large as the whole world, gives to each baby a dandelion.