Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/175

Rh were vegetables. While they ran to and fro among the garden beds the Express Wagon kept pace with them, as nearly as he could, on the path.

They all worked with a will. Anna got tangled in a fallen pea-vine. Bulka scratched himself in the currant bushes, but still they kept on, tapping and calling, till gradually the sun sank lower and the shadows began to lengthen.

It was nearly dusk when they found themselves, thoroughly disheartened, in the corner beyond the parsley bed. Suddenly Anna, whose upturned eyes were invaluable in a search of this kind, exclaimed:

“Isn’t that a tree?”

It was the willow, its huge grey trunk looming above them, grey and enormous. It was so big to their eyes that none of them before had even thought of it as a tree at all. Now, at Anna’s remark, they looked up. Certainly there were branches on it, and sprays of green leaves here and there.

“It’s a mountain,” said the Engine.

“No,” said Poor Cecco, “it is a tree. It has bark. But it is a much too large tree.”

“Do you suppose Tubby’s there?” Gladys whispered, overawed.

Bulka’s heart sank at the thought of Tubby, shut up in that enormous fortress. But he rushed up and began to pound on the rough grey bark.