Page:Stories and story-telling (1915).djvu/109

 gave the bird a push with his crooked legs and said, "Now he can't pipe any more. I'm glad I was not born a bird, and that none of my children can ever be birds. A bird can do nothing but say 'tweet tweet' in summer and starve in winter."

"Yes, indeed," cried the field-mouse, "you may well say you are better off to be a mole. You are clever, you can build and make underground passages where you may keep snug and warm in the winter. Of what use is all this 'tweet tweet' to a bird when the frost comes?"

But Thumbelina did not agree with them at all. When they turned their backs on the bird she bent down, gently moved the feathers aside, and kissed him on the closed eyes.

"Perhaps," she thought, "it was this very bird that sang so sweetly to me in the wood. He did far more for me than the mole does. How much pleasure he gave me, the dear, beautiful bird!"

The mole now closed up the hole and escorted the ladies home.

But that night Thumbelina could not sleep for thinking of the dead bird. So she got out of her bed and wove a soft blanket of hay. She carried this out into the dark passage and spread it over the poor bird. As she did so she laid her hand on the bird's heart. It was beating! He was not dead at all! only numb with cold.

When he grew warm through and through he