Page:The Children Who Followed the Piper.djvu/134

THE CHILDREN The nest was hooped all around with iron hoops, and it had seven doors of iron. The doors were tightly shut; they could be opened only from the inside, and there was a window over each door. Looking out through the seven windows one could see the seven sides of the world.

In a corner of the nest a fire of spicewood was burning. Over it was a cauldron. Out of the cauldron a vapor went that, mounting up at first very thinly, made the clouds in the sky. The eagles were very particular about this fire. They gave a stool to Golden Hood, and they told her to sit beside the fire and keep the spicewood upon it, so that the cauldron might boil and the vapor from the cauldron might keep mounting up. They showed her after that the chest where they kept their food. It had a heavy lid, and Golden Hood had to use all her strength to raise it. The world's nicest food was in that chest, and the eagles sat on the rim of the nest to watch her eat of it.

They told her then that they were going to