Page:The Story of Opal.djvu/254

 CHAPTER XXVIII

How Opal Piped with Reeds, and what a Good Time Dear Love Gave Thomas Chatterton Jupiter Zeus. 

early in the morning of to-day I did get out of my bed and I did get dressed in a quick way. Then I climbed out the window of the house we live in. The sun was up and the birds were singing. I went my way. As I did go, I did have hearing of many voices. They were the voices of earth glad for the spring. They did say what they had to say in the growing grass and in the leaves growing out from tips of branches. The birds did have knowing, and sang what the grasses and leaves did say of the gladness of living. I, too, did feel glad feels from my toes to my curls.

I went down by the swamp; I went there to get reeds. There I saw a black bird with red upon his wings. He was going in among the rushes. I made a stop to watch him. I have thinks to-morrow I must be going in among the rushes where he did go. I shall pull off my shoes and stockings first, for mud is there and there is water. I like to go in among the rushes where the black birds with red upon their wings do go. I like to touch finger-tips with the rushes. I like to listen to the voices that whisper in the swamp, and I do so like to feel the mud ooze up between my toes. Mud has so much of interest in it—slippery feels and sometimes little