88 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
secretary, Dave, Jared Hill, and the two Shelton boys, 
a committee to collect old wood, and Eliza Clausen, Ruth 
Banks, and Mary Barnes, a committee to collect odd 
patterns for patchwork, something in which the older 
country folks showed great ingenuity and took no little 
pride. 
“Oh my, do look at the Swallows — there’s hundreds of 
them on the wires,” said Tommy, as Goldilocks was 
wheeled out on to the front walk to tell the party 
“Good-by,” her mother following. 
“T wish I knew what really truly becomes of them,” 
said Sarah Barnes; “father says nobody knows, though 
some people say that they go down in pond mud and bury 
themselves all winter like frogs, and though you see them 
last right by water, I don’t believe it’s likely, do you, Gray 
Lady? Though at the end they disappear all of a sudden.” 
“Tt is not only unlikely, but impossible. I think next 
Friday we will begin our real lessons with these fleet- 
winged birds of passage that are passing now every day 
and night.” 
After the good-bys were said again and again, the 
children scattered down the road, talking all together, 
very much like a twittering flock of Swallows themselves, 
and like the birds they were neither still nor silent until 
darkness fell. Miss Wilde followed, smiling and happy, 
for she had found a friend who not only did not belittle 
her work in the hillside school, but showed her undreamed- 
of possibilities in it. 
