The Kangaroo Rat 



secret way to an underground world where he 

 finds safety from his foes— my first impression 

 was not so very far astray. I had surely found 

 the Little Folk, and nearer, better, and more 

 human Little Folk than any in the nursery 

 books. My chosen flinty track had led me on 

 to Upper Arcadie at last. And now, when I 

 hear certain purblind folk talk of Fairies and 

 Brownies as a race peculiar to the romantic 

 parts of England, Ireland, or India, I think: 



" You have been wasting your time reading 

 books. You have never been on the shifting 

 Currumpaw when the moon of the Mesas comes 

 up to glint the river at its every bend, and bathe 

 the hills in green and veil the shades in blue. 

 You have not heard the moonlight music. You 

 have not seen these moonbeams skip from 

 thistle-top and bayonet-spear to rest in peace at 

 last, as by appointment, on the smooth-swept 

 dancing-floor of a tiny race that visits this earth 

 each night, coming from nowhere, and disap- 

 pearing without a sound of falling feet. 



" You have never seen this, for you have not 

 found the key to the secret chamber; and if 

 you did, you still might doubt, for the dainty 



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