10 THE OPEN AIR. 



you are lying in the shadow of the tree. So you 

 see, it is a very long time ago, when the blackbirds 

 came and whistled up in those oaks I was thinking 

 of, and that was why I was not very happy." 



" But you have heard the blackbirds whistling ever 

 since?" said Guido; "and there was such a big 

 black one up in our cherry tree this morning, and I 

 shot my arrow at him and very nearly hit him. 

 Besides, there is a blackbird whistling now you 

 listen. There, he's somewhere in the copse. Why 

 can't you listen to him, and be happy now ? " 



" I will be happy, dear, as you are here, but still it 

 is a long, long time, and then I think, after I am dead, 

 and there is more wheat in my place, the blackbirds 

 will go on whistling for another thousand years after 

 me. For of course I did not hear them all that time 

 ago myself, dear, but the wheat which was before me 

 heard them and told me. They told me, too, and I 

 know it is true, that the cuckoo came and called all 

 day till the moon shone at night, and began again in 

 the morning before the dew had sparkled in the sun- 

 rise. The dew dries very soon on wheat, Guido dear, 

 because wheat is so dry ; first the sunrise makes the 

 tips of the wheat ever so faintly rosy, then it grows 

 yellow, then as the heat increases it becomes white at 

 noon, and golden in the afternoon, and white again 

 under the moonlight. Besides which wide shadows 

 come over from the clouds, and a wind always follows 

 the shadow and waves us, and every time we sway to 

 and fro that alters our colour. A rough wind gives us 

 one tint, and heavy rain another, and we look different 

 on a cloudy day to what we do on a sunny one. All 



