14 THE OPEN AIR. 



that he would sing a little to you ; he is not very big, 

 he cannot sing very loud. By-and-by, I know, the 

 sun will make us as dry as dry, and darker, and then 

 the reapers will come while the spiders are spinning 

 their silk again — this time it will come floating in the 

 blue air, for the air seems blue if you look up. 



''It is a great joy to your people, dear, when the 

 reaping time arrives : the harvest is a great joy to you 

 when the thistledown comes rolling along in the wind. 

 So that I shall be happy even when the reapers cut me 

 down, because I know it is for you, and your people, 

 my love. The strong men will come to us gladly, and 

 the women, and the little children will sit in the shade 

 and gather great white trumpets of convolvulus, and 

 come to tell their mothers how they saw the young 

 partridges in the next field. But there is one thing 

 we do not like, and that is, all the labour and the 

 misery. Why cannot your people have us without so 

 much labour, and why are so many of you unhappy ? 

 Why cannot they be all happy with us as you are, 

 dear ? For hundreds and hundreds of years now the 

 wheat every year has been sorrowful for your people, 

 and I think we get more sorrowful every year about it, 

 because as I was telling you just now the flowers go, 

 and the swallows go, the old, old oaks go, and that 

 oak will go, under the shade of which you are lying, 

 Guido ; and if your people do not gather the flowers 

 now, and watch the swallows, and listen to the black- 

 birds whistling, as you are listening now while I talk, 

 then Guido, my love, they will never pick any flowers, 

 nor hear any birds' songs. They think they will, 

 they think that when they have toiled, and worked a 



