SAINT GUIDO. 21 



" Oh, I know ! " said Guido ; *' I saw some jump 

 over the fence in the forest — I am going there again 

 soon. If I take my bow I will shoot one ! " 



'*But there are no deer here now," said the Wheat; 

 "they have been gone a long, long time; though 

 I think your papa has one of their antlers." 



"Now, how did you know that?" said Guido; 

 *'you have never been to our house, and you cannot 

 see in from here because the fir copse is in the way ; 

 how do you find out these things ? " 



*' Oh ! " said the Wheat, laughing, " we have lots 

 of ways of finding out things. Don't you remember 

 the swallow that swooped down and told you not to 

 be frightened at the hare ? The swallow has his nest 

 at your house, and he often flies by your windows 

 and looks in, and he told me. The birds tell us lots 

 of things, and all about what is over the sea." 



" But that is not a story," said Guido. 



*'Once upon a time," said the Wheat, "when the 

 oak the lightning struck was alive, j^our papa's papa's 

 papa, ever so much farther back than that, had all 

 the fields round here, all that you can see from Acre 

 Hill. And do you know it happened that in time 

 every one of them was lost or sold, and your family, 

 Guido dear, were homeless — no house, no garden or 

 orchard, and no dogs or guns, or anything jolly. 

 One day the papa that was then came along the road 

 with his little Guido, and they were beggars, dear, 

 and had no place to sleep, and they slept all night 

 in the wheat in this very field close to where the 

 hawthorn bush grows now — where you picked the May 

 flowers, you know, my love. They slept there all the 



