THE HAPPY-DAY
cry swooped down again into the blue— Once! Twice! and then with a great fountainy splash of wings rose high in the air like a white silk kite and went scudding off like mad into the Grayness, then into the Blackness, then into the Nothingness of the night. And you stayed behind on that pleasant, safe, sandy edge of things with all the sweetness gone from your lips, and nothing left you in all the world but the thudding of your heart, and a queer, sad, salty pucker on your tongue that gave you a thirst not so much for water as for life.
Oh, you learned a great deal about living in those first few days and weeks and months at the Grandmother-Lady's house.
You learned, for instance, that if you wanted to do things, Boys were best; but if you wanted to think things, then Girls were infinitely superior. You, yourself, were part Thinker and part Doer.
Sam was a doer from start to finish, strong of limb, long of wind, sturdy of purpose. But Sam was certainly prosy in his head. Ladykin, on the contrary, had "gray matter" that jumped like a squirrel in its cage, and fled hither and yon, and turned somersaults, and leaped through hoops, and was altogether alert beyond description. But she could not do things. She could not stay in the nice ocean five minutes without turning blue. She could not climb a tree without falling and bumping
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