LITTLE FOLK

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 16

LITTLE FOLK

| . [All Rights Recurred.] •. ■ _; No. 7. WILLIE WAGTAIL (Written for "The Poet" by Edith Howes.) r ■ ■ Willie Wagtail hopped about on • South Australian lawn, looking for flies «nd gnats and other small winged creeturw that might be sheltering in ths gru3. He wu a black and white bird with a long fan-shaped tail- He belonged, in fact, to the fantail family. But a* he hopped he dipped his tail in the oddest way imaginable first to the right, then to the left, tight-left, right-left, each time nearly touching the ground with it, then jerking' it upright, then dipping it quaintly to the other -Bide. He was tne mojt amusing little fellow to watch. It was no wonder everybody knew him and called him affectionately ' "Willie Wagtail." , The sprinkler was brought out and set going on the lawn to keep the grass alive and green,\ and up rose hundreds of mosquitos into the early summer air. Willis Wagtail saw them, and came open-' mouthed, swallowing all he could catch.) Then' he sat on the fence1 and called: "Sweet pretty creature! Sweat pretty little creature!" v The Lady-who-made-the-Songs was watching and listening. "Oh, dear!" the said, "I do wish I could put Wilhs jnto one of my children's songs! H» U such, a darling, and., the children love him. But'he-will'only sing 'Sweet pretty creature!' and that is not a song at all, for I oan't get the note on the piano. It » really more like talking. ■ I wish he would sing something I could use! Perhaps he doe*, when lam not listening. I will follow him about, listening all the time, -and perhaps\l may hesT something different." ' So for weeks, whenever the had an hour to spare, she followed him about, listening all the time. She rot* early in the morning, and - braved the noonday aun, the watted patiently through long afternoon*, but always he uttered the same careless, quick, half-talking phrase, "Sweat pretty creature!" or "Swatt pretty little creature 1" She did not think he meant to say these words, but the sharp little notes sounded like nothing 10 much as these.

She went to the city gardeni. All the Wagtails there sang nothing «lac. She followed a tiny stream that, ran through the. town; along its bank* the Wagtails hunted, swooping' and" diving with exquisite grace through the /shimmering air in pursuit of the mayflies and caddis flies, goats and moaquitos, stone flies /and 'dragon flies that wer» all day long winging up from their grub life under the water Still the same phrase, "Sweat pretty creatur*!" and only that. -> ■ 8h« heard that Willie sometimes tang by night, so she walkad by night in the green city square, where high in the planes and pepper trees and carrajongs a thousand city birds spent the warm still hours of sleep. And from his perch beside his brooding mate she heard him 'many a time stir and sing, murmur drowsily, and sing again. The phrase was different; it sounded now like "It's quiet here, very quiet! i Isn't it?" but the notes were atill unusable, still more like spaach than song. Somatime* they sounded rather like a crow, a high little Peter Pan crow, thought the Lady-who-made-the-Songs. • ', • . - . She wandered out te»the edge of the city, where houses were few and fialdi began. Here she found a new. exit among the Wagtails, a sweet "Ah-h" in two notes, one low, the second high. But though charming,. it waa too short to make a song. "Ah, well. I oan't put Willie in my songs,1' said the lady.- And •he gave him up. . / When heat waves came fatter, and faster and grew more and more unbearable, th# Lady-who-roade-the-Songa left the sweltering city for the sea, Across many mile* of desert land she travelled in her journey, land barren and ahadelais and waterless, and with an1 air so hot that the train teemed for hours to be cutting its way through the blast from some mighty furnace. But far in the south she came out into the sweet, cool wind from the sea, and wide green country, *ad a tiny .white village with whit* roadi curving round a little bay, and the -whit*, breakers rolling smoothly in over oream-wb.it* sands, and the deep blue sea beyond all.' . Here birds tang all day long. Honayeaters nested in the orchards'and peopled 4 he clumps of bushes on the sandhills, laming parrots called their high calls among the crimson-flowered gums, tittU blue wrens sang their charming melodies along the roads, magpies chortled in high trees, wood doves cooed musically from the depths of the bush. The Lady made many songs. Sometimes she heard a aong tnat she had never heard before. It would coma ..floating far and faint across the wide flat lands in the dewy morning, as though it were trje last echoes of some lovelj. dream; or it would rise up near and clear and loud and wonderful, a long-drawn , musical refrain, every note bo rich in beauty that sh* held her breath to listen. "What is it? Oh, what is it?" she would cry, and. out she would go. But there was never anybody,there but Willie Wagtail, skimmering over1 the hedges or hopping about the fields. It could not be Willie. ' But it was Willie, for one morning she caught him at it. Down a' sunlit slope he came, flying and. feeding, and hopping., and dipping. Every now and then he lifted his head and sang that (delicious song she had been following. ■He sang it as if his heart were filled with Move and happiness and the beauty of the ■ ,world, and the Lady-who-made-the-Songs laughed with delight. J "0, Willie! Willie Wagtail! So this is how you sing when you live in this sweet air. far from the crowded, dusty haunts and noisy thoroughfares* of men I" she said. "I never dreamed it was you." She listened and listened. "Your notes will make the best song of all," ehe said. And they did. ' ■