"How many birds have you got, dwarf?" asked the child.

They were sitting at breakfast the next morning. To look at the child, no one would have thought she had ever been sleepy in her life; she was twinkling all over with eagerness and curiosity.

"How many?" repeated the man, absently. He hardly seemed to hear what the child said; he looked searchingly at her, and seemed to be trying to make out something that was puzzling him.

"Yes, how many?" repeated the child, with some asperity. "Seems to me you are rather stupid this morning, dwarf; but perhaps you are like bats, and sleep in the daytime. Are you like bats? Are dwarfs like bats? Can you hang up by your heels in trees? Have you got claws on them?"

Her eyes dilated with awful joy; but the man shook his head and laughed. "No, no, Snow-white. I wasn't sleepy at all; I was only thinking."

"Did you sleep last night?" asked the child, slightly disappointed. "I was in your bed, so you couldn't sleep. If you did sleep, where did you? Please give me some more bread. I don't see where you get bread; and I don't see where you slept; and you didn't tell me how many birds you had. I shall be angry pretty soon, I don't wonder."

"Snow-white," said the dwarf, "if you talk so fast, your tongue will be worn out before you are seventy."

"What is seventy?" said the child. "I hate it, anyway, and I won't be it."

"Hurrah!" said the man, "I hate it, too, and I won't be it, either. But as to the birds; how many should you think there were? Have you seen any of them?"

"I've seen lots and lots!" said the child, "and I've heard all the rest. When I woke up, they were singing and singing, as if they were seeing who could most. One of them came in the window, and he sat on my toe, and he was yellow. Then I said, 'Boo!' and then he flew away just as hard as he could fly. Do you have that bird?"

"Yes," said the man. "That is my Cousin Goldfinch. I'm sorry you frightened him away, Snow-white. If you had kept quiet, he would have sung you a pretty song. He isn't used to having people say 'Boo!' to him. He comes in every morning to see me, and sing me his best song."

"Are they all your birds?" queried the child. "Aren't you ever going to tell me how many you have? I don't think you are very polite. Miss Tyler says it's horrid rude not to answer questions."

"Miss Tyler is not here!" said the man, gravely. "I thought you said we were not to talk about her."

"So I did!" cried the child. "I say hurrah she isn't here, dwarf. Do you say it, too?"

"Hurrah!" said the man, fervently. "Now come, Snow-white, and I'll show you how many birds I have."

"Before we wash the dishes? Isn't that horrid?"

"No, not at all horrid. Wait, and you'll see."

The man crumbled a piece of bread in his hand, and went out on the green before the house, bidding the child stay where she was and watch from the window. Watching, the child saw him scatter the crumbs on the shining sward, and heard him cry in a curious kind of soft whistle:

"Coo! coo! coo!"

Immediately there was a great rustling all about; in the living green of the roof, in the yellow birches, but most of all in the vast depths of the buttonwood tree. In another moment the birds appeared, clouds and clouds of them, flying so close that their wings brushed each other; circling round and round the man, as he stood motionless under the great tree; then settling softly down, on his head, on his shoulders, on his outstretched arms, on the ground at his feet. He broke another piece from the loaf, and crumbled it, scattering the crumbs lavishly. The little creatures took their morning feast eagerly, gratefully; they threw back their tiny heads and chirped their thanks; they hopped and ran and fluttered about the sunny green space, till the whole seemed alive with swift, happy motion. Standing still among them, the man talked to them gently, and they seemed to understand. Now and then he took one in his hand and caressed it, with fingers as light as their own fluffy wings; and when he did that, the bird would throw back its head and sing; and the others would chime in, till the whole place rang with the music of them. It was a very wonderful thing, if any one had been there who understood about wonderful things; but to the child it seemed wholly natural, being like many other matters in the Fairy Books; only she wished she could do it, too, and determined she would, as soon as she learned a little more about the ways of dwarfs.

By and by, when he had fed and caressed and talked to them, the man raised his arm; and the gray fluttering cloud rose in the air with merry cries, and vanished in the leafy gloom. The child was at the door in a moment. "How do you do that?" she asked, eagerly. "Who telled you that? Why can't I do it, too? What is their names of all those birds? Why don't you answer things when I say them at you?"

"Snow-white," said the man, "I haven't yet answered the questions you asked me last night, and I haven't even begun on this morning's batch."

"But you will answer them all?" cried the child.

"Yes, I will answer them all, if you give me time."

"'Cause I have to know, you know!" said the child, with a sigh of relief.

"Yes, you have to know. But first I must ask you some questions, Snow-white. Come and sit down here on the roots of the birch; see, it makes an arm-chair just big enough for you."

The child came slowly, and seated herself as she was bid. But, though the seat was easy as a cradle, her brow was clouded.

"I don't like to answer things," she announced. "Only I like to ask them."

"But we must play fair," said the man. "It wouldn't be fair for you to have all the fun."

"No more it would. Well, I'll answer a fewly, dwarf; not many I won't, 'cause when you're little you don't have to know things first; only you have to find out about them."

"Snow-white, why did you run away from home?"

"Last night I told you that, dwarf. I made a song, too. I'll sing it for you."

She sat up, folded her hands, shut her eyes tight, and sang at the top of her voice:

"Do you like that song?" she said, opening her eyes wide at the man.

Yes, the man liked it very much, but she was not answering his question.

"I sang it that way because that way Miss Tyler sings. She shuts her eyes and opens her mouth, and screeches horrid; but I don't screech, I truly sing. Don't I truly sing? Don't you think I was a bird if you didn't see me? don't you, dwarf?"

The dwarf said he was not going to answer any more questions. The child fidgetted on her seat, sighed, said he was stupid, and finally resigned herself.

"I told you that last night!" she said again. "My mamma went to New York, and my papa, too. They leaved me alone after I told them not to. And I told them; I said if they did, then I would; and they would, and so I did. And so you see!"

She looked up suddenly at the man, and once more he winced and drew in his breath.

"What's the matter?" asked the child, with quick sympathy. "Have you got a pain? is it here? is it in your front? often I have them in my front. You take a tablet, and then you curl up wiz the hot-water bottle, and perhaps it goes away pretty soon. Green apples makes it!" she nodded wisely. "Dwarfs didn't ought to eat them, any more than children. Where is the tree?"

The man did not answer this time. He seemed to be trying to pull up a weight that lay on him, or in him and sat moodily looking on the ground. At last—

"What is your mother's name?" he said; and then one saw that he had got the weight up.

"Evelyn!" said the child.

"Yes, of course!" said the man.

"What makes you say that?" asked the child. "Did ever you see her?"

"Did ever you see a toad with three tails?" said the man.

"Aren't you funny? say, is all dwarfs funny? aren't there really any more of you? didn't there ever was? where did the rest of them go? why do you stay in this place alone? I want to know all those things." She settled herself comfortably, and looked at the man confidently. But he seemed still to be labouring with something.

"Would your mother—would she be very unhappy, if she should come home and find you gone, Snow-white?"

The child opened her eyes at him.

"Oh, I s'pose she'd go crazy distracted; but she isn't coming home, not a long time isn't she coming home; that's why I comed away, and I runned away, and I said—what makes you look like that, dwarf?"

"I suppose I ought to send you home, Snow-white. I suppose you ought to go this very day, don't you?"

He stopped abruptly, for the signs were ominous; the child's lower lip was going up in the middle and coming down at the corners; her eyes were growing wider and wider, rounder and rounder; now they began to glitter.

"Don't cry!" said the man, hastily. "Don't cry, Snow-white. The other Snow-white never cried, you know."

The child sniffed tearfully. "The other Snow-white never was treated so!" she said. "Never those dwarfs tried to send her away, never. She cooked their dinner, and she swept, and they liked her, and they never said noffin, and—I haven't any hanky!" she concluded suddenly, after a vain search in her pink calico pocket.

The man handed her a great square of white cobweb linen, and she dried her eyes. "Never I heard of dwarfs sending children away!" she said, in conclusion. "I don't believe p'r'aps you aren't the right kind. Is you got any name? Not ever dwarfs has names."

"I'm afraid I have a kind of name!" the man admitted. "But it isn't much of one. You might call me Mark, though, if you like."

"That isn't no name at all. It's just you do it wiz a pencil. Aren't you funny? Truly is it your name? What made you have such a name?"

But the man declared he had lost his way in the questions. "I haven't begun on this morning's yet," he protested, "and now you are asking me to-morrow's, Snow-white. But we must do the dishes now, and then I'll show you where I slept last night. You asked me that the very first thing this morning, and you have not been still long enough yet for me to tell you."

That would be great! the child thought. On the whole, she thought perhaps he was the right kind of dwarf, after all. Why did he have a hump on his back, though? not in the Snow-white picture they did. Wasn't it funny, when she stood on the cricket she was just as tall as he? Wasn't that nice? wasn't he glad he wasn't any taller? didn't he think he was made that way just for little girls? did ever he see any little girls before? did he think she looked like Snow-white? why didn't he talk when she spoke to him?

It was a merry time, the dish-washing. The man had put away whatever it was that kept his eyes dark, and was smiling again, and chatting cheerfully. It appeared that he was an extraordinary person, after all, and quite like the books. He lived here all alone. Yes, always alone. No; he never had wanted any one else till now, but then he didn't know there were any Snow-whites; that made a great difference, you see.

Did—she broke off to laugh—did he like Snow-whites, honest and true, black and blue? Did he think she was beautiful, more beautiful than wicked stepmothers if she had one, only she hadn't, only mamma was awfully beautiful; did he know that? how did he know that? did ever he see mamma? what made him look so queer in his eyes? did he get soap in them? poor dwarf! well, why weren't there any more dwarfs, anyhow? why didn't he get six more when he comed here the first time?

It appeared that he did not want any more. It appeared that when he came away he never wished to see anybody again as long as he lived.

The child thought this so funny that she bubbled quite over, and dropped the cup she was wiping back into the hot water.

Why didn't he want to see people? had they been horrid to him?

Yes, they had been very horrid. He came away into the woods to stay till he was tired, and then he was going farther away. Where? oh, he did not know; to wherever he belonged; he was not sure where it was, but he knew the way to get there. No, not by the brook, that was too slow, he knew a quick way. Show it to her? well, no, he thought not. How long had he been here? oh, a good while. At first, after they had been horrid to him—no, he could not stop to tell her now; sometime, perhaps, when they had nothing else to do; at first he had gone across the sea, oh, a long way across; yes, he would tell her all about that by and by. Then, when he came back—

"Why do you keep stopping like that?" asked the child. "Do you forget what you was going to say? often I do! You said when you came back; did you go and tell them they was mean old things to be horrid to you, and never you wouldn't play wiz them no more?"

"No," said the man, slowly. "No, Snow-white, I didn't do that; it wouldn't have done any good, you see. I came here instead."

"Didn't you tell them at all that they was mean?"

"No; where was the use?"

"Don't they know you are here, dwarf?"

"No."

The child grew red in the face. "Well, I think you was dreadfully silly!" she said. "I would told 'em all about it, and stamped my foot at 'em, so! and—"

But the stamp was too much for the composure of the cricket, which turned over at this point, bringing the child down suddenly, with her chin against the hot dish-pan. This was a grievous matter, and consolation was the only possible thing to be thought of. The man took her in his arms, and carried her out-of-doors; she was sobbing a little, but the sobs died away as he stood with her under the great buttonwood, and bade her look up into the rustling dome.

"You asked where I slept last night, Snow-white," he said. "I slept up there, in my tree-room. Look! a good way up, just above that great branch, do you see a hole? Well, in there is a hollow, big enough to sit in or lie down and sleep in. I often go up there and sit with the brother birds; and last night I slept there, and very well I slept, too."

"Did you"—the child hesitated between a sob and a chuckle—"did you have any bed?"

"The finest bed in the world, moss and dry leaves. Would you like to come up and see, Snow-white? I think I can manage to get you up."

"Oh, what a nice dwarf you are!" cried the child, slipping down from his arms and dancing around him. "Aren't you glad I came? I'm glad you were here. How I shall get up? Stand on your hump? isn't it nice you have a hump, dwarf? was it made for little girls to stand up on? did you have them make it? did you think about little girls when you had it made? do you like to have it for me to stand on? can I jump up and down on it?"

Standing on the hump, which certainly made an excellent thing to stand on, she could grasp the lowest branch of the tree. Could she put her arms round that and hang for just a moment? Yes, she could, and did; and in an instant the active dwarf was beside her, and had her up on the branch beside him. From there it was easy to ascend, branch by branch, till they reached the black hole. The child caught her breath a moment as the man swung her in; then her laughter broke and bubbled up so loud and clear that the birds rose in a cloud from the murmuring depths of the tree, and then sank down again with chirp and twitter and gurgle of welcome, as if recognising one of their own kind.