o skyscrapers stood across the street from each other in the Village
of Liver-and-Onions. In the daylight when the streets poured full of
people buying and selling, these two skyscrapers talked with each
other the same as mountains talk.

In the night time when all the people buying and selling were gone
home and there were only policemen and taxicab drivers on the streets,
in the night when a mist crept up the streets and threw a purple and
gray wrapper over everything, in the night when the stars and the sky
shook out sheets of purple and gray mist down over the town, then the
two skyscrapers leaned toward each other and whispered.

Whether they whispered secrets to each other or whether they whispered
simple things that you and I know and everybody knows, that is their
secret. One thing is sure: they often were seen leaning toward each
other and whispering in the night the same as mountains lean and
whisper in the night.

High on the roof of one of the skyscrapers was a tin brass goat
looking out across prairies, and silver blue lakes shining like blue
porcelain breakfast plates, and out across silver snakes of winding
rivers in the morning sun. And high on the roof of the other
skyscraper was a tin brass goose looking out across prairies, and
silver blue lakes shining like blue porcelain breakfast plates, and
out across silver snakes of winding rivers in the morning sun.

Now the Northwest Wind was a friend of the two skyscrapers. Coming so
far, coming five hundred miles in a few hours, coming so fast always
while the skyscrapers were standing still, standing always on the same
old street corners always, the Northwest Wind was a bringer of news.

"Well, I see the city is here yet," the Northwest Wind would whistle
to the skyscrapers.

And they would answer, "Yes, and are the mountains standing yet way
out yonder where you come from, Wind?"

"Yes, the mountains are there yonder, and farther yonder is the sea,
and the railroads are still going, still running across the prairie to
the mountains, to the sea," the Northwest Wind would answer.

And now there was a pledge made by the Northwest Wind to the two
skyscrapers. Often the Northwest Wind shook the tin brass goat and
shook the tin brass goose on top of the skyscrapers.

"Are you going to blow loose the tin brass goat on my roof?" one
asked.

"Are you going to blow loose the tin brass goose on my roof?" the
other asked.

"Oh, no," the Northwest Wind la