messengers, and must carry the news over the farm.

One pigeon had a ring over his ankle: he was very important indeed,
quite a personage in the dove-cote.

[Illustration: Some pigeons were kept busy writing the news that the
wind brought]

"They are going to dance for you," he said to Laurie, and seven pigeons
stepped into the centre of the room. They began with a faint flutter of
their wings, turning their heads from side to side, gradually growing
swifter in their motion, until their brilliant colors blended and
intermingled in a beautiful prismatic effect. It was like a wonderful
rainbow dance, only the colors changed as the pigeons moved about, and
they opened and closed their wings in such a way, that they seemed to
ripple and flow as water does over the stones.

Their cooing gradually sounded more and more like water gurgling, and
Laurie listened and listened, until he found his head nodding--he was
almost asleep--no, he was not asleep, he opened his eyes wide, there was
the pigeon still, with the ring about his ankle, but the dancing pigeons
were no longer there; the blue sky shone between trunks of trees, and a
real brook sparkled over the stones--somehow or other they were walking
through a wood, the same wood on the edge of the fields, that they had
driven past on their way to the farm: how quiet it was and how
deliciously soft the moss underfoot, while a gentle breeze swayed the
trees overhead.

[Illustration: _"Now we will stop at the squirrel house," said the
Pigeon._]

"Now we will stop at the squirrel's house," said the pigeon, as they
stopped at an old tree. "Rap-tap-rap" with his beak on a knot-hole in
the trunk, and a fat squirrel opened the door. What a lot of chattering!
he was inviting them to enter. "How delightful," thought Laurie as they
stepped inside, "now I shall see what a squirrel's house is really
like."

And indeed it was very different from what he had supposed an old tree
to be like inside; instead, there was a real little staircase, carpeted
with green moss, winding up through the hollow trunk, there were
landings at the different branches, with tiny doors opening off them,
and the branches themselves were all little rooms with knot-holes for
windows, across which green leaves were hung for curtains.

The walls were papered with the most beautiful paper in the world; in
one room it was all blossoms with the most delicate odor; in another the
walls were hung with green leaves