, and the
more you drink of me the happier you will be, and the longer you will
live. And people will look at you and say: 'How jolly he looks! Is he
not nice? I wish I was like him.' And presently they will say: 'Where
does he learn all these things?'

"For you must know, Bevis, my dear, that although I have forgotten my
stories, yet they are all still there in my mind, and by-and-by, if you
keep on drinking me I shall tell you all of them, and nobody will know
how you learn it all. For I know more than the brook, because, you see,
I travel about everywhere: and I know more than the trees; indeed, all
they know I taught them myself. The sun is always telling me everything,
and the stars whisper to me at night: the ocean roars at me: the earth
whispers to me: just you lie down, Bevis love, upon the ground and
listen."

So Bevis lay down on the grass, and heard the wind whispering in the
tufts and bunches, and the earth under him answered, and asked the wind
to stay and talk. But the wind said: "I have got Bevis to-day: come on,
Bevis," and Bevis stood up and walked along.

"Besides all these things," said the wind, "I can remember everything
that ever was. There never was anything that I cannot remember, and my
mind is so clear that if you will but come up here and drink me, you
will understand everything."

"Well then," said Bevis, "I will drink you--there, I have just had such
a lot of you: now tell me this instant why the sun is up there, and is
he very hot if you touch him, and which way does he go when he sinks
beyond the wood, and who lives up there, and are they nice people, and
who painted the sky?"

The wind laughed aloud, and said: "Bevis, my darling, you have not drunk
half enough of me yet, else you would never ask such silly questions as
that. Why, those are like the silly questions the people ask who live in
the houses of the cities, and never feel me or taste me, or speak to me.
And I have seen them looking through long tubes----"

"I know," said Bevis; "they are telescopes, and you look at the sun and
the stars, and they tell you all about them."

"Pooh!" said the wind, "don't you believe such stuff and rubbish, my
pet. How can they know anything about the sun who are never out in the
sunshine, and never come up on the hills, or go into the wood? How can
they know anything about the stars who never stopped on the hills, or on
the sea all night? How can they know anything of such things who are
s