under me, and my fall was broken by the tough and
springy bushes.

Usually, my falls destroy my dreams, the nervous shock
being sufficient to bridge the thousand centuries in an
instant and hurl me wide awake into my little bed,
where, perchance, I lie sweating and trembling and hear
the cuckoo clock calling the hour in the hall. But
this dream of my leaving home I have had many times,
and never yet have I been awakened by it. Always do I
crash, shrieking, down through the brush and fetch up
with a bump on the ground.

Scratched and bruised and whimpering, I lay where I had
fallen. Peering up through the bushes, I could see the
Chatterer. He had set up a demoniacal chant of joy and
was keeping time to it with his teetering. I quickly
hushed my whimpering. I was no longer in the safety of
the trees, and I knew the danger I ran of bringing upon
myself the hunting animals by too audible an expression
of my grief.

I remember, as my sobs died down, that I became
interested in watching the strange light-effects
produced by partially opening and closing my tear-wet
eyelids. Then I began to investigate, and found that I
was not so very badly damaged by my fall. I had lost
some hair and hide, here and there; the sharp and
jagged end of a broken branch had thrust fully an inch
into my forearm; and my right hip, which had borne the