or anything at all. And that is always the very best way--when a
friend's in trouble, don't bother him with a lot of questions--and
pester the life out of him--but just take his mind off his troubles by
suggesting some nice game to play--like marbles or "Duck-on-the-Rock,"
or going fishing, or something; and if you can't do that, just sit
beside him, "quiet-like," and be his friend.

For a while they sat so, drinking in the cool air, and looking down at
the valley, and the white houses, and red barns, and the yellow
haystacks, and the horses and people like ants crawling here and
there. There were two ribbons in the valley now, one brown and one
silver, the Road and the River. And from the Church with the Long
White Finger Pointing at the Sky, came the sound of bells--pealing
--pealing--up the hill to the Sky.

All else was still. But after they had listened for a while they
discovered that it wasn't so still as it had seemed. Every bird and
insect, each leaf and blossom, was busy, preparing its dinner, or else
just growing. A twig rustled as a little garter snake squirmed into
the thicket. A little gray nuthatch looked for its lunch on a locust
tree, crawling over the trunk head-downwards, while, on a branch
overhead, a crested flycatcher perched watching, watching, then
all-of-a-sudden swooped down and pounced on a fly, swallowed him, flew
back to its perch, and watched again.

In the tall grasses which rose like a miniature forest around his
head, green katydids jumped, as spry as monkeys. And, as he lay on his
back, he could see, way up in the middle of the sky, and right on a
line with his eye, Ole Robber Hawk himself, or else one of his
relatives or friends. He was brown, of course, but against the blue of