a sweet voice; but he said nothing yet, for he was very cautious. A short
time before, the mole had dug a long passage under the earth, which led
from the dwelling of the field-mouse to his own, and here she had
permission to walk with Tiny whenever she liked. But he warned them not
to be alarmed at the sight of a dead bird which lay in the passage. It was a
perfect bird, with a beak and feathers, and could not have been dead long,
and was lying just where the mole had made his passage. The mole took a
piece of phosphorescent wood in his mouth, and it glittered like fire in the
dark; then he went before them to light them through the long, dark
passage. When they came to the spot where lay the dead bird, the mole
pushed his broad nose through the ceiling, the earth gave way, so that there
was a large hole, and the daylight shone into the passage. In the middle of
the floor lay a dead swallow, his beautiful wings pulled close to his sides,
his feet and his head drawn up under his feathers; the poor bird had
evidently died of the cold. It made little Tiny very sad to see it, she did so
love the little birds; all the summer they had sung and twittered for her so
beautifully. But the mole pushed it aside with his crooked legs, and said,
“He will sing no more now. How miserable it must be to be born a little
bird! I am thankful that none of my children will ever be birds, for they can
do nothing but cry, ‘Tweet, tweet,’ and always die of hunger in the winter.”
“Yes, you may well say that, as a clever man!” exclaimed the field-
mouse, “What is the use of his twittering, for when winter comes he must
either starve or be frozen to death. Still birds are very high bred.”
Tiny said nothing; but when the two others had turned their backs on the
bird, she stooped down and stroked aside the soft feathers which covered
the head, and kissed the closed eyelids. “Perhaps this was the one who sang
to me so sweetly in the summer,” she said; “and how much pleasure it gave
me, you dear, pretty bird.”
The mole now stopped up the hole through which the daylight shone, and
then accompanied the lady home. But during the night Tiny could not sleep;
so she got out of bed and wove a large, beautiful carpet of hay; then she
carried it to the dead bird, and spread it over him; with some down from the
