"You are just like me, then--though really I didn't think much about freedom and how nice it was, and what a dreadful thing captivity was, until I had a little chat one night with a song-bird. She was cooped up in a cage, and sometimes she nearly broke her wings flattering up against the bars of it trying to get out. As I watched her I wondered how she could sing so happily when she was shut up that way, and I asked her about it. She answered me softly, 'It isn't I that is happy. It is my song that is happy because it is free.' And then she sang this little verse to me: "Though they shut me close in these brazen bars, Though they keep me a captive long, Yet my notes will rise Till they touch the skies. No man can imprison my song." "I've always felt sorry for birds in cages," said Jimmieboy, when the Wizard had spoken. "And I've wondered, too, how they could sing so sweetly when all the day long they were locked up with nothing to do but jump from one perch to another, or swing in that little swing at the top of the cage." "Well, there's one thing that's nice about their lives," said the Wizard. "They don't have anybody to quarrel with. I think that's very fine." "That's true," said Jimmieboy. "And then, too, when one bird wants to swing there isn't any other little bird that he has to give up to; but I'd rather be free, and take my chances of getting the swing, wouldn't you?" "Rather!" ejaculated the Wizard. "But, my dear fellow, we are wasting time. The Merboy will be back in a few minutes, and if you want to see all the wonders of this place we must hurry. Come. Let's go out into the garden." The queer little fellow leading the way, the two new friends went out of the drawer. As they sauntered along, Thumbhi reached out his hands and plucked two pretty flowers from a bush at the side of the path, and putting one of them in his mouth handed the other to Jimmieboy. "You must be hungry by this time," he said. "Eat that." "Flowers aren't good to eat, are they?" asked Jimmieboy. "Cauliflowers and the flowers of this garden are. That is nothing but a biscuit-bush I plucked those from. Didn't you ever see a biscuit-bush?" "Never," said Jimmieboy; "though I should think they'd be very nice." "They are," said the Wizard. "How do you make them grow?" asked Jimmieboy in surprise. "Simple enough," said Thumbhi. "Take the Buckwheat-cake bush, for instance. Buckwheat cakes are nothing more than cooked buckwheat, so instead of planting the seeds raw we plant them cooked, and when they grow up and sprout, instead of putting forth raw buckwheat out come the cakes. Try one." Jimmieboy needed no second bidding, for as the Wizard spoke he had reached over to the buckwheat-cake bed, and plucked a half-dozen hot, steaming cakes. "My!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as he swallowed the first one, somewhat greedily, perhaps, for he was very hungry. "My! How sweet they are."