Through wood and prairie rang a piercing cry— "Mother! I want my mother!" And Lizbeth fled, wailing, across the plain. You followed—to cheer her. "Cowardy Calf!" you said, but you did not say it till you had reached the kitchen door. And in hunting the Wild Man you never got farther than his groan. Mornings in Our Yard the clover prairie sparkled with a million gems. The fairies had dropped them, dancing in the moonbeams, while you slept. Strung on a blade of grass you found a necklace of diamonds left by the queen herself in her flight at dawn, but when you plucked it, the quivering brilliants melted into water drops and trickled down your hand. Then the warm sun came and took the diamonds back to the fairies again—but your shoes were still damp with dew. And by-and-by you would be sneezing, and Mother would be taking down bottles for you, for the things that fairies wear are not good for little boys. And if ever you squash the fairies’ diamonds beneath your feet, and don’t change your shoes, the fairies will be angry with you, and you will be catching cold; and if you take the queen’s necklace—oh, then watch out, for they will be putting a necklace of red flannel on you! Wide-awake was Our Yard in the morning with its birds and wind and sunshine and your play, but when noonday dinner was over there was a yawning in the trees. The birds hushed their songs. Grandfather dozed in his chair on the porch. The green grass dozed in the sun. And as the shadows lengthened even the perils slept—Indians on the clover prairie, bear in the rhubarb thicket, Wild Man in the barn. In the apple-tree shade you lay wondering, looking up at the sky—wondering why bees purred like pussy-cats, why the sparrows bowed to you as they eyed you sidewise, what they twittered in the leaves, where the clouds went when they sailed to the end of the sky. Three clouds there were, floating above the apple-tree, and two were big and one was little. "The big clouds are the Mother and Father clouds," you told yourself, for no one was there to hear, "and the little one is the Little Boy cloud, and they are out walking in the sky. And now the Mother cloud is talking to the Little Boy cloud. ’Hurry up,’ she says; ’why do you walk so slow?’ And the Little Boy cloud says, ’I can’t go any faster ’cause my legs are so short.’ And then the Father cloud laughs and says, ’Let’s have some ice-cream soda.’ Then the Little Boy cloud says, ’I’ll take vaniller, and make it sweet,’ and they all drink. And by-and-by they all go home and have supper, and after supper the Mother cloud undresses the Little Boy cloud, and puts on his nighty, and he kneels down and says, ’Now I lay me down to sleep.’ And then the Mother cloud kisses the Little Boy cloud on both cheeks and on his eyes and on his curls and on his mouth twice, and he cuddles down under the moon and goes to sleep. And that’s all."