“Yes—she is an extra special nice pigeon. She cries for pity when she wants pity. And she shuts her eyes when she doesn’t want to look at you. And if you look deep in her eyes when her eyes are open you will see lights there exactly like the lights on the pastures and the meadows when the mist is drifting on a Wednesday evening just between the twilight and the gloaming. “A week ago yesterday they all went away. And they won’t tell why they went away. Somebody clipped their wings, cut off their flying feathers so they couldn’t fly—and they won’t tell why. They were six hundred miles from home—but they won’t tell how they counted the six hundred miles. A hundred miles a day they walked, six hundred miles in a week, and they sent a telegram to me every day, one writing a telegram one day and another writing a telegram the next day—all the time walking a hundred miles a day with their toes turned in like pigeon toes turn in. Do you wonder they needed bandages, hospital liniment bandages on their feet—and soft mittens?” “Show me the telegrams they sent you, one every day, for six days while they were walking six hundred miles on their pigeon toes.” So Hatrack the Horse got the six telegrams. The reading on the telegrams was like this: 1. “Feet are as good as wings if you have to. CHICKAMAUGA.” 2. “If you love to go somewhere it is easy to walk. CHATTANOOGA.” 3. “In the night sleeping you forget whether you have wings or feet or neither. CHATTAHOOCHEE.” 4. “What are toes for if they don’t point to what you want? BLUE MIST.” 5. “Anybody can walk hundreds of miles putting one foot ahead of the other. BUBBLES.” 6. “Pity me. Far is far. Near is near. And there is no place like home when the yellow roses climb up the ladders and sing in the early summer. Pity me. WEDNESDAY EVENING IN THE TWILIGHT AND THE GLOAMING.” “Did they have any accidents going six hundred miles walking with their little pigeon toes turned in?” asked Wiffle. “Once they had an accident,” said Hatrack, with Chattahoochee standing in his hat, Chickamauga on his right shoulder, Chattanooga on his left, and holding Blue Mist and Bubbles on his wrists. “They came to an old wooden bridge. Chattahoochee and Wednesday Evening both cried out, ‘The bridge will fall if we all walk on it the same time!’ But they were all six already on the bridge and the bridge began sagging and tumbled them all into the river. But it was good for them all to have a footbath for their feet, Wednesday Evening explained.” “I got a suspicion you like Wednesday Evening in the Twilight and the Gloaming best of all,” spoke up Wiffle. “Well, Wednesday Evening was the only one I noticed making any mention of the yellow roses in her telegram,” Hatrack the Horse explained, as he picked up Wednesday Evening and reached her around and put her to perch on the shoulder bone on his back.