“Of course his father knew that one of the brown babies that played and tumbled about in the village of bird-cage huts was his. But when babies wear only their own shining skins to cover them, it isn’t easy for a father who spends most of his time driving an ox-cart to pick out his particular baby.” “Not any clothes—didn’t they wear?” asked Pat. “Most of the little children didn’t. A few of them—who were very fashionable—wore one garment. It was a straight piece of cloth that covered their plump little bodies in front; the ends were gathered up in the back, and tied in a bow between the shoulders. It looked very stylish—but the Bee Baby was more comfortable. Stand up a minute, Kitten, and I’ll show you how it was.” So the Kitten came and stood before her, and she showed them how the fashionable little children dressed, using a piece of Chinese embroidery for the straight piece of cloth. Then they settled down once more to listen. “If an owl had looked through a chink in the wall, very early one morning, he might have seen the Bee Baby’s family—his aunts and his grandmother and four or five brown babies and children—all asleep on flat straw mats on the ground. But nobody but an owl could have counted exactly how many there were, it was still so dark. “Then the first sunbeam slipped in at a chink, and put its finger on one of the poles in the side of the hut. It felt its way slowly down, until it touched a small, dark heap at the foot of it. “And that was the Bee Baby. “He sat up on his mat and looked around him at the other heaps. “Not one of them stirred; and that was pretty stupid. “Then he saw something interesting; his own little foot with the sunbeam resting on it, as he sat with his toes pointing straight up at the roof. He looked at it for a moment, and frowned as if he were anxious. Then he leaned forward and felt of it. “It was a perfectly good foot; and feet are made to be walked on; and it is much more amusing to be walking than sitting on a mat in a dusky hut like a bird-cage. That, probably, is the idea that came into the Bee Baby’s head when he found his foot was so satisfactory; and a big dimple came in his cheek, but he didn’t make any noise. “To get up, he rolled over on to his face and planted his feet firmly, only when they were quite solid, lifting his hands from the ground. And there he was, all dressed and ready to go out. He trotted over to the doorway and stopped a minute, looking out. “The hut stood on the edge of a grove of tall cocoanut trees. There were bananas growing among them; and vines with gorgeous orange and red flowers creeping everywhere. Black and spotted pigs ran grunting through the vines and about the huts of the little village; it all looked clean and fresh in the early sunlight. The Bee Baby’s was the last hut of the village, at the edge of the grove, that stretched on beyond it, up the slope of Xyntli’s mountain.