22/03/2026
CHAPTER VI
THE stretch that we covered that day seemed to us much shorter than any previous one, but it seemed so only because all the interesting things we saw made us forget time and space. We came down toward evening over a wide meadow among the aspen woods.
Utter silence reigned here.
The nearest habitation, as reported by our scouts, was about two miles away and the aspen trees completely screened us from the side of the road. A stream ran through the meadow, and the minute our triangle descended, flocks of plovers who had settled there for the night rose excitedly from its banks.
Papa hastened to reassure them, inviting them to stay with us overnight and sleep quietly under our protection. The invitation was enthusiastically accepted by these little folk, who were profuse in their expressions of gratitude.
“We never expected to catch up with you so soon. We thought we should meet you much farther south,” Longnose said to them.
“What’s the use of hurrying?” replied one of the plovers. “The weather is still quite warm and worms are abundant everywhere, so we take our time.”
“I don’t think you’re wise,” our leader commented disapprovingly. “The frosts may come while you linger here. What will you do then? You’ll all freeze to death. Where do you come from?”
A plover told him some name. Longnose appeared greatly surprised.
“So! We passed there only yesterday. And how long is it since you started?”
“This is the sixth day. You know we cannot go fast.”
“Still, you’d better hurry—though you don’t go as far as we do,” said our Papa, eying our flock proudly as if he were comparing it with that of our neighbors. “I know you usually winter at the mouth of the Danube, but if you don’t hurry I’m afraid the frost will catch you in the steppes.”
“Yes, please do be quick,” the Trifler put in; “the bustards once met with such a terrible accident. I didn’t actually see it myself, but I’ve heard about it.”
“What are bustards?” questioned my sister.
“They are birds, my dear, migratory birds. Well, these bustards once happened to be in a very unfortunate position, for a sudden frost had caught them. It had rained all night, you see, and was very warm and the bustards were soaked to their marrow, yet they slept. In the morning came a terrible frost. Their wings were frozen and covered with ice so that they couldn’t move them and suddenly some shepherds appeared——”
“Heavens!” ej******ed several listeners in agitation.
“The bustards tried to run away, but who can run fast with frozen wings? And they were all caught alive!”“The most atrocious kind of slaughter was raging and if I had not——”
“How is that, if you never actually saw it yourself?” chuckled Papa.
“Did I say ‘I’? I meant to say if it hadn’t been for the sun that rose and thawed the bustards’ frozen wings, all the flock would have perished. I was told about this accident, or rather, my uncle-cousin was told about it—you doubtless remember him, the famous Crack Dancer who spent two years in captivity with human beings and despite the weekly clipping of his wings managed to escape, disguising himself as a dog——”
Here even we children understood that the storyteller had lost himself in the labyrinth of his lies, and we replied with an outburst of laughter that was echoed by the open spaces somewhere beyond the aspen woods now shadowed from our sight by the night mist.
“Sleep!” sounded the signal of our guide. “Sleep!” answered the leaders of the triangles from here and there.
“Yes, sir!” replied ten-score voices, and ten-score
