It was strange that they did not quiet down after sunset. But she heard
all these uncountable bird-throngs, which lived along Takern, send forth
cry upon cry. Several of them followed her wherever she went; others
came rustling past on light wings. All the air was filled with moans and
lamentations.
But the anguish which she herself was suffering, opened her heart. She
thought that she was not as far removed from all other living creatures
as people usually think. She understood much better than ever before,
how birds fared. They had their constant worries for home and children;
they, as she. There was surely not such a great difference between them
and her as she had heretofore believed.
Then she happened to think that it was as good as settled that these
thousands of swans and ducks and loons would lose their homes here by
Takern. "It will be very hard for them," she thought. "Where shall they
bring up their children now?"
She stood still and mused on this. It appeared to be an excellent and
agreeable accomplishment to change a lake into fields and meadows, but
let it be some other lake than Takern; some other lake, which was not
the home of so many thousand creatures.
She remembered how on the following day the proposition to lower the
lake was to be decided, and she wondered if this was why her little son
had been lost--just to-day.
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