"
"But you have heard the blackbirds whistling ever since?" said Guido;
"and there was such a big black one up in our cherry tree this morning,
and I shot my arrow at him and very nearly hit him. Besides, there is a
blackbird whistling now--you listen. There, he's somewhere in the copse.
Why can't you listen to him, and be happy now?"
"I will be happy, dear, as you are here, but still it is a long, long
time, and then I think, after I am dead, and there is more wheat in my
place, the blackbirds will go on whistling for another thousand years
after me. For of course I did not hear them all that time ago myself,
dear, but the wheat which was before me heard them and told me. They told
me, too, and I know it is true, that the cuckoo came and called all day
till the moon shone at night, and began again in the morning before the
dew had sparkled in the sunrise. The dew dries very soon on wheat, Guido
dear, because wheat is so dry; first the sunrise makes the tips of the
wheat ever so faintly rosy, then it grows yellow, then as the heat
increases it becomes white at noon, and golden in the afternoon, and
white again under the moonlight. Besides which wide shadows come over
from the clouds, and a wind always follows the shadow and waves us, and
every time we sway to and fro that alters our colour.
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