THE BOY WHO KNEW WHAT THE BIRDS SAID
there was glaring day and terrible darkness, bitter winds and hot beams of the sun. With us there were songs and tales, but the songs were about love or about the beautiful things we had seen. Here the tales and songs were about battles and forays and slaying with the sword. What they told of their loves was terrible, so much violence and unfaithfulness was in them.
The soft green tints were going out of my hair and the sun was putting brownness in my cheeks. Soon my hair would be wheaten-colored like the hair of the women of the islands and my cheeks would be brown like theirs. And then the day would come when I should have to be with the man whom I looked upon as my enemy.
I used to stay by the shore and speak with the birds that came in from the sea, for I knew their language. Never again could I go back to the Kingdom-Under-Wave. Green shade after green shade left my hair, brown tint after brown tint came into my cheeks, and what could I do but envy the birds that could make their flight from the islands of men. And when the green had
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