'She sleeps so little that she needs the best,' she sang, realising
for once that her own amusement was not the end of life. 'I'll make
her nights all wonder.'
Cousinenry, meanwhile, worked steadily like a man who knows his time
is short. He piled the stuff in heaps and pyramids, and then
compressed it into what seemed solid blocks that made his pockets
bulge like small balloons. Already a load was on his back that bent
him double.
'Such a tiny bit is useful,' he explained, 'if you know exactly how
and where to put it. This compression is my own patent.'
'Of course,' they echoed, trying in vain to pack it up as cleverly as
he did.
Nor were these three the only gatherers. The place was full of
movement. Jane Anne was always coming back for more, deigning no
explanations. She never told where she had spent her former loads. She
gathered an apron full, sped off to spend and scatter it in places she
knew of, and then came bustling in again for more. And they always
knew her whereabouts because of the whiter glory that she radiated
into the dim yellow world about them.
And other figures, hosts of them, were everywhere--stooping, picking,
loading one another's backs and shoulders. To and fro they shot and
glided, like Leonids in autumn round the Earth. All were collecting,
though the supply seemed never to grow less.
Pages:
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236