"Yes, I know, but that's because I'm dreaming.""Why, no, Ellen, you can't be dreaming," said Teddy, "for I'm here too.""Well, I don't know," said Ellen, "but I think I'm dreaming, because I've often dreamed this way before."Teddy thought of this for a little while, but it was not pleasant to think that he was in a dream.After a while he said: "Ellen, don't you know, if you're lame you ought to go to a hospital? My mamma says so, and my papa says so too."An ugly expression came into Ellen's face."That's all you know about it," she cried."You don't catch me going to a hospital.Why, I heard of a girl that went to a hospital and--"She was interrupted by a soft burst of laughter, and looking about Teddy saw that he and she had floated right into midst of a group of little children, who were running along the rainbow bridge.They were all such pretty little children, with soft shining faces and bare feet, but they did not quite look like any children that Teddy had ever seen before.
Each little child carried in its hand a bunch of flowers, and they were such flowers as the little boy had never dreamed of.Some of them moved on their stalks, opening and closing their petals softly like the wings of butterflies, some shone like jewels, and some seemed to change and throb as if with a hidden pulse of life.
Ellen, who had stopped floating, caught Teddy by the coat and hung back timidly when she saw the children, but Teddy spoke to the one nearest to him."Where did you get your flowers?" he asked.
"From the garden at the other end of the rainbow," said the little child, smiling at him.
"Give me one?"
"Oh, no, I can't!" answered the child, staring at him with big eyes.
"They're for someone else."
"Whom are they for?"
"You can come along and see."
"Oh, say," whispered Ellen to Teddy, "let's go back!" But Teddy answered: "No, no! Come on and see where they're going." So Ellen reluctantly followed him, and they joined the other little children journeying along the rainbow.
The strange little children seemed very happy, and they laughed and talked together in their soft, clear voices, though Teddy could not always understand what they said.He could understand best the little boy to whom he had spoken first.Teddy asked him again where they were going, and this time the little boy (he seemed to be the captain of the band) told him that they were going down to the earth.He said that every week they had a holiday, and then they crossed the rainbow bridge, and carried the flowers from their flower-beds down to the little earth children.
"But what little children?" asked Teddy, curiously.
"Oh, you'll see!" answered the little boy, laughing, and then he began to talk with the others, and Teddy could no longer understand him.
It was not long after this that Teddy saw before him the end of the rainbow, and where should it go but right through the window of a great square yellow house, set back of a high wall and in the middle of a lawn.
"Oh dear! we can't get to the end of it after all," cried Teddy, and the next thing he knew the little children were walking through the window just as if nothing were there, and he and Ellen were following them.
"Where are we?" asked Ellen, looking about her, half frightened and yet curious.
