“Suddenly, in every household, someone sat up straight in bed. In every household, someone had noticed that the sound of the water was growing fainter and fainter. First one brook and then another seemed to die down—as if it were suddenly drying up!
“We rushed out into the village square, across the fields, up the hills. The moon came out and showed us, gleaming bare, the dry and empty beds of many of our beloved brooks. Yes, nothing but dry, pebbled ruts, where no stream trickled and no water sang. Where was the villain who had worked this trick of tricks?
“We found him soon bending down at the edge of one of the last of our brooks. He was drinking, drinking, drinking. He was sucking the pearly water up, up into his puffed cheeks. He struggled to his feet as we surrounded him; he brushed the drops from his sagging mouth and started to run away. But he was bloated and heavy with all the water he had gulped and he could not move. We seized him and flung him into the water. He splashed and puffed and staggered clumsily, dripping, back into our midst. Hate was in his wet face, and his red gums were like round, snapping tongs.
“‘You men of the Rippling Brooks,’ he hissed, ‘your ears are far too sharp! Your happiness is all in the ripple of water—and I am here to take away that happiness. So if I cannot steal your brooks—why, then, I shall steal your ears! From now on, I decree that you, your wives and your children and all your neighbors shall be deaf. You shall live henceforth in a valley of silence, where not even the whir of a wren on wing shall come to your ears. Henceforth, all who dwell in this valley shall be deaf—and all who enter it shall be deaf, too—until I come again to set you free from the spell of utter silence.’
“Then the moon plunged behind a black cloud. This toothless demon disappeared with a terrific burst of thunder.
“And that was the last sound that has been heard in this valley since he cursed us with silence and sorrow.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PETERKIN’S next move, when he had sipped his Water of Bounceability and came flying across into the next valley, was to clap his hands over his ears. He had been deaf awhile ... and now that he could hear again, all the thousand noises of the earth and air frightened and bewildered him.