Puff Three

At dusk, the little wire train lights up in tiny glints of green, blue, red, and white. Above its smokestack, in a row, sit three smoke puffs, made of wire, aglow.

Beside the engine, Merrow the meadowlark sings her nightly count: "Puff one, puff two, puff three. I see three puffs as round as round can be." Every night she also starts to count the stars, but she falls asleep at "two."

High above, Fuddle the wood duck longs to join in on "three." He is shy. His beak opens, closes, and tucks back into his wing.

"Tonight," he whispers. Down he flies, too fast. His wing goes bonk! on puff three's curve, and the puff bends flat.

Merrow peeks through the see-through wire. "Oh, Fuddle," she sighs. "I see puff three is flat as flat can be."

"I bent it. Sorry," Fuddle says. "I wanted to sing 'three,' just once, along with you."

Merrow smooths his rumpled crest. "I'll push. You pull. And we will heave when you call out our 'three.'"

He hooks his bill around the rim. She squeezes inside the loop. "Puff one, puff two," she sings. Then Fuddle takes a breath and shouts, "THREE!" The wire creaks, squeaks, and ping!—puff three springs round as new.

They flutter down beside the engine. Stars come twinkling through. "Star one," yawns Merrow, "and star two . . ." Her eyes slide shut.

Nearby, her friend looks up into the starry sky. He whispers, "Three," and tucks his bill. Three stars. Three puffs. The frost lay still.

Goodnight.

A rhyming bedtime story for ages 2–4, with soft dusk-into-night watercolor art inspired by a wire-and-rope-light Christmas train display. Fuddle and Merrow are friends. The story itself is secular, with no holiday or religious plot.