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diff --git a/60457-0.txt b/60457-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..50ee2df --- /dev/null +++ b/60457-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9465 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of When I Was a Little Girl, by Zona Gale
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: When I Was a Little Girl
+
+Author: Zona Gale
+
+Illustrator: Agnes Pelton
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2019 [EBook #60457]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL
+
+
+
+
+ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+ NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
+ ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
+
+ MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
+ LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
+ MELBOURNE
+
+ THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
+ TORONTO
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SOMEWHERE BEYOND SEALED DOORS]
+
+
+
+
+ WHEN I WAS A LITTLE
+ GIRL
+
+ BY
+ ZONA GALE
+
+ AUTHOR OF “THE LOVES OF PELLEAS AND ETARRE,”
+ “FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE,” ETC.
+
+ WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
+ AGNES PELTON
+
+ New York
+ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+ 1913
+
+ _All rights reserved_
+
+
+
+
+ Copyright, 1911, by The Curtis Publishing Company.
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1913,
+ BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
+
+ Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913.
+
+ Norwood Press
+ J. B. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
+ Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+ To
+
+ THE LITTLE GIRL ON CONANT STREET
+ AND TO THE
+ MEMORY OF HER GRANDMOTHER
+ HARRIET BEERS
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+ CHAPTER PAGE
+
+ I. IN THOSE DAYS 1
+
+ II. IN NO TIME 16
+
+ III. ONE FOR THE MONEY 35
+
+ IV. THE PICNIC 53
+
+ V. THE KING’S TRUMPETER 77
+
+ VI. MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE 103
+
+ VII. THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA 118
+
+ VIII. TWO FOR THE SHOW 147
+
+ IX. NEXT DOOR 159
+
+ X. WHAT’S PROPER 173
+
+ XI. DOLLS 192
+
+ XII. BIT-BIT 211
+
+ XIII. WHY 228
+
+ XIV. KING 247
+
+ XV. KING (_continued_) 281
+
+ XVI. THE WALK 307
+
+ XVII. THE GREAT BLACK HUSH 315
+
+ XVIII. THE DECORATION OF INDEPENDENCE 329
+
+ XIX. EARTH-MOTHER 354
+
+ XX. THREE TO MAKE READY 375
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ Somewhere beyond sealed doors _Frontispiece_
+
+ FACING PAGE
+
+ Sat on a rock in the landscape and practised 32
+
+ Little by little she grew silent and refused to join in
+ the games 128
+
+ But the minute folk left the room--ah, then! 168
+
+ She settled everything in that way; she counted the
+ petals of fennel daisies and blew thistle from
+ dandelions 196
+
+ Then out of the valley a great deev arose 216
+
+ To see what running away is really like 316
+
+
+
+
+There used to be a little girl who does not come here any more. She is
+not dead, for when certain things happen, she stirs slightly where she
+is, perhaps deep within the air. When the sun falls in a particular
+way, when graham griddle cakes are baking, when the sky laughs
+sudden blue after a storm, or the town clock points in its clearest
+you-will-be-late way at nine in the morning, when the moonlight is on
+the midnight and nothing moves--then, somewhere beyond sealed doors,
+the little girl says something, and it is plain that she is here all
+the time.
+
+You little child who never have died, in these stories I am trying
+to tell you that now I come near to understanding you. I see you
+still, with your over-long hair and your over-much chattering, your
+naughtiness and your dreams. I know the qualities that made you
+disagreeable and those that made you dear, and I look on you somewhat
+as spirit looks on spirit, understanding from within. I wish that
+we could live it again, you and I--not all of it, by any means, and
+not for a serious business; but now and then, for a joy and for an
+idleness. And this book is a way of trying to do it over again,
+together.
+
+Will you care to come from the quiet where you are, near to me and
+yet remote? I think that you will come, for you were wont untiringly
+to wonder about me. And now here I am, come true, so faintly like her
+whom you dreamed, yet so like you yourself, your child, fruit of your
+spirit, you little shadowy mother....
+
+ If only words were moments
+ And I knew where they fly,
+ I’d make a tale of time itself
+ To tell you by and bye.
+
+ If only words were fathoms
+ That let us by for pearls,
+ I’d make a story ocean-strange
+ For little boys and girls.
+
+ But words are only shadow things.
+ I summon all I may.
+ Oh, see--they try to spell out Life!
+ Let’s act it, like a play.
+
+
+
+
+When I was a Little Girl
+
+I
+
+IN THOSE DAYS
+
+
+In those days time always bothered us. It went fast or it went slow,
+with no one interfering. It was impossible to hurry it or to hold it
+back.
+
+“Only ten weeks more,” we invariably said glibly, when the Spring term
+began.
+
+“Just think! We’ve--got--t-e-n--weeks!” we told one another at the
+beginning of vacation, what time we came home with our books, chanting
+it:--
+
+ “_No more Latin,
+ No more French,
+ No more sitting on a hard wood bench._”
+
+--both chorally and antiphonally chanting it.
+
+Yet, in spite of every encouragement, the Spring term lasted
+immeasurably and the Summer vacation melted. It was the kindred
+difference of experience respectively presented by a bowl of hot
+ginger tea and an equal bulk of ice-cream.
+
+In other ways time was extraordinary. We used to play with it: “Now is
+now. But now that other Now is gone and a Then is now. How did it do
+it? How do all the Nows begin?”
+
+“When is the party?” we had sometimes inquired.
+
+“To-morrow,” we would be told.
+
+Next morning, “Now it’s to-morrow!” we would joyfully announce, only
+to be informed that it was, on the contrary, to-day. But there was no
+cause for alarm, for now the party, it seemed, had changed too, and
+that would be to-day. It was frightfully confusing.
+
+“_When_ is to-morrow?” we demanded.
+
+“When to-day stops being,” they said.
+
+But never, never once did to-day stop that much. Gradually we
+understood and humoured the pathetic delusion of the Grown-ups: _To-day
+lasted always and yet the poor things kept right on forever waiting for
+to-morrow._
+
+As for me, I had been born without the time sense. If I was told that
+we would go to drive in ten minutes, I always assumed that I could
+finish dressing my doll, tidy my play-house, put her in it with all
+her family disposed about her down to the penny black-rubber baby
+dressed in yarn, wash my face and hands, smooth my hair (including
+the protests that these were superfluous), make sure that the kitten
+was shut in the woodshed ... long before most of which the family
+was following me, haling me away, chiding me for keeping older folk
+waiting, and the ten minutes were gone far by. Who would have thought
+it? Ten minutes seem so much.
+
+And if I went somewhere with permission to stay an hour! Then the
+hour stretched invitingly before me, a vista lined with crowding
+possibilities.
+
+“How long can you stay?” we always promptly asked our guests, for there
+was a feeling that the quality of the game to be entered on depended
+on the time at our disposal. But when they asked me, it never was
+conceivable that anything so real as a game should be dependent on
+anything so hazy as time.
+
+“Oh, a whole hour!” I would say royally. “Let’s play City.”
+
+With this attitude Delia Dart, who lived across the street, had no
+patience. Delia was definite. Her evenly braided hair, her square
+finger tips, her blunt questions, her sense of what was due to
+Delia--all these were definite.
+
+“City!” she would burst out. “You can’t play City unless you’ve got all
+afternoon.”
+
+And Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman, who were pretty definite too,
+would back Delia up; but since they usually had permission to stay all
+afternoon, they would acquiesce when I urged: “Oh, well, let’s start
+in anyhow.” Then about the time the outside wall had been laid up in
+the sand-pile and we had selected our building sites, the town clock
+would strike my hour, which would be brought home to me only by Delia
+saying:--
+
+“Don’t you go. Will she care if you’re late?”
+
+On such occasions we never used the substantive, but merely “she.”
+It is worth being a child to have a sense of values so simple and
+unassailable as that.
+
+“I’m going to do just this much. I can run all the way home,” I would
+answer; and I would begin on my house walls. But when these were
+done, and the rooms defined by moist sand partitions, there was all
+the fascination of its garden, with walks to be outlined with a
+shingle and sprays of Old Man and cedar to be stuck in for trees, and
+single stems of Fever-few and Sweet Alyssum or Flowering-currant and
+Bleeding-heart for the beds, and Catnip for the borders, and a chick
+from Old-Hen-and-Chickens for a tropical plant. We would be just begun
+on the stones for the fountain when some alien consciousness, some
+plucking at me, would recall the moment. And it would be half an hour
+past my hour.
+
+“You were to come home at four o’clock,” Mother would say, when I
+reached there panting.
+
+“_Why_ did I have to come home at four o’clock?” I would finally give
+way to the sense of great and arbitrary wrong.
+
+She always told me. I think that never in my life was I bidden to
+do a thing, or not to do it, “because I tell you to.” But never
+once did a time-reason seem sufficient. What were company, a
+nap-because-I-was-to-sit-up-late, or having-to-go-somewhere-else beside
+the reality of that house which I would never occupy, that garden where
+I would never walk?
+
+“You can make it the next time you go to Delia’s,” Mother would say.
+But I knew that this was impossible. I might build another house,
+adventure in another garden; this one was forever lost to me.
+
+“... only,” Mother would add, “you can not go to Delia’s for ...” she
+would name a period that yawned to me as black as the abyss. “...
+because you did not come home to-day when you were told.” And still
+time seemed to me indefinite. For now it appeared that I should never
+go to Delia’s again.
+
+I thought about it more and more. What was this time that was laid on
+us so heavy? Why did I have to get up _because_ it was seven o’clock,
+go to school _because_ it was nine, come home from Delia’s _because_
+the clock struck something else ... above all, why did I have to go to
+bed _because_ it was eight o’clock?
+
+I laid it before my little council.
+
+“Why do we have to go to bed because it’s bed-time?” I asked them.
+“Which started first--bed-time or us?”
+
+None of us could tell. Margaret Amelia Rodman, however, was of opinion
+that bed-time started first.
+
+“Nearly everything was here before we were,” she said gloomily. “We
+haven’t got anything in the house but the piano and the rabbits that
+wasn’t first before us. Mother told father this morning that we’d had
+our stair-carpet fifteen years.”
+
+We faced that. Fifteen years. Nearly twice as long as we had lived. If
+a stair-carpet had lasted like that, what was the use of thinking that
+we could find anything to control on the ground of our having been here
+first?
+
+Delia Dart, however, was a free soul. “_I_ think we begun before
+bed-time did,” she said decidedly. “Because when we were babies,
+we didn’t have any bed-time. Look at babies now. They don’t have
+bed-times. They sleep all the while.”
+
+It was true. Bed-time must have started after we did. Besides, we
+remembered that it was movable. Once it had been half past seven. Now
+it was eight. Delia often sat up, according to her own accounts, much
+later even than this.
+
+“Grown-ups don’t have any bed-time either,” Betty took it up. “They’re
+like babies.”
+
+This was a new thought. How strange that Grown-ups and babies should
+share this immunity, and only we be bound.
+
+“Who _made_ bed-time?” I inquired irritably.
+
+“S-h-h!” said Delia. “God did.”
+
+“I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly.
+
+“Well,” said Delia, “anyway, he makes us sleepy.”
+
+This I also challenged. “Then why am I sleepier when I go to church
+evenings than when I play Hide-and-go-seek in the Brice’s barn
+evenings?” I submitted.
+
+This was getting into theology, and Delia used the ancient method.
+
+“We aren’t supposed to know all those things,” she said with
+superiority, and the council broke up.
+
+That night I brought my revolt into the open. At eight o’clock I was
+disposing the articles in my play-house so that they all touched,
+in order that they might be able to talk during the night. It was
+well-known to me that inanimate objects must touch if they would
+carry on conversation. The little red chair and the table, the blue
+paper-weight with a little trembling figure inside, the silver vase,
+the mug with “Remember me” in blue letters, the china goat, all must be
+safely settled so that they might while away the long night in talk.
+The blue-glass paper weight with the horse and rider within, however,
+was uncertain what he wanted to companion. I tried him with the china
+horse and with the treeful of birds and with the duck in a boat, but
+somehow he would not group. While he was still hesitating, it came:--
+
+“Bed-time, dear,” they said.
+
+I faced them at last. I had often objected, but I had never reasoned it
+out.
+
+“I’m not sleepy,” I announced serenely.
+
+“But it’s bed-time,” they pressed it mildly.
+
+“Bed-time is when you’re sleepy,” I explained. “I’m not sleepy. So it
+can’t be bed-time.”
+
+“Bed-time is eight o’clock,” they said with a hint of firmness, and
+picked me up strongly and carried me off; and to my expostulation that
+the horse and his rider in the blue paper-weight would have nobody to
+talk to all night, they said that he wouldn’t care about that; and when
+I wept, they said I was cross, and that proved it was Bed-time.
+
+There seemed no escape. But once--once I came near to understanding.
+Once the door into Unknown-about Things nearly opened for me, and just
+for a moment I caught a glimpse.
+
+I had been told to tidy my top bureau drawer. I have always loathed
+tidying my top bureau drawer. It is so unlike a real task. It is made
+up of odds and ends of tasks that ought to have been despatched long
+ago and gradually, by process of throwing away, folding, putting in
+boxes, hanging up, and other utterly uninteresting operations. I can
+create a thing, I can destroy a thing, I can keep a thing as it was;
+but to face a top bureau drawer is none of these things. It is a motley
+task, unclassified, without honour, a very tag-end and bobtail of a
+task, fit for nobody.
+
+I was thinking things that meant this, and hanging out the window. It
+was a gentle day, like a perfectly natural human being who wants to
+make friends and will not pretend one iota in order to be your friend.
+I remember that it was a still day, that I loved, not as I loved Uncle
+Linas and Aunt Frances, who always played with me and gave me things,
+but as I loved Mother and father when they took me somewhere with them,
+on Sunday afternoons.... I had a row of daffodils coming up in the
+garden. I began pretending that they were marching down the border,
+down the border, down the border to the big rock by the cooking-apple
+tree--why of course! I had never thought of it, but that rock was where
+they got their gold....
+
+A house-wren came out of a niche in the porch and flew down to the
+platform in the boxalder, where father was accustomed to feed the
+birds. The platform was spread with muffin crumbs. The little wren ate,
+and flew to the clothes-line and poured forth his thankful exquisite
+song. I had always felt regret that we had no clothes reel that
+would whirl like a witch in the wind, but instead merely a system of
+clothes-lines, duly put up on Mondays; but the little wren evidently
+did not know the difference.
+
+“Abracadabra, make me sing like that....” I told him. But I hadn’t said
+the right thing, and he flew away and left me not singing. I began
+thinking what if he _had_ made me sing, and what if I had put back my
+head and gone downstairs singing like a wren, and gone to arithmetic
+class singing like a wren, and nobody could have stopped me, and nobody
+would have wanted to stop me....
+
+... I leaned over the sill, holding both arms down and feeling the
+blood flow down and weight my fingers like a pulse. What if I should
+fall out the window and instead of striking the ground hard, as folk do
+when they fall out of windows, I should go softly through the earth,
+and feel it pressing back from my head and closing together behind my
+heels, and pretty soon I should come out, plump ... before the Root of
+Everything and sit there for a long time and watch it grow....
+
+... I looked up at the blue, glad that I was so near to it, and thought
+how much pleasanter it would be to fly right away through the blue and
+see what colour it was lined with. Pink, maybe--rose-pink, which showed
+through at sunset when the sun leaped at last through the blue and it
+closed behind him. Rose-pink, like my best sash and hair-ribbons....
+
+That brought me back. My best sash and hair-ribbons were in my top
+drawer. Moreover, there were foot-steps on the stairs and at the very
+door.
+
+“Have you finished?” Mother asked.
+
+I had not even opened the drawer.
+
+“You have been up here one hour,” Mother said, and came and stood
+beside me. “What have you been doing?”
+
+I began to tell her. I do not envy her her quandary. She knew that I
+was not to be too heavily chided and yet--the top drawers of this world
+must be tidied.
+
+“Think!” she said. “That Hour has gone out the window without its work
+being done. And now this Hour, that was meant for play, has got to
+work. But not you! You’ve lost your turn. Now it’s Mother’s turn.”
+
+She made me sit by the window while she tidied the drawer. I was not to
+touch it--I had lost my turn. While she worked, she talked to me about
+the things she knew I liked to talk about. But I could not listen. It
+is the only time in my life that I have ever really frantically wanted
+to tidy a top bureau drawer of anybody’s.
+
+“Now,” she said when she had done, “this last Hour will meet the
+Hour-before-the-last, and each of them will look the way the other
+ought to have looked, and they will be all mixed up. And all day I
+think they will keep trying to come back to you to straighten them out.
+But you can’t do it. And they’ll have to be each other forever and ever
+and ever.”
+
+She went away again, and I was left face to face with the very heart of
+this whole perplexing Time business: those two Hours that would always
+be somewhere trying to be each other, forever and ever, and always
+trying to come back for me to straighten them out.
+
+Were there Hours out in the world that were sick hours, sick because we
+had treated them badly, and always trying to come back for folk to make
+them well?
+
+And were there Hours that were busy and happy somewhere because they
+had been well used and they didn’t have to try to come back for us to
+patch them up?
+
+Were Hours like that? Was Time like that?
+
+When I told Delia of the incident, she at once characteristically
+settled it.
+
+“Why, if they wasn’t any time,” she said, “we’d all just wait and wait
+and wait. They couldn’t have that. So they set something going to get
+us going to keep things going.”
+
+Sometimes, in later life, when I have seen folk lunch because it is one
+o’clock, worship because it is the seventh day, go to Europe because it
+is Summer, and marry because it is high time, I wonder whether Delia
+was not right. Often and often I have been convinced that what Mother
+told me about the Hours trying to come back to get one to straighten
+them out is true with truth undying. And I wish, that morning by the
+window, and at those grim, inevitable Bed-times, that I, as I am now,
+might have told that Little Me this story about how, just possibly,
+they first noticed time and about what, just possibly, it is.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+IN NO TIME
+
+
+Before months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds were counted
+and named, consider how peculiar it all must have seemed. For example,
+when the Unknown-about Folk of those prehistoric times wished to know
+_when_ a thing would happen, of course they can have had no word
+_when_, and no answer. If a little Prehistoric Girl gave a party, she
+cannot have known when to tell her guests to come, so she must have
+had to wait until the supper was ready and then invite them; and if
+they were not perfectly-bred little guests, they may have been offended
+because they hadn’t been invited before--only they would not have known
+how to say or to think “before,” so they cannot have been quite sure
+what they were offended at; but they may have been offended anyway, as
+happens now with that same kind of guest. And if a little Prehistoric
+Boy asked his father to bring him a new eagle or a new leopard for a
+pet, and his father came home night after night and didn’t bring it,
+the Prehistoric Boy could not say, “_When_ will you bring it, sir?”
+because there was no when, so he may have asked a great many other
+questions, and been told to sit in the back of the cave until he could
+do better. Nobody can have known how long to boil eggs or to bake
+bread, and people must have had to come to breakfast and just sit and
+wait and wait until things were done. Worst of all, nobody can have
+known that time is a thing to use and not to waste. Since they could
+not measure it, they could not of course tell how fast it was slipping
+away, and they must have thought that time was theirs to do with what
+they pleased, instead of turning it all into different things--this
+piece into sleep, this piece into play, this piece into tasks and
+exercise and fun. Just as, in those days, they probably thought that
+food is to be eaten because it tastes good and not because it makes
+the body grow, so they thought that time was a thing to be thrown away
+and not to be used, every bit--which is, of course, a prehistoric way
+to think. And nobody can have known about birthdays, and no story can
+have started “Once upon a time,” and everything must have been quite
+different.
+
+About then,--only of course they didn’t know it was then--a Prehistoric
+Mother said one morning to her Prehistoric Little Daughter:--
+
+“Now, Vertebrata, get your practising done and then you may go to
+play.” (It wasn’t a piano and it wasn’t an organ, but it was a lovely,
+reedy, blow-on-it thing, like a pastoral pipe, and little girls always
+sat about on rocks in the landscape, as soon as they had had their
+breakfasts, and practised.)
+
+So Vertebrata took her reed pipes and sat on a rock in the landscape
+and practised--all of what we now know (but she did not know) would be
+five minutes. Then she came in the cave, and tossed the pipes on her
+bed of skins, and then remembered and hung them in their place above
+the fireplace, and turned toward the doorway. But her mother, who was
+roasting flesh at the fire, called her back.
+
+“Vertebrata,” she said, “did I not tell you to practise?”
+
+“I did practise,” said Vertebrata.
+
+“Then practise and practise,” said her mother, not knowing how else to
+tell her to do her whole hour. Her mother didn’t know hours, but she
+knew by the feel of her feelings when Vertebrata had done enough.
+
+So Vertebrata sat on a rock and did five minutes more, and came and
+threw her pipes on her bed of skins, and remembered and hung them up,
+and then turned toward the door of the cave. But her mother looked up
+from the flesh-pot and called her back again.
+
+“Vertebrata,” she said, “do you want mother to have to speak to you
+again?”
+
+“No, _indeed_, muvver,” said her little daughter.
+
+“Then practise and practise and practise,” said her mother. “If you
+can’t play when you grow up, what will people think?”
+
+So Vertebrata went back to her landscape rock, and this thing was
+repeated until Vertebrata had practised what we now know (but she did
+not know) to have been a whole hour. And you can easily see that in
+order to bring this about, what her mother must have said to her the
+last time of all was this:--
+
+“I want you to practise and practise and practise and practise and
+practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and
+practise and practise and practise--” _or_ something almost as long.
+
+Now of course it was very hard for her mother to say all this besides
+roasting the flesh and tidying the cave, so she made up her mind that
+when her Prehistoric Husband came home, he must be told about it. And
+when the sun was at the top of the sky and cast no shadow, and the
+flesh was roasted brown and fragrant, she dressed it with pungent
+herbs, and raked the vegetables out of the ashes and hid the dessert in
+the cool wall of the cave--_that_ was a surprise--and spread the flat
+rock at the door of the cave and put vine-leaves in her hair and, with
+Vertebrata, set herself to wait.
+
+There went by what we now know to have been noon, and another hour, and
+more hours, and all afternoon, and all early twilight, and still her
+Prehistoric Husband did not come home to dinner. Vertebrata was crying
+with hunger, and the flesh and the vegetables were ice-cold, and the
+Prehistoric Wife and Mother sat looking straight before her without
+smiling. And then, just as the moon was rising red over the soft breast
+of the distant wood, the Prehistoric Father appeared, not looking as if
+he had done anything.
+
+“Is dinner ready?” he asked pleasantly.
+
+Now this was the last straw, and the Prehistoric Wife and Mother said
+so, standing at the door of the cave, with Vertebrata crying in the
+offing.
+
+“Troglodyte,” she said sadly (that was what she called him), “dinner
+has been ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and
+ready ...” and she showed him the ice-cold roasted flesh and vegetables.
+
+“I’m _so_ sorry, dearest. I never knew,” said the Troglodyte,
+contritely, and did everything in the world that he could do to show
+her how sorry he was. He made haste to open his game-bag, and he drew
+out what food he had killed, and showed her a soft, cock-of-the-rock
+skin for a cap for her and a white ptarmigan breast to trim it with,
+and at last she said--because nobody can stay offended when the
+offender is sorry:--
+
+“Well, dear, say no more about it. We’ll slice up the meat and it will
+do very well cold, and I’ll warm up the potatoes with some brown butter
+(or the like). But hurry and bathe or I’ll be ready first _again_.”
+
+So he hurried and bathed in the brook, and the cave smelled savoury
+of the hot brown butter, and Vertebrata had a Grogan tail stuck in her
+hair, and presently they sat down to supper. And it was nearly eight
+o’clock, but they didn’t know anything about _that_.
+
+When the serious part of supper was done, and the dessert that was a
+surprise had been brought and had surprised and gone, Vertebrata’s
+mother sat up very straight and looked before her without smiling. And
+she said:--
+
+“Now, something must be done.”
+
+“About what, Leaf Butterfly?” her husband asked.
+
+“Vertebrata doesn’t practise enough and you don’t come home to dinner
+enough,” she answered, “and something must be done.”
+
+“I did practise--wunst,” said Vertebrata.
+
+“But you should practise once and once and once and once and once and
+once, and so on, and not have to be told each once,” said her mother.
+
+“I did come home to dinner,” said the Prehistoric Husband, waving his
+hand at his empty platter.
+
+“But you should come first and first and first and first and first, and
+so on, and not let the dinner get ice-cold,” said his wife. “Hear a
+thing,” said she.
+
+She sprinkled some salt all thick on the table and took the stick on
+which the flesh had been roasted, and in the salt she drew a circle.
+
+“This,” she said, “is the sky. And this place, at the top, is the top
+of the sky. And when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no
+shadow, I will have ready the dinner, hot and sweet in the pot, and
+dessert--for a surprise. And when the sun is at the top of the sky
+and there is no shadow, do you come to eat it, _always_. That will be
+dinner.”
+
+“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight--for in those
+first days even true knights were willing that women should cook and
+cave-tidy for them all day long and do little else. But that was long
+ago and we must forgive it.
+
+Then she made a mark in the salt at the edge of the circle a little way
+around from the first mark.
+
+“When the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows
+are long, and the dark is coming, I will have ready berries and nuts
+and green stuffs and sweet syrups and other things that I shall think
+of--for you. And when the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red,
+and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, do you hurry to us,
+_always_. That will be supper.”
+
+“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight.
+
+Then she drew the stick a long way round.
+
+“This is sleep,” she said. “This place here is waking, and breakfast.
+And then next the sun will be at the top of the sky again. And we will
+have dinner in the same fashion. And this is right for you. But what to
+do with the child I don’t know, unless I keep her practising from the
+time the sun is at the top of the sky until it is at the bottom. For if
+she can’t play when she grows up, what will people think?”
+
+Now, while she said this, the Prehistoric Woman had been sitting with
+the stick on which the flesh had been roasted held straight up in her
+fingers, resting in the middle of the ring which she had made in the
+salt. And by now the moon was high and white in the sky. And the Man
+saw that the moon-shadow of the stick fell on the circle from its
+centre to beyond its edge. And presently he stretched out his hand and
+took the stick from her, and held it so and sat very still, thinking,
+thinking, thinking....
+
+“Faddie,” said Vertebrata--she called him that for loving--“Faddie,
+will you make me a little bow and arrow and scrape ’em white?”
+
+But her father did not hear her, and instead of answering he sprang
+up and began drawing on the soft earth before the cave a deep, deep
+circle, and he ran for the long stick that had carried his game-bag
+over his shoulder, and in the middle of the earth circle he set the
+stick.
+
+“Watch a thing!” he cried.
+
+Vertebrata and her mother, understanding little but trusting much, sat
+by his side. And together in the hot, white night the three watched the
+shadow of the stick travel on the dial that they had made. Of course
+there was no such thing as bed-time then, and Vertebrata usually sat
+up until she fell over asleep, when her mother carried her off to her
+little bed of skins; but this night she was so excited that she didn’t
+fall over. For the stick-shadow moved like a finger; like, indeed, a
+living thing that had been in the world all the time without their
+knowing. And they watched it while it went a long way round the circle.
+Then her mother said, “Nonsense, Vertebrata, you must be sleepy now
+whether you know it or not,” and she put her to bed, Vertebrata saying
+all the way that she was wide awake, just like in the daytime. And
+when her mother went back outside the cave, the Man looked up at her
+wonderfully.
+
+“Trachystomata,” said he (which is to say “siren”), “if the sun-shadow
+will do the same thing as the moon-shadow, we have found a way to make
+Vertebrata practise enough.”
+
+In the morning when Vertebrata came out of the cave--she woke alone and
+dressed alone, just like being grown-up--she found her mother and her
+father down on their hands and knees, studying the circle in the soft
+earth and the long sun-shadow of the stick. And her mother called her
+and she went running to her. And her mother said:--
+
+“Now we will have breakfast, dear, and then you get your pipes and come
+here and practise. And when you begin, we will lay a piece of bone
+where the shadow stands, and when I feel the feeling of enough, I will
+tell you, and you will stop practising, and we will lay another piece
+of bone on that shadow. And after this you will always practise from
+one bone to another, forever.”
+
+Vertebrata could hardly wait to have breakfast before she tried it,
+and then she ran and brought her pipes and sat down beside the circle.
+And her father did not go to his hunting, or her mother to her cooking
+and cave-tidying, but they both sat there with Vertebrata, hearing her
+pipe and watching the shadow finger move, and waiting till her mother
+should feel the feeling of enough.
+
+_Now!_ Since the world began, the Hours, Minutes, and Seconds had been
+hanging over it, waiting patiently until people should understand
+about them. But nobody before had ever, ever thought about them, and
+Vertebrata and her mother and her father were the very first ones who
+had even begun to understand.
+
+So it chanced that in the second that Vertebrata began to pipe and the
+bone was laid on the circle, _that_ Second (deep in the air and yet
+as near as time is to us) knew that it was being marked off at last
+on the soft circle of the earth, and so did the next Second, and the
+next, and the next, and the next, until sixty of them knew--and there
+was the first Minute, measured in the circle before the cave. And other
+Minutes knew what was happening, and they all came hurrying likewise,
+and they filled the air with exquisite, invisible presences--all to
+the soft sound of little Vertebrata’s piping. And she piped, and piped,
+on the lovely, reedy, blow-on-it instrument, and she made sweet music.
+And for the first time in her little life, her practising became to her
+not merely practising, but music-making--there, while she watched the
+strange Time-shadow move.
+
+“J--o--y!” cried the Seconds, talking among themselves. “People are
+beginning to know about us. It is _time_ that they should.”
+
+“Ah!” they cried again. “We can go faster than anything.”
+
+“Think of all of our poor brothers and sisters that have gone, without
+anybody knowing they were here,” they mourned.
+
+“Pipe, pipe, pipe,” went Vertebrata, and the little Seconds danced by
+almost as if she were making them with her piping.
+
+The Minutes, too, said things to one another--who knows if Time is so
+silent as we imagine? May not all sorts of delicate conversations go on
+in the heart of time about which we never know anything--Second talking
+with Second, and Minute answering to Minute; and the grave Hours,
+listening to everything we say and seeing everything we do, confiding
+things to the Day about us and about Eternity from which they have
+come. I cannot tell you what they say about you--you will know that, if
+you try to think, and especially if you stand close to a great clock
+or hear it boom out in the night. And I cannot tell you what they say
+about Eternity. But I think that this may be one of the songs that they
+sing:--
+
+SONG OF THE MINUTES
+
+ We are a garland for men,
+ We are flung from the first gate of Time,
+ From the touch that opened the minds of men
+ Down to the breath of this rhyme.
+
+ We are the measure of things,
+ The rule of their sweep and stir,
+ But whenever a little girl pipes and sings,
+ We will keep time for her.
+
+ We are a touching of hands
+ From those in the murk of the earth,
+ Through all who have garnered life in their hands
+ And wrought it from death unto birth.
+
+ We are the measure of things,
+ The rule of their stir and sweep,
+ And wherever a little child weeps or sings
+ It is his soul we keep.
+
+At last, when sixty Minutes had danced and chorussed past, there was,
+of course, the first rosy Hour ever to have her coming and passing
+marked since earth began. And when the Hour was gone, Vertebrata’s
+mother felt the feeling of enough, and she said to Vertebrata:--
+
+“That will do, dear. Now you may go and play.”
+
+That was the first exact hour’s practising that ever any little girl
+did by any sort of clock.
+
+“Ribbon-fish mine,” said the Prehistoric Man to his wife, when
+Vertebrata had finished, “I have been thinking additional thoughts. Why
+could we not use the circle in other ways?”
+
+“What ways, besides for your coming home and for Vertebrata’s
+practising?” asked the Prehistoric Woman; but we must forgive her for
+knowing about only those two things, for she was a very Prehistoric
+Woman indeed.
+
+“Little bones might be laid between the big bones,” said the Man--and
+by that of course he meant measuring off minutes. “By certain of them
+you could roast flesh and not kneel continually beside the fire. By
+certain of them you could boil eggs, make meet the cakes, and not be in
+peril of burning the beans. Also....”
+
+He was silent for a moment, looking away over the soft breast of the
+wood where the sun was shining its utmost, because it has so many
+reasons.
+
+“When I look at that moving finger on the circle thing,” he said
+slowly, “it feels as if whoever made the sun were saying things to me,
+but with no words. For his sun moves, and the finger on the circle
+thing moves with it--as if it were telling us how long to do this
+thing, and how long to do that thing--you and me and Vertebrata. And
+we must use every space between the bones--and whoever made the sun is
+telling us this, but with no words.”
+
+The Prehistoric Woman looked up at her husband wonderfully.
+
+“You are a great man, Troglodyte!” she told him.
+
+At which he went away to hunt, feeling for the first time in his
+prehistoric life as if there were a big reason, somewhere out in the
+air, why he should get as much done as he could. And the Prehistoric
+Woman went at her baking and cave-tidying, but always she ran to the
+door of the cave to look at the circle thing, as if it bore a great
+message for her to make haste, a message with no words.
+
+As for Vertebrata, she had taken her pipes and danced away where,
+on rocks in the landscape, the other little Prehistorics sat about,
+getting their practising done. She tried to tell them all about the
+circle thing, waving her pipes and jumping up and down to make them
+understand, and drawing circles and trying to play to them about it on
+her pipes; and at last they understood a little, like understanding a
+new game, and they joined her and piped on their rocks all over the
+green, green place. And the Seconds and Minutes and Hours, being fairly
+started to be measured, all came trooping on, to the sound of the
+children’s piping.
+
+When the sun was at the top of the sky, Vertebrata remembered, and she
+stuck a stick in the ground and saw that there was almost no shadow.
+So she left the other children and ran very hard toward her own cave.
+And when she had nearly reached it, somebody overtook her, also running
+very hard.
+
+[Illustration: SAT ON A ROCK IN THE LANDSCAPE AND PRACTISED.]
+
+“Faddie!” she called, as she called when she meant loving--and he swung
+her up on his shoulder and ran on with her. And they burst into the
+open space before the cave just as the shadow-stick pointed straight to
+the top of the circle thing.
+
+There, before the door of the cave, was the flat rock, all set with
+hot baked meat and toothsome piles of roast vegetables and beans that
+were not burned. And the Prehistoric Woman, with vine-leaves in her
+hair, was looking straight before her and smiling. And that was the
+first dinner of the world that was ever served on time, and since that
+day, to be late for dinner is one of the things which nobody may do;
+and perhaps in memory of the Prehistoric Woman, when this occurs, the
+politest ladies may always look straight before them _without smiling_.
+
+“Is dinner ready, Sea Anemone?” asked the Man.
+
+“On the bone,” replied his wife, pleasantly.
+
+“What’s for ’sert?” asked Vertebrata.
+
+“It’s a surprise,” said her mother--which is always the proper answer
+to that question.
+
+And while they sat there, the Days and Weeks and Months and Years
+were coming toward them, faster than anything, to be marked off on the
+circle thing before the door, _and to be used_. And they are coming
+yet, like a message--but with no words.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+ONE FOR THE MONEY
+
+
+We were burying snow. Calista Waters had told us about it, when, late
+in April, snow was found under a pile of wood in our yard. We wondered
+why we had never thought of it before when snow was plentiful. We had
+two long tins which had once contained ginger wafers. These were to be
+packed with snow, fastened tight as to covers, and laid deep in the
+earth at a distance which, by means of spoons and hot water, we were
+now fast approaching.
+
+It was Spring-in-earnest. The sun was warm, robins were running on the
+grass, already faintly greened where the snow had but just melted;
+a clear little stream flowed down the garden path and out under the
+cross-walk. The Wells’s barn-doors stood open, somebody was beating
+a carpet, there was a hint of bonfire smoke in the air, there were
+little stirrings and sounds that belonged to Spring as the gasoline
+wood-cutter belonged to Fall.
+
+Calista was talking.
+
+“And then,” she said, “some hot Summer day, when they’re all sitting
+out on the lawn in the shade, with thin dresses and palm-leaf fans,
+we’ll come and dig it up, and carry ’em big plates of feathery white
+snow, with a spoon stuck in.”
+
+We were silent, picturing their delight.
+
+“Miss Messmore says,” I ventured, not without hesitation, “that snow is
+all bugs.”
+
+In fact all of us had been warned without ceasing not to eat snow--but
+there were certain spots where it was beyond human power to resist
+it: Mr. Britt’s fence, for instance, on whose pickets little squares
+of snow rested, which, eaten off by direct application of the lips,
+produced a slight illusion of partaking of caramels.
+
+Delia stopped digging. “Maybe they won’t eat it when we bring it to
+them in Summer?” she suggested.
+
+“Then we will,” said Calista, promptly. Of course they would not have
+the heart to forbid us to eat it in, say, June.
+
+About a foot down in the ground we set the two tins side by side in an
+aperture lined and packed with snow and filled in with earth. Over it
+we made a mound of all the snow we could find in the garden. Then we
+adjourned to the woodshed and sat on the sill and the sawbuck and the
+work-bench.
+
+“What makes us give it away?” said Delia Dart, abruptly. “Why don’t we
+sell it? We’d ought to get fifteen cents a dish for it by June.”
+
+We began a calculation, as rapid as might be. Each tin would hold at
+least six dishes.
+
+“Why didn’t we bury more?” said Calista, raptly. “Why didn’t we bury a
+tubful?”
+
+“It’d be an awful job to dig the hole,” I objected. “Besides, they’d
+miss the tub.”
+
+The latter objection was insurmountable, so we went off to the garden
+to hunt pig-nuts. A tree of these delicacies grew in the midst of the
+potato patch, and some of the nuts were sure to have lain winter-long
+in the earth and to be seasoned and edible.
+
+“Let’s all ask to go to the Rodmans’ this afternoon and tell Margaret
+Amelia and Betty about the snow,” Calista suggested.
+
+“I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to go calling.”
+
+They regarded me pityingly.
+
+“Can’t you come over there afterwards?” they suggested.
+
+This, I knew, was useless. We should not start calling till late.
+Besides, I should be hopelessly dressed up.
+
+“Well,” said Delia, soothingly, “_we’ll_ go anyhow. Are you going to
+call where there’s children?”
+
+“I don’t think so,” I said, darkly. “We never do.”
+
+That afternoon was one whose warm air was almost thickened by sun. The
+maple buds were just widening into little curly leaves; shadows were
+beginning to show; and everywhere was that faint ripple of running
+water in which Spring speaks. But then there was I, in my best dress,
+my best coat, my best shoes, my new hat, and gloves, faring forth to
+make calls.
+
+This meant merely that there were houses where dwelt certain Grown-ups
+who expected me to be brought periodically to see them, an expectation
+persevered in, I believe, solely as a courtesy to my family. Twice a
+year, therefore, we set out; and the days selected were, as this one,
+invariably the crown and glory of all days: Days meet for cleaning
+out the play-house, for occupying homes scraped with a shingle in the
+softened soil, for assisting at bonfires, to say nothing of all that
+was to be done in damming up the streams of the curbs and turning aside
+the courses of rivers.
+
+The first call was on Aunt Hoyt--no true aunt, of course, but “aunt”
+by mutual compliment. She lived in a tiny house on Conant Street, set
+close to the sidewalk and shaded by an enormous mulberry tree. I sought
+out my usual seat, a little hardwood stool to whose top was neatly
+tacked a square of Brussels carpeting and whose cover, on being lifted,
+revealed a boot-jack, a shoe-brush, and a round box of blacking. The
+legs were deeply notched, and I amused myself by fitting my feet in the
+notches and occasionally coming inadvertently back to the floor with an
+echoing bump.
+
+Now and then Aunt Hoyt, who was little and wrinkled, and whose glasses
+had double lenses in the middle so that I could not keep my eyes from
+them when she spoke, would turn to address an observation at me.
+
+“How long her hair is! Do you think it is quite healthy for her to have
+such long hair? I’ll warrant you don’t like to have it combed, do you,
+dear?”
+
+If Aunt Hoyt had only known the depth of the boredom with which I had
+this inane question put to me! It was one of the wonders of my days:
+the utterly absurd questions that grown-up people could ask.
+
+For example: “How do you do to-day?” What had any reasonable child
+to answer to that? Of course one was well. If one wasn’t, one would
+be kept at home. If one wasn’t, one wasn’t going to tell anyway. Or,
+“What’s she been doing lately?” Well! Was one likely to reply: “Burying
+snow. Hunting pig-nuts. Digging up pebbles from under the eaves. Making
+a secret play-house in the currant bushes that nobody knows about?” And
+unless one did thus tell one’s inmost secrets, what was there left to
+say? And if one kept a dignified silence, one was sulky!
+
+“She’s a good little girl, I’m sure. Is she much help to you?” Aunt
+Hoyt asked that day, and patted my hair as we took leave. Dear Aunt
+Hoyt, I know now that she was lonesome and longed for children and,
+like many another, had no idea how to treat them, save by making little
+conversational dabs at them.
+
+Then there was Aunt Arthur, who lived in a square brick house that
+always smelled cool. At her house I invariably sat on a Brussels
+“kick-about” in the bay window and looked at a big leather “Wonders
+of Earth and Sea,” with illustrations. Sometimes she let me examine a
+basket of shells that she herself had gathered at the beach--I used
+to look at her hands and at her big, flat cameo ring and marvel that
+they had been so near to the ocean. Once or twice, when I wriggled too
+outrageously, she would let me go into the large, dim parlour, with
+its ostrich egg hanging from the chandelier and the stuffed blackbird
+under an oval glass case before the high mirror, and the coral piled
+under the centre-table and the huge, gilt-framed landscape which she
+herself had painted. But this day, between the lace curtains hanging
+from their cornices, I caught sight of Calista and Delia racing up the
+hill to the Rodmans, and the entire parlour was, so to say, poisoned.
+In desperation I went back and asked for a drink of water--my ancient
+recourse when things got too bad.
+
+Aunt Barker’s was better--there was a baby there. But that day ill-luck
+went before me, for he was asleep and they refused to let me look at
+him, because they said that woke him up. I disbelieved this, because I
+saw no reason in it, and nobody gave me a reason. I resolved to try it
+out the first time I was alone with a sleeping baby. I begged boldly to
+go outdoors, and Mother would have consented, but Aunt Barker said that
+a man was painting the lattice and that I would in every probability
+lean against the lattice, or brush the paint pots, or try to get a
+drink at the pump, which, I gathered, splashed everybody for miles
+around. So I sat in a patent rocker, and the only rift in a world of
+black cloud was that, by rocking far enough, the patent rocker could be
+made to give forth a wholly delectable squeak. Of course fate swiftly
+descended; I was bidden discontinue the squeak, and nothing remained to
+me.
+
+Then we went to Grandma Bard’s. I did not in the least know why, but
+the little rag-carpeted sitting-room, the singing kettle on the back of
+the coal stove, the scarlet geraniums on the window, the fascinating
+picture on the clock door, all entertained me at once. Grandma Bard
+wore a black lace cap, and she bade me sit by her and instantly gave
+me a peppermint drop from the pocket of her black sateen apron. She
+asked me no questions, but while she talked with Mother, she laid
+together two rose-coloured--rose-coloured!--bits of her patchwork and
+quietly handed them to me to baste--none of your close stitches, only
+basting! Then she folded a newspaper and asked me to cut it and scallop
+it for her cupboard shelf. Then she found a handful of hickory nuts and
+brought me the tack-hammer and a flat-iron....
+
+“Oh, Mother, let’s _not_ go yet,” I heard myself saying.
+
+Going home--a delicate business, because stepping on any crack meant
+being poisoned forthwith--I tried to think it out: What was it that
+Mother and Grandma Bard knew that the rest didn’t know? I gave it up.
+All I could think of was that they seemed to know me.
+
+“Isn’t Grandma Bard just grand?” I observed fervently.
+
+“I’m afraid,” Mother said thoughtfully, “that sometimes she has rather
+a hard time to get on.”
+
+I was still turning this in my mind as we passed the wood yard. The
+wood yard was a series of vacant lots where some mysterious person
+piled cords and cords of wood, which smelled sweet and green and gave
+out cool breaths. Sometimes the gasoline wood-cutter worked in there,
+and we would watch till it had gone, and then steal in and bring away a
+baking-powder can full of sawdust. We never knew quite what to do with
+this sawdust. It was not desirable for mud-pies, and there was nothing
+that we knew of to be stuffed with it. Yet when we could, we always
+saved it. Perhaps it gave us an excuse to go into the wood yard, at
+which we always peeped as we went by. This day, I lagged a few steps
+behind and looked in, expectant of the same vague thing that we always
+expected, and never defined--a bonfire, a robber, an open cave, some
+changed aspect, I did not know what. And over by the sawdust pile, I
+saw, stepping about, a little girl in a reddish dress--a little girl
+whom I had never seen before. She looked up and saw me stand staring at
+her; and her gaze was so clear and direct that I felt obliged to say
+something in defence of my intrusion.
+
+“Hello,” I said.
+
+Her face suddenly brightened. “Hello,” she replied, and after a moment
+she added: “I thought you was going to say ‘how de do.’”
+
+A faint spark of understanding leapt between us. Dressed-up little
+girls usually did say “how de do.” It was only in a kind of
+unconscious deference to her own appearance that I had not done so. She
+was unkempt and ragged--her sleeve was torn from cuff to elbow.
+
+“What you doing here?” I inquired, not averse to breaking the business
+of calling by a bit of gossip.
+
+At this she did for the third time what I had been vaguely conscious
+of her having done: She glanced over her shoulder toward a corner of
+the yard which the piled wood concealed from me. I stepped forward and
+looked there.
+
+On an end of wood-pile which we children had pulled down so as to
+make a slope to ascend its heights, a man was sitting. His head and
+shoulders were drooping, his legs were relaxed, and his hands were
+hanging loose, as if they were heavy. His eyes were closed and his lips
+were parted, yet about the face, with its fair hair and beard, there
+was something singularly attractive and gentle. He looked like a man
+who would tell you a story.
+
+“Who’s he?” I asked, and involuntarily I whispered.
+
+The girl began backing a little away from me, her eyes on my face, her
+finger on her lips.
+
+“It’s my father,” she said. “He’s--resting.”
+
+I had never heard of a man resting in the daytime. Save, perhaps, on
+Sunday afternoons, this was no true function of men. I longed to look
+at the man and understand better, but something in the little girl’s
+manner forbade me. I looked perplexedly after her. Then I peered round
+the fence post and saw my Mother standing under a tree, waiting for
+me. She beckoned. I took one more look inside the fence, and I saw the
+little girl sit down beside the sleeping man and fold her hands. The
+afternoon sun smote across the long wood yard, with its mysterious
+rooms made by the piling of the cords. It seemed impossible that this
+strange, still place, with its thick carpet of sawdust and its moist
+odours, should belong at all to the commonplace little street. And the
+two strange occupants gave the last touch to its enchantment.
+
+I ran to overtake Mother, and I tried to tell her something of what I
+had seen. But some way my words gave nothing of the air of the place
+and of the two who waited there for something that I could not guess.
+Already I knew this about words--that they were all very well for
+_saying_ a thing, but seldom for letting anybody _taste_ what you were
+talking about.
+
+I did not give up trying to tell it until we passed the Rodmans’.
+From the direction of their high-board fence I heard voices. Margaret
+Amelia and Betty and Delia and Calista were engaged in writing on the
+weathered boards of the fence with willows dipped in the clear-flowing
+gutter stream.
+
+“Got it done?” I called mysteriously.
+
+They turned, shaking their heads.
+
+“It was all melted,” they replied. “We couldn’t find another bit.”
+
+“Oh, well,” I cried, “you come on over after supper. I’ve got something
+to tell you.”
+
+“Something to tell you” would, of course, bring anybody anywhere.
+After supper they all came “over.” It was that hour which only village
+children know--that last bright daylight of slanting sun and driven
+cows tinkling homeward; of front-doors standing open and neighbours
+calling to one another across the streets, and the sky warm in the
+quiet surface of some little water from whose bridge lads are tossing
+stones or hanging bare-footed from the timbers. We withdrew past the
+family, sitting on the side-porch, to the garden, where the sun was
+still golden on the tops of the maples.
+
+“Mother says,” I began importantly, “that she thinks Grandma Bard has
+a hard time to get along. Well, you know our snow? Well, you know you
+said you couldn’t find any more to bury? Well, why don’t we dig up
+ours, right now, and sell it and give the money to Grandma Bard?”
+
+I must have touched some answering chord. Looking back, I cannot
+believe that this was wholly Grandma Bard. Could it be that the others
+had wanted to dig it up, independent of my suggestion? For there was
+not one dissenting voice.
+
+The occasion seemed to warrant the best dishes. I brought out six china
+plates and six spoons. These would be used for serving my own family,
+while the others took the two cans and ran home with them to their
+families.
+
+We dug rapidly now, the earth being still soft. To our surprise, the
+tops of the tins were located much nearer to the surface than we had
+supposed after our efforts of the morning to reach a great depth. The
+snow in which we had packed the cans had disappeared, but we made
+nothing of that. We drew out the cans, had off their tops, and gazed
+distressfully down into clear water.
+
+“It went and melted!” said Calista, resentfully.
+
+In a way, she regarded it as her personal failure, since the ceremony
+had been her suggestion in the first place.
+
+“Never mind, Calista,” we said, “you didn’t know.”
+
+Calista freely summed up her impressions.
+
+“How _mean_!” she said.
+
+We gravely gathered up the china plates and turned toward the
+house--and now I was possessed of a really accountable desire to get
+the plates back in their places as quickly as possible.
+
+On the way a thought struck us simultaneously. Poor Grandma Bard!
+
+“Let’s all go to see her to-morrow anyhow,” I suggested--largely, I am
+afraid, because the memory of my entertainment there was still fresh in
+my mind.
+
+When, after a little while, we came round the house where the older
+ones were sitting, and heard them discussing uninteresting affairs,
+we regarded them with real sympathy. They had so narrowly missed
+something so vastly, absorbingly interesting.
+
+From Delia’s room a voice came calling as, at intervals, other voices
+were heard calling other names throughout the neighbourhood--they were
+at one with the tinkle of the bells and the far-off yodel of the boys.
+
+“Delia!”
+
+“Good night,” said Delia, briefly, and vanished without warning, as at
+the sound of any other taps. Soon after, the others also disappeared;
+and I crept up on the porch and lay down in the hammock.
+
+“What’s she been doing _now_?” somebody instantly asked me.
+
+For a moment I thought of telling; but not seriously.
+
+Evidently they had not expected an answer, for they went on talking.
+
+“... yes, I had looked forward to it for a long while. Of course we had
+all counted on it. It was a great disappointment.”
+
+Somewhere in me the words echoed a familiar and recent emotion. So!
+They too had their disappointments ... even as we. Of course whatever
+this was could have been nothing like losing a fortune in melted snow.
+Still, I felt a new sympathy.
+
+Mother turned to me.
+
+“We are going to ask Grandma Bard to come to live with us,” she said.
+“Will you like that?”
+
+I sat up in the hammock. “All the time?” I joyfully inquired.
+
+“For the rest of the time,” Mother said soberly. “It seems as if one
+ought to take a child,” she added to the others, “when one takes
+anybody....”
+
+“Still,” said father, “till we get in our heads something of what the
+state owes to old folks, there’s nobody but us to do its work....”
+
+I hardly heard them. To make this come true at one stroke! Even to be
+able to adopt a child! How easily they could do things, these grown-up
+ones; and how magnificently they acted as if it were nothing at all ...
+like the giants planting city-seed and watching cities grow to the size
+and shape of giants’ flower beds....
+
+They went on talking. Some of the things that they said we might have
+said ourselves. In some ways they were not so very different from us.
+Yet think what they could accomplish.
+
+Watching them and listening, there in the April twilight, I began to
+understand. It was not only that they could have their own way. But for
+the sake of things that we had never yet so much as guessed or dreamed,
+it was desirable to be grown up.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE PICNIC
+
+
+It was Delia Dart who had suggested our Arbour Day picnic. “Let’s have
+some fun Arbour Day,” she said.
+
+We had never thought of Arbour Day in that light. Exercises, though
+they presented the open advantage of escape from the school grind, were
+no special fun. Fun was something much more intimate and intangible,
+definite and mysterious, casual and thrilling--and other anomalies.
+
+“Doing what?” we demanded.
+
+“Oh,” said Delia, restlessly, “go off somewheres. And eat things. And
+do something to tell about and make their eyes stick out.”
+
+We were not old enough really to have observed this formula for
+adventure. Hitherto we had always gone merely because we went. Yet
+all three motives appealed to us. And events fostered our faint
+intention. At the opening of school that morning, Miss Messmore made
+an announcement.... I remember her grave way of smiling and silent
+waiting, so that we hung on what she was going to say.
+
+“To-morrow,” she said, “is Arbour Day. All who wish will assemble here
+at the usual hour in the afternoon. We are to plant trees and shrubs
+and vines about the schoolhouse. There will be something for each one
+to plant. But this is not required. Any who do not wish to be present
+may remain away, and these will not be marked absent. Only those may
+plant trees who wish to plant trees. I hope that all children will take
+advantage of their opportunity. Classes will now pass to their places.”
+
+Delia telegraphed triumphantly in several directions. We could hardly
+wait to confer. At recess we met immediately in the closet under the
+stairs, a closet intended primarily for chalk, erasers, brooms, and
+maps, but by virtue of its window and its privacy put to sub-uses of
+secret committee meetings.
+
+“I told you,” said Delia. And such was Delia’s magnetism that we felt
+that she had told us. “Let’s take our lunch and start as soon as we get
+out.”
+
+“Couldn’t we go after the exercises?” Calista Waters submitted
+waveringly.
+
+“_After!_” said Delia, scornfully. “It’ll be three o’clock. _That’s_ no
+fun. We want to start by twelve, prompt, and stay till six.”
+
+Margaret Amelia Rodman bore out Delia’s contention. She and Betty had
+a dozen eggs saved up from their pullets. They would boil them and
+bring them. “The pullets?” Calista demanded aghast and was laughed
+into subjection, and found herself agreeing and planning in order to
+get back into favour. Delia and the Rodmans were, I now perceive, born
+leaders of mediæval living.
+
+“Why don’t you wait till Saturday?” I finally said, from out a silence
+that had tried to produce this earlier. “That’s only two days.”
+
+“Saturday!” said Delia. “Anybody can have a picnic Saturday. This is
+most as good as running away.”
+
+And of course it was. But....
+
+“Who wants to plant a tree?” Delia continued. “They’ll plant all
+they’ve got whether we’re here or not, won’t they?”
+
+That was true. They would do so. It was clearly a selfish wish to
+participate that was agitating Calista and me. In the end we were
+outvoted, and we went. Our families, it seemed, all took the same
+attitude: We need not plant trees if we did not wish to plant trees.
+Save in the case of Harold Rodman. He was ruled to be too small to walk
+to Prospect Hill, and he preferred going back to school to staying at
+home alone.
+
+“I won’t plant no tree, though,” he announced resentfully, as we left
+him. “I’m goin’ dig ’em all up!” he shouted after us. “Every one in the
+world!”
+
+It was when I was running round the house to get my lunch that I came
+for the second time face to face with Mary Elizabeth.
+
+Mary Elizabeth was sitting flat on the ground, cleaning knives which
+I recognized as our kitchen knives. This she was doing by a simple
+process, not unknown to me and consisting of driving the knife into the
+ground up to its black handle and shoving it rapidly up and down. It
+struck me as very strange that she should be there, in _our_ back yard,
+cleaning _our_ knives, and I somewhat resented it. For it is curious
+how much of a savage a little girl in a white apron can really be. But
+then I did not at once recognize her as the girl whom I had seen in
+the wood yard.
+
+I remember her sometimes as I saw her that day. She had straight brown
+hair the colour of my own, and her thick pig-tail, which had fallen
+over her shoulder as she worked, was tied with red yarn. Her face was a
+lovely, even cream colour, with no freckles such as diversified my own
+nose, and with no other colour in her cheek. Her hands were thin and
+veined, with long, agile fingers. The right sleeve of her reddish plaid
+dress was by now slit almost to the shoulder, and her bare arm showed,
+and it was nearly all wrist. She had on a boy’s heavy shoes, and these
+were nearly without buttons.
+
+“What you doing?” I inquired, coming to a standstill.
+
+She lifted her face and smiled, not a flash of a smile, but a slow
+smile of understanding me.
+
+“This,” she replied, and went on with her task.
+
+“What’s your name?” I demanded.
+
+“Mary Elizabeth,” she answered, and did not ask me my name. This
+was her pathetic way of deference to me because my clothing and my
+“station” were other than hers.
+
+I went on to the house, but I went, looking back.
+
+“Mother,” I said, “who is she? The little girl out there.”
+
+While she put up my lunch in the Indian basket, Mother told me how Mary
+Elizabeth had come that morning asking for something to do. She had set
+her to work, and meanwhile she was finding out who she was. “I gave
+her something to eat,” Mother said. “And I have never seen even you so
+hungry.” Hungry and having no food. I had never heard of such a thing
+at first hand--not nearer than in books and in Sunday school. But ...
+hungry that way, and in our yard!
+
+It was chiefly this that accounted for my invitation to her--this,
+and the fact that, as she came to the door to tell my Mother good-bye
+and to take what she had earned, she gave me again that slow,
+understanding-me smile. Anyway, as we walked toward the gate, I
+overtook her with my Indian basket.
+
+“Don’t you want to come to the picnic with us?” I said.
+
+She stared at me. “What do you do?” she asked.
+
+“Why,” I said, “a picnic? Eat in the woods and--and get things, and sit
+on the grass. Don’t you think they’re fun?”
+
+“I never was to one,” she answered, but I saw how she was watching me
+almost breathlessly.
+
+“Come on, then,” I insisted carelessly.
+
+“Honest?” she said. “Me?”
+
+When she understood, I remember how she walked beside me, looking at me
+as if she might at any moment find out her mistake.
+
+Delia, waiting impatiently at our gate with her own basket,--somehow I
+never waited at the gates of others, but it was always they who waited
+at mine,--bade me hurry, stared at Mary Elizabeth, and serenely turned
+her back on her.
+
+“This,” I said, “is Mary Elizabeth. I asked her to go to our picnic.
+She’s going. I’ve got enough lunch. This is Delia.”
+
+I suppose that they looked at each other furtively--so much of the
+stupidity of being a knight with one’s visor lowered yet hangs upon
+us--and then Delia plucked me, visibly, by the sleeve and addressed me,
+audibly, in the ear.
+
+“What’d you go and do that for?” said she. And I who, at an early age,
+resented being plucked by the sleeve as a bird resents being patted
+on the head, or the wall of any personality trembles away when it is
+tapped, took Mary Elizabeth by the hand and marched on to meet the
+Rodmans and Calista.
+
+Calista was a vague little soul, with no sense of facts. She was always
+promising to walk with two girls at recess, which was equivalent to
+asking two to be her partners in a quadrille. It simply could not be
+done. So Calista was forever having to promise to run errands with
+someone after school to make amends for not having walked with her at
+recess. She seldom had a grievance of her own, but she easily fell in
+with the grievances of others. When I presented Mary Elizabeth to her,
+Calista received her serenely as a part of the course of human events;
+and so I think she would have continued to regard her, without great
+attention and certainly with no criticism, had she not received the
+somewhat powerful suggestion of Delia and Margaret Amelia and Betty
+Rodman. The three fell behind Mary Elizabeth and me as we trotted down
+the long street on which the April sun smote with Summer heat.
+
+“--over across the railroad tracks and picks up tin cans and old
+rubbers and sells ’em and drinks just awful and got ten children and
+got arrested,” I heard Delia recounting.
+
+“The idea. To our picnic,” said Margaret Amelia’s thin-edged voice.
+
+“Without asking us,” Betty whispered, anxious to think of something of
+account to say.
+
+Mary Elizabeth heard. I have seen that look of dumb, unresentful
+suffering in many a human face--in the faces of those who, by the Laws
+of sport or society or of jurisprudence, find no escape. She had no
+anger, and what she felt must have been long familiar. “I’d better go
+home,” she said to me briefly.
+
+I still had her by the hand. And it was, I am bound to confess, as no
+errant but chiefly as antagonist to the others that I pulled her along.
+“You got to come,” I reminded her. “You said you would.”
+
+It was cruel treatment, by way of kindness. The others, quickly
+adapting themselves, fell into the talk of expeditions, which is never
+quite the same as any other talk; and the only further notice that they
+took of Mary Elizabeth was painstakingly to leave her out. They never
+said anything to her, and when she ventured some faint word, they
+never answered or noticed or seemed to hear. In later years I have had
+occasion to observe, among the undeveloped, these same traces of tribal
+antagonisms.
+
+As we went, I had time to digest the hints which I had overheard
+concerning Mary Elizabeth’s estate. I knew that a family having many
+children had lately come to live “across the tracks,” and that, because
+of our anxiety to classify, the father was said to be a drunkard. I
+looked stealthily at Mary Elizabeth, with a certain respect born of her
+having experience so transcending my own. Telling how many drunken men
+and how many dead persons, if any, we had seen was one of our modes
+of recreation when we foregathered. Technically Mary Elizabeth was, I
+perceived, one of the vague “poor children” for whom we had long packed
+baskets and whom we used to take for granted as barbarously as they
+used to take for granted the plague. Yet now that I knew one such,
+face to face, she seemed so much less a poor child than a little girl.
+And though she said so little, she had a priceless manner of knowing
+what I was driving at, which not even Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman
+had, and they were the daughters of an assemblyman, and had a furnace
+in their house, and had had gold watches for Christmas. It was very
+perplexing.
+
+“First one finds a May-flower’s going to be a princess!” Delia shouted.
+Delia was singularly unimaginative; the idea of royalty was her
+single entrance to fields of fancy. The stories that I made up always
+began “Once there was a fairy”; Margaret and Betty started at gnomes
+and dwarfs; Calista usually selected a poor little match girl or a
+boot-black asleep in a piano box; but Delia invariably chose a royal
+family, with many sons.
+
+We ran, shouting, across the stretch of scrub-oak which stretched
+where the town blocks of houses and streets gave it up and reverted to
+the open country. To reach this unprepossessing green place, usually
+occupied by a decrepit wagon and a pile of cord-wood, was like passing
+through a doorway into the open. We expressed our freedom by shouting
+and scrambling to be princesses--all, that is, save Mary Elizabeth. She
+went soberly about, a little apart, and I wished with all my heart that
+she might find the first May-flower; but she did not do so.
+
+We hunted for wind-flowers. It was on Prospect Hill that these first
+flowers--wind-flowers, pasque flowers, May-flowers, however one has
+learned to say them--were found in Spring--the _anemone patens_ which,
+next to pussy-willows themselves, meant to us Spring. A week before
+Nellie Pitmouth had brought to school the first that we had seen.
+Nellie had our pity because she drove the cows to pasture before
+she came to school, but she had her reward, for it was always she
+who found the first spoils. I remember those mornings when I would
+reach school to find a little group about Nellie in whose hands would
+be pussy-willows, or the first violets, or our rarely found white
+violets. For a little while, in the light of real events like these,
+Nellie enjoyed distinction. Then she relapsed into her usual social
+obscurity and the stigma of her gingham apron which she wore even on
+half holidays. This day we pressed hard for her laurels, scrambling in
+the deep mould and dead leaves in search of the star faces on silvery,
+silken, furry stems. We hoped untiringly that we might some day find
+arbutus, which grew in abundance only eighteen miles away, on the
+hills. In Summer we patiently looked for wintergreen, which they were
+always finding farther up the river. And from the undoubted dearth
+of both we escaped with a pretence to the effect that we were under a
+spell, and that some day, the witch having died, we should walk on our
+hill and find the wintergreen come and the arbutus under the leaves.
+
+By five o’clock we had been hungry for two hours, and we spread our
+lunch on the crest. Prospect Hill was the place to which we took our
+guests when we had them. It was the wide west gateway of the town,
+where through few ventured, for it opened out on the bend of the little
+river, navigable only to rowboats and launches, and flowing toward us
+from the west. You stood at the top of a sharp declivity, and it was
+like seeing a river face to face to find it flowing straight toward
+you, out of the sky, bearing little green islands and wet yellow
+sandbars. It almost seemed as if these must come floating toward us
+and bringing us everything.... For these were the little days, when we
+still believed that everything was necessary.
+
+We quickly despatched the process of “trading off,” a sandwich for an
+apple, a cooky for a cake, and so on, occasionally trading back before
+the bargain had been tasted. Mary Elizabeth sat at one side; even after
+I had divided my lunch and given her my basket for a plate, she sat a
+very little away from us--or it may be my remembrance of her aloofness
+that makes this seem so. Each of the others gave her something from
+her basket--but it was the kind of giving which makes one know what
+a sad word is the word “bestow.” They “bestowed” these things. Since
+that time, when I have seen folk administering charity, I have always
+thought of the manner, ill-bred as is all condescension, in which we
+must have shared our picnic food with Mary Elizabeth.
+
+I believe that this is the first conversation that ever I can remember.
+Up to this time, I had talked as naturally as the night secretes
+dreams, with no sense of responsibility for either to mean anything.
+But that day I became uncomfortably conscious of the trend of the talk.
+
+“I have to have my new dress tried on before supper,” Delia announced,
+her back to the river and her mouth filled with a jam sandwich. “It’s
+blue plaid, with blue buttons and blue tassels on,” she volunteered.
+
+“My new dress Aunt Harriet brought me from the City isn’t going to be
+made up till last day of school,” Margaret Amelia informed us. “It’s
+got pink flowers in and it cost sixty cents a yard.”
+
+“Margaret and I are going to have white shoes before we go visiting,”
+Betty remembered.
+
+“I got two new dresses that ain’t made up yet. Mamma says I got so many
+I don’t need them,” observed Calista, with an indifferent manner and a
+soft, triumphant glance. Whereat we all sat silent.
+
+I struggled with the moment, but it was too much for me.
+
+“I got a white silk lining to my new dress,” I let it be known.
+“It’s made, but I haven’t had it on yet. China silk,” I added
+conscientiously. Then, moved perhaps by a common discomfort, we all
+looked toward Mary Elizabeth. I think I loved her from that moment.
+
+“None of you’s got the new style sleeves,” she said serenely, and held
+aloft the arm whose sleeve was slit from wrist to shoulder.
+
+We all laughed together, but Delia pounced upon the arm. She caught and
+held it.
+
+“What’s that on your arm?” she cried, and we all looked. From the elbow
+up the skin was mottled a dull, ugly purple, as if rough hands had
+been there.
+
+Mary Elizabeth flushed. “Ain’t you ever had any bruises on you?” she
+inquired in a tone so finely modulated that Delia actually hastened to
+defend herself from the impeachment of inexperience.
+
+“Sure,” she said heartily. “I counted ’em last night. I got seven.”
+
+“I got five and a great long skin,” Betty competed hotly.
+
+“Pooh,” said Calista, “I’ve got a scratch longer than my hand is.
+Teacher said maybe I’d get an infect,” she added importantly.
+
+Then we kept on neutral ground, such as blank-books and Fourth of July
+and planning to go bare-foot some day, until Calista attacked a pickled
+peach which she had brought.
+
+“Our whole cellar’s full of pickled peaches,” I incautiously observed.
+“I could have brought some if I’d thought.”
+
+“We got more than that,” said Delia, instantly. “We got a thousand
+glasses of jelly left over from last year.”
+
+“A thousand!” repeated Margaret Amelia, in derision. “A hundred, you
+mean.”
+
+“Well,” Delia said, “it’s a lot. And jars and jars and jars of
+preserves. And cans and cans and _cans_....”
+
+The others took it up. Why we should have boasted of the quantity of
+fruit in our parents’ cellars, I have no notion, save that it was
+for the unidentified reason which impels all boasting. When I am in
+a very new bit of country, where generalizations and multiplications
+follow every fact, I am sometimes reminded of the fashion of our talk
+whose statements tried to exceed themselves, in a kind of pyrotechnic
+pattern bursting at last into nothing and the night. We might have been
+praising climate or crops or real estate.
+
+Mary Elizabeth spoke with something like eagerness.
+
+“We got a bottle of blackberry cordial my grandmother made before she
+died,” she said. “We keep it in the top bureau drawer.”
+
+“What a funny place to keep it....” Delia began, and stopped of her own
+accord.
+
+I remember that everybody was willing enough to let Mary Elizabeth help
+pick up the dishes. Then she took a tree for Pussy-wants-a-corner,
+which always follows the picnic part of a picnic. But hardly anyone
+would change trees with her, and by the design which masks as chance,
+everyone ran to another tree. At last she casually climbed her tree,
+agile as a cat, a feat which Delia alone was shabby enough to pretend
+not to see.
+
+We started homeward when the red was flaming up in the west and falling
+deep in the heart of the river. By then Mary Elizabeth was almost at
+ease with us, but rather, I think, because of the soft evening, and
+perhaps in spite of our presence.
+
+“Oh!” she cried. “Somebody grabbed the sun and pulled it down. I saw it
+go!”
+
+Delia looked shocked. “You oughtn’t to tell such things,” she reproved
+her.
+
+Mary Elizabeth flung up the arm with the torn sleeve and ran beside us,
+laughing with abandon. We were all running down the slope in the red
+light.
+
+“We’re Indians, looking for roots for the medicine-man,” Delia called;
+“Yellow Thunder is sick. So is Red Bird. We’re hunting roots.”
+
+She was ahead and we were following. We caught at the dead mullein
+stalks and milkweed pods and threw them away, and leaped up and pulled
+at the low branches with their tender buds. We were filled with the
+flow of the Spring and seeking to express it, as in the old barbaric
+days, by means of destruction.... At the foot of the slope a little
+maple tree was growing, tentative as a sunbeam and scarcely thicker,
+left by the Spring that had last been that way. When she reached it,
+Delia laid hold on it, and had it out by its slight root, and tossed it
+on the moss.
+
+“W-h-e-e-e!” cried Delia, “I wish it was Arbour Day to-morrow too!”
+
+Mary Elizabeth stopped laughing. “I turn here,” she said. “It’s the
+short cut. Good-bye--I had a grand time. The best time I ever had.”
+
+Delia pretended not to hear. She said nothing. The others called casual
+good-byes over shoulder. Going home, they rebuked me soundly for having
+invited Mary Elizabeth. Delia rehearsed the array of reasons. If she
+came to school, we would have to _know_ her, she wound up. I remember
+feeling baffled and without argument. All that they said was true, and
+yet--
+
+“I’m going to see her,” I announced stoutly, more, I dare say, because
+I was tired and a little cross than from real loyalty.
+
+“You’ll catch some disease,” said Delia. “I know a girl that went to
+see some poor children and she caught the spinal appendicitis and died
+before she got back home.”
+
+We went round by the schoolhouse, drawn there by a curiosity that
+had in it inevitable elements of regret. There they were, little
+dead-looking trees, standing in places of wet earth, and most of them
+set somewhat slanting. Everyone was gone, and in the late light the
+grounds looked solemn and different.
+
+“Just think,” said Delia, “when we grow up and the trees grow up, we
+can tell our children how we planted ’em.”
+
+“Why, we never--” Calista began.
+
+“Our school did, didn’t it?” Delia contended. “And our school’s we,
+isn’t it?”
+
+But we overruled her. No, to the end of time, the trees that stood in
+those grounds would have been planted by other hands than ours. We
+were probably the only ones in the school who hadn’t planted a tree.
+“I don’t care, do you?” we demanded of one another, and reiterated our
+denial.
+
+“I planted a-a-a---Never-green!” Harold Rodman shouted, running to meet
+us.
+
+“So did we!” we told him merrily, and separated, laughing. It had, it
+seemed, been a great day, in spite of Mary Elizabeth.
+
+I went into the house, and hovered about the supper table. I perceived
+that I had missed hot waffles and honey, and these now held no charm.
+Grandmother Beers was talking.
+
+“When I was eight years old,” she said, “I planted it by the well. And
+when Thomas went back to England fifty years after, he couldn’t reach
+both arms round the trunk. And there was a seat there--for travellers.”
+
+I looked at her, and thought of that giant tree. Would those
+dead-looking little sticks, then, grow like that?
+
+“If fifty thousand school children each planted a tree to-day,” said my
+mother, “that would be a forest. And planting a forest is next best to
+building a city.”
+
+“Better,” said my father, “better. What kind of tree did you plant,
+daughter?” he inquired.
+
+I hung my head. “I--we--there was a picnic,” I said. “We didn’t _have_
+to plant ’em. So we had a picnic.”
+
+My father looked at me in the way that I remember.
+
+“That’s it,” he said. “For everyone who plants a tree, there are half
+a dozen that have a picnic. And two dozen that cut them down. At last
+we’ve got one in the family who belongs to the majority!”
+
+When I could, I slipped out in the garden. It was darkening; the frogs
+in the Slough were chorussing, and down on the river-bank a cat-bird
+sang at intervals, was silent long enough to make you think that he
+had ceased, and then burst forth again. The town clock struck eight,
+as if eight were an ancient thing, full of dignity. Our kitchen clock
+answered briskly, as if eight were a proud and novel experience of its
+own. The ’bus rattled past for the Eight-twenty. And away down in the
+garden, I heard a step. Someone had come in the back gate and clicked
+the pail of stones that weighted its chain.
+
+I thought that it would be one of the girls, who not infrequently chose
+this inobvious method of entrance. I ran toward her, and was amazed to
+find Mary Elizabeth kneeling quietly on the ground, as she had been
+when I came upon her at noon.
+
+“What you doing?” I demanded, before I could see what she was doing.
+
+“This,” she said.
+
+I stooped. And she had a little maple tree, for which she was hollowing
+a home with a rusty fire-shovel that she had brought with her.
+
+“It’s the one Delia Dart pulled out,” she said. “I thought it’d be kind
+of nice to put it here. In your yard. You could bring the water, if you
+want.”
+
+I brought the water. Together we bent in the dusk, and we set out the
+little tree, near the back gate, close to my play-house.
+
+“We’d ought to say a verse or something,” I said vaguely.
+
+“I can’t think of any,” Mary Elizabeth objected.
+
+Neither could I, but you had to say something when you planted a tree.
+And a line was as good as a verse.
+
+“‘God is love’ ’s good enough,” said Mary Elizabeth, stamping down the
+earth. Then we dismissed the event, and hung briefly above the back
+gate. Somehow, I was feeling a great and welcome sense of relief.
+
+“It was kind o’ nice to do that,” I observed, with some embarrassment.
+
+“No, it wasn’t either,” rejoined Mary Elizabeth, modestly.
+
+We stood kicking at the gravel for a moment. Then she went away.
+
+I faced about to the quiet garden. And suddenly, for no reason that I
+knew, I found myself skipping on the path, in the dark, just as if the
+day were only beginning.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE KING’S TRUMPETER
+
+
+And so it is for that night long ago when Mary Elizabeth and I stood by
+the tree and tried to think of something to say, that after all these
+years I have made the story of Peter.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Long years ago, when the world was just beginning to be, there was a
+kingdom which was not yet finished. Of course when a world has just
+stopped being nothing and is beginning to be something, it takes a
+great while to set all the kingdoms going. And this one wasn’t done.
+
+For example, in the palace garden where little Peter used to play,
+the strangest things were to be met. For the mineral kingdom was just
+beginning to be vegetable, and the vegetable was just beginning to
+be animal, and the animal was just beginning to be man,--and man was
+just, just beginning to know about his living spirit. Do you see what
+_that_ means? While you looked at a mound of earth it became a bush--or
+a very little time afterward, as time in these things is reckoned.
+While you looked at a beast-shaped bush--all bushes at night are shaped
+like beasts--it became a living animal--or, again, a _very_ little
+afterward. And men had by no means got over being apes, tigers, swine,
+and dogs, and sometimes you hardly knew which a man was, a real man or
+one of these animals. And spirits were growing in men as fast as this
+might be. Everything, you see, lay in savage angles and wild lines.
+
+Little Peter was playing one morning in the palace garden, and such
+playing as it was! He would be moulding little balls of loam and
+fashioning them with seeds, when suddenly they would break into life as
+buds and then as flowers, almost as one now sees twigs of wood break
+into life, or as quiet cocoons become living butterflies--for the world
+is not so different. Or Peter would be playing with a spongy-looking
+mass on a rock in the brook, when it would break from its rock and go
+gayly swimming about, and be a fish-thing. Or he would push at a bit of
+ooze with a cat-tail, and a little flying life would mount abruptly
+and wing away. It was exciting playing in those days, and some of the
+things you can do in these days. Only then it was all new, so Peter
+could see just how wonderful it was.
+
+Now, that morning the king was walking in his palace garden. And he was
+troubled, for everywhere that he looked there were loose ends and rough
+edges, and shapeless things waiting to be fashioned, and it was so all
+over his kingdom. There was such a great lot to do that he could not
+possibly do it all alone--no king, however industrious, could have done
+it all. And he longed for the help of all his subjects. So when the
+king came on little Peter, busily making living things where none had
+been before, he was mightily pleased, and he sat down with the little
+lad on a grassy platform in the midst of the garden.
+
+“Lo, now, little lad,” said the king, “what do you play?”
+
+Instead of playing at keeping store or keeping house or at acting or
+hunting or exploring, little Peter was playing another game.
+
+“I’m playing it’s creation, your majesty,” he answered, “and I’m
+playing help the king.”
+
+“Lo, now,” said the king, “I would that all my subjects would play as
+well as you.”
+
+The king thought for a moment, looking out on all the savage angles and
+wild lines, while little Peter watched a bit of leaf mould becoming a
+green plant.
+
+“Summon me my hundred heralds!” the king suddenly bade his servants.
+
+So the servants summoned the hundred heralds, who hurried into their
+blue velvet and silver buckles and came marching, twenty abreast,
+across the grassy plateau, where the morning sun made patterns like
+wings, and among the wings they bowed themselves and asked the king his
+will.
+
+“Hundred heralds,” said the king, “be it only that you do this
+willingly, I would that you go out into my kingdom, into its highways
+and even to its loneliest outposts, and take my people my message. Cry
+to them, until each one hears with his heart as well as his head: ‘The
+world is beginning. You must go and help the king.’”
+
+Now, little Peter, when he heard the message, rose and stood beside the
+king, and in his breast something thrilled and trembled like a smitten
+chord. But as for the hundred heralds, they were troubled as one
+man--though he not yet wholly a man.
+
+“O king,” they said, twenty at a time, “blue velvet and silver buckles
+are meet for the streets of cities and to call men to feasting
+and to honour the king. But as for the highways and the loneliest
+outposts--that is another matter.”
+
+“But what of the message?” the king asked sadly, and this none of the
+heralds knew how to answer; and presently the king sent them away, for
+he would never have unwilling service in his palace or in his kingdom.
+And as they went, little Peter looked after them, and he saw, and
+the king saw, that for all their blue velvet and silver buckles, the
+hundred heralds, marching away twenty abreast, were not yet all men,
+but partly they were apes in manner and swine at heart. And little
+Peter wondered if he fashioned them as he did his bits of mould,
+whether they would burst from a sheath, _all_ men, as burst his little
+plants.
+
+“Summon me my thousand trumpeters!” the king bade his servants next.
+
+The thousand trumpeters hurried into their purple velvet and their lace
+collars and seized their silver trumpets, and came marching fifty
+abreast across the grassy plateau, where the noon sun made a blinding
+light, like the light of another sun; and they bowed themselves in the
+brightness and asked the king his will.
+
+But when the king had told them his will and had repeated the message
+and asked them if they could go willingly, the thousand trumpeters were
+troubled as one man--and he not yet wholly a man.
+
+“O king,” said they, in fifties and one hundreds, “lo, now, these
+silver trumpets. These are meet to sound up and down the streets of
+cities and to call men to feasting and to honour the king, and never
+are they meet to sound in the lonely outposts. Pray thee, O king, keep
+us near thee.”
+
+“But what of the message?” the king asked, and none of his trumpeters
+could help him there, and he would have no unwilling service in his
+palace or in his kingdom, so he sent them all away. And as they went,
+little Peter looked after them, and he saw, and the king saw, that for
+all their purple velvet and lace collars, the thousand trumpeters,
+marching away fifty abreast, were not all men, but they were apes in
+manner and swine and hounds at heart. And little Peter almost wished
+that he could fashion them as he did his bits of mould and see if they
+would not change into something better.
+
+So then the king called a meeting of his High Council, and his
+councillors hurried into their robes of state and appeared on the
+grassy plateau when the evening was lighting the place to be a glory.
+
+“Lo, now,” said the king, “I needs must send a message to all my
+people. Let us devise or dream some way to take it.”
+
+When they heard the message, the councillors nodded, with their hands
+over their mouths, looking at the ground.
+
+Then the king said--there, in the beginning of the world:--
+
+“I have a thought about a wire which shall reach round the earth and
+oversea and undersea, on which a man may send a message. And a thought
+I have about a wire which shall stretch across the land, and upon that
+wire a voice may travel alone. And a thought about messages that shall
+pierce the air with no wire and no voice. But none of these things is
+now.”
+
+(“Nay,” said the council, murmuring among themselves, “or ever shall
+be.”)
+
+“--and if they were,” said the king, “I would have one serve me even
+better than these, to reach the head and the heart of my people. How
+shall I do this thing? For I must have help in finishing my kingdom.”
+
+The council, stepping about in the slanting light, disputed the matter,
+group by group, but there lay nowhere, it seemed, a conclusion.
+
+“You yourselves,” the king cried at last, “who know well that the
+kingdom must be completed, you yourselves gather the people in
+multitudes together and tell them the message.”
+
+But at this the High Council twitched their robes of state and would
+have none of it.
+
+“Who would sit in the high places if we did _that_?” said they.
+
+So the king sent them all away, and little Peter, standing beside the
+king, looked after them. And he saw, and the king saw, how, under their
+robes of state, the High Council had not entirely stopped being ape
+and swine and hound and tiger and, early in the world as it was, still
+there seemed no great excuse for that.
+
+“Oh, sire,” said little Peter, “I wish I could play with them as I play
+with my bits of mould and loam and could turn them into something
+better and alive.”
+
+“Well said, little Peter,” replied the king, smiling sadly.
+
+And now the west, which had been like a vast, stained-glass window,
+streaming with warm light, fell into gray opaqueness, and the grassy
+plateau became a place of shadows in which night things were born
+gently. And the king looked away to the beast-shaped bushes and to all
+the striving land.
+
+“Oh, my kingdom, my kingdom!” he cried, grieving. “Now, would that this
+little Peter here could help you in the making.”
+
+And then little Peter stood upright in the faint light.
+
+“May it please the king,” he said softly, “I will take the message to
+his people.”
+
+The king stared down at him.
+
+“You?” he said. “_You_, little man? And how, pray, would you take my
+message?”
+
+“May it please the king,” said little Peter, “I would tell everyone in
+the kingdom till all should have been told.”
+
+“Little man,” said the king, “you are no bigger than a trumpet.”
+
+“Ay,” said the little lad, “I think that is what I am. I would that I
+be not Peter, but Trumpeter. So send me forth.”
+
+At this the king laughed, and for the laughter his heart was the
+lighter. He touched the boy’s brow.
+
+“See, then, I touch your brow, little Trumpeter,” he said. “Go
+forth--and do you know my message?”
+
+“You had first touched my heart, your majesty,” said the little boy,
+“and the message is there.”
+
+You would think, perhaps, that Peter would have waited till the
+morning, but he would not wait an hour. He made a little packet
+of linen and of food, and just as the folk within the palace were
+beginning their evening revelry, he stepped out on the highway and
+fared forth under the moon.
+
+But fancy walking on such a highway as that! At first glance it looked
+like any other night road, stretching between mysterious green. But not
+anything there could be depended upon to stay as it was. A hillock,
+lying a little way ahead, became, as he reached it, a plumy shrub,
+trembling with amazement at its transformation from dead earth to
+living green. At a turn in the road, a low bush suddenly walked away
+into the wood, a four-footed animal. Everything changed as he looked at
+it, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it was. The world was
+beginning!
+
+At the foot of a hill, where the shadows were thick, Peter met the
+first one to whom he could give his message. The man was twisted and
+ragged and a beggar, and he peered down in Peter’s face horribly.
+
+“Sir,” said Peter, courteously, “the world is beginning. You must go
+and help the king.”
+
+“Help the king!” cried the beggar, and his voice was uneven, like a
+bark or a whine that was turning into words. “I can’t help the king
+without my supper.”
+
+“Supper is only supper,” said little Peter, who had never in his life
+been hungry. “One must help the king--that is more.”
+
+The beggar struck the ground with his staff.
+
+“I’m hungry,” he said like a bark. “I want some supper and some dinner
+and all the way back to breakfast before I help the king, world or no
+world!”
+
+And suddenly little Peter understood what it is to be hungry, and
+that, if folk were hungry, they must first find means of feeding
+themselves before they could listen. So he gave the beggar all that he
+had of food in his packet, which was the least that he could do, and
+sent him on his way, charging him with the message.
+
+At the top of the hill, Peter came on another man, sitting under a
+sycamore tree. The man was a youth, and very beautiful, and he was
+making a little song, which went like this:--
+
+ “_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,
+ Here one, there one, natal to its hour,
+ Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,
+ You shall be a flower._”
+
+Though Peter did not know what the song might mean, yet it fell sweetly
+upon the night, and he liked to listen. And when it was done, he went
+and stood before the youth.
+
+“Sir,” he said, “the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”
+
+“I know, I know, little lad,” said the youth, and his voice was clear,
+like bird-notes that were turning into words. “I, too, tell the
+message, making it in a song.”
+
+And these words made Peter glad, so that his strength was new, and he
+ran on with the poet’s gentle music in his ears.
+
+I cannot tell you how far Peter went, but he went very far, and to
+many a lonely outpost, and away and away on a drear frontier. It was
+long to go and hard to do, but that is the way the world is made; and
+little Peter went on, now weary, now frightened, now blithe, now in
+good company, now alone and in the dark. I cannot tell you all the
+adventures he had and all the things he did--perhaps you will know
+these in some other way, sometime. And there were those to whom he
+told the message who listened, or set out in haste for the king’s
+palace; and some promised that they would go another day, and a few ran
+to tell others. But many and many were like the hundred heralds and
+the thousand trumpeters and the king’s High Council, and found many
+a reason why they might not set out. And some there were who mocked
+Peter, saying that the world indeed was doing very well without their
+help and would work itself out if only one would wait; and others would
+not even listen to the little lad.
+
+At last, one morning when the whole world seemed glad that it was
+beginning and seemed to long to tell about it, little Peter entered a
+city, decorated for a festival. Everywhere were garlands of vines and
+of roses, bright rugs and fluttering pennons and gilded things, as if
+the world had been long enough begun so that already there were time
+to take holidays. The people were flooding the streets and crowding
+the windows, and through their holiday dress Peter could see how some
+minced and mocked a little like apes, and others peered about like
+giraffes, and others ravened for food and joy, like the beggar or the
+bear or the tiger, and others kept the best, like swine, or skulked
+like curs, or plodded like horses, or prattled like parrots. Animals
+ran about, dumb like the vegetables they had eaten. Vegetables were
+heaped in the stalls, mysterious as the earth which they had lately
+been. The buildings were piled up to resemble the hills from whose
+substance they had been created, and their pillars were fashioned like
+trees. Everywhere were the savage angles and wild lines of one thing
+turning into another. And Peter longed to help to fashion them all, as
+he fashioned his little balls of mould and loam.
+
+“There is so much yet to do,” thought little Peter, “I wonder that
+they take so much time for holidays.”
+
+So he ran quickly to a high, white place in the midst of the town,
+where they were making ready to erect the throne of the king of the
+carnival, and on that he stood and cried:--
+
+“Hear me--hear me! The world is beginning. You must go and help the
+king.”
+
+Now, if those about the carnival throne had only said: “What is that to
+us? Go away!” Peter would have been warned. But they only nodded, and
+they said kindly: “Yes, so it is--and we mean to help presently. Come
+and help us first!” And one of the revellers, seeing Peter, how little
+he was, picked him up and held him at arm’s length and cried:--
+
+“Lo, now, this little lad. He is no bigger than a trumpet....”
+
+(That was what the king had said, and it pleased Peter to hear it said
+again.)
+
+“... Let us take him,” the revellers went on, “and _have_ him for a
+trumpet. And take him with us in our great procession. What think ye?”
+
+“And may I cry out what message I please?” little Peter asked eagerly.
+
+“Surely,” answered all the revellers, gayly. “What is that to us, so
+that you come with us?”
+
+They picked him up and tossed him on their shoulders--for he was of
+about a brazen trumpet’s weight, no more;--and Peter clapped his hands
+for joy, for he was a boy and he loved to think that he would be a part
+of that gorgeous procession. And they took him away to the great tent
+on the city green where everyone was dressing for the carnival.
+
+Peter never had seen anything so strange and wonderful as what was
+within that tent. In it everything and everybody had just been or was
+just going to be something or somebody else. Not only had the gay
+garments piled on the floor just been sheep’s and silkworm’s coats,
+not only had the colours laid upon them just been roots and stems and
+herb-leaves, not only had the staves been tree’s boughs and elephant’s
+tusks, but the very coal burning in the braziers and the oil in the
+torches had once been sunshine, and the very flames had been air, and
+before that water, and so on. But, most of all, the people showed what
+they had been, for in any merry-making the kinds of animals in folk
+can_not_ be covered up; and it was a regular menagerie.
+
+They took little Peter and dressed him like a trumpet. They thrust both
+his legs into one long cloth-of-gold stocking, and he held his arms
+tightly at his sides while they wound his little body in ruffles of
+gold-coloured silk, growing broader and broader into a full-gathered
+ruff from which his laughing face peeped out. And he was so slender and
+graceful that you could hardly have told him from a real, true, golden
+trumpet.
+
+Then the procession was ready to start, all lined up in the great
+tent. And the heralds and the music all burst out at once as the green
+curtain of the tent was drawn aside, and the long, glittering line
+began to move. Little heralds, darting about for all the world like
+squirrels and chipmunks; a great elephant of a master of ceremonies,
+bellowing out the order of the day as if he had been presiding over
+the jungle; a group of men high in the town’s confidence, whose spots
+proclaimed them once to have been leopards, and other things; long,
+lithe harlequins descended from serpents; little, fat clowns still
+showing the magpie; prominent citizens, unable as yet to conceal the
+fox and the wolf in their faces; the mayor of the town, revealing the
+chameleon in his blood; little donkey men; and a fine old gentleman or
+two made like eagles--all of them getting done into men as quickly as
+possible. In the midst rode the king of the carnival, who had evidently
+not long since been a lion, and that no doubt was why they picked him
+out. He rode on a golden car from which sprays of green sprang out to
+reach from side to side of the broad street. And at his lips, held like
+a trumpet, he carried little Peter, one hand on Peter’s feet set to the
+kingly lips, and the other stretched out to Peter’s breast.
+
+Then Peter lifted up his shrill little voice and shouted loud his
+message:--
+
+“_The world is beginning! The world is beginning! The world is
+beginning! You must go and help the king. You must go-o-o and help the
+king!_”
+
+But just as he cried that, the carnival band struck into a merry march,
+and all the heralds were calling, and the people were shouting, and
+Peter’s little voice did not reach very far.
+
+“Shout again!” bade the king of the carnival, who did not care in the
+least what Peter said, so long only as he acted like a trumpet.
+
+So Peter shouted again--shouted his very best. He shouted as loudly
+as he did at play, as loudly as when he swam and raced in the water,
+as loudly as any boy could shout. But it seemed to him that his voice
+carried hardly farther than the little chipmunk-and-squirrel heralds
+before him, and that nobody heard him.
+
+Still, it was all such fun! The glitter of the procession, the
+eagerness of the people, the lilt and rhythm of the music. And fun
+over all was it to be carried by the carnival king himself, high above
+everyone and dressed like a golden trumpet. Surely, surely no boy
+ever had more fun than that! Surely, surely it was no great marvel
+that after a little time, so loud was the clamour and so fast the
+excitement, that Peter stopped crying his message, and merely watched
+and laughed and delighted with the rest.
+
+Up and down through the thronged streets they went, that great,
+glittering procession, winding its mile or more of spangles and gilding
+and gay dress and animals richly caparisoned. Everywhere the crowded
+walks and windows and balconies sent cheers into the air, everywhere
+flowers were thrown and messages tossed and melody flooded. And
+wherever that long line passed, everyone noted the king’s trumpet and
+pointed it out and clapped hands and tried to throw upon it garlands.
+And there was so much to see, and so much excitement there was in the
+hour, that at last little Peter did not even think of his message, and
+only jested and made merry. For it was the most wonderful game that
+ever he had played.
+
+“How now, my little trumpeter?” the king of the carnival would say
+sometimes, when he rested his arms and held Peter at his side.
+
+“Oh, _well_, your majesty!” Peter would cry, laughing up at him.
+
+“This is all a fine game and nothing more,” the king of the carnival
+would tell him. “Is this not so?”
+
+Then he would toss the boy on high again, away above the golden car,
+and Peter would cry out with the delight of it. And though there were
+no wings and no great brightness in the air, yet the hour was golden
+and joy was abroad like a person.
+
+Presently, a band of mountebanks, dressed like ploughmen and
+harvesters, came tumbling and racing by the procession, and calling to
+everyone to come to a corn husking on the city green.
+
+“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!”
+they cried.
+
+But there was such a tumult that no one could well hear what they said,
+and presently they appealed to the carnival king to tell the people.
+
+“Nay, O king, they hear us not for the noise of thy passing,” said
+they. “Prithee tell the people what we would say.”
+
+“Tell the people, my little trumpeter!” cried the king, and lifted
+Peter to his lips.
+
+And Peter shouted out with all his might.
+
+“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks--husks--husks!”
+
+“Bravely done!” called the mountebanks, in delight, and ran alongside
+the car, leaping and tumbling and grotesquely showing their delight.
+“Bravely done! Tell the people--bid the people come!”
+
+So Peter called again, and yet again, at the full strength of his
+little voice. And it seemed to him that the people surely listened,
+and it was a delight and a flattery to be the one voice in the great
+procession, save only the music’s voice.
+
+At last, for one moment it chanced that the bands ceased altogether
+their playing, so that there was an instant of almost silence.
+
+“_Husks, husks, husks!_” he cried, with all his might.
+
+And as he did that, thin and clear through the silence, vexed somewhat
+by the voices of the people,--now barks, now whines, now bellows, now
+words,--Peter caught a little wandering melody, as though a bird’s
+singing were turning into words:--
+
+ “_Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,
+ Here one, there one, natal to its hour_....”
+
+and in the midst of that motley throng, Peter, looking down, saw the
+poet whom he had left on the hill-top, now wandering alone and singing
+his message to his lute.
+
+“Oh, the king! Oh, _my_ king!” cried little Peter, as if he had had a
+great wound.
+
+“What now, my little trumpeter?” asked the carnival king.
+
+“Not you--_not_ you!” cried Peter. “Oh, set me down,--set me down. Oh,
+what have I done?”
+
+“How _now_, little Trumpet?” cried the carnival king. But Peter,
+instead of stretching out his little body, slim and trumpet-graceful,
+turned and fell at the king’s feet in the car and slipped from his
+grasp and scrambled through the branching green and reached the street.
+
+There, in the wonder and then the mockery of the people, he began
+struggling to free himself from the ruffles of cloth-of-gold about his
+body. Some laughed, some ran from him as if he were mad, and some,
+wishing for themselves the golden ruffles, helped him to pull them off
+and to strip down the clinging golden stocking that bound his limbs.
+And then, being close to the city gates, little Peter ran, all naked as
+he was, without the gates and on to the empty road. And he ran sobbing
+out his heart:--
+
+“Oh, my king! I would have told them that the world is beginning--but,
+instead I have told them only to get them husks!”
+
+Now the poet, who had seen it all--and who understood--ceased his song
+and made his way as quickly as might be for the press of the people,
+and ran after Peter, and fared along the road beside him, trying to
+comfort him. But the little lad might not be comforted, and he only
+cried out again:--
+
+“The king--the king! I would have given them his message--and I bade
+them only to get them husks!”
+
+So the poet--who understood--said no word at all, but he shielded Peter
+with his mantle; and then he took his lute and walked beside the little
+lad, singing.
+
+They had gone but a short distance when they reached the top of a hill,
+where the sun shone with exceeding brightness, and the poet noted
+that the light fell almost like little wings. Peter saw none of this,
+for his hands were still covering his face. But he heard the poet’s
+singing interrupted by a voice. The voice was uneven--like a bark or
+a whine that is turning into words--but yet its words were clear and
+unmistakable. And they were:--
+
+“_Sirs, the world is beginning. You must go and help the king._”
+
+Peter looked up and he saw the man who had spoken, a man twisted and
+ragged, but who smiled down into the little boy’s face so gently that,
+for a moment, Peter did not know him; and then he recognized that
+beggar to whom, on that night long ago, he had given food and the
+message.
+
+“Ay, friend!” the poet was answering him ringingly, “and we go!”
+
+The beggar hurried on, and the poet touched Peter’s hand.
+
+“Nay, now, little Peter,” he said, “grieve not your heart too much.
+For you it was who told the beggar the message--from the top of the
+hill I heard--and I saw you give him food. Can you tell any man without
+some good coming true of the tidings? Then it may well be that there
+are those in the town to whom you told the king’s message who will
+remember, too. Go we forth together to try again!”
+
+Peter looked down the long highway, stretching between the mysterious
+green, where shrubs changed to animals in so little a space; and
+then he looked away to the king’s kingdom and saw how it was not
+finished--because the world had just stopped being nothing and was
+beginning to be something--and he looked back towards the city where,
+as at the court, men had not yet done being animals. Everything
+was changing, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it is.
+And everything was in savage angles and wild lines. The world was
+beginning. The people _must_ be told to go and help the king.
+
+“Go we forth together to try again,” the poet repeated.
+
+He touched his lute, and its melody slipped into the sunshine.
+
+ “_Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,
+ You shall be a flower._”
+
+Then Peter stretched out his arms, and his whole slender little body
+became like one trumpet voice, and that voice strong and clear to reach
+round the world itself.
+
+“I try once again!” he answered. “The world is beginning. _I must go
+and help the king._”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE
+
+
+Our lawn was nine apple trees large. There were none in front, where
+only Evergreens grew, and two silver Lombardy poplars, heaven-tall. The
+apple trees began with the Cooking-apple tree by the side porch. This
+was, of course, no true tree except in apple-blossom time, and at other
+times hardly counted. The length of twenty jumping ropes--they call
+them skipping ropes now, but we never called them so--laid one after
+another along the path would have brought one to the second tree, the
+Eating-apple tree, whose fruit was red without and pink-white within.
+To this day I do not know what kind of apples those were, whether
+Duchess, Gilliflower, Russet, Sweet, or Snow. But after all, these only
+name the body of the apple, as Jasper or Edith names the body of you.
+The soul of you, like the real sense of Apple, lives nameless all its
+days. Sometime we must play the game of giving us a secret name--the
+Pathfinder, the Lamplighter, the Starseeker, and so on. But colours and
+flavours are harder to name and must wait longer than we.
+
+... Under this Nameless tree, then, the swing hung, and to sit in the
+swing and have one’s head touch apple-blossoms, and mind, not touch
+them with one’s foot, was precisely like having one’s swing knotted to
+the sky, so that one might rise in rhythm, head and toe, up among the
+living stars. I can think of no difference worth the mentioning, so
+high it seemed. And if one does not know what rhythm is, one has only
+to say it over: Spring, Summer, apple-blossom, apple; new moon, old
+moon, running river, echo--and then one will know.
+
+“I would pick some,” said Mother, looking up at the apple-blossoms, “if
+I only knew which ones will never be apples.”
+
+So some of the blossoms would never be apples! Which ones? _And why?_
+
+“Why will some be apples and some others never be apples?” I inquired.
+
+But Mother was singing and swinging me, and she did not tell.
+
+“Why will you be apples and you not be apples, and me not know which,
+and you not know which?” I said to the apple-blossoms when next my head
+touched them. Of course, you never really speak to things with your
+throat voice, but you think it at them with your head voice. Perhaps
+that is the way they answer, and that is why one does not always hear
+what they say....
+
+The apple-blossoms did not say anything that I could hear. The
+stillness of things never ceased to surprise me. It would have been far
+less wonderful to me if the apple-blossoms and the Lombardy poplars and
+my new shoes had answered me sometimes than that they always kept their
+unfriendly silence. One’s new shoes _look_ so friendly, with their
+winking button eyes and their placid noses! And yet they act as cross
+about answering as do some little boys who move into the neighbourhood.
+
+... Indeed, if one comes to think of it, one’s shoes are rather like
+the sturdy little boys among one’s clothes. One’s slippers are more
+like little girls, all straps and bows and tiptoes. Then one’s aprons
+must be the babies, long and white and dainty. And one’s frocks and
+suits--that is to say, one’s _new_ frocks and suits--are the ladies
+and gentlemen, important and elegant; and one’s everyday things are
+the men and women, neither important nor elegant, but best of all; and
+one’s oldest garments are the witches, shapeless and sad and haunted.
+This leaves ribbons and sashes and beads to be fairies--both good and
+bad.
+
+The silence of the Nameless tree was to lift a little that very day.
+When Mother had gone in the house,--something seemed always to be
+pulling at Mother to be back in the house as, in the house, something
+always pulled at me to be back out-of-doors,--I remember that I was
+twisting the rope and then lying back over the board, head down,
+for the untwisting. And while my head was whirling and my feet were
+guiding, I looked up at the tree and saw it as I had never seen it
+before: soft falling skirts of white with lacy edges and flowery
+patterns, drooping and billowing all about a pedestal, which was the
+tree trunk, and up-tapering at the top like a waist--why, the tree was
+a lady! Leaning in the air there above the branches, surely I could
+see her beautiful shoulders and her white arms, her calm face and her
+bright hair against the blue. She had risen out of the trunk at the
+tree’s blossoming and was waiting for someone to greet her.
+
+I struggled out of the swing and scrambled, breathless, back from the
+tree and looked where she should be. Already I knew her. Nearly, I knew
+the things that she would say to me--sometimes now I know the things
+that she would have said if we had not been interrupted.
+
+The interruption came from four girls who lived, as I thought, outside
+my world,--for those were the little days when I did not yet know
+that this cannot be. They were the Eversley sisters, in full-skirted,
+figured calico, and they all had large, chapped hands and wide teeth
+and stout shoes. For a year they had been wont to pass our house on the
+way to the public school, but they had spoken to me no more than if
+I had been invisible--until the day when I had first entered school.
+After that, it was as if I had been born into their air, or thrown in
+the same cage, or had somehow become one of them. And I was in terror
+of them.
+
+“Come ’ere once!” they commanded, their voices falling like sharp
+pebbles about the Apple-blossom lady and me.
+
+Obediently I ran to the front fence, though my throat felt sick when
+I saw them coming. “Have an apple core? Give us some of them flowers.
+Shut your eyes so’s you’ll look just like you was dead.” These were
+the things that they always said. Something kept telling me that I
+ought not to tell them about my lady, but I was always wanting to win
+their approval and to let them know that I was really more one of them
+than they thought. So I disobeyed, and I told them. Mysteriously,
+breathlessly I led them back to the tree; and feeling all the time that
+I was not keeping faith, I pointed her out to them. I showed them just
+where to look, beginning with the skirts, which surely anybody could
+see.... I used often to dream that a crowd of apish, impish little folk
+was making fun of me, and that afternoon I lived it, standing out alone
+against those four who fell to instant jeering. If they had stooped and
+put their hands on their knees and hopped about making faces, it would
+have been no more horrible to me than their laughter. It held for me
+all the sense of bad dreams, and then of waking alone, in the middle of
+the night. The worst was that I could find no words to make them know.
+I could only keep saying, “She is there, she is there, she is there.”
+By some means I managed not to cry, not even when they each broke a
+great branch of blossoms from the Eating-apple tree and ran away,
+flat-footed, down the path; not indeed until the gate had slammed and I
+turned back to the tree and saw that my lady had gone.
+
+There was no doubt about it. Here were no longer soft skirts, but only
+flowery branches where the sunlight thickened and the bees drowsed.
+My lady was gone. Try as I might, I could not bring her back. So she
+had been mocking me too! Otherwise, why had she let me see her so that
+I should be laughed at, and then herself vanished? Yet, even then, I
+remember that I did not doubt her, or for a moment cease to believe
+that she was really there; only I felt a kind of shame that I could
+see her, and that the others could not see her. I had felt the same
+kind of shame before, never when I was alone, but always when I was
+with people. We played together well enough,--Pom, pom, pullaway,
+Minny-minny motion, Crack-the-whip, London Bridge, and the rest, save
+that I could not run as fast as nearly everybody. But the minute we
+stopped playing and _talked_, then I was always saying something so
+that the same kind of shame came over me.
+
+I saw Delia crossing the street. In one hand she held two cookies which
+she was biting down sandwich-wise, and in the other hand two cookies,
+as yet unbitten. The latter she shook at me.
+
+“I knew I’d see you,” she called resentfully. “I says I’d give ’em to
+you if I saw you, and if I didn’t see you--”
+
+She left it unfinished at a point which gave no doubt as to whose
+cookies they might have been had I not been offensively about. But
+the cookies were fresh, and I felt no false delicacy. However, after
+deliberation, I ate my own, one at a time, rejecting the sandwich
+method.
+
+“It lasts them longest,” I explained.
+
+“The other way they bite thicker,” Delia contended.
+
+“Your teeth don’t taste,” I objected scientifically.
+
+Delia opened her eyes. “Why, they do too!” she cried.
+
+I considered. I had always had great respect for the strange chorus
+of my teeth, and I was perfectly ready to regard them as having
+independent powers.
+
+“Oh, not when you eat tipsy-toes like that,” said Delia, scornfully.
+“Lemme show you....” She leaned for my cooky, her own being gone. I ran
+shamelessly down the path toward the swing, and by the time the swing
+was reached I had frankly abandoned serial bites.
+
+I sat on the grass, giving Delia the swing as a peace-offering. She
+took it, as a matter of course, and did not scruple to press her
+advantage.
+
+“Don’t you want to swing me?” she said.
+
+I particularly disliked being asked in that way to do things. Grown-ups
+were always doing it, and what could be more absurd: “Don’t you want
+to pick up your things now?” “Don’t you want to let auntie have that
+chair?” “Don’t you want to take this over to Mrs. Rodman?” The form of
+the query always struck me as quite shameless. I truthfully shook my
+head.
+
+“I’m company,” Delia intimated.
+
+“When you’re over to my house, I have to let you swing because you’re
+company,” I said speculatively, “and when I’m over to your house, I
+have to let you swing because it’s your swing.”
+
+“I don’t care about being company,” said Delia, loftily, and started
+home.
+
+“I’ll swing you. I was only fooling!” I said, scrambling up.
+
+It worked--as Delia knew it would and always did work. All the same,
+as I pushed Delia, with my eyes on the blue-check gingham strap
+buttoned across the back of her apron, I reflected on the truth and
+its parallels: How, when Delia came to see me, I had to “pick up” the
+playthings and set in order store or ship or den or cave or county fair
+or whatnot because Delia had to go home early; and when I was over to
+Delia’s, I had to help put things away because they were hers and she
+had got them out.
+
+Low-swing, high-swing, now-I’m-going-to-run-under-swing--I gave them
+all to Delia and sank on the grass to watch the old cat die. As it
+died, Delia suddenly twisted the rope and then dropped back and lay
+across the board and loosed her hands. I never dared “let go,” as we
+said, but Delia did and lay whirling, her hair falling out like a sun’s
+rays, and her eyes shut.
+
+I watched her, fascinated. If she opened her eyes, I knew how the
+picket fence would swim for her, no longer a line but a circle. Then
+I remembered what I had seen in the tree when I was twisting, and I
+looked back....
+
+There she was! Quite as I had fleetingly seen her, with lacy skirts
+and vague, sweeping sleeves and bending line of shoulder, my Lady of
+the Tree was there again. I looked at her breathlessly, unsurprised at
+the gracious movement of her, so skilfully concealed by the disguises
+of the wind. Oh, was she there all the time, or only in apple-blossom
+time? Would she be there not only in white Spring but in green Summer
+and yellow Fall--why, perhaps all those times came only because she
+changed her gown. Perhaps night came only because she put on something
+dusky, made of veils. Maybe the stars that I had thought looked to be
+caught in the branches were the jewels in her hair. And the wind might
+be her voice! I listened with all my might. What if she should tell me
+her name ... and know my name!...
+
+“Seventeen un-twists,” announced Delia. “Did you ever get that many out
+of such a little stingy swing as you gave me?”
+
+I did not question the desirability of telling Delia. The four Eversley
+girls had been barbarians (so I thought). Delia I had known always. To
+be sure, she had sometimes failed me, but these times were not real. My
+eyes were on the tree, and Delia came curiously toward me.
+
+“Bird?” she whispered.
+
+I shook my head and beckoned her. Still looking at my lady, I drew
+Delia down beside me, brought her head close to mine.
+
+“Look,” I said, “her skirt is all branches--and her face is turned the
+other way. See her?”
+
+Delia looked faithfully. She scanned the tree long and impartially.
+
+“See her? See her?” I insisted, under the impression that I was
+defining her. “It’s a lady,” I breathed it finally.
+
+“Oh,” said Delia, “you mean that side of the tree is the shape of one.
+Yes, it is--kind of. I’m going home. We got chocolate layer cake for
+supper. Good-bye. Last tag.”
+
+I turned to Delia for a second. When she went, I looked back for my
+lady--but she had gone. Only--now I did not try to bring her back.
+Neither did I doubt her, even then. But there came back a certain
+loneliness that I had felt before, only never so much as now. Why was
+it that the others could not see?
+
+I lay face downward in the grass under the tree. There were other
+things like this lady that I had been conscious of, which nobody else
+seemed to care about. Sometimes I had tried to tell. More often I had
+instinctively kept still. Now slowly I thought that I understood: I was
+different. Different from the whole world. Did I not remember how, when
+I walked on the street, groups of children would sometimes whisper:
+“There she is--there she is!” Or, “Here she comes!” I had thought, poor
+child, that this would be because my hair was long, like little Eva’s
+in the only play that most of us had seen. But now I thought I knew
+what they had known and I had not known: That I was different.
+
+I dropped my face in the crook of my arm and cried--silently, because
+to cry aloud seemed always to have about it a kind of nakedness; but I
+cried sorely, pantingly, with aching throat, and tried to think it out.
+
+What was this difference? I had heard them say in the house that my
+head was large, my hair too long to let me be healthy; and the four
+Eversleys always wanted me to shut my eyes so that I should look dead.
+But it was something other than these. Maybe--I shall never forget the
+grip of that fear--maybe I was not human. Maybe I was Adopted. I had no
+clear idea what Adopted meant, but my impression was that it meant not
+to have been born at all. That was it. I was like the apple-blossoms
+that would never be apples. I was just a Pretend little girl, a kind of
+secret one, somebody who could never, never be the same as the rest.
+
+I turned from that deep afternoon and ran for the wood-pile where I had
+a hiding-place. Down the path I met Mother and clung to her.
+
+“Mother, Mother!” I sobbed. “Am I adopted?”
+
+“No, dear,” she said seriously. “You are mine. What is it?”
+
+“Promise me I’m not!” I begged.
+
+“I promise,” she said. “Who has been talking to you? You little lamb,
+come in the house,” she added. “You’re tired out, playing.”
+
+I went with her. But the moment had entered me. I was not like the
+rest. I said it over, and every time it hurt. There is no more
+passionate believer in democracy than a child.
+
+Across the street Delia was sitting on the gate-post, ostentatiously
+eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into
+a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have
+revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did
+the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know--this
+was why they laughed so.... But I remember how, most of all, I hoped
+that Mary Elizabeth did not know--yet.
+
+From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not
+really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about
+it.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA
+
+
+That night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I
+am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me
+as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each
+other--I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much
+more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can
+picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each
+would have wished to be the other--how hard we would have wished that.
+But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.
+
+Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like
+the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would
+have told that Little Me.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen there was born a little
+daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to
+the christening of his daughter twelve mortals--a thing never before
+countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are
+always very particular about their ceremonies being _just_ so.
+
+It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation
+list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings
+who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and
+consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out
+the following list:--
+
+A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an
+artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a
+man who was also a father; and a day labourer.
+
+“Do you think that will do _at all_?” the fairy king asked the fairy
+queen, tossing over the list.
+
+“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know
+what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath--a fairy’s breath--and
+added: “I do wonder a little, though, just _why_ the day labourer.”
+
+“My dear,” said the king, “some day you will understand that, and many
+other things as well.”
+
+The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as
+high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung
+very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the
+moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty
+Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out
+into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran
+here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick
+rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapestries as
+splendid as vistas curtaining the distance. And the music was like the
+music of All-night, all done at once.
+
+To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as
+something else--for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many
+human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings
+prettily painted. One represented a Rose, and she could hardly be
+distinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light,
+whom nobody could recognize. One was a White Moth and one was a
+Thistle-down, and there were several fantastic toilettes, such as a
+great Tulle Bow, a Paper Doll, and an Hour-glass. As for the Human
+Beings present, they all came masked as themselves, as usual; and their
+names I cannot give you, though sometimes I see someone with dreaming
+eyes whom I think may possibly have been one of those twelve--for of
+course it must have made a difference in their looks ever afterward.
+It was a very brilliant assemblage indeed, and everyone was most
+intangible and elusive, which are fairy terms for well-behaved.
+
+While the guests were waiting for the fairy baby princess to be brought
+in, they idled about, with that delightful going-to-be-ice-cream
+feeling which you have at any party in some form or another, only
+you must _never_ say so, and they exchanged the usual pleasant
+nothing-at-alls. It is curious how very like human nothings fairy
+nothings are.
+
+For example:--
+
+“There is a great deal of night about,” said the Butterfly Fairy with a
+little shiver. “If I were a truly butterfly, I should never be able to
+find my way home.”
+
+“And there is such a fad for thunder-and-lightning this season,” added
+the Paper Doll Fairy, agreeably.
+
+“Do you remember,” asked the White Moth Fairy, “the night that we all
+dressed as white moths and went to meet the moon? We flew until we were
+all in the moonlight, and then we knew that we had met her. I wonder
+why more people do not meet the moon-rise?”
+
+“That reminds me,” said the Thistle-down Fairy, “of the day we all made
+up as snowflakes and went to find the Spring. Don’t you know how she
+surprised us, in the hollow of the lowland? And what a good talk we
+had? I wonder why more people do not go to meet the Spring?”
+
+“A charming idea!” cried the Rose Fairy to the Light Fairy, and the
+Light Fairy shone softly upon her, precisely like an answer.
+
+Then somebody observed that the wind that night was a pure soprano, and
+the guests amused themselves comparing wind-notes; how on some nights
+the wind is deep bass, like a man’s voice, raging through the world;
+and sometimes it is tenor, sweet, and singing only serenades; and
+sometimes it is all contralto and like a lullaby; and sometimes, but
+not often, it is like harp music played on the trees.
+
+Suddenly the whole dark lifted, like a garment; and moonlight flooded
+the Vasty Hall. And as if they had filtered down the air with the
+light, the fairy christening party entered--not as we enter a room, by
+thresholds and steps, but the way that a thought comes in your head and
+you don’t know how it got there.
+
+The christening party wore robes of colours that lie deep between
+the colours and may hardly be named. And, in a secret ceremony, such
+as attends the blooming of flowers, the fairy baby was christened
+Romancia. Then the fairies brought her many offerings; and these having
+been received and admired, a great hush fell on the whole assembly,
+for now the twelve Human Beings came forward with their gifts. And
+everyone, except, indeed, the princess herself, was wild with curiosity
+to see what they had brought.
+
+No one left a card with any gift, but when the fairy king came to look
+them over afterward, he felt certain who had brought each one. The
+gifts were these: A little embroidered gown which should make everyone
+love the princess while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would
+enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else
+saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself;
+a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a
+vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and
+leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other
+things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a
+new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which
+should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the
+universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.
+
+When these things had been graciously accepted by the king, there was
+a stir in the company, and sweeping into its midst came another Human
+Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the
+christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back,
+for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe
+and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities,
+and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time
+it had the meaning only of those who never look at the stars, or walk
+in gardens, or think about others rather than themselves, or listen to
+hear what it is right for them to do. This kind of Human Being is one
+who not often has any good gift to give to anyone, and this the fairies
+knew.
+
+The Vasty Hall became very quiet to see what she had brought, for no
+one understood what she could possibly have to bestow upon a baby. And
+without asking leave of the king or the queen, she bent over the child
+and clasped on her wrist the tiniest bracelet that was ever made in the
+world, and she snapped its lock as fast as the lock on a fetter, and
+held up the tiniest key that ever was wrought.
+
+“The princess,” she cried, “shall seem _different from everyone else_.
+She shall seem like nobody who is or ever has been. As long as she
+wears her bracelet, this shall be true; and that she may never lose it,
+I shall hold her bracelet’s key. Hail to this little princess child,
+who shall seem like nobody in the world!”
+
+Now, no one present was quite certain what this might mean, but the
+lady’s robe was so beautifully embroidered and sparkling, and her voice
+was such a thing of loops and curves, that nearly everyone accepted the
+gift as something fine after all, and the queen gave her her hand to
+kiss. But the king, who was a very wise fairy, said nothing at all, and
+merely bowed and eyed the bracelet, in deep thought.
+
+His meditation was interrupted by a most awkward incident. In the
+excitement of the bestowal of gifts by the Human Beings, and in the
+confusion of the entrance of the thirteenth and uninvited Human Being,
+one of them all had been forgotten and had got himself shuffled well
+at the back of everyone. And now he came pressing forward in great
+embarrassment, to bring his gift. It was the day labourer, and several
+of the Human Beings drew hastily back as he approached the dais. But
+everyone fell still farther back in consternation when it was seen
+what he had brought. For on the delicate cobweb coverlet of the little
+princess’s bed, he cast a spadeful of earth.
+
+“It’s all I’ve got,” the man said, “or I’d brought a better.”
+
+The earth all but covered the little bed of the princess, and it was
+necessary to lift her from it, which the fairy queen did with her own
+hands, flashing a reproachful glance at her husband, the king. But
+when the party had trooped away for the dancing,--with the orchestra
+playing the way a Summer night would sound if it were to steep itself
+in music, so that it could only be heard and not seen,--then the king
+came quietly back to the christening chamber and ordered the spadeful
+of earth to be gathered up and put in a certain part of the palace
+garden.
+
+And so (the Human Beings having gone home at once and forgotten that
+they had been present), when the music lessened to silence and the
+fairies stole from note to note and at last drifted away as invisibly
+as the hours leave a dial, they passed, in the palace garden, a great
+corner of the rich black earth which the day labourer had brought to
+the princess. And it was ready for seed sowing.
+
+The Princess Romancia grew with the days and the years, and from the
+first it was easily to be seen that certainly she seemed different
+from everyone in the world. As a baby she began talking in her cradle
+without having been taught--not very plainly, to be sure, or so that
+anybody in particular excepting the fairy queen understood her--but
+still she talked. As a little girl she seemed always to be listening
+to things as if she understood them as well as she did people, or
+better. When she grew older, nobody knew quite how she differed, but
+everybody agreed that she seemed different. And this the princess knew
+better than anybody, and most of the time it made her hurt all over.
+
+When the fairies played at thistle-down ball, the princess often played
+too, but she never felt really like one of them all. She felt that they
+were obliged to have her play with them because she was the princess,
+and not because they wanted her. When they played at hide-and-go-seek
+in a flower bed, somehow the others always hid together in the big
+flowers, and the princess hid alone in a tulip or a poppy. And whenever
+they whispered among themselves, she always fancied that they were
+whispering of her. She imagined herself often looked at with a smile or
+a shrug; she began to believe that she was not wanted but only endured
+because she was the princess, and she was certain that no one liked
+her for herself alone, because she was somehow so different. Little by
+little she grew silent, and refused to join in the games, and sat apart
+alone. Presently she began to give blunt answers and to take exception
+and even to disagree. And, of course, little by little the court began
+secretly to dislike her, and to cease to try to understand her, and
+they told one another that she was hopelessly different and that that
+was all that there was to be said about her.
+
+[Illustration: LITTLE BY LITTLE SHE GREW SILENT AND REFUSED TO JOIN
+IN THE GAMES.]
+
+But in spite of all this, the Princess Romancia was very beautiful, and
+the fame of her beauty went over the whole of fairyland. When enough
+years had gone by, fairy princes from this and that dominion began to
+come to the king’s palace to see her. But though they all admired the
+princess’s great beauty, many were of course repelled by her sharp
+answers and her constant suspicions.
+
+But at last the news of the princess’s beauty and strangeness reached
+the farthest border of fairyland and came to the ears of the young
+Prince Hesperus. Now Prince Hesperus, who was the darling of his
+father’s court and beloved of everybody, was tired of everybody. “Every
+fairy is like every other fairy,” he was often heard saying wearily.
+“I do wish I could find somebody with a few new ways. One would think
+fairies were all cut from one pattern!” Therefore, when word came to
+him of the strange and beautiful Princess Romancia, who was believed
+to be different from everyone else in the world, you can imagine with
+what haste he made ready and set out for her father’s place.
+
+Prince Hesperus arrived at the palace at twilight, when the king’s
+garden was wrapped in that shadow light which no one can step through,
+_if he looks_, without feeling somewhat like a fairy himself and
+glad to be one. He sent his servants on ahead, folded his wings, and
+proceeded on foot through the silent gardens. And in a little arbour
+made of fallen petals, renewed each day, he came on the Princess
+Romancia, asleep. He, of course, did not recognize her, but never,
+since for him the world began, had the prince seen anyone so beautiful.
+
+His step roused her and she sprang to her feet. And as soon as he
+looked at her, Prince Hesperus found himself wanting to tell her of
+what he had just been thinking, and before he knew it he was doing so.
+
+“I have just been thinking,” he said, “what a delightful pet a
+leaf-shadow would make, if one could catch it and tame it. I wonder if
+one could do it? Think how it would dance for one, all day long.”
+
+The Princess Romancia stared a little.
+
+“But when the sun went down,” she was surprised into saying, “the
+shadow would be dead.”
+
+“Not at all,” the prince replied, “it would only be asleep. And it
+would never have to be fed, and it could live in one’s palace.”
+
+“I would like such a pet,” said the princess, thoughtfully.
+
+“If I may walk with you,” said the prince, “we will talk more about it.”
+
+They walked together toward the palace and talked more about it, so
+that the Princess Romancia quite forgot to be more different than she
+was, and the prince forgot all about everything save his companion.
+And he saw about her all the gifts of tenderness and vision and magic,
+of sea secrets and sea spells, of music and colours and knowledge and
+charming notions which the Human Beings had brought her at her birth,
+though these hardly ever were visible _because_ the princess seemed
+so different from everybody else. And when, as they drew near the
+palace, their servants came hastening to escort them, the two looked at
+each other in the greatest surprise to find that they were prince and
+princess. For all other things had seemed so much more important.
+
+Their formal meeting took place that evening in the Vasty Hall, where,
+years before, the princess had been christened. Prince Hesperus was
+filled with the most joyous anticipation and awaited his presentation
+to the princess with the feeling that fairyland was just beginning. But
+the princess, on the other hand, was no sooner back in the palace among
+her ladies than the curse of her terrible christening present descended
+upon her as she had never felt it before. How, the poor princess
+thought, could the prince possibly like her, who was so different from
+everybody in the world? While she was being dressed, every time that
+her ladies spoke in a low tone, she imagined that they were speaking of
+her; every time that one smiled and shook her head, the princess was
+certain that it was in pity of her. She fancied that they knew that
+her walk was awkward, her voice harsh, her robe in bad taste, and an
+old fear came upon her that the palace mirrors had all been changed
+to conceal from her that she was really very ugly. In short, by the
+time that she was expected to descend, poor Princess Romancia had made
+herself utterly miserable.
+
+Therefore, when, in her gown of fresh cobweb, the princess entered the
+hall and the prince hastened eagerly forward, she hardly looked at him.
+And when, at the banquet that followed, he sat beside her and tried to
+continue their talk of the arbour and the walk, she barely replied at
+all.
+
+“How beautiful you are,” he murmured.
+
+“So is the night,” said the princess, “and you do not tell the night
+that it is beautiful.”
+
+“Your eyes are like stars,” the prince said.
+
+“There are real stars above,” said the princess.
+
+“You are like no one else!” cried the prince.
+
+“At least you need not charge me with that,” said the poor princess.
+
+Nor would she dance with him or with anyone else. For she imagined that
+they did not wish to dance with her, and that her dancing was worse
+than anyone’s. And as soon as she was able, and long before cock-crow,
+she slipped away from them all and went to sleep in a handy crocus cup.
+
+Now at all this the king and queen were nearly as distressed as the
+prince, and they were obliged to tell Prince Hesperus the whole story
+of the christening. When he heard about the uninvited Human Being who
+had given the baby princess this dreadful present and had kept the key
+to the bracelet which was its bond, he sprang up and grasped his tiny
+sword.
+
+“I will go out in the world and find this Human Being,” he cried, “and
+I will bring back the bracelet key.”
+
+Without again seeing the princess, Prince Hesperus left the palace and
+fared forth on his quest. And when she found that he was gone, she was
+more wretched than ever before. For in her life no one had ever talked
+to her as he had talked, speaking his inmost fancies, and when she had
+lost him, she wanted more than ever to talk with him. But the king, who
+was a very wise fairy, did not tell her where the prince had gone.
+
+And now the Princess Romancia did not know what to do with herself. The
+court was unbearable; all her trivial occupations bored her; and the
+whole world seemed to have been made different from all other worlds.
+Worst to endure was the presence of her companions, who all seemed to
+love and to understand one another, while she only was alone and out of
+their sympathy.
+
+“Oh,” she cried, “if only I had a game or a task to do with somebody or
+something that didn’t know I am different--that wouldn’t know who I am!”
+
+And she thought longingly of the prince’s fancy about the leaf-shadow
+for a pet which should dance with one all day long.
+
+“A leaf-shadow would not know that I am not like everybody else!” the
+poor princess thought.
+
+One night, when a fairy ring had been formed in an open grassy space
+among old oaks, the princess could bear it all no longer. When the
+music was at its merriest and a band of strolling goblin musicians were
+playing their maddest, she slipped away and returned to the palace by
+an unfrequented path and entered a long-disused part of the garden.
+And there, in a corner where she had never before walked, she came on
+a great place of rich, black earth, which, in the sweet Spring air,
+lay ready for the sowing. It was the spadeful of earth which the day
+labourer had brought to her christening; and there, for all these
+years, the king had caused it to remain untouched, its own rank weed
+growth enriching its richness, until but a touch would now turn it
+to fruitage. And seeing it so, and being filled with her wish for
+something which should take her thought away from herself and from her
+difference from all the world, the Princess Romancia was instantly
+minded to make a garden.
+
+Night being the work time and play time of the fairies, the princess
+went at once to the palace granaries and selected seeds of many kinds,
+flower and vegetable and fern seeds, and she brought them to this
+corner of rich earth, and there she planted them, under the moon. She
+would call no servants to help her, fearing lest they would smile among
+themselves at her strange doing. All night she worked at the planting,
+and when morning came, she fell asleep in a mandrake blossom, and woke
+hungry for a breakfast of honeydew and thinking of nothing save getting
+back to her new gardening.
+
+The Wind helped her, and as the days passed, the Sun and the Rain
+helped her, and she used certain magic which she knew, so that
+presently her garden was a glory. Poppies and corn, beans and berries,
+green peas and sweet peas, pinks and potatoes, celery and white phlox,
+melons and cardinal flowers--all these grew wonderfully together, as
+it were, hand in hand, as they will grow for fairy folk, and in such
+great luxuriance that the princess wrought early and late to keep them
+ordered and watered. She would have no servants to help her, for she
+grew more and more to love her task. For here at last in her garden
+she had found those whom she could not imagine to be smiling among
+themselves at anything that she said or did; but all the green things
+responded to her hands like friends answering to a hand clasp, and when
+the flowers nodded to one another, this meant only that a company of
+little leaf-shadows were set dancing on the earth, almost as if they
+had been tamed to be her pets, according to the prince’s fancy.
+
+Up at the palace the queen and the ladies-in-waiting to the queen and
+the princess regarded all this as but another sign of poor Romancia’s
+strangeness. From her tower window the queen peered anxiously down at
+her daughter toiling away at sunrise.
+
+“Now she is raising carrots and beets,” cried the queen, wringing her
+hands. “She grows more different from us every moment of her life!”
+
+“She seems to do so,” admitted the king; but he was very wise; and,
+“Let her be,” he commanded everybody. “We may see what this all means,
+and a great many other things as well.”
+
+Meanwhile Prince Hesperus, journeying from land to land and from height
+to valley, was seeking in vain for the one person who, as he thought,
+could remove from the princess the curse of her difference from all the
+rest of the world. And it was very strange how love had changed him;
+for now, instead of his silly complaint that every fairy is like every
+other fairy, and his silly longing for a different pattern in fairies,
+he sought only for the charm which should make his beloved princess
+like everybody else. Where should he find this terrible Human Being,
+this uninvited one who held the key to the princess’s bracelet that was
+so like a fetter?
+
+He went first to the town nearest to fairyland. The people of the town,
+having no idea how near to fairyland they really were, were going
+prosaically about their occupations, and though they could have looked
+up into the magic garden itself, they remained serenely indifferent.
+There he found the very mother who had been at the christening of the
+princess; and alighting close to a great task that she was doing
+for the whole world, he tried to ask her who it was who makes folk
+different from all the rest. But she could not hear his tiny, tiny
+voice which came to her merely as a thought about something which could
+not possibly be true. In a pleasant valley he came on that one who,
+at the christening, had brought the lyre which played of itself, but
+when the prince asked him his question, he fancied it to be merely
+the wandering of his own melody, with a note about something new to
+his thought. The poet by the stream singing of the brotherhood of
+man, the prophet on a mountain foreseeing the brotherhood as in a
+gazing crystal, the scientist weaving the brotherhood in a tapestry
+of the universe--none of these knew anyone who can possibly make folk
+different from everybody else, nor did any of the others on whom Prince
+Hesperus chanced.
+
+When one day he thought that he had found her, because he met one whose
+face had the look of many cities and was like the painted cover of an
+empty box, straightway he saw another and another and still others, men
+and women both, who were like her, with only the meaning of those who
+never look at the stars, or walk in gardens, or think about others
+rather than themselves, or listen to hear what is right for them to do.
+And then he saw that these are many and many, who believe themselves to
+be different from everybody else and who try to make others so, and he
+saw that it would be useless to look further among them for that one
+who had the key for which he sought.
+
+So at last Prince Hesperus turned sadly back toward the palace of the
+princess.
+
+“Alas,” said the prince, “it is for her own happiness that I seek to
+have her like other people. For myself I would love her anyway. But
+yet, what am I to do--for she seems so different that she will never
+believe that I love her!”
+
+It was already late at night when the prince found himself in the
+neighbourhood of the palace, and being tired and travel-worn, he
+resolved to take shelter in the cup of some flower and wait until the
+palace revelries were done. Accordingly he entered the garden of an
+humble cottage and crept within the petals of a wild lily growing in
+the long, untended grass.
+
+He had hardly settled himself to sleep when he heard from the cottage
+the sound of bitter crying. Now this is a sound which no fairy will
+ever pass by or ever so much as hear about without trying to comfort,
+and at once Prince Hesperus rose and flew to the sill of an open
+lattice.
+
+He looked in on a poor room, with the meanest furnishings. On a
+comfortless bed lay the father of the house, ill and helpless. His wife
+sat by his side, and the children clung about her, crying with hunger
+and mingling their tears with her own. The man turned and looked at
+her, making a motion to speak, and Prince Hesperus flew into the room
+and alighted on the handle of a great spade, covered with earth, which
+stood in a corner.
+
+“Wife,” the man said, “I’ve brought you little but sorrow and hunger.
+I would have brought you more if I had had better. And now I see you
+starve.”
+
+“I am not _too_ hungry,” the wife said--but the children sobbed.
+
+Prince Hesperus waited not a moment. He flew into the night and away
+toward the palace, and missing the fairy ring where among old oaks the
+fairies were dancing, he reached the palace by an unfrequented path and
+entered a disused part of the palace garden. And there, in a corner
+which he had never visited, Prince Hesperus saw a marvellous mass of
+bloom and fruit--poppies and corn, beans and berries, green peas and
+sweet peas, pinks and potatoes, celery and white phlox, melons and
+cardinal flowers--all growing wonderfully together, as it were, hand in
+hand. And above them, in a moon-flower clinging to the wall, sat the
+Princess Romancia, rocking in the wind and brooding upon her garden.
+
+“Come!” cried Prince Hesperus. “There is a thing to do!”
+
+The princess looked at him a little fearfully, but he paid almost no
+attention to her, so absorbed he was in what he wished to have done.
+
+“Hard by is a family,” said the prince, “dying of hunger. Here is food.
+Hale in these idlers dancing in the light of the moon, and let us carry
+the family the means to stay alive.”
+
+Without a word the princess went with him, and they appeared together
+in the fairy ring and haled away the dancers. And when these understood
+the need, they all joined together, fairies, goblin musicians and all,
+and hurried away to the garden of the princess.
+
+They wove a litter of sweet stems and into this they piled all the food
+of the princess’s tending. And when the queen would have had them send
+to the palace kitchen for supplies, the king, who was a wise fairy,
+would not permit it and commanded that all should be done as the prince
+wished. So when the garden was ravaged of its sweets, they all bore
+them away, and trooped to the cottage, and cast them on the threshold.
+And then they perched about the room, or hovered in the path of the
+moonlight to hear what should be said. And Prince Hesperus and Princess
+Romancia listened together upon the handle of the poor man’s spade.
+
+At sight of the gifts the wife sprang up joyfully and cried out to her
+husband, and the children wakened with happy shouts.
+
+“Here is food--food!” they cried. “Oh, it must be from the fairies.”
+
+The sick man looked and smiled.
+
+“Ay,” he said, “the Little Folk have remembered us. They have brought
+us rich store in return for my poor spadeful of earth.”
+
+Then the prince and princess and all the court understood that this
+poor man whom they had helped was that very day labourer who had
+come to the christening of the princess. And swift as a moonbeam--and
+not unlike one--Prince Hesperus darted from beside the princess and
+alighted on the man’s pillow.
+
+“Ah,” he cried, “can you not, then, tell me who it is who has the power
+to make one different from everybody else in the world?”
+
+In half delirium the day labourer heard the voice of the prince and
+caught the question. But he did not know that it was the voice of the
+prince, and he fancied it to be the voice of the whole world, as it
+were throbbing with the prince’s question. And he cried out loudly in
+answer:--
+
+“No one has that power! No one is different! Those who seem different
+hold no truth. We are all alike, all of us that live!”
+
+Swiftly the prince turned to the king and the queen and the court.
+
+“The uninvited Human Being,” he cried, “did she say that the princess
+should _be_ different from all the world, or that she should merely
+_seem_ different?”
+
+The queen and the court could not remember, but the king, who was a
+wise fairy, instantly remembered.
+
+“She said that she should _seem_ different,” he said.
+
+Then the prince laughed out joyfully.
+
+“Ay,” he cried, “seem different, indeed! There are many and many who
+may do that. But this man speaks truth and out of his spadeful of earth
+we have learned it, _We are all alike, all of us who live!_”
+
+With that he grasped his tiny sword and flew to the side of the
+princess and lifted her hand in his. And with a swift, deft stroke he
+cut from her wrist the bracelet that was like a fetter, and he took her
+in his arms.
+
+“Ah, my princess,” he cried. “You have seemed different from us all
+only because you would have it so!”
+
+The Princess Romancia looked round on the court, and suddenly she saw
+only the friendliness which had always been there if she could have
+believed. She looked on her father and mother, the king and the queen,
+and she saw only tenderness. She looked on the day labourer and his
+family and understood that, fairy and princess though she was, she was
+like them and they were like her. Last, she looked in the face of the
+prince--and she did not look away.
+
+Invisibly, as the hours leave a dial, the fairies drifted from the
+little room and back to the fairy ring among the old oaks to dance
+for very joyousness. The labourer and his family, hearing them go,
+were conscious of a faint lifting of the dark, as if morning were
+coming, bringing a new day. And to the Princess Romancia, beside Prince
+Hesperus, the world itself was a new world, where she did not walk
+alone as she had thought, but where all folk who will have it so walk
+together.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+TWO FOR THE SHOW
+
+
+First of all there was Every Day, with breakfast, lunch, outdoors,
+dinner, and evenings.
+
+Then there were Sundays, which were quite another kind of time,
+as different as layer cake from sponge cake: With breakfast late,
+and mustn’t-jump-rope, and the living-room somehow different, the
+Out-of-doors moved farther off, our play-house not waiting for us
+but acting busy at something else in which we had no part; the swing
+hanging useless as it did when we were away from home and thought about
+it in the night; bells ringing as if it were _their_ day; until we were
+almost homesick to hear the grocer’s cart rattle behind the white horse.
+
+There were school half holidays when the sun shone as it never shone
+before, and we could not decide how to spend the time, and to look
+ahead seemed a glorious year before dark.
+
+There were the real holidays--Christmas and the Fourth and Birthdays,
+which didn’t seem like days of time at all, but were like fairies of
+time, not living in any clock.
+
+And Company-time, when we were not to go in certain rooms, or sing in
+the hall, and when all downstairs seemed unable to romp with us.
+
+And Vacation-time, when 9 o’clock and 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock meant
+nothing, and the face of the clock never warned or threatened and the
+hands never dragged, and Saturday no longer stood out but sank into
+insignificance, and the days ran like sands.
+
+All these times there were when life grew different and either let us
+in farther than ever before or else left us out altogether. But almost
+the strangest and best of these was house-cleaning time.
+
+Screens out, so that the windows looked like faces and not like masks!
+The couch under the Cooking-apple tree! We used to lie on the couch and
+look up in the boughs and wish that they would leave it there forever.
+What was the rule that made them take it in? Mattresses in the backyard
+to jump on and lie on and stare up from, so differently, into the blue.
+Rugs like rooms, opening out into an adjoining pansy bed. Chairs set
+about on the grass, as if at last people had come to understand, as we
+had always understood, that the Outdoors is a real place to be in, and
+not just a place to pass through to get somewhere else. If only, if
+only some day they had brought the piano out on the lawn! To have done
+one’s practising out there, just as if a piano were born, not made!
+But they never did that, and we were thankful enough for the things
+that they did do. When Saturday came, I found with relief that they had
+still the parlour and one bedroom left to do. I had been afraid that by
+then these would be restored to the usual dry and dustless order.
+
+In the open window of the empty sitting-room I was sitting negligently
+that morning, when I saw Mr. Britt going by. He was as old as anyone I
+knew in the world--Mr. Britt must have been fifty. I never thought of
+him as _folks_ at all. There were the other neighbours, all dark-haired
+and quick and busy at the usual human errands; and then there was Mr.
+Britt, leaving his fruit trees and his rose bushes to go down to his
+office in the Court House. He had white hair, a long square white
+beard, and he carried a stick with a crook in the handle. I watched
+him pityingly. His life was all done, as tidy as a sewed seam, as
+sure as a learned lesson. All lived out, a piece at a time, just as
+I planned mine. How immeasurably long it had taken him; what a slow
+business it must have seemed to him; how very old he was!
+
+At our gate he stopped. Mr. Britt’s face was pink, and there were
+pleasant wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and when he talked, he
+seemed to think about you.
+
+“Moving?” he inquired.
+
+“House-cleaning,” I explained with importance.
+
+“Fine day of it,” he commented and went on. He always sighed a little
+when he spoke, not in sorrow; but in a certain weariness.
+
+_In forty-two years I should be as old as that._ Forty-two years--more
+than five life-times, as I knew them.
+
+I was still looking after him, trying to think it through--a number as
+vast as the sky of stars was vast--when round the corner, across the
+street, the Rodman girls appeared. (“Margaret and Betty Rodman?” my
+mother used to inquire pointedly when I said “the Rodman girls.”) In
+their wake was their little brother, Harold. I hailed them joyously.
+
+“Come on over! It’s house-cleaning.”
+
+“We were,” admitted Betty, as they ran. “We saw the things out in the
+yard, and we asked right off. We can stay a whole hour.”
+
+“Can’t we get Mary Gilbraith to tell us when it’s an hour?” Margaret
+Amelia suggested as they came in at the gate. “Then we won’t have to
+remember.”
+
+Mary Gilbraith stood beating a curtain, and we called to her. She
+nodded her head, wound in a brown veil.
+
+“Sure,” she said. “And don’t you children track up them clean floors
+inside there.”
+
+I glanced over my shoulder into the empty room.
+
+“Shall I get down,” I inquired of my guests, “or will you get up?”
+
+They would get up, and they did so. We three just fitted the sill, with
+Harold looking wistfully upward.
+
+“Go find a nice stick,” Margaret Amelia advised him maternally.
+
+“What’ll we play?” I was pursuing politely. “Pretend?” I intimated.
+Because of course there is nothing that is quite so much fun as
+pretend. “Or real?” I conceded the alternative its second place.
+
+“Pretend what?” Betty wanted to know.
+
+“Well, what difference does that make?” I inquired scornfully. “We can
+decide that after.”
+
+However, we duly weighed the respective merits of Lost-in-the-Woods,
+Cave-in-the Middle-of-the-World, and Invisible, a selection always
+involving ceremony.
+
+“Harold can’t play any of them,” Margaret Amelia remembered
+regretfully. “He don’t stay lost nor invisible--he wriggles. And Cave
+scares him.”
+
+We considered what to do with Harold, and at last mine was the
+inspiration--no doubt because I was on the home field. In a fence
+corner I had a play-house, roofed level with the fence top. From my
+sand-pile (sand boxes came later--mine was a corner of the garden
+sacred to me) we brought tin pails of earth which we emptied about the
+little boy, gradually covering his fat legs and nicely packing his
+plaid skirt. Then we got him a baking-powder can cover for a cutter and
+a handleless spoon, and we went away. He was infinitely content.
+
+“Makin’ a meat pie,” he confided, as we left him.
+
+Free, we were drawn irresistibly back to the out-of-doors furniture. We
+jumped in the middle of the mattresses lying in the grass, we hung the
+comforters and quilts in long overlapping rows on the clothes line and
+ran from one end to the other within that tent-like enclosure. Margaret
+Amelia arranged herself languidly on the Brussels couch that ordinarily
+stood in the upstairs hall piled with leather-bound reports, but now,
+scales falling from our eyes, we saw to be the bank of a stream whereon
+Maid Marian reclined; but while Betty and I were trying to decide which
+should be Robin Hood and which Alan-a-dale (alas, for our chivalry ...
+we were both holding out to be Robin) Maid Marian settled it by dancing
+down the stair carpet which made a hallway half across the lawn. We
+followed her. The terminus brought us back to the parlour window. We
+stepped on the coping and stared inside. This was our parlour! Yet
+it looked no more like the formal room which we seldom entered than
+a fairy looks like a mortal. Many and many a time an empty room is
+so much more a suggestive, haunted, beckoning place than ever it
+becomes after its furniture gets it into bondage. Rooms are often free,
+beautiful creatures before they are saddled and bridled with alien
+lives and with upholstery, and hitched for lumbering, permanent uses. I
+felt this vaguely even then.
+
+“It’s like the cloth in the store,” I observed, balancing on my stomach
+on the sill. “It’s heaps prettier before it’s made up into clothes.”
+
+“How funny,” said Margaret Amelia. “I like the trimming on, and the
+pretty buttons.”
+
+“Let’s play,” I said hurriedly; for I had seen in her eyes that look
+which always comes into eyes whose owners have just called an idea
+“funny.”
+
+“Very well. But,” said Betty, frankly, “I’m awful sick of playing
+Pretend. You always want to play that. We played that last time anyhow.
+Let’s play Store. Let’s play,” she said, with sudden zest, “Furniture
+Store, outdoors.”
+
+The whole lawn became the ground floor for our shop. Forthwith we
+arranged the aisles of chairs, stopping to sit in this one and that “to
+taste the difference.” To sit in the patent upholstered rocker, close
+to the flowering currant bush fragrant with spicy, yellow buds was like
+being somewhere else.
+
+“This looks like the pictures of greenhouses,” said Margaret Amelia,
+dragging a willow chair to the Bridal Wreath at the fork in the brick
+walk. She idled there for a moment.
+
+“Emily Broom says that when they moved she rode right through town on
+their velvet lounge on the dray,” she volunteered.
+
+We pictured it mutely. Something like that had been a dream of mine.
+Now and then, I had walked backward on the street to watch a furniture
+wagon delivering a new chair that rocked idle and unoccupied in the
+box. I always marvelled at the unimaginativeness of the driver which
+kept him on the wagon seat.
+
+“We’ve never moved,” I confessed regretfully.
+
+“We did,” said Betty, “but they piled everything up so good there
+wasn’t anything left to sit on. I rode with the driver--but his seat
+wasn’t very high,” she added, less in the interest of truth than with a
+lingering resentment.
+
+“Stitchy Branchett told me,” contributed Margaret Amelia, “once he set
+on the top step of the step ladder on one of their dray loads.”
+
+“I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly. “It’d tip and pitch him off.”
+
+“He _said_ he did,” Margaret Amelia held. “Betty heard him. Didn’t he,
+Betty? Who I don’t believe is Joe Richmond. He says he went to sleep on
+a mattress on the dray when they moved. He couldn’t of.”
+
+“Course he couldn’t of,” we all affirmed.
+
+“Delia says they’ve moved six times that she can remember of and she’s
+rode on every load,” I repeated.
+
+We all looked enviously across at Delia’s house. Then, moved by
+a common impulse, we scrambled back to make the most of our own
+advantages, such as they were.
+
+At last the ground floor of the furniture store was all arranged, and
+the two show windows set with the choicest pieces to face the street.
+And when we were ready to open the place to the general public, we sat
+on the edge of the well curb and surveyed our results.
+
+“Now let’s start,” said Margaret Amelia.
+
+At that instant--the precision with which these things happen is almost
+conscious--Mary Gilbraith briefly put her head out the kitchen window.
+
+“It’s just edgin’ on ’leven,” she announced. “You children keep your
+feet off them mattresses.”
+
+We stared at one another. This was incredible. Margaret Amelia and
+Betty had just come. We had hardly tasted what the morning might have
+held. Our place of business was only at this moment ready for us. We
+had just meant to begin.
+
+There was no appeal. We went down the garden path for Harold. He sat
+where we had left him, somewhat drowsy in the warm sun, patting an
+enormous mound of moist earth. Busy with our own wrongs, we picked him
+up and stood him on his feet without warning him. An indignant roar
+broke from him.
+
+“Just goin’ frost my meat pie!” he wailed. “Wiv chocolate on!”
+
+Some stirring of pity for our common plight may have animated us--I do
+not remember. But he was hurried off. I went with them to the fence,
+gave them last tag as became an hostess, stood on the gate as it swung
+shut, experienced the fine jar and bang of its closing, and then hung
+wistfully across it, looking for the unknown.
+
+The elm and maple shadows moved pleasantly on the cream-coloured brick
+walk whose depths of tone were more uneven than the shadows. An oriole
+was calling, hanging back downward from a little bough. Somebody’s dog
+came by, looked up at me, wagged his tail, and hurried on about his
+business. Looking after him, I saw Mr. Britt coming slowly home with
+his mail. At our gate he stopped.
+
+“Playing something?” he inquired.
+
+Welcoming any sympathy, I told him how we had just got ready to play
+when it was time to stop. He nodded with some unexpected understanding,
+closing his eyes briefly.
+
+“That’s it,” he said. “We all just get ready when it’s time to stop.
+Fine day of it,” he added, and sighed and went on.
+
+I stared after him. Could it be possible that his life had not seemed
+long to him? That he felt as if he had hardly begun? I dismissed this
+as utterly improbable. Fifty years!
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+NEXT DOOR
+
+
+The house next door had been vacant for two months when the New Family
+moved in. We had looked forward with excitement, not unmodified by
+unconscious aversion, to the arrival of the New Family.
+
+“Have they any girls?” we had inquired when the To Rent sign had come
+down.
+
+They had, it appeared, one girl. We saw her, with wavy hair worn “let
+down” in the morning, though we ourselves wore let-down hair only for
+occasions, pig-tails denoting mornings. She had on new soles--we saw
+them showing clean as she was setting her feet daintily; and when we,
+who were walking the fence between the two houses, crossed glances with
+her, we all looked instantly away, and though it was with regret that
+we saw her put into the ’bus next day to go, we afterward learned, to
+spend the Spring with her grandmother in a dry climate, we still felt
+a certain satisfaction that our social habits were not to be disquieted.
+
+Nothing at all had been suspected of a New Boy. Into that experience I
+came without warning.
+
+I was sitting on the flat roof of my play-house in the fence corner,
+laboriously writing on the weathered boards with a bit of a picket,
+which, as everybody knows, will make very clear brown letters, when the
+woodshed door of the house next door opened, and the New Boy came out.
+He came straight up to the fence and looked up at me, the sun shining
+in his eyes beneath the rimless plush cap which he was still wearing.
+He was younger than I, so I was not too afraid of him.
+
+“What you got?” he inquired.
+
+I showed him my writing material.
+
+“I wrote on a window with a diamond ring a’ready,” he submitted.
+
+I had heard of this, but I had never wholly credited it and I said
+so. Besides, it would wear the ring out and who wanted to wear out a
+diamond ring to write on a window?
+
+“It don’t wear it out,” the New Boy said. “It can keep right on writing
+forever and ever.”
+
+“Nothing can keep right on forever,” I contended.
+
+He cast about for an argument.
+
+“Trees does,” he produced it.
+
+I glanced up at them. They certainly seemed to bear him out. I decided
+to abandon the controversy, and I switched with some abruptness to
+a subject not unconnected with trees, and about which I had often
+wondered.
+
+“If you was dirt,” I observed, “how could you decide to be into a
+potato when you could be into an apple just as well?”
+
+The New Boy was plainly taken aback. Here he was, as I see now, doing
+his best to be friendly and to make conversation personal, to say
+nothing of his having condescended to parley with a girl at all, and I
+was rewarding him with an abstraction.
+
+Said he: “Huh?”
+
+“If you was dirt--” I began a little doubtfully, but still sticking to
+the text.
+
+“I ain’t dirt,” denied the New Boy, with some heat.
+
+“I says, if you _was_ dirt--” I tried to tell him, in haste and some
+discomfort.
+
+He climbed down from the fence on which he had been socially
+contriving to stick, though his was the “plain” side.
+
+“There ain’t any girl,” he observed with dignity, “going to call me
+dirt, nor call me if-I-was-dirt, either,” and stalked back into the
+woodshed.
+
+I looked after him in the utmost distress. I had been dealing in what I
+had considered the amenities, and it had come to this. Already the New
+Boy hated me.
+
+I slipped to the ground and waited, watching through the cracks in the
+fence. Ages passed. At length I heard him call his dog and go whistling
+down the street. I climbed on the fence and sat looking over in the
+deserted garden.
+
+Round the corner of the house next door somebody came. I saw a long,
+gray plaid shawl, with torn and flapping tassels, pinned about a small
+figure, with long legs. As she put her hand on the latch, she flashed
+me her smile, and it was Mary Elizabeth. She went immediately inside
+the shed door, and left me staring. What was she doing there? What
+unexpected places I was always seeing her. Why should she go in the
+woodshed of the New Family whom we didn’t even know ourselves?
+
+After due thought, I dropped to the other side of the fence, and
+proceeded to the woodshed door myself. It was unlatched, and as I
+peered in, I caught the sweet, moist smell of green wood, like the
+cool breath of the wood yard, where I had first seen her. When my
+eyes became used to the dimness, I perceived Mary Elizabeth standing
+at the end of a pile of wood, of the sort which we used to denominate
+“chunks,” which are what folk now call fireplace logs, though they are
+not properly fireplace logs at all--only “chunks” for sitting-room
+stoves--and trying to look meet to new estates. They were evenly piled,
+and they presented a wonderful presence, much more human than a wall.
+
+“See,” said Mary Elizabeth, absorbedly, “every end of one is pictures.
+Here’s a wheel with a wing on, and here’s a griffin eating a lemon.”
+
+I stared over her shoulder, fascinated. There they were. And there were
+grapes and a chandelier and a crooked street....
+
+Some moments later we were aware that the kitchen door had opened, and
+that somebody was standing there. It was the woman of the New Family,
+with a black veil wound round her head and the ends dangling. She shook
+a huge purple dust-cloth, and I do not seem to recall that there was
+anything else to her, save her face and veil and the cloth.
+
+“Now then!” she said briskly, and in a tone of dreadful warning. “_Now_
+then!”
+
+Mary Elizabeth turned in the utmost eagerness and contrition.
+
+“Oh,” she said, “I come to see about the work.”
+
+The New Family Woman towered at us from the top of the three steps.
+
+“How much work,” she inquired with majesty, “do you think I’d get out
+of you, young miss, at this rate?”
+
+Mary Elizabeth drew nearer to her and stood before her, down in the
+chips, in the absurd shawl.
+
+“If you’ll leave me come,” she said earnestly, “I’ll promise not to see
+pictures. Well,” she added conscientiously, “I’ll promise not to stop
+to look at ’em.”
+
+How much weight this would have carried, I do not know; but at that
+moment the woman chanced to touch with her foot a mouse-trap that
+stood on the top step, and it “sprung” and shed its cheese. In an
+instant Mary Elizabeth had deftly reset and restored it. This made an
+impression on the arbiter.
+
+“You’re kind of a handy little thing, I see,” she said. “And of course
+you’re _all_ lazy, for that matter. And I do need somebody. Well, I’ve
+got a woman coming for to-day. You can begin in the morning. Dishes,
+vegetables, and general cleaning, and anything else I think you can do.
+Board and clothes only, mind you--and _them_ only as long as you suit.”
+
+“Yes’m. No’m. Yes’m.” Mary Elizabeth tried to agree right and left.
+
+Outside I skipped in the sun.
+
+“We’re going to be next-yard neighbours,” I cried, and that reminded
+me of the New Boy. I told her about him as we went round by the gate,
+there being no cross piece for a foothold on that side the fence.
+
+“Oh,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I know him. He’s drove me home by my
+braids. He doesn’t mean anything.”
+
+“Well,” I said earnestly, “when you get a chance, you tell him that I
+wasn’t calling him dirt. I says if he _was_ dirt, how could he tell to
+be a potato or an apple.”
+
+Mary Elizabeth nodded. “Lots of boys pretend mad,” she said
+philosophically, “to get you to run after them.”
+
+This was new to me. Could it be possible that you had to imagine
+folks, and what they really meant, as well as tending to all the other
+imagining?
+
+“Can’t you stay over?” I extended hospitality to Mary Elizabeth.
+
+She could “stay over,” it seemed, and without asking. This freedom of
+hers used to fill me with longing. To “stay over” without asking, to go
+down town, to eat unexpected offerings of food, to climb a new tree,
+as Mary Elizabeth could do, and all without asking! It was almost like
+being boys.
+
+Now that Mary Elizabeth was to be a neighbour, a new footing was
+established. This I did not reason about, nor did I wonder why this
+footing might not be everybody’s footing. We merely set to work on the
+accepted basis.
+
+This comprised: Name, including middle name, if any, and for whom
+named; age, and birthday, and particulars about the recent or
+approaching birthday; brothers and sisters, together with their names,
+ages, and birthdays; birthstones; grade; did we comb our own hair;
+voluntary information concerning tastes in flowers, colours, and food;
+and finally an examination and trying on of each other’s rings. The
+stone had come out of Mary Elizabeth’s ring, and she had found a clear
+pink pebble to insert in its place. She had, she said, grated the
+pebble on a brick to make it fit and she herself thought that it looked
+better than the one that she had lost, “but,” she added modestly, “I
+s’pose it can’t be.”
+
+Then came the revelation. To finish comparing notes we sat down
+together in my swing. And partly because, when I made a new friend, I
+was nervously eager to give her the best I had and at once, and partly
+because I was always wanting to see if somebody _would_ understand,
+and chiefly because I never could learn wisdom, I looked up in the
+apple tree, now forsaken of all its pink, and fallen in a great green
+stillness, and I told her about my lady in the tree. I told her,
+expecting now no more than I had received from Delia and the Eversley
+girls. But Mary Elizabeth looked up and nodded.
+
+“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen lots of ’em. They’s a lady in the willow
+out in our alley. I see her when I empty the ashes and I pour ’em so’s
+they won’t blow on her.”
+
+I looked at her speechlessly. To this day I can remember how the little
+curls were caught up above Mary Elizabeth’s ear that morning. Struck by
+my silence she turned and regarded me. I think I must have blushed and
+stammered like a boy.
+
+“Can _you_ see them too?” I asked. “In trees and places?”
+
+“Why, yes,” she said in surprise. “Can’t everybody?”
+
+Suddenly I was filled with a great sense of protection for Mary
+Elizabeth. I felt incalculably older. She had not yet found out, and I
+must never let her know, that everybody does not see all that there is
+to be seen in the world!
+
+One at a time I brought out my treasures that morning and shared them
+with her, as treasures; and she brought out hers as matters of course.
+I remember that I told her about the Theys that lived in our house.
+They were very friendly and wistful. They never presumed or frightened
+one or came in the room when anyone was there. But the minute folk
+left the room--ah, then! They slipped out from everywhere and did
+their living. I was always trying to catch them. I would leave a room
+innocently, and then whirl and fling it open in the hope of surprising
+them. But always They were too quick for me. In the times when the
+family was in the rooms and They were waiting for us to go, They used
+to watch us, still friendly and wistful, but also a little critical.
+Sometimes a whole task, or a mood, could be got through pleasantly
+because They were looking on.
+
+[Illustration: “BUT THE MINUTE FOLK LEFT THE ROOM--AH THEN!”]
+
+Mary Elizabeth nodded. “They like our parlour best,” she said. “They
+ain’t any furniture in there. They don’t come much in the kitchen.”
+
+It was the same at our house. They were always lurking in the curtained
+parlour, but the cheery, busy kitchen seldom knew them--except when one
+went out for a drink of water late at night. Then They barely escaped
+one.
+
+How she understood! Delia I loved with all the loyalties, but I could
+not help remembering a brief conversation that I had once held with her.
+
+“Do you have Theys at your house?” I had asked her, at the beginning of
+our acquaintance.
+
+“Yes,” she admitted readily. “Company all this week. From Oregon. They
+do their hairs on kids.”
+
+“I don’t mean them,” I explained. “I mean Theys, that live in between
+your rooms.”
+
+“We don’t let mice get in _our_ house,” she replied loftily. “Only
+sometimes one gets in the woodshed. Do you use Choke-’em traps, or
+Catch-’em-alive traps and have the cat there?”
+
+“Catch-them-alive-and-let-them-out-in-the-alley traps,” I told her, and
+gave up hope, I remember, and went on grating more sugar-stone for the
+mud-pie icing.
+
+Mary Elizabeth and I made mud pies that morning too, but all the time
+we made them we pretended. Not House-keep, or Store, or Bakery, or
+Church-sale--none of these pale pretendings to which I had chiefly
+been bound, save when I played alone. But now every pie and cake
+that we finished we two carried carefully and laid here and there,
+under raspberry bushes, in the crotch of the apple tree, on the
+wood-chopper’s block.
+
+“For Them to get afterwards,” we said briefly. We did not explain--I
+do not think that we could have explained. And we knew nothing of the
+old nights in the motherland when from cottage supper tables scraps of
+food were flung through open doors for One Waiting Without. But this
+business made an even more excellent thing of mud-pie baking, always a
+delectable pastime.
+
+When the noon whistle was blowing up at the brick yard, a shadow
+darkened our pine board. It was the New Boy. One of his cheeks
+protruded extravagantly. Silently he held out to me a vast pink
+substance of rock-like hardness, impaled on a stick. Then, with an
+obvious effort, more spiritual than physical, he extracted from his
+pocket a third of the kind, for Mary Elizabeth, on whose presence he
+had not counted. We accepted gratefully, I in the full spirit of the
+offer. Three minutes later he and I were at our respective dinner
+tables, trying, I suppose, to discuss this surreptitious first course
+simultaneously with our soup; and Mary Elizabeth, on her way home, was
+blissfully partaking of her _hors d’œuvre_, unviolated by any soup.
+
+“What are the new children like, I wonder?” said Somebody Grown. “I see
+there are two. I don’t know a thing about the people, but we can’t
+call till the woman at least gets her curtains up.”
+
+I pondered this. “Why?” I ventured at last.
+
+“Because she wouldn’t want to see us,” was the reply.
+
+Were curtains, then, so important that one might neither call nor be
+called on without them? What other possible explanation could there be?
+Perhaps Mary Elizabeth’s mother had no curtains and that was why our
+mothers did not know her.
+
+“Mary Elizabeth is going to help do the work for the New Family, and
+live there,” I said at last. “Won’t it be nice to have her to play
+with?”
+
+“You must be very kind to her,” somebody said.
+
+“_Kind to her!_” It was my first horrified look into the depths of the
+social condescensions. _Kind to her_--when I remembered what we shared!
+I thought of saying hotly that she was my best friend. But I was
+silent. There was, after all, no way to make anybody understand what
+had opened to me that morning.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+WHAT’S PROPER
+
+
+Delia and Calista and Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman I loved with
+devotion. And Mary Elizabeth I likewise loved with devotion. Therefore,
+the fact that my four friends would not, in the language of the
+wise and grown world, “receive” Mary Elizabeth was to me bitter and
+unbelievable.
+
+This astounding situation, more than intimated on the day of the
+picnic, had its confirmation a few days after the advent of Mary
+Elizabeth in the New Family, when the six of us were seated on the
+edge of the board walk before our house. It was the middle of a June
+afternoon, a joyous, girlish day, with sun and wind in that feminine
+mood which is the frequent inheritance of all created things.
+
+“I could ’most spread this day on my bread like honey, and eat it
+up, and not know the difference,” said Mary Elizabeth, idly. “The
+queen’s honey--the queen’s honey--the queen’s honey,” she repeated
+luxuriously, looking up into the leaves.
+
+Delia leaned forward. It particularly annoyed her to have Mary
+Elizabeth in this mood.
+
+“One, two, three, four, five of us,” Delia said, deliberately omitting
+Mary Elizabeth as, for no reason, she counted us.
+
+Mary Elizabeth, released from tasks for an hour or two before time to
+“help with the supper,” gave no sign that she understood, save that
+delicate flush of hers which I knew.
+
+“Yes,” she assented lazily, “one, two, three, four, five of us--” and
+she so contrived that five was her own number, and no one could tell
+whom of us she had omitted.
+
+“Let’s play something,” I hurriedly intervened. “Let’s play Banquet.”
+
+Action might have proved the solvent, but I had made an ill-starred
+choice. For having selected the rectangle of lawn where the feast was
+to be spread, Mary Elizabeth promptly announced that she had never
+heard of a banquet for five people, and that we must have more.
+
+“We’ve got six,” corrected Delia, unwarily.
+
+“Five,” Mary Elizabeth persisted tranquilly, “and it’s not enough. We
+ought to have thirty.”
+
+“Where you going to get your thirty?” demanded the exasperated Delia.
+
+“Why,” said Mary Elizabeth, “_that’s_ always easy!” And told us.
+
+The king would sit at the head, with his prime minister and a
+lord or two. At the foot would be the queen with her principal
+ladies-in-waiting (at _this_ end, so as to leave room for their
+trains). In between would be the fool, the discoverer of the new land,
+the people from the other planets, us, and the animals.
+
+“‘The animals!’” burst out Delia. “Whoever heard of animals at the
+table?”
+
+Oh, but it was the animals that the banquet was for. They were talking
+animals, and everyone was scrambling to entertain them, and every place
+in which they ate they changed their shapes and their skins.
+
+“I never heard of such a game,” said Delia, outright, already
+sufficiently grown-up to regard this as a reason.
+
+“Let’s not play it,” said Margaret Amelia Rodman, languidly, and,
+though Delia had the most emphasis among us, Margaret Amelia was our
+leader, and we abandoned the game. I cannot recall why Margaret Amelia
+was our leader, unless it was because she had so many hair-ribbons and,
+when we had pin fairs, always came with a whole paper, whereas the rest
+of us merely had some collected in a box, or else rows torn off. But I
+suppose that we must have selected her for some potentiality; or else
+it was that a talent for tyranny was hers, since this, like the habit
+of creeping on all fours and other survivals of prehistoric man, will
+often mark one of the early stages of individual growth.
+
+This time Calista was peace-maker.
+
+“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “We can do that before supper.”
+
+“You’ll have to be back in time to help _get_ supper, won’t you?” Delia
+asked Mary Elizabeth pointedly.
+
+Again Mary Elizabeth was unperturbed, save for that faint flush.
+
+“Yes,” she said, “I will. So let’s hurry.”
+
+We ran toward the school ground, by common consent the destination for
+short walks, with supper imminent, as Prospect Hill was dedicated to
+real walks, with nothing pressing upon us.
+
+“It says ‘Quick, quick, quick, quick,’” Mary Elizabeth cried, dragging
+a stick on the pickets of, so to say, a passing fence.
+
+“Why, that’s nothing but the stick noise hitting on the fence noise,”
+Delia explained loftily.
+
+“Which makes the loudest noise--the stick or the fence?” Mary Elizabeth
+put it to her.
+
+“Why--” said Delia, and Mary Elizabeth and I both laughed, like little
+demons, and made our sticks say, “Quick, quick, quick, quick” as far as
+the big post, that was so like a man standing there to stop us.
+
+“See the poor tree. The walk’s stepping on its feet!” cried Mary
+Elizabeth when we passed the Branchett’s great oak, that had forced
+up the bricks of the walk. (They must already have been talking of
+taking it down, that hundred-year oak, to preserve the dignity of the
+side-walk, for they did so shortly after.)
+
+This time it was Margaret Amelia who revolted.
+
+“Trees can’t walk,” she said. “There aren’t any _feet_ there.”
+
+I took a hand. “You don’t know sure,” I reminded her. “When it’s dark,
+maybe they do walk. I’ll ask it.”
+
+By the time I had done whispering to the bark, Delia said she was going
+to tell her mother. “Such _lies_,” she put it bluntly. “You’ll never
+write a book, I don’t care what you say. You got to tell the truth to
+write books.”
+
+“Everybody that tells the truth don’t write a book,” I contended--but
+sobered. I wanted passionately to write a book. What if this business
+of pretending, which Delia called lies should be in the way of truthful
+book-writing? But the habit was too strong for me. In that very moment
+we came upon a huge new ant-hill.
+
+“Don’t step on that ant-hill. See all the ants--they say to step over
+it!” I cried, and pushed Delia round it with some violence.
+
+“Well--what makes you always so--_religious_!” she burst out, at the
+end of her patience.
+
+I was still hotly denying this implication when we entered the school
+yard, and broke into running; for no reason, save that entrances and
+beginnings always made us want to run and shout.
+
+The school yard, quite an ordinary place during school hours, became
+at the end of school a place no longer to be shunned, but wholly
+desirable. Next to the wood yard, it was the most mysterious place
+that we knew. In the school yard were great cords of wood, suitable
+for hiding; a basement door, occasionally left open, from which at any
+moment the janitor might appear to drive us away; a band-stand, covered
+with names and lacking enough boards so that one might climb up without
+use of the steps; a high-board fence on which one always longed to
+walk at recess; a high platform from which one had unavailingly pined
+to jump; outside banisters down which, in school-time, no one might
+slide, trees which no one might climb, corner brick-work affording
+excellent steps, which, then, none might scale; broad outside window
+ledges on which none might sit, loose bricks in the walks ripe for
+the prying-up, but penalty attended; a pump on whose iron handle the
+lightest of us might ride save that, in school-time, this was forbidden
+too. In school-time this yard, so rich in possibilities, was compact
+of restrictions. None of these things might be done. Once a boy had
+been expelled for climbing on the schoolhouse roof; and thereupon his
+father, a painter by trade, had taken the boy to work with him, and
+when we saw him in overalls wheeling his father’s cart, we were told
+that _that_ was what came of disobedience, although this boy might,
+easily no doubt, otherwise have become President of the United States.
+
+But after school! Toward supper-time, or in vacation-time, we used to
+love to linger about the yard and snatch at these forbidden pleasures.
+That is, the girls loved it. The boys had long ago had them all, and
+were off across the tracks on new adventures unguessed of us.
+
+If anybody found us here--we were promptly driven off. The principal
+did this as a matter of course, but the janitor had the same power
+and much more emphasis. If one of the board was seen passing, we hid
+behind everything and, as we were never clear just who belonged to the
+board, we hid when nearly all grown-folk passed. That the building and
+grounds were ours, paid for by our father’s taxes, and that the school
+officials and even the tyrannical janitor were town servants to help us
+to make good use of our own, no more occurred to us than it occurred
+to us to find a ring in the ground, lift it, and descend steps. Nor
+as much, for we were always looking for a ring to lift. To be sure,
+we might easily fall into serious mischief in this stolen use of our
+property; but that it was the function of one of these grown-ups, whom
+we were forever dodging, to be there with us, paid by the town to play
+with us, was as wild an expectation as that fairies should arrive with
+golden hoops and balls and wings. Wilder, for we were always expecting
+the fairies and, secretly, the wings.
+
+That afternoon we did almost all these forbidden things--swings and
+seesaws and rings would have done exactly as well, only these had
+not been provided--and then we went to rest in the band-stand. Mary
+Elizabeth and I were feeling somewhat subdued--neither of us shone much
+in feats of skill, and here Delia and Margaret Amelia easily put us in
+our proper places. Calista was not daring, but she was a swift runner,
+and this entitled her to respect. Mary Elizabeth and I were usually
+the first ones caught, and the others were not above explaining to us
+frankly that this was why we preferred to play Pretend.
+
+“Let’s tell a story--you start it, Mary Elizabeth,” I proposed, anxious
+for us two to return to standing, for in collaborations of this kind
+Mary Elizabeth and I frankly shone--and the wish to shine, like the
+wish to cry out, is among the primitive phases of individual growth.
+
+“Let Margaret Amelia start it,” Delia tried to say, but already the
+story was started, Mary Elizabeth leaning far back, and beginning to
+braid and unbraid her long hair--not right away to the top of the
+braid, which was a serious matter and not to be lightly attempted with
+heavy hair, but just near the curling end.
+
+“Once,” she said, “a big gold sun was going along up in the sky,
+wondering what in the world--no, what in All-of-it to do with himself.
+For he was all made and done, nice and bright and shiny, and he wanted
+a place to be. So he knocked at all the worlds and said, ‘Don’t you
+want to hire a sun to do your urrants, take care of your garden, and
+behave like a fire and like a lamp?’ But all the worlds didn’t want
+him, because they all had engaged a sun first and they could only
+use one apiece, account of the climate. So one morning--he _knew_ it
+was morning because he was shining, and when it was night he never
+shone--one morning....”
+
+“Now leave somebody else,” Delia suggested restlessly. “Leave Margaret
+Amelia tell.”
+
+So we turned to her. Margaret Amelia considered solemnly--perhaps it
+was her faculty for gravity that made us always look up to her--and
+took up the tale:
+
+“One morning he met a witch. And he said, ‘Witch, I wish you
+would--would give me something to eat. I’m very hungry.’ So the witch
+took him to her kitchen and gave him a bowl of porridge, and it was hot
+and burned his mouth, and he asked for a drink of water, and--and--”
+
+“What was the use of having her a witch if _that_ was all he was going
+to ask her?” demanded Mary Elizabeth.
+
+“They _always_ have witches in the best stories,” Margaret Amelia
+contended, “and anyway, that’s all I’m going to tell.”
+
+Delia took up the tale uninvited.
+
+“And he got his drink of water, pumped up polite by the witch herself,
+and she was going to put a portion in it. But while she was looking in
+the top drawer for the portion, the sun went away. And--”
+
+This time it was I who intervened.
+
+“‘Portion!’” I said with superiority. “Who ever heard of anybody
+drinking a _portion_? That word is _potient_.”
+
+Delia was plainly taken aback.
+
+“You’re thinking of long division,” she said feebly.
+
+“I’m thinking of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” I responded with dignity. “They
+had one, in the tomb, where Tybalt, all bloody--”
+
+“Don’t say that one--don’t say it!” cried Margaret Amelia. “I can see
+that one awful after the light is out. Go on, somebody, quick.”
+
+To take up her share of the story, Betty Rodman refused, point-blank. I
+think that her admission to our group must have been principally on the
+credentials of sistership to one of us, a basis at once pathetic and
+lovely.
+
+“I never can think of anything to have happen,” Betty complained, “and
+if I make something happen, then it ends up the story.”
+
+Calista had a nail in her shoe, and was too much absorbed in pounding
+it down with a stone to be approached; so, when we had all minutely
+examined the damage which the nail had wrought, it was my turn to take
+up the tale. And then the thing happened which was always happening
+to me: I could think of nothing to have the story do. At night, and
+when I was alone, I could dream out the most fascinating adventures,
+but with expectant faces--or a clean pad--before me, I was dumb and
+powerless.
+
+“I don’t feel like telling one just now,” said I, the proposer of the
+game, and went on digging leaves out of a crevice in the rotting rail.
+So Mary Elizabeth serenely took up the tale where she had left it.
+
+“One morning he looked over a high sky mountain--that’s what suns like
+to do best because it is so becoming--and he shone in a room of the sky
+where a little black star was sleeping. And he thought he would ask it
+what to do. So he said to it, ‘Little Black Star, where shall I be, now
+that I am all done and finished, nice and shiny?’ And the Little Black
+Star said: ‘You’re not done. What made you think you were done? Hardly
+anybody is ever done. I’ll tell you what to be. Be like a carriage
+and take all us little dark stars in, and whirl and whirl for about a
+million years, and make us all get bright too, and _then_ maybe you’ll
+be a true sun--but not all done, even then.’ So that’s what he decided
+to do, and he’s up there now, only you can’t see him, because he’s so
+far, and our sun is so bright, and he’s whirling and whirling, and lots
+more like him, getting to be made.”
+
+Delia followed Mary Elizabeth’s look into the blue.
+
+“I don’t believe it,” said she. “The sun is biggest and the moon is
+next. How could there be any other sun? And it don’t whirl. It don’t
+even rise and set. It stands still. Miss Messmore said so.”
+
+We looked at Mary Elizabeth, probably I alone having any impulse to
+defend her. And we became aware that she was quite white and trembling.
+In the same moment we understood that we were hearing something which
+we had been hearing without knowing that we heard. It was a thin,
+wavering strain of singing, in a man’s voice. We scrambled up, and
+looked over the edge of the band-stand. Coming unevenly down the broken
+brick walk that cut the schoolhouse grounds was Mary Elizabeth’s
+father. His hat was gone. It was he who was singing. He looked as he
+had looked that first day that I had seen him in the wood yard. We knew
+what was the matter. And all of us unconsciously did the cruel thing of
+turning and staring at Mary Elizabeth.
+
+In a moment she was over the side of the band-stand and running to
+him. She took him by the hand, and we saw that she meant to lead him
+home. Her little figure looked very tiny beside his gaunt frame, in its
+loosely hanging coat. I remember how the sun was pouring over them, and
+over the brilliant green beyond where blackbirds were walking. I have
+no knowledge of what made me do it--perhaps it was merely an attitude,
+created by the afternoon, of standing up for Mary Elizabeth no matter
+what befell; or it may have been a child’s crude will to challenge
+things; at any rate, without myself really deciding it, I suddenly took
+the way that she had taken, and caught up with the two.
+
+“Mary Elizabeth,” I meant to say, “I’m going.”
+
+But in fact I said nothing, and only kept along beside her. She looked
+at me mutely, and made a motion to me to turn back. When her father
+took our hands and stumblingly ran with us, I heartily wished that I
+had turned back. But nearly all the way he went peaceably enough. Long
+before we reached their home across the tracks, however, I heard the
+six o’clock whistles blow, and pictured the wrath of the mistress of
+the New Family when Mary Elizabeth had not returned in time to “help
+with the supper.” Very likely now they would not let her stay, and this
+new companionship of ours would have to end. Mary Elizabeth’s home
+was on the extreme edge of the town, and ordinarily I was not allowed
+to cross the tracks. Mary Elizabeth might even move away--that had
+happened to some of us, and the night had descended upon such as these
+and we had never heard of them again: Hattie Schenck, whom I had loved
+with unequalled devotion, where, for example, was she? Was it, then, to
+be the same with Mary Elizabeth?
+
+Her mother saw us coming. She hurried down to the gateway--the gate
+was detached and lying in the weeds within--and even then I was
+struck by the way of maternity with which she led her husband to the
+house. I remember her as large-featured, with the two bones of her
+arms sharply defined by a hollow running from wrist to elbow, and she
+constantly held her face as if the sun were shining in her eyes, but
+there was no sun shining there. And somehow, at the gate she had a
+way of receiving him, and of taking him with her. Hardly anything
+was said. The worst of it was that no one had to explain anything.
+Two of the little children ran away and hid. Someone dodged behind an
+open door. The man’s wife led him to the broken couch, and he lay down
+there like a little child. Standing in the doorway of that forlorn,
+disordered, ill-smelling room, I first dimly understood what I never
+have forgotten: That the man was not poor because he drank, as the
+village thought, but that he drank because he was poor. Instead of the
+horror at a drunken man which the village had laid it upon me to feel,
+I suddenly saw Mary Elizabeth’s father as her mother saw him when she
+folded her gingham apron and spread it across his shoulders and said:
+
+“Poor lad.”
+
+And when, in a few minutes, Mary Elizabeth and I were out on the street
+again, running silently, I remember feeling a great blind rage against
+the whole village and against the whole world that couldn’t seem to
+think what to do any more than Mary Elizabeth and I could think.
+
+The man of the New Family was watering the lawn, which meant that
+supper was done. We slipped in our back gate,--the New Family had
+none,--climbed the fence by my play-house, dropped down into the New
+Family’s garden, and entered their woodshed. In my own mind I had
+settled that I was of small account if I could not give the New Lady
+such a picture of what had happened that Mary Elizabeth should not lose
+her place, and I should not lose her.
+
+The kitchen door was ajar. The dish-pan was in the sink, the kettle was
+steaming on the stove. And from out the dining-room abruptly appeared
+Calista and _Delia_, bearing plates.
+
+“Girls!” I cried, but Mary Elizabeth was dumb.
+
+Delia carefully set down her plate in the dish-pan and addressed me:
+
+“Well, you needn’t think you’re the only one that knows what’s proper,
+miss,” she said.
+
+Calista was more simple.
+
+“We wanted to get ’em all done before you got back,” she owned. “We
+would, if Margaret Amelia and Betty had of come. They wanted to, but
+they wouldn’t let ’em.”
+
+Back of Delia and Calista appeared the mistress of the house. She had
+on her afternoon dress, and her curl papers were out, and she actually
+smiled at Mary Elizabeth and me.
+
+“_Now_ then!” she said to us.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+If I could have made a dream for that night, I think it would have been
+that ever and ever so many of us were sitting in rows, waiting to be
+counted. And a big sun came by, whirling and growing, to take us, and
+we thought we couldn’t all get in. But there was room, whether we had
+been counted or not.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+DOLLS
+
+
+The advent of the New Boy changed the face of the neighbourhood.
+Formerly I had been accustomed to peep through cracks in the fence
+only to look into a field of corn that grew at the side; or, on the
+other side, into raspberry bushes, where at any moment raspberries
+might be gathered and dropped over the fence to me. Also, there was
+one place in the deep green before those bushes where blue-eyed grass
+grew, and I had to watch for that. Then there was a great spotted dog
+that sometimes came, and when he had passed, I used to wait long by the
+high boards lest he should return and leap at me to whom, so far, he
+had never paid the slightest attention. As a child, my mother had once
+jumped down into a manger where a great spotted dog was inadvertently
+lying and, though from all accounts he was far more frightened than
+she, yet I feared his kind more than any other.... The only real
+excitement that we had been wont to know in the neighbourhood occurred
+whenever there was a Loose Horse. Somebody would give the alarm, and
+then we would all make sure that the gates were latched and we would
+retire to watch him fearfully, where he was quietly cropping the
+roadside grass. But sometimes, too, a Loose Horse would run--and then I
+was terrified by the sound of his hoofs galloping on the sidewalk and
+striking on the bricks and boards. I was always afraid that a Loose
+Horse would see me, and nights, after one had disturbed our peace, I
+would dream that he was trying to find me, and that he had come peering
+between the dining-room blinds; and though I hid under the red cotton
+spread that was used “between-meals,” it never came down far enough,
+and he always stood there interminably waiting, and found me, through
+the fringe.
+
+But all these excitements were become as nothing. A new occupation
+presented itself. A dozen times a day now I had to watch through the
+fence-cracks, or through the knot-hole, or boldly between the pickets
+of the front fence, at the fascinating performances of the New Boy
+and his troops of friends. At any moment both Mary Elizabeth and I
+would abandon what we were doing to go to stare at the unaccountable
+activities which were forever agitating them. They were always
+producing something from their pockets and examining it, with their
+heads together, or manufacturing something or burying something, or
+disputing about something unguessed and alluring. Their whole world
+was filled with doing, doing, doing, whereas ours was made wholly of
+watching things get done.
+
+On an afternoon Mary Elizabeth and I were playing together in our side
+yard. It was the day for Delia’s music lesson, and as she usually did
+her whole week’s practising in the time immediately preceding that
+event, the entire half day was virtually wasted. We could hear her
+going drearily over and over the first and last movements of “At Home,”
+which she had memorized and could play like lightning, while the entire
+middle of the piece went with infinite deliberation. Calista was, we
+understood (because of some matter pertaining to having filled the
+bath-tub and waded in it and ruined the dining-room ceiling), spending
+the day in her bed. And Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman were being
+kept at home because the family had company; and such was the prestige
+of the Rodmans that the two contrived to make this circumstance seem
+enviable, and the day before had pictured to us their embroidered white
+dresses and blue ribbons, and blue stockings, and the Charlotte Russe
+for supper, until we felt left out, and not in the least as if their
+company were of a kind with events of the sort familiar to us. Since I
+have grown up, I have observed this variety of genius in others. There
+is one family which, when it appears in afternoon gowns on occasions
+when I have worn a street dress, has power to make me wonder how I
+can have failed to do honour to the day; but who, when they wear
+street gowns and I am dressed for afternoon, invariably cause me to
+feel inexcusably overdressed. It is a kind of genius for the fit, and
+we must believe that it actually designates the atmosphere which an
+occasion shall breathe.
+
+Mary Elizabeth and I were playing Dolls. We rarely did this on a
+pleasant day in Summer, Dolls being an indoor game, matched with
+carpets and furniture and sewing baskets rather than with blue sky and
+with the soft brilliance of the grass. But that day we had brought
+everything out in the side yard under the little catalpa tree, and my
+eleven dolls (counting the one without any face, and Irene Helena, the
+home-made one, and the two penny ones) were in a circle on chairs and
+boxes and their backs, getting dressed for the tea-party. There was
+always going to be a tea-party when you played Dolls--you of course had
+to lead up to something, and what else was there to lead up to save
+a tea-party? To be sure, there might be an occasional marriage, but
+boy-dolls were never very practical; they were invariably smaller than
+the bride-doll, and besides we had no mosquito-netting suitable for a
+veil. Sometimes we had them go for a walk, and once or twice we had
+tried playing that they were house-cleaning; but these operations were
+not desirable, because in neither of them could the dolls dress up, and
+the desirable part of playing dolls is, as everybody knows, to dress
+them in their best. That is the game. That, and the tea-party.
+
+“Blue or rose-pink?” Mary Elizabeth inquired, indicating the two best
+gowns of the doll she was dressing.
+
+It was a difficult question. We had never been able to decide which
+of these two colours we preferred. There was the sky for precedent of
+blue, but then rose-pink we loved so to say!
+
+[Illustration: SHE SETTLED EVERYTHING IN THAT WAY; SHE COUNTED THE
+PETALS OF FENNEL DAISIES AND BLEW THISTLE FROM DANDELIONS.]
+
+“If they’s one cloud in the sky, we’ll put on the rose-pink one,” said
+Mary Elizabeth. “And if there isn’t any, that’ll mean blue.”
+
+She settled everything that way--she counted the petals of fennel
+daisies, blew the thistle from dandelions, did one thing if she could
+find twelve acorns and another if they were lacking. Even then Mary
+Elizabeth seemed always to be watching for a guiding hand, to be
+listening for a voice to tell her what to do, and trying to find these
+in things of Nature.
+
+We dressed the Eleven in their best frocks, weighing each choice long,
+and seated them about a table made of a box covered with a towel. We
+sliced a doughnut and with it filled two small baskets for each end of
+the table, on which rested my toy castor and such of my dishes as had
+survived the necessity which I had felt for going to bed with the full
+set, on the night of the day, some years before, when I had acquired
+them. We picked all the flowers suitable for doll decorations--clover,
+sorrel, candytuft, sweet alyssum. We observed the unities by retiring
+for a time sufficient to occupy the tea-party in disposing of the
+feast; and then we came back and sat down and stared at them. Irene
+Helena, I remember, had slipped under the table in a heap, a proceeding
+which always irritated me, as nakedly uncovering the real depths of
+our pretence--and I jerked her up and set her down, like some maternal
+Nemesis.
+
+In that moment a wild, I may almost say _thick_, shriek sounded through
+our block, and there came that stimulating thud-thud of feet on earth
+that accompanies all the best diversions, and also there came the
+cracking of things,--whips, or pistols, or even a punch, which rapidly
+operated will do almost as well. And down the yards of the block and
+over the fences and over the roof of my play-house came tumbling and
+shrieking the New Boy, and in his wake were ten of his kind.
+
+Usually they raced by with a look in their eyes which we knew well,
+though we never could distinguish whether it meant robbers or pirates
+or dragons or the enemy. Usually they did not even see us. But that
+day something in our elaborate preparation to receive somebody or to
+welcome something, and our eternal moment of suspended animation at
+which they found us, must have caught the fancy of the New Boy.
+
+“Halt!” he roared with the force and effect of a steam whistle, and in
+a moment they were all stamping and breathing about Mary Elizabeth and
+me.
+
+We sprang up in instant alarm and the vague, pathetic, immemorial
+impulse to defence. We need not have feared. The game was still going
+forward and we were merely pawns.
+
+“Who is the lord of this castle?” demanded the New Boy.
+
+“Bindyliggs,” replied Mary Elizabeth, without a moment’s hesitation, a
+name which I believe neither of us to have heard before.
+
+“Where is this Lord of Bindyliggs?” the New Boy pressed it.
+
+Mary Elizabeth indicated the woodshed. “At meat,” she added gravely.
+
+“Forward!” the New Boy instantly commanded, and the whole troop
+disappeared in our shed. We heard wood fall, and the clash of meeting
+weapons, and the troop reappeared, two by way of the low window.
+
+“Enough!” cried the New Boy, grandly. “We have spared him, but there is
+not a moment to lose. You must come with us _immediately_. What you
+got to eat?”
+
+Raptly, we gave them, from under the wistful noses of Irene Helena and
+the doll without the face and the rest, the entire sliced doughnut, and
+two more doughnuts, dipped in sugar, which we had been saving so as to
+have something to look forward to.
+
+“Come with us,” said the New Boy, graciously. “To horse! We may reach
+the settlement by nightfall--_if_ we escape the Brigands in the Wood.
+The Black Wood,” he added.
+
+Even then, I recall, I was smitten with wonder that he who had shown
+so little imagination in that matter of dirt and apples and potatoes
+should here be teeming with fancy on his own familiar ground. It was
+years before I understood that there are almost as many varieties of
+imaginative as of religious experience.
+
+Fascinated, we dropped everything and followed. The way led, it
+appeared, to the Wells’s barn, a huge, red barn in the block, with
+doors always invitingly open and chickens pecking about, and doves on a
+little platform close to the pointed roof.
+
+“Aw, say, you ain’t goin’ to take ’em along, are you?” demanded one
+knight, below his voice. “They’ll spoil everythin’.”
+
+“You’re _rescuin’_ ’em, you geezer,” the New Boy explained. “You got to
+have ’em along till you get ’em rescued, ain’t you? Arrest that man!”
+he added. “Put him in double irons with chains and balls on. And gag
+him, to make sure.”
+
+And it was done, with hardly a moment’s loss of time.
+
+We went round by the walk--a course to which the arrested one had time
+to refer in further support of his claim as to our undesirability.
+But he was drowned in the important topics that were afoot: the new
+cave to be explored where the Branchetts were putting a cellar under
+the dining-room, mysterious boxes suspected to contain dynamite being
+unloaded into the Wells’s cellar, and the Court of the Seven Kings, to
+which, it seemed, we were being conveyed in the red barn.
+
+“Shall we give ’em the password?” the New Boy asked, _sotto voce_, as
+we approached the rendezvous. And Mary Elizabeth and I trembled as we
+realized that he was thinking of sharing the password with us.
+
+“_Naw!_” cried the Arrested One violently. “It’ll be all over town.”
+
+The New Boy drew himself up--he must have been good to look at, for I
+recall his compact little figure and his pink cheeks.
+
+“Can’t you tell when you’re gagged?” he inquired with majesty. “You’re
+playin’ like a girl yourself. I can give the password for ’em, though,”
+he added reasonably. So we all filed in the red barn, to the Court of
+the Seven Kings, and each boy whispered the password into the first
+manger, but Mary Elizabeth and I had it whispered for us.
+
+What the Court of the Seven Kings might have held for us we were never
+to know. At that instant there appeared lumbering down the alley a load
+of hay. Seated in the midst was a small figure whom we recognized as
+Stitchy Branchett; and he rose and uttered a roar.
+
+“Come on, fellows!” he said. “We dast ride over to the Glen. I was
+lookin’ for you. Father said so.” And Stitchy threw himself on his
+back, and lifted and waved his heels.
+
+Already our liberators were swarming up the hay-rack, which had halted
+for them. In a twinkling they were sunk in that fragrance, kicking
+their heels even as their host. Already they had forgotten Mary
+Elizabeth and me, nor did they give us good-bye.
+
+We two turned and went through the Wells’s yard, back to the street.
+Almost at once we were again within range of the sounds of Delia,
+practising interminably on her “At Home.”
+
+“I never rode on a load of hay,” said Mary Elizabeth at length.
+
+Neither had I, though I almost always walked backward to watch one when
+it passed me.
+
+“What do you _s’pose_ the password was?” said Mary Elizabeth.
+
+It was days before we gave over wondering. And sometimes in later years
+I have caught myself speculating on that lost word.
+
+“I wonder what we were rescued from,” said Mary Elizabeth when we
+passed our woodshed door.
+
+We stopped and peered within. No Lord of Bindyliggs, though we had
+almost expected to see him stretched there, bound and helpless.
+
+What were we rescued from? _We should never know._
+
+We rounded the corner by the side yard. There sat our staring dolls,
+drawn up about the tea-table, static all. As I looked at them I was
+seized and possessed by an unreasoning fury. And I laid hold on Irene
+Helena, and had her by the heels, and with all my strength I pounded
+her head against the trunk of the catalpa tree.
+
+Mary Elizabeth understood--when did she not understand?
+
+“Which one can I--which one can I?” she cried excitedly.
+
+“All of ’em!” I shouted, and one after another we picked up the Eleven
+by their skirts, and we threw them far and wide in the grass, and the
+penny dolls we hurled into the potato patch.
+
+Then Mary Elizabeth looked at me aghast.
+
+“Your dolls!” she said.
+
+“I don’t care!” I cried savagely. “I’ll never play ’em again. I hate
+’em!” And I turned to Mary Elizabeth with new eyes. “Let’s go down town
+after supper,” I whispered.
+
+“I could,” she said, “but you won’t be let.”
+
+“I won’t ask,” I said. “I’ll go. When you get done, come on over.”
+
+I scorned to gather up the dolls. They were in the angle below the
+parlour windows, and no one saw them. As soon as supper was finished,
+I went to my room and put on my best shoes, which I was not allowed to
+wear for everyday. Then I tipped my birthday silver dollar out of my
+bank and tied it in the corner of my handkerchief. Down in the garden I
+waited for Mary Elizabeth.
+
+It was hardly dusk when she came. We had seen nothing of Delia, and we
+guessed that she was to stay in the house for the rest of the day as
+penance for having, without doubt, played “At Home” too badly.
+
+“You better not do it,” Mary Elizabeth whispered. “They might....”
+
+“Come on,” I said only.
+
+“Let’s try a June grass,” she begged. “If the seeds all come off in my
+teeth, we’ll go. But if they don’t--”
+
+“Come on,” said I, “I’m not going to monkey with signs any more.”
+
+We climbed the back fence, partly so that the chain, weighted with a
+pail of stones, might not creak, and partly because to do so seemed
+more fitting to the business in hand. We ran crouching, thereby
+arousing the attention of old Mr. Branchett, who was training a
+Virginia creeper along his back fence.
+
+“Hello, hello,” said he. “Pretty good runners for girls, seems to me.”
+
+Neither of us replied. Our souls were suddenly sickened at this sort of
+dealing.
+
+Wisconsin Street was a blaze of light. The ’buses were on their way
+from the “depots” to the hotels--nobody knew who might be in those
+’buses. They were the nexus between us and the unguessed world.
+Strangers were on the streets. Everything was in motion. Before
+Morrison’s grocery they were burning rubbish, some boys from the other
+end of town were running unconcernedly through the flames, and the
+smell of the smoke set us tingling. At the corner a man was pasting
+a circus bill--we stopped a moment to look down the throat of the
+hippopotamus. Away up the street a band struck up, and we took hold of
+hands again, and ran.
+
+We crossed the big square by the City Bank, under the hissing arc lamp.
+By the post-office a crowd of men and boys was standing, and between
+the files young women whom we knew, wearing ribbons and feathers, were
+passing in and out of the office and laughing. Bard’s jewellery store
+was brilliant--it looked lighter than any other store with its window
+of dazzling cut glass and its wonderful wall of clocks whose pendulums
+never kept pace. In a saloon a piano was playing--we glanced in with a
+kind of joyous fear at the green screen beyond the door. We saw Alma
+Fremont, whose father kept a grocery store, standing in the store door
+with a stick of pink candy thrust in a lemon, and we thought on the
+joy of having a father who was a grocer. We longed to stare in the
+barber-shop window, and looked away. But our instinctive destination
+was the place before the Opera House, where the band was playing. We
+reached it, and stood packed in the crowd, close to the blare of the
+music, and shivered with delight.
+
+“If only the fire-engine would come,” Mary Elizabeth breathed in my ear.
+
+But in a little while the guffaws, the jostling, the proximity of dirty
+coats, the odour of stale tobacco must have disturbed us, because
+gradually we edged a little away, and stood on the edge of the crowd,
+against an iron rail outside a billiard room. The band ceased, and went
+up into the hall. We had a distinct impulse to do the next thing. What
+was there to do next? What was it that the boys did when they went
+down town evenings? What else did they do while we were tidying our
+play-houses for the night? For here we were, longing for play, if only
+we could think what to do.
+
+I felt a hand beneath my chin, lifting my face. There, in the press,
+stood my Father. Over his arm he carried my black jacket with the
+Bedford cord.
+
+“Mother thought you might be cold,” he said.
+
+I put on the jacket, and he took Mary Elizabeth and me by the hand, and
+we walked slowly back down Wisconsin Street.
+
+“We will see Mary Elizabeth safely home first,” my Father said, and we
+accompanied her to the New Family’s door.
+
+Once in our house, it was I who proposed going to bed, and the
+suggestion met with no opposition. Upstairs, I slipped the screen
+from my window and leaned out in the dusk. The night, warm, fragrant,
+significant, was inviting me to belong to it, was asking me, even as
+bright day had asked me, what it had in common with the stuffiness and
+dulness of forever watching others do things. Something hard touched my
+hand. It was my birthday dollar. It had not occurred to me to spend it.
+
+I saw my Father stroll back down the street, lighting a cigar. Below
+stairs I could hear my Mother helping to put away the supper dishes.
+A dozen boys raced through the alley, just on their way down town.
+So long as they came home at a stated hour at night, and turned up
+at table with their hands clean, who asked them where they had been?
+“Where have you been?” they said to me, the moment I entered the
+house--and to Delia and Calista and Margaret Amelia and Betty. We had
+often talked about it. And none of us had even ridden on a load of hay.
+We had a vague expectation that it would be different when we grew up.
+A sickening thought came to me: _Would it be different, or was this to
+be forever?_
+
+I ran blindly down the stairs where my Mother was helping to put away
+the supper dishes--in the magic of the night, helping to put away the
+supper dishes.
+
+“Mother!” I cried, “Mother! Who made it so much harder to be a girl?”
+
+She turned and looked at me, her face startled, and touched me--I
+remember how gently she touched me.
+
+“Before you die,” she said, “it will be easier.”
+
+I thought then that she meant that I would grow used to it. Now I know
+that she meant what I meant when I woke that night, and remembered my
+dolls lying out in the grass and the dew, and was not sorry, but glad:
+Glad that the time was almost come--for real playthings.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+BIT-BIT
+
+
+At the Rodmans’, who lived in a huge house on a hill, some of
+the rooms had inscriptions in them--or what I should have called
+mottoes--cunningly lettered and set about. Some of these were in
+Margaret Amelia’s and Betty’s room, above the mirror, the bed, the
+window; and there was one downstairs on a panel above the telephone.
+The girls said that they had an aunt who had written them “on purpose,”
+an aunt who had had stories in print. In my heart I doubted the part
+about the printed stories, and so did Mary Elizabeth, but we loved
+Margaret Amelia and Betty too well to let this stand between us. Also,
+we were caught by the inscriptions. They were these:
+
+FOR A CRADLE[A]
+
+ I cannot tell you who I am
+ Nor what I’m going to be.
+ You who are wise and know your ways
+ Tell me.
+
+[A] Copyright, 1908, by Harper & Brothers.
+
+FOR THE MIRROR
+
+ Look in the deep of me. What are we going to do?
+ If I am I, as I am, who in the world are you?
+
+FOR AN IVORY COMB
+
+ Use me and think of spirit, and spirit yet to be.
+ This is the jest: Could soul touch soul if it were not for me?
+
+FOR THE DOLL’S HOUSE
+
+ Girl-doll would be a little lamp
+ And shine like something new.
+ Boy-doll would be a telephone
+ And have the world speak through.
+ The Poet-doll would like to be
+ A tocsin with a tongue
+ To other little dolls like bells
+ Most sensitively rung.
+ The Baby-doll would be a flower,
+ The Dinah-doll a star,
+ And all--how ignominious!
+ Are only what they are.
+
+WHERE THE BOUGHS TOUCH THE WINDOW
+
+ We lap on the indoor shore--the waves of the leaf mere,
+ We try to tell you as well as we can: We wonder what you hear?
+
+FOR ANOTHER WINDOW
+
+ I see the stones, I see the stars,
+ I know not what they be.
+ They always say things to themselves
+ And now and then to me.
+ But when I try to look between
+ Big stones and little stars,
+ I almost know ... but what I know
+ Flies through the window-bars.
+
+And downstairs, on the Telephone:
+
+ I, the absurdity,
+ Proving what cannot be.
+ Come, when you talk with me
+ Does it become you well
+ To doubt a miracle?
+
+We did not understand all of them, but we liked them. And I am sure now
+that the inscriptions were partly responsible for the fact that in a
+little time, with Mary Elizabeth and me to give them encouragement,
+everything, indoors and out, had something to say to us. These things
+we did not confide to the others, not even to Margaret Amelia and
+Betty who, when we stood still to spell out the inscriptions, waited
+a respectful length of time and then plucked at our aprons and said:
+“Come on till we show you something,” which was usually merely a crass
+excuse to get us away.
+
+So Mary Elizabeth and I discovered, by comparing notes, that at night
+our Clothes on the chair by the bed would say: “We are so tired. Don’t
+look at us--we feel so limp.”
+
+And the Night would say: “What a long time the Day had you, and how he
+made you work. Now rest and forget and stop being you, till morning.”
+
+Sleep would say: “Here I come. Let me in your brain and I will pull
+your eyes shut, like little blinds.”
+
+And in the morning the Stairs would say: “Come! We are all here,
+stooping, ready for you to step down on our shoulders.”
+
+Breakfast would say: “Now I’m going to be you--now I’m going to be you!
+And I have to be cross or nice, just as you are.”
+
+Every fire that warmed us, every tree that shaded us, every path that
+we took, all these “answered back” and were familiars. Everything spoke
+to us, save only one. And this one thing was Work. Our playthings in
+the cupboard would talk to us all day long _until_ the moment that we
+were told to put them in order, and then instantly they all fell into
+silence. Pulling weeds in the four o’clock bed, straightening books,
+tidying the outdoor play-house--it was always the same. Whatever we
+worked at kept silent.
+
+It was on a June morning, when the outdoors was so busy and beautiful
+that it was like a golden bee buried in a golden rose, that I finally
+refused outright to pick up a brown sunhat and some other things in
+the middle of the floor. Everything outdoors and in was smiling and
+calling, and to do a task was like going to bed, so far as the joy of
+the day was concerned. This I could not explain, but I said that I
+would not do the task, and this was high treason.
+
+Sitting in a straight-backed chair all alone for half an hour
+thereafter--the usual capital punishment--was like cutting off the head
+of the beautiful Hour that I had meant to have. And I tried to think
+it out. Why, in an otherwise wonderful world, did Work have to come and
+spoil everything?
+
+I do not recall that I came to any conclusion. How could I, at a time
+that was still teaching the Hebraic doctrine that work is a curse,
+instead of the new gospel--always dimly divined by children before our
+teaching has corrupted them,--that being busy is being alive, and that
+all work may be play if only we are shown how to pick out the kind that
+is play to us, and that doing nothing is a kind of death.
+
+And while I sat there alone on that straight-backed chair, I wish that
+I, as I am now, might have called in Mary Elizabeth, whom I could see
+drearily polishing the New Family’s lamp-chimneys, and that I might
+have told the story of Bit-bit.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Bit-bit, the smallest thing in the world, sat on the slipperiest edge
+of the highest mountain in the farthest land, weaving a little garment
+of sweet-grass. Then out of the valley a great Deev arose and leaned
+his elbows on the highest mountain and said what he thought--which is
+always a dangerous business.
+
+[Illustration: “THEN OUT OF THE VALLEY A GREAT DEEV AROSE.”]
+
+“Bit-bit,” said the Deev, “how dare you make up my sweet-grass so
+disgustin’ extravagant?”
+
+(It is almost impossible for a Deev to say his _ing’s_.)
+
+“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, without looking up from his work, “I have
+to make a garment to help clothe the world. Don’t wrinkle up my plan.
+And _don’t_ put your elbows on the table.”
+
+“About my elbows,” said the Deev, “you are perfectly right, though
+Deevs always do that with their elbows. But as to that garment,” he
+added, “I’d like to know why you have to help clothe the world?”
+
+“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, still not looking up from his work, “I have
+to do so, because it’s this kind of a world. _Please_ don’t wrinkle up
+things.”
+
+“I,” said the Deev, plainly, “will now show you what kind of a world
+this really is. And I rather think I’ll destroy you with a great
+destruction.”
+
+Then the Deev took the highest mountain and he tied its streams and
+cataracts together to make a harness, and he named the mountain new,
+and he drove it all up and down the earth. And he cried behind it:
+
+“Ho, Rhumbthumberland, steed of the clouds, trample the world into
+trifles and plough it up for play. Bit-bit is being taught his lesson.”
+
+From dawn he did this until the sky forgot pink and remembered only
+blue and until the sun grew so hot that it took even the sky’s
+attention, and the Deev himself was ready to drop. And then he pulled
+on the reins and Rhumbthumberland, steed of the clouds, stopped
+trampling and let the Deev lean his elbows on his back. And there,
+right between the Deev’s elbows, sat Bit-bit, weaving his garment of
+sweet-grass.
+
+“Thunders of spring,” cried the Deev, “aren’t you destroyed with a
+great destruction?”
+
+But Bit-bit never looked up, he was so busy.
+
+“Has anything happened?” he asked politely, however, not wishing to
+seem indifferent to the Deev’s agitation--though secretly, in his
+little head, he hated having people plunge at him with their eyebrows
+up and expect him to act surprised too. When they did that, it always
+made him savage-calm.
+
+“The world is trampled into trifles and ploughed up for play,” said
+the exasperated Deev, “_that’s_ what’s happened. How dare you pay no
+attention?”
+
+“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, still not looking up from his task, “I
+have to work, whether it’s this kind of a world or not. I _wish_ you
+wouldn’t wrinkle up things.”
+
+Then the Deev’s will ran round and round in his own head like a fly
+trying to escape from a dark hole--that is the way of the will of all
+Deevs--and pretty soon his will got out and went buzzle-buzzle-buzzle,
+which is no proper sound for anybody’s will to make. And when it did
+that, the Deev went off and got a river, and he climbed up on top of
+Rhumbthumberland and he swung the river about his head like a ribbon
+and then let it fall from the heights like a lady’s scarf, and then he
+held down one end with his great boot and the other end he emptied into
+the horizon. From the time of the heat of the sun he did this until
+the shadows were set free from the west and lengthened over the land,
+shaking their long hair, and then he lifted his foot and let the river
+slip and it trailed off into the horizon and flowed each way.
+
+“_Now_ then!” said the Deev, disgustingly pompous.
+
+But when he looked down, there, sitting on his own great foot, high and
+dry and pleasant, was Bit-bit, weaving his garment of sweet-grass and
+saying:
+
+“Deevy dear, a river washed me up here and I was so busy I didn’t have
+time to get down.”
+
+The Deev stood still, thinking, and his thoughts flew in and out like
+birds, but always they seemed to fly against window-panes in the air,
+through which there was no passing. And the Deev said, in his head:
+
+“Is there nothing in this created cosmos that will stop this little
+scrap from working to clothe the world? Or must I play Deev in earnest?”
+
+And that was what he finally decided to do. So he said things to his
+arms, and his arms hardened into stuff like steel, and spread out like
+mighty wings. And with these the Deev began to beat the air. And he
+beat it and beat it until it frothed. It frothed like white-of-egg and
+like cream and like the mid-waters of torrents, frothed a mighty froth,
+such as I supposed could never be. And when the froth was stiff enough
+to stand alone, the Deev took his steel-wing arm for a ladle, and he
+began to spread the froth upon the earth. And he spread and spread
+until the whole earth was like an enormous chocolate cake, thick with
+white frosting--one layer, two layers, three layers, disgustingly
+extravagant, so that the little Deevs, if there had been any, would
+never have got the dish scraped. Only there wasn’t any dish, so they
+needn’t have minded.
+
+And when he had it all spread on, the Deev stood up and dropped his
+steel arms down--and even they were tired at the elbow, like any true,
+egg-beating arm--and he looked down at the great cake he had made.
+And there, on the top of the frosting, which was already beginning to
+harden, was sitting Bit-bit, weaving his garment of sweet-grass and
+talking about the weather:
+
+“I think there is going to be a storm,” said Bit-bit, “the air around
+here has been so disgustingly hard to breathe.”
+
+Then, very absently, the Deev let the steel out of his arms and made
+them get over being wings, and, in a place so deep in his own head that
+nothing had ever been thought there before, he _thought_:
+
+“There is more to this than I ever knew there is to anything.”
+
+So he leaned over, all knee-deep in the frosting as he was, and he said:
+
+“Bit-bit, say a great truth and a real answer: What is the reason that
+my little ways don’t bother you? Or kill you? Or keep you from making
+your garment of sweet-grass?”
+
+“Why,” said Bit-bit, in surprise, but never looking up from his work,
+“Deevy dear, that’s easy. I’m much, much, _much_ too busy.”
+
+“Scrap of a thing,” said the Deev, “too busy to mind cataracts and an
+earth trampled to trifles and then frosted with all the air there is?”
+
+“Too busy,” assented Bit-bit, snapping off his thread. “And now I _do_
+hope you are not going to wrinkle up things any more.”
+
+“No,” said the Deev, with decision, “I ain’t.” (Deevs are always
+ungrammatical when you take them by surprise.) And he added very
+shrewdly, for he was a keen Deev and if he saw that he could learn,
+he was willing to learn, which is three parts of all wisdom: “Little
+scrap, teach me to do a witchcraft. Teach me to work.”
+
+At that Bit-bit laid down his task in a minute.
+
+“What do you want to make?” he asked.
+
+The Deev thought for a moment.
+
+“I want to make a palace and a garden and a moat for _me_,” said he.
+“I’m tired campin’ around in the air.”
+
+“If that’s all,” said Bit-bit, “I’m afraid I can’t help you. I thought
+you wanted to work. Out of all the work there is in the world I should
+think of another one if I were you, Deevy.”
+
+“Well, then, I want to make a golden court dress for _me_, all
+embroidered and flowered and buttoned and gored and spliced,” said the
+Deev, or whatever these things are called in the clothing of Deevs;
+“I want to make one. I’m tired goin’ around in rompers.” (It wasn’t
+rompers, really, but it was what Deevs wear instead, and you wouldn’t
+know the name, even if I told you.)
+
+“Excuse me,” said Bit-bit, frankly, “I won’t waste time like that.
+Don’t you want to _work_?”
+
+“Yes,” said the Deev, “I do. Maybe I don’t know what work is.”
+
+“Maybe you don’t,” agreed Bit-bit. “But I can fix that. I’m going for a
+walk now, and there’s just room for you. Come along.”
+
+So they started off, and it was good walking, for by now the sun had
+dried up all the frosting; and the Deev trotted at Bit-bit’s heels,
+and they made a very funny pair. So funny that Almost Everything
+watched them go by, and couldn’t leave off watching them go by, and so
+followed them all the way. Which was what Bit-bit had _thought_ would
+happen. And when he got to a good place, Bit-bit stood still and told
+the Deev to turn round. And there they were, staring face to face with
+Almost Everything: Deserts and towns and men and women and children and
+laws and governments and railroads and factories and forests and food
+and drink.
+
+“There’s your work,” said Bit-bit, carelessly.
+
+“Where?” asked the Deev, just like other folks.
+
+“_Where?_” repeated Bit-bit, nearly peevish. “Look at this desert
+that’s come along behind us. Why don’t you swing a river over your
+head--you _could_ do that, couldn’t you, Deevy?--and make things grow
+on that desert, and let people live on it, and turn ’em into folks? Why
+don’t you?”
+
+“It ain’t amusin’ enough,” said the Deev.
+
+(Deevs are often ungrammatical when they don’t take pains; and this
+Deev wasn’t taking _any_ pains.)
+
+“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at this town that has come along
+behind us, full of dirt and disease and laziness and worse. Why
+don’t you harness up a mountain--you _could_ do that, couldn’t you,
+Deevy?--and plough up the earth and trample it down and let people live
+as they were meant to live, and turn them into folks? Why don’t you?”
+
+“It couldn’t be done that way,” said the Deev, very much excited and
+disgustingly certain.
+
+“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at the men and women and children that
+have come along behind us. What about them--what about _them_? Why
+don’t you make your arms steel and act as if you had wings, and beat
+the world into a better place for them to live, instead of making a
+cake of it. You could do it, Deevy--_anybody_ could do that.”
+
+“Yes,” said the Deev, “I could do that. But it don’t appeal to me.”
+
+(Deevs are always ungrammatical when they are being emphatic, and now
+the Deev was being very emphatic. He was a keen Deev, but he would only
+learn what he wanted to learn.)
+
+“Deevy _dear_,” cried Bit-bit, in distress because the Deev was such a
+disgusting creature, “then at least do get some sweet-grass and make a
+little garment to help clothe the world?”
+
+“What’s the use?” said the Deev. “Let it go naked. It’s always been
+that way.”
+
+So, since the Deev would not learn the work witchcraft, Bit-bit,
+very sorrowful, stood up and said a great truth and made a real
+answer--which is always a dangerous business.
+
+“You will, you will, you will do these things,” he cried, “because it’s
+that kind of a world.”
+
+And then the Deev, who had all along been getting more and more
+annoyed, pieced together his will and his ideas and his annoyance, and
+they all went buzzle-buzzle-buzzle together till they made an act. And
+the act was that he stepped sidewise into space, and he picked up the
+earth and put it between his knees, and he cracked it hard enough so
+that it should have fallen into uncountable bits.
+
+“It’s my nut,” said the Deev, “and now I’m going to eat it up.”
+
+But lo, from the old shell there came out a fair new kernel of a world,
+so lustrous and lovely that the Deev was blinded and hid his eyes.
+Only first he had seen how the deserts were flowing with rivers and
+the towns were grown fair under willing hands for men and women and
+children to live there. And there, with Almost Everything, sat Bit-bit
+in his place, weaving a little garment of sweet-grass to clothe some
+mite of the world.
+
+“Now this time try not to wrinkle things all up, Deev,” said Bit-bit.
+“I must say, you’ve been doing things disgustingly inhuman.”
+
+So after that the Deev was left camping about in the air, trying to
+make for himself new witchcrafts. And there he is to this day, being
+a disgusting creature generally, and _only_ those who are as busy as
+Bit-bit are safe from him.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WHY
+
+
+There was a day when Mary Elizabeth and Delia and Calista and Betty
+and I sat under the Eating Apple tree and had no spirit to enter upon
+anything. Margaret Amelia was not with us, and her absence left us
+relaxed and without initiative; for it was not as if she had gone to
+the City, or to have her dress tried on, or her hair washed, or as if
+she were absorbed in any real occupation. Her absence was due to none
+of these things. Margaret Amelia was in disgrace. She was, in fact,
+confined in her room with every expectation of remaining there until
+supper time.
+
+“What’d she do?” we had breathlessly inquired of Betty when she had
+appeared alone with her tidings.
+
+“Well,” replied Betty, “it’s her paper dolls and her button-house. She
+always leaves ’em around. She set up her button-house all over the rug
+in the parlour--you know, the rug that its patterns make rooms? An’
+she had her paper dolls living in it. That was this morning--and we
+forgot ’em. And after dinner, while we’re outdoors, the minister came.
+And he walked into the buttons and onto the glass dangler off the lamp
+that we used for a folding-doors. And he slid a long ways on it. And he
+scrushed it,” Betty concluded resentfully. “And now she’s in her room.”
+
+We pondered it. There was justice there, we saw that. But shut Margaret
+Amelia in a room! It was as ignominious as caging a captain.
+
+“Did she cry?” we indelicately demanded.
+
+“Awful,” said Betty. “She wouldn’t of cared if it had only been
+raining,” she added.
+
+We looked hard at the sky. We should have been willing to have it rain
+to make lighter Margaret Amelia’s durance, and sympathy could go no
+further. But there was not a cloud.
+
+It was Mary Elizabeth who questioned the whole matter.
+
+“How,” said she, “does it do any good to shut her up in her room?”
+
+We had never thought of this. We stared wonderingly at Mary Elizabeth.
+Being shut in your room was a part of the state of not being grown up.
+When you grew up, you shut others in their rooms or let them out, as
+you ruled the occasion to require. There was Grandmother Beers, for
+instance, coming out the door with scissors in her hands and going
+toward her sweet-pea bed. Once she must have shut Mother in her room.
+Mother!
+
+Delia was incurably a defender of things as they are. Whenever I am
+tempted to feel that guardians of an out-worn order must know better
+than they seem to know, I remember Delia. Delia was born reactionary,
+even as she was born brunette.
+
+“Why,” said she with finality, “that’s the way they punish you.”
+
+Taken as a fact and not as a philosophy, there was no question about
+this.
+
+“I was shut in one for pinching Frankie Ames,” I acknowledged.
+
+“I was in one for getting iron-rust on my skirt,” said Calista, “and
+for being awful cross when my bath was, and for putting sugar on the
+stove to get the nice smell.”
+
+“I was in one for telling a lie,” Betty admitted reluctantly. “And
+Margaret Amelia was in one for wading in the creek. She was in a
+downstairs one. And I took a chair round outside to help her out--but
+she wouldn’t do it.”
+
+“Pooh! I was in one lots of times,” Delia capped it. And, as usual,
+we looked at her with respect as having experiences far transcending
+our own. “I’ll be in one again if I don’t go home and take care of my
+canary,” she added. “Mamma said I would.”
+
+“Putting sugar on the stove isn’t as wicked as telling a lie, is it?”
+Mary Elizabeth inquired.
+
+We weighed it. On the whole, we were inclined to think that it was not
+so wicked, “though,” Delia put in, “you do notice the sugar more.”
+
+“Why do they shut you in the same way for the different wickeds?” Mary
+Elizabeth demanded.
+
+None of us knew, but it was Delia who had the theory.
+
+“Well,” she said, “you’ve _got_ to know you’re wicked. It don’t make
+any difference how wicked. Because you stop anyhow.”
+
+“No, you don’t,” Betty said decidedly, “you’re always getting a new
+thing to be shut in about. Before you mean to,” she added perplexedly.
+
+Mary Elizabeth looked away at Grandmother Beers, snipping sweet-peas.
+Abruptly, Mary Elizabeth threw herself on the grass and stared up
+through the branches of the Eating Apple tree, and then laid her arms
+straight along her sides, and began luxuriously to roll down a little
+slope. The inquiry was too complex to continue.
+
+“Let’s go see if the horse-tail hair is a snake yet,” she proposed,
+sitting up at the foot of the slope.
+
+“I’ll have to do my canary,” said Delia, but she sprang up with the
+rest of us, and we went round to the rain-water barrel.
+
+The rain-water barrel stood at the corner of the house, and reflected
+your face most satisfyingly, save that the eaves-spout got in the way.
+Also, you always inadvertently joggled the side with your knee, which
+set the water wavering and wrinkled away the image. At the bottom of
+this barrel invisibly rested sundry little “doll” pie-tins of clay,
+a bottle, a broken window-catch, a stray key, and the bowl of a
+soap-bubble pipe, cast in at odd intervals, for no reason. There were a
+penny doll and a marble down there too, thrown in for sheer bravado and
+bitterly regretted.
+
+Into this dark water there had now been dropped, two days ago, a long
+black hair from the tail of Mr. Branchett’s horse, Fanny. We had been
+credibly informed that if you did this to a hair from a horse’s tail
+and left it untouched for twenty-four hours or, to be _perfectly_ safe,
+for forty-eight hours, the result would inevitably be a black snake.
+We had gone to the Branchetts’ barn for the raw material and, finding
+none available on the floor, we were about to risk jerking it from the
+source when Delia had perceived what we needed caught in a crack of the
+stall. We had abstracted the hair, and duly immersed it. Why we wished
+to create a black snake, or what we purposed doing with him when we
+got him created, I cannot now recall. I believe the intention to have
+been primarily to see whether or not they had told us the truth--“they”
+standing for the universe at large. For my part, I was still smarting
+from having been detected sitting in patience with a handful of salt,
+by the mouse-hole in the shed, in pursuance of another recipe which I
+had picked up and trusted. Now if this new test failed....
+
+We got an old axe-handle from the barn wherewith to probe the water.
+If, however, the black snake were indeed down there, our weapon,
+offensive and defensive, would hardly be long enough; so we substituted
+the clothes-prop. Then we drew cuts to see who should wield it, and
+the lot fell to Betty. Gentle little Betty turned quite pale with the
+responsibility, but she resolutely seized the clothes-prop, and Delia
+stood behind her with the axe-handle.
+
+“Now if he comes out,” said Betty, “run for your lives. He might be a
+blue racer.”
+
+None of us knew what a blue racer might be, but we had always heard of
+it as the fastest of all the creatures. A black snake, it seemed, might
+easily be a blue racer. As Betty raised the clothes-prop, I, who had
+instigated the experiment, weakened.
+
+“Maybe he won’t be ready yet,” I conceded.
+
+“If he isn’t there, I’ll never believe anything anybody tells me
+again--ever,” said Delia firmly.
+
+The clothes-prop Betty plunged to the bottom, and lifted. No struggling
+black shape writhed about it. She repeated the movement, and this time
+we all cried out, for she brought up the dark discoloured rag of a
+sash of the penny doll, the penny doll clinging to it and immediately
+dropping sullenly back again. Grown brave, Betty stirred the water, and
+Delia, advancing, did the same with her axe-handle. Again and again
+these were lifted, revealing nothing. At last we faced it: No snake was
+there.
+
+“So that’s a lie, too,” said Delia, brutally.
+
+We stared at one another. I, as the one chiefly disappointed, looked
+away. I looked down the street: Mr. Branchett was hoeing in his garden.
+Delivery wagons were rattling by. The butter-man came whistling round
+the house. Everybody seemed so busy and so _sure_. They looked as if
+they knew why everything was. And to us, truth and justice and reason
+and the results to be expected in this grown-up world were all a
+confusion and a thorn.
+
+As we went round the house, talking of what had happened, our eyes were
+caught by a picture which should have been, and was not, of quite
+casual and domestic import. On the side-porch of Delia’s house appeared
+her mother, hanging out Delia’s canary.
+
+“Good-bye,” said Delia, briefly, and fared from us, running.
+
+We lingered for a little in the front yard. In five minutes the
+curtains in Delia’s room stirred, and we saw her face appear, and
+vanish. She had not waved to us--there was no need. It had overtaken
+her. She, too, was “in her room.”
+
+Delicacy dictated that we withdraw from sight, and we returned to the
+back yard. As we went, Mary Elizabeth was asking:
+
+“Is telling a lie and not feeding your canary as wicked as each other?”
+
+It seemed incredible, and we said so.
+
+“Well, you get shut up just as hard for both of ’em,” Mary Elizabeth
+reminded us.
+
+“Then I don’t believe any of ’em’s wicked,” said I, flatly. On which we
+came back to the garden and met Grandmother Beers, with a great bunch
+of sweet-peas in her hand, coming to the house.
+
+“Wicked?” she said, in her way of soft surprise. “I didn’t know you
+knew such a word.”
+
+“It’s a word you learn at Sunday school,” I explained importantly.
+
+“Come over here and tell me about it,” she invited, and led the way
+toward the Eating Apple tree. And she sat down in the swing! Of course
+whatever difference of condition exists between your grandmother and
+yourself vanishes when she sits down casually in your swing.
+
+My Grandmother Beers was a little woman, whose years, in England, in
+“New York state,” and in her adopted Middle West, had brought her
+only peace within, though much had beset her from without. She loved
+Four-o’clocks, and royal purple. When she said “royal purple,” it was
+as if the words were queens. She was among the few who sympathized
+with my longing to own a blue or red or green jar from a drug store
+window. We had first understood each other in a matter of window-sill
+food: This would be a crust, or a bit of baked apple, or a cracker
+which I used to lay behind the dining-room window-shutter--the
+closed one. For in the house at evening it was warm and light and
+Just-had-your-supper, while outside it was dark and damp and big, and I
+conceived that it must be lonely and hungry. The Dark was like a great
+helpless something, filling the air and not wanting particularly to
+be there. Surely It would much rather be light, with voices and three
+meals, than the Dark, with nobody and no food. So I used to set out a
+little offering, and once my Grandmother Beers had caught me paying
+tribute.
+
+“Once something _did_ come and get it,” I defended myself over my
+shoulder, and before she could say a word.
+
+“Likely enough, likely enough, child,” she assented, and did not chide
+me.
+
+Neither did she chide me when once she surprised me into mentioning the
+Little Things, who had the use of my playthings when I was not there.
+It was one dusk when she had come upon me setting my toy cupboard to
+rights, and had commended me. And I had explained that it was so the
+Little Things could find the toys when they came, that night and every
+night, to play with them. I remember that all she did was to squeeze my
+hand; but I felt that I was wholly understood.
+
+What child of us--of Us Who Were--will ever forget the joy of having
+an older one enter into our games? I used to sit in church and tell
+off the grown folk by this possibility in them--“She’d play with
+you--she wouldn’t--she would--he would--they wouldn’t”--an ancient
+declension of the human race, perfectly recognized by children, but
+never given its proper due.... I shall never forget the out-door romps
+with my Father, when he stooped, with his hands on his knees, and then
+ran _at_ me; or when he held me while I walked the picket fence; or
+set me in the Eating Apple tree; nor can I forget the delight of the
+play-house that he built for me, _with a shelf around_.... And always I
+shall remember, too, how my Mother would play “Lost.” We used to curl
+on the sofa, taking with us some small store of fruit and cookies,
+wrap up in blankets and shawls, put up an umbrella--possibly two of
+them--and there we were, lost in the deep woods. We had been crossing
+the forest--night had overtaken us--we had climbed in a thick-leaved
+tree--it was raining--the woods were infested by bears and wolves--we
+had a little food, possibly enough to stave off starvation till
+daylight. Then came by the beasts of the forest, wonderful, human
+beasts, who passed at the foot of our tree, and with whom we talked
+long and friendly--and differently for each one--and ended by sharing
+with them our food. We scraped acquaintance with birds in neighbouring
+nests, the stars were only across a street of sky, the Dark did its
+part by hiding us. Sometimes, yet, when I see a fat, idle sofa in, say,
+an hotel corridor, I cannot help thinking as I pass: “What a wonderful
+place to play Lost.” I daresay that some day I shall put up my umbrella
+and sit down and play it.
+
+Well--Grandmother Beers was one who knew how to play with us, and I was
+always half expecting her to propose a new game. But that day, as she
+sat in the swing, her eyes were not twinkling at the corners.
+
+“What does it mean?” she asked us. “What does ‘wicked’ mean?”
+
+“It’s what you aren’t to be,” I took the brunt of the reply, because I
+was the relative of the questioner.
+
+“Why not?” asked Grandmother.
+
+Why not? Oh, we all knew that. We responded instantly, and out came
+the results of the training of all the families.
+
+“Because your mother and father say you can’t,” said Betty Rodman.
+
+“Because it makes your mother feel bad,” said Calista.
+
+“Because God don’t want us to,” said I.
+
+“Delia says,” Betty added, “it’s because, if you are, when you grow up
+people won’t think anything of you.”
+
+Grandmother Beers held her sweet-peas to her face.
+
+“If,” she said after a moment, “you wanted to do something wicked more
+than you ever wanted to do anything in the world--as much as you’d want
+a drink to-morrow if you hadn’t had one to-day--and if nobody ever
+knew--would any of those reasons keep you from doing it?”
+
+We consulted one another’s look, and shifted. We knew how thirsty that
+would be. Already we were thirsty, in thinking about it.
+
+“If I were in your places,” Grandmother said, “I’m not sure those
+reasons would keep me. I rather think they wouldn’t,--always.”
+
+We stared at her. It was true that they didn’t always keep us. Were
+not two of us “in our rooms” even now?
+
+Grandmother leaned forward--I know how the shadows of the apple leaves
+fell on her black lace cap and how the pink sweet-peas were reflected
+in her delicate face.
+
+“Suppose,” she said, “that instead of any of those reasons, somebody
+gave you this reason: That the earth is a great flower--a flower that
+has never _really_ blossomed yet. And that when it blossoms, life is
+going to be more beautiful than we have ever dreamed, or than fairy
+stories have ever pretended. And suppose our doing one way, and not
+another, makes the flower come a little nearer to blossoming. But our
+doing the other way puts back the time when it can blossom. _Then_
+which would you want to do?”
+
+Oh, make it grow, make it grow, we all cried--and I felt a secret
+relief: Grandmother was playing a game with us, after all.
+
+“And suppose that everything made a difference to it,” she went on,
+“every little thing--from telling a lie, on down to going to get a
+drink for somebody and drinking first yourself out in the kitchen.
+Suppose that everything made a difference, from hurting somebody on
+purpose, down to making up the bed and pulling the bed-spread tight so
+that the wrinkles in the blanket won’t show....”
+
+At this we looked at one another in some consternation. How did
+Grandmother know....
+
+“Until after a while,” she said, “you should find out that
+everything--loving, going to school, playing, working, bathing,
+sleeping, were all just to make this flower grow. Wouldn’t it be fun to
+help?”
+
+Yes. Oh, yes, we were all agreed about that. It would be great fun to
+help.
+
+“Well, then suppose,” said Grandmother, “that as you helped, you found
+out something else: That in each of you, say, where your heart is, or
+where your breath is, there was a flower trying to blossom too! And
+that only as you helped the earth flower to blossom could your flower
+blossom. And that your doing one way would make your flower droop its
+head and grow dark and shrivel up. But your doing the other way would
+make it grow, and turn beautiful colours--so that bye and bye every one
+of your bodies would be just a sheath for this flower. Which way _then_
+would you rather do?”
+
+Oh, make it grow, make it grow, we said again.
+
+And Mary Elizabeth added longingly:--
+
+“Wouldn’t it be fun if it was true?”
+
+“It is true,” said Grandmother Beers.
+
+She sat there, softly smiling over her pink sweet-peas. We looked at
+her silently. Then I remembered that her face had always seemed to me
+to be somehow _light within_. Maybe it was her flower showing through!
+
+“Grandmother!” I cried, “is it true--is it true?”
+
+“It is true,” she repeated. “And whether the earth flower and other
+people’s flowers and your flower are to bloom or not is what living is
+about. And everything makes a difference. Isn’t that a good reason for
+not being ‘wicked’?”
+
+We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to
+what she said. And I know that we understood.
+
+“Oh,” Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, “hurry home and tell
+Margaret Amelia. It’ll make it so much easier when she comes out to her
+supper.”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+That night, on the porch alone with Mother and Father, I inquired into
+something that still was not clear.
+
+“But how can you _tell_ which things are wicked? And which ones are
+wrong and which things are right?”
+
+Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with
+a look that I knew--and his smile for me is like no other smile that I
+have ever known.
+
+“Something will tell you,” he said, “always.”
+
+“Always?” I doubted.
+
+“Always,” he said. “There will be other voices. But if you listen,
+something will tell you always. And it is all you need.”
+
+I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that
+all this had been known about for a long time.
+
+“That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us,” she said, “not
+just because we wanted her, but because--_that_ said so.”
+
+In us all a flower--and something saying something! And the earth
+flower trying to blossom.... I looked down the street: At Mr. Branchett
+walking in his garden, at the lights shining from windows, at the
+folk sauntering on the sidewalk, and toward town where the band
+was playing. We all knew about this together then. _This_ was why
+everything was! And there were years and years to make it come true.
+
+What if I, alone among them all, had never found out?
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+KING
+
+
+There was a certain white sugar bear and a red candy strawberry which
+we had been charged not to eat, because the strawberry was a nameless
+scarlet and the bear, left from Christmas, was a very soiled bear. We
+had all looked at these two things longingly, had even on occasion
+nibbled them a bit. There came a day when I crept under my bed and ate
+them both.
+
+It was a bed with slats. In the slat immediately above my head there
+was a knot-hole. Knot-hole, slat, the pattern of the ticking on the
+mattress, all remain graven on the moment. It was the first time that
+I had actually been conscious of--indeed, had almost _heard_--the
+fighting going on within me.
+
+Something was saying: “Oh, eat it, eat it. What do you care? It won’t
+kill you. It may not even make you sick. It is good. Eat it.”
+
+And something else, something gentle, insistent, steady, kept saying
+over and over in exactly the same tone, and so that I did not know
+whether the warning came from within or without:--
+
+“It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten.”
+
+But after a little, as I ate, this voice ceased.
+
+Nobody knew that I had eaten the forbidden bear and strawberry.
+Grandmother Beers squeezed my hand just the same. Mother was as tender
+as always. And Father--his kind eyes and some little jest with me were
+almost more than I could bear. I remember spending the evening near
+them, with something sore about the whole time. From the moment that it
+began to get dark the presence of bear and strawberry came and fastened
+themselves upon me, so that I delayed bed-going even more than usual,
+and interminably prolonged undressing.
+
+Then there came the moment when Mother sat beside me.
+
+“Don’t ask God for anything,” she always said to me. “Just shut
+your eyes and think of his lovingness being here, close, close,
+close--breathing with you like your breath. Don’t ask him for anything.”
+
+But that night I scrambled into bed.
+
+“Not to-night, Mother,” I said.
+
+She never said anything when I said that. She kissed me and went away.
+
+_Then!_
+
+There I was, face to face with it at last. What was it that had told me
+to eat the bear and the strawberry? What was it that had told me that
+these must not be eaten? What had made me obey one and not the other?
+Who was it that spoke to me like that?
+
+I shut my eyes and thought of the voice that had told me to eat, and it
+felt like the sore feeling in me and like the lump in my throat, and
+like unhappiness.
+
+I thought of the other gentle voice that had spoken and had kept
+speaking and at last had gone away--and suddenly, with my eyes shut, I
+was thinking of something like lovingness, close, close, breathing with
+me like my breath.
+
+So now I have made a story for that night. It is late, I know. But
+perhaps it is not too late.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Once upon a time a beautiful present was given to a little boy named
+Hazen. It was not a tent or a launch or a tree-top house or a pretend
+aeroplane, but it was a little glass casket. And it was the most
+wonderful little casket of all the kinds of caskets that there are.
+
+For in the casket was a little live thing, somewhat like a fairy and
+somewhat like a spirit, and so beautiful that everyone wanted one too.
+
+Now the little fairy (that was like a spirit) was held fast in the
+casket, which was tightly sealed. And when the casket was given to
+Hazen, the Giver said:--
+
+“Hazen dear, until you get that little spirit free, you cannot be wise
+or really good or loved or beautiful. But after you get her free you
+shall be all four. And nobody can free her but you yourself, though you
+may ask anybody and everybody to tell you how.”
+
+Now Hazen’s father was a king. And it chanced that while Hazen was yet
+a little boy, the king of a neighbour country came and took Hazen’s
+father’s kingdom, and killed all the court--for that was the way
+neighbour countries did in those days, not knowing that neighbours are
+nearly one’s own family. They took little Hazen prisoner and carried
+him to the conquering king’s court, and they did it in such a hurry
+that he had not time to take anything with him. All his belongings--his
+tops, his football, his books, and his bank, had to be left behind,
+and among the things that were left was Hazen’s little glass casket,
+forgotten on a closet shelf, upstairs in the castle. And the castle
+was shut up and left as it was, because the conquering king thought
+that maybe he might like sometime to give to his little daughter,
+the Princess Vista, this castle, which stood on the very summit of a
+sovereign mountain and commanded a great deal of the world.
+
+In the court of the conquering king poor little Hazen grew up, and he
+was not wise or _really_ good or loved or beautiful, and he forgot
+about the casket or thought of it only as a dream, and he did not know
+that he was a prince. He was a poor little furnace boy and kitchen-fire
+builder in the king’s palace, and he slept in the basement and did
+nothing from morning till night but attend to drafts and dampers. He
+did not see the king at all, and he had never even caught a glimpse of
+the king’s little daughter, the Princess Vista.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+One morning before daylight Hazen was awakened by the alarm-in-a-basin
+at the head of his cot--for he was always so tired that just an alarm
+never wakened him at all, but set in a brazen basin an alarm would
+waken _anybody_. He dressed and hurried through the long, dim passages
+that led to the kitchens, and there he kindled the fires and tended the
+drafts and shovelled the coal that should cook the king’s breakfast.
+
+Suddenly a Thought spoke to him. It said:--
+
+“Hazen, you are not wise, or _really_ good, or loved, or beautiful. Why
+don’t you become so?”
+
+“I,” Hazen thought back sadly, “_I_ become these things? Impossible!”
+and he went on shovelling coal.
+
+But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and
+over so many times that at last he was obliged to listen and even to
+answer.
+
+“What would I do to be like that?” he asked almost impatiently.
+
+“First go up in the king’s library,” said the Thought.
+
+So when the fires were roaring and the dampers were right, Hazen went
+softly up the stair and through the quiet lower rooms of the palace,
+for it was very early in the morning, and no one was stirring. Hazen
+had been so seldom above stairs that he did not even know where the
+library was and by mistake he opened successively the doors to the
+great banquet room, the state drawing rooms, a morning room, and even
+the king’s audience chamber before at last he chanced on the door of
+the library.
+
+The king’s library was a room as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree,
+and it was filled with books, and the shelves were thrown out to make
+alcoves, so that the books were as thick as leaves on branches, and the
+whole room was pleasant, like something good to do. It was impossible
+for little Hazen, furnace boy though he was, to be in that great place
+of books without taking one down. So he took at random a big leather
+book with a picture on the cover, and he went toward a deep window-seat.
+
+Nothing could have exceeded his surprise and terror when he perceived
+the window-seat to be occupied. And nothing could have exceeded his
+wonder and delight when he saw who occupied it. She was a little girl
+of barely his own age, and her lovely waving hair fell over her soft
+blue gown from which her little blue slippers were peeping. She, too,
+had a great book in her arms, and over the top of this she was looking
+straight at Hazen in extreme disapproval.
+
+“Will you have the goodness,” she said--speaking very slowly and most
+_freezing_ cold--“to ’splain what you are doing in my father’s library?”
+
+At these words Hazen’s little knees should have shaken, for he
+understood that this was the Princess Vista herself. But instead, he
+was so possessed by the beauty and charm of the little princess that
+there was no room for fear. Though he had never in his life been taught
+to bow, yet the blood of his father the king, and of _his_ father the
+king, and of _his_ father the king, and so on, over and over, stirred
+in him and he bowed like the prince he was-but-didn’t-know-it.
+
+“Oh, princess,” he said, “I want to be wise and _really_ good and loved
+and beautiful, and I have come to the king’s library to find out how to
+do it.”
+
+“Who are you, that want so many ’surd things?” asked the princess,
+curiously.
+
+“I am the furnace boy,” said the poor prince, “and my other name is
+Hazen.”
+
+At this the princess laughed aloud--for when he had bowed she had
+fancied that he might be at least the servant to some nobleman at the
+court, too poor to keep his foot-page in livery.
+
+“The furnace boy indeed!” she cried. “And handling my father’s books.
+If you had what you ’serve, you’d be put in pwison.”
+
+At that Hazen bowed again very sadly, and was about to put back his
+book when footsteps sounded in the hall, and nursery governesses and
+chamberlains and foot-pages and lackeys and many whose names are as
+dust came running down the stairs, all looking for the princess. And
+the princess, who was not frightened, was suddenly sorry for little
+Hazen, who was.
+
+“Listen,” she said, “you bow so nicely that you may hide in that alcove
+and I will not tell them that you are there. But don’t you come here
+to-morrow morning when I come to read my book, or I can’t tell _what_
+will happen.”
+
+Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the nursery
+governesses, chamberlains, foot-pages, and those whose names are as
+dust burst in the room.
+
+“I was just coming,” said the princess, haughtily.
+
+But when she was gone, Hazen, in his safe alcove, did not once look at
+his big leather book. He did not even open it. Instead he sat staring
+at the floor, and thinking and thinking and thinking of the princess.
+And it was as if his mind were opened, and as if all the princess
+thoughts in the world were running in, one after another.
+
+Presently, when it was time for the palace to be awake, he stirred
+and rose and returned the book to its place, and in the midst of his
+princess thoughts he found himself face to face with a great mirror.
+And there he saw that, not only was he not beautiful, but that his
+cheek and his clothes were all blackened from the coal. And then he
+thought that he would die of shame; first, because the princess had
+seen him looking so, and second, because he looked so, whether she had
+seen him or not.
+
+He went back to the palace kitchen, and waited only to turn off the
+biggest drafts and the longest dampers before he began to wash his
+face and give dainty care to his hands. In fact, he did this all day
+long and sat up half the night trying to think how he could be as
+exquisitely neat as the little princess. And at last when daylight came
+and he had put coal in the kitchen ranges and had left the drafts right
+and had taken another bath after, he dressed himself in his poor best
+which he had most carefully brushed, and he ran straight back up the
+stair and into the king’s library.
+
+The Princess Vista was not there. But it was very, very early this time
+and the sun was still playing about outside, and so he set himself to
+wait, looking up at the window-seat where he had first seen her. As
+soon as the sun began to slant in the latticed windows in earnest, the
+door opened and the princess entered, her waving hair falling on her
+blue gown, and the little blue slippers peeping.
+
+When she saw Hazen, she stood still and spoke most _freezing_ cold.
+
+“Didn’t I tell you on no ’count to come here this morning?” she wished
+to know.
+
+Generations of kings for ages back bowed in a body in little Hazen.
+
+“Did your Highness not know that I would come?” he asked simply.
+
+“Yes,” said the princess to that, and sat down on the window-seat. “I
+will punish you,” said she, “but you bow so nicely that I will help you
+first. Why do you wish to be wise?”
+
+“I thought that I had another reason,” said Hazen, “but it is because
+you are wise.”
+
+“I’m not so very wise,” said the princess, modestly. “But I could make
+you as wise as I am,” she suggested graciously. “What do you want to
+know?”
+
+There was so much that he wanted to know! Down in the dark furnace room
+he had been forever wondering about the fires that he kindled, about
+the light that he did not have, about everything. He threw out his arms.
+
+“I want to know about the whole world!” he cried.
+
+The princess considered.
+
+“Perhaps they haven’t teached me everything yet,” she said. “What do
+you want to know about the world?”
+
+Hazen looked out the window and across the palace garden, lying all
+golden-green in the slow opening light, with fountains and flowers and
+parks and goldfish everywhere.
+
+“What makes it get day?” he asked. For since he had been a furnace boy,
+Hazen had been taught nothing at all.
+
+“Why, the sun comes,” answered the princess.
+
+“Is it the same sun every day?” Hazen asked.
+
+“I don’t think so,” said the princess. “No--sometimes it is a red sun.
+Sometimes it is a hot sun. Sometimes it is big, big, when it goes
+down. Oh, no. I am quite sure a different sun comes up every day.”
+
+“Where do they get ’em all?” Hazen asked wonderingly.
+
+“Well,” the princess said thoughtfully, “suns must be like cwort (she
+never could say “court”) processions. I think they always have them
+ready somewheres. What else do you want to know about?”
+
+“About the Spring,” said Hazen. “Where does that come from? Where do
+they get it?”
+
+“They never teached me that,” said the princess, “but _I_ think Summer
+is the mother, and Winter the father, and Autumn is the noisy little
+boy, and Spring is the little girl, with violets on.”
+
+“Of course,” cried Hazen, joyfully. “I never thought of that. Why can’t
+they talk?” he asked.
+
+“They ’most can,” said the princess. “Some day maybe I can teach you
+what they say. What else do you want to know?”
+
+“About people,” said Hazen. “Why are some folks good and some folks
+bad? Why is the king kind and the cook cross?”
+
+“Oh, they never teached me that!” the princess cried, impatiently.
+“What a lot of things you ask!”
+
+“One more question, your Highness,” said Hazen, instantly. “Why are you
+so beautiful?”
+
+The princess smiled. “Now I’ll teach you my picture-book through,” she
+said.
+
+She opened the picture-book and showed him pictures of castles and
+beasts and lawns and towers and ladies and mountains and bright birds
+and pillars and cataracts and wild white horses and, last, a picture of
+a prince setting forth on a quest. “Prince Living sets out to make his
+fortune,” it said under the picture, and Hazen stared at it.
+
+“Why shouldn’t I set out to make _my_ fortune?” he cried.
+
+The princess laughed.
+
+“You are a furnace boy,” she explained. “_They_ don’t make fortunes.
+Who would mind the furnace if they did?”
+
+Hazen sprang to his feet.
+
+“That can’t be the way the world is!” he cried. “Not when it’s so
+pretty and all stuck full of goldfish and fountains and flowers and
+parks. If I went, I _would_ make my fortune!”
+
+The princess crossed her little slippered feet and looked at him. And
+when he met her eyes, he was ashamed of his anger, though not of his
+earnestness, and he bowed again; and all the kings of all the courts of
+his ancestors were in the bow.
+
+“After all,” said the princess, “we don’t have the furnace in Summer.
+And you bow so nicely that I b’lieve I will help you to make your
+fortune. _Anyhow_, I can help you to set out.”
+
+Hazen was in the greatest joy. The princess bade him wait where he was,
+and she ran away and found somewhere a cast-off page boy’s dress and
+a cap with a plume and a little silver horn and a wallet, with some
+bread. These she brought to Hazen just as footsteps sounded on the
+stairs, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and
+many whose names are as dust came running pell-mell down the stairs,
+all looking for the princess.
+
+“Hide in that alcove,” said the princess, “till I am gone. Then put on
+this dress and go out at the east gate which no one can lock. And as
+you go by the east wing, do not look up at my window or I will wave my
+hand and somebody may see you going. Now good-bye.”
+
+But at that Hazen was suddenly wretched.
+
+“I can’t leave _you_!” he said. “How can I leave _you_?”
+
+“People always leave people,” said the princess, with superiority.
+“Play that’s one of the things I teached you.”
+
+At this Hazen suddenly dropped on one knee--the kings, his fathers,
+did that for him too--and kissed the princess’s little hand. And as
+suddenly she wished very much that she had something to give him.
+
+“Here,” she said, “here’s my picture-book. Take it with you and learn
+it through. _Now_ good-bye.”
+
+And Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the n. g.’s,
+c.’s, f. p.’s, and l.’s, whom there wasn’t time to spell out, as well
+as all those whose names are now dust, burst in the room.
+
+“I was just coming,” said the princess, and went.
+
+Hazen dressed himself in the foot-page’s livery and fastened the
+wallet at one side and the little silver horn at the other, and put on
+the cap with a plume; and he stole into the king’s garden, with the
+picture-book of the princess fast in his hand.
+
+He had not been in a garden since he had left his father’s garden,
+which he could just remember, and to be outdoors now seemed as
+wonderful as bathing in the ocean, or standing on a high mountain,
+or seeing the dawn. He hastened along between the flowering shrubs
+and hollyhocks; he heard the fountains plashing and the song-sparrows
+singing and the village bells faintly sounding; he saw the goldfish and
+the water-lilies gleam in the pool and the horses cantering about the
+paddock. And all at once it seemed that the day was his, to do with
+what he would, and he felt as if already that were a kind of fortune in
+his hand. So he hurried round the east wing of the palace and looked
+up eagerly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the Princess
+Vista, watching, with her hair partly brushed.
+
+When she saw him, she leaned far out.
+
+“I told you not to look,” she said. “Somebody will see you going.”
+
+“I don’t care if anyone does,” cried Hazen. “I _had_ to!”
+
+“How fine you look now,” the princess could not help saying.
+
+“You are beautiful as the whole picture-book!” he could not help saying
+back.
+
+“_Now_, good-bye!” she called softly, and waved her hand.
+
+“Good-bye--oh, good-bye!” he cried, and waved his plumed cap.
+
+And then he left her, looking after him with her hair partly brushed,
+and he ran out the east gate which was never locked, and fared as fast
+as he could along the king’s highway, in all haste to grow wise and
+_really_ good and loved and beautiful.
+
+Hazen went a day’s journey in the dust of the highway, and toward
+nightfall he came to a deep wood. To him the wood seemed like a great
+hospitable house, with open doors between the trees and many rooms
+through which he might wander at will, the whole fair in the light of
+the setting sun. And he entered the gloom as he might have entered a
+palace, expecting to meet someone.
+
+Immediately he was aware of an old man seated under a plane tree, and
+the old man addressed him with:--
+
+“Good even, little lad. Do you travel far?”
+
+“Not very, sir,” Hazen replied. “I am only going to find my fortune and
+to become wise, _really_ good, beautiful, and loved.”
+
+“So!” said the old man. “Rest here a little and let us talk about it.”
+
+Hazen sat beside him and they talked about it. Now, I wish very much
+that I might tell you all that they said, but the old man was so old
+and wise that his thoughts came chiefly as pictures, or in other form
+without words, so that it was not so much what he said that held his
+meaning as what he made Hazen feel by merely being with him. Indeed, I
+do not know whether he talked about the stars or the earth or the ways
+of men, but he made little Hazen somehow know fascinating things about
+them all. And when time had passed and the dusk was nearly upon them,
+the old man lightly touched Hazen’s forehead:--
+
+“Little lad,” he said, “have you ever looked in there?”
+
+“In my own head?” said Hazen, staring.
+
+“Even so,” said the old man. “No? But that might well be a pleasant
+thing to do. Will you not do that, for a little while?”
+
+This was the strangest thing that ever Hazen had heard. But next
+moment, under the old man’s guidance, he found himself, as it were,
+turned about and seeing things that he had never seen, and looking
+back into his own head as if there were a window that way. And he did
+it with no great surprise, for it seemed quite natural to him, and he
+wondered why he had never done it before.
+
+Of the actual construction of things in there Hazen was not more
+conscious than he would have been of the bricks and mortar of a palace
+filled with wonderful music and voices and with all sorts of surprises.
+Here there were both surprises and voices. For instantly he could see
+a company of little people, _every one of whom looked almost like
+himself_. And it was as it is when one stands between two mirrors set
+opposite, and the reflections reflect the reflections until one is
+dizzy; only now it was as if all the reflections were suddenly to be
+free of the mirror and be little living selves, ready to say different
+things.
+
+One little Self had just made a small opening in things, and several
+Selves were peering into it. Hazen looked too, and he saw to his
+amazement that it was a kind of picture of his plans for making his
+fortune. There were cities, seas, ships, men, forests, water-falls,
+leaping animals, glittering things, all the adventures that he had
+been imagining. And the Selves were talking it over.
+
+“Consider the work it will be,” one was distinctly grumbling, “before
+we can get anything. _Is_ it worth it?”
+
+He was a discouraged, discontented-looking Self, and though he had
+Hazen’s mouth, it was drooping, and though he had Hazen’s forehead, it
+was frowning.
+
+A breezy little Self, all merry and fluffy and light as lace,
+answered:--
+
+“O-o-o-o!” it breathed. “I think it will be fun. That’s all I care
+about it--it will be fun and _nothing else_.”
+
+Then a strange, fascinating Self, from whom Hazen could not easily look
+away, spoke, half singing.
+
+“Remember the beauty that we shall see as we go--as we go,” he chanted.
+“We can live for the beauty everywhere and for _nothing else_.”
+
+“Think of the things we shall learn!” cried another Self.
+“Knowledge--knowledge all the way--and _nothing else_.”
+
+Then a soft voice spoke, which was sweeter than any voice that Hazen
+had ever heard, and the Self to whom it belonged looked like Hazen
+when he was asleep.
+
+“Nay,” it said sighing, “there are many dangers. But to meet dangers
+bravely and to overcome them finely is the way to grow strong.”
+
+At this a little voice laughed and cracked as it laughed, so that it
+sounded like something being broken which could never be mended.
+
+“Being strong and wise don’t mean making one’s fortune,” it said. “Just
+one thing means fortune, and that is being rich. To be rich--rich!
+That’s what we want and it is all we want. And I am ready to fight with
+everyone of you to get riches.”
+
+Hazen looked where the voice sounded, and to his horror he saw a little
+Self made in his own image, but hideously bent and distorted, so that
+he knew exactly how he would look if he were a dwarf.
+
+“Not me!” cried the breezy little Fun Self then. “You wouldn’t fight
+me!”
+
+“Yes, I would,” said the dwarf. “I’d fight everybody, and when we were
+rich, you’d thank me for it.”
+
+“Ah, no,” said the Knowledge Self. “I am the only proper ruler in this
+fortune affair. Knowledge is enough for us to have. Knowledge is what
+we want.”
+
+“Beauty is all you need!” cried the fascinating Beauty Self. “I am the
+one who should rule you all.”
+
+“Well, rich, rich, rich! Do I not say so? Will not riches bring beauty
+and fun and leisure for knowledge?” said the dwarf. “Riches do it all.
+Do as I say. Take me for your guide.”
+
+“Strength is the thing!” said a great voice, suddenly. “We want to be
+big and strong and _nothing else_. I am going to rule in this.” And the
+voice of the Strong Self seemed to be everywhere.
+
+“Not without me ... not without me!” said the Wise Self. But it spoke
+faintly, and could hardly be heard in the clamour of all the others who
+now all began talking at once, with the little Fun Self dancing among
+them and crying, “I’m the one--you all want me to rule, _really_, but
+you don’t know it.”
+
+And suddenly, in the midst of all this, Hazen began to see strange
+little shadows appearing and lurking about, somewhat slyly, and often
+running away, but always coming back. They were tiny and faintly
+outlined--less like reflections in a mirror than like reflections
+which had not yet found a mirror for their home. And they spoke in thin
+little voices which Hazen could hear, and said:--
+
+“We’ll help you, Rich! We’ll help you, Strength! We’ll help you, Fun!
+Only let us be one of you and we’ll help you win, and you shall reign.
+Here are Envy Self and Lying Self and Hate Self and Cruel Self--we’ll
+help, if you’ll let us in!”
+
+And when he heard this, Hazen suddenly called out, with all his might:--
+
+“Stop!” he cried, “I’m the ruler here! I’m Hazen!”
+
+And of course he was the ruler--because it was the inside of his own
+head.
+
+Instantly there was complete silence there, as when a bell is suddenly
+struck in the midst of whisperings. And all the Selves shrank back.
+
+“Hazen!” they said, “we didn’t know you were listening. You be king.
+We’ll help--we’ll help.”
+
+“As long as I live,” said little Hazen then, “not one of you shall rule
+in here without me. I shall want many of you to help me, but only as
+much as I tell you to, and no more. I’m only a furnace boy, but I tell
+you that I am king of the inside of my own head, and I’m going to rule
+here and nobody else!”
+
+Then, nearer than any of the rest--and he could not tell just where it
+came from, but he knew how near it was--another voice spoke to him. And
+somewhat it was like the Thought that had spoken to him in the king’s
+kitchen and bidden him go up to the king’s library--but yet it was
+nearer than that had been.
+
+“Bravely done, Hazen,” it said. “Be king--be king, even as you have
+said!”
+
+With the voice came everywhere sweet music, sounding all about Hazen
+and in him and through him; and everywhere was air of dreams--he
+could hardly tell whether he was watching these or was really among
+them. There were sweet voices, dim figures, gestures of dancing,
+soft colours, lights, wavy, wonderful lines, little stars suddenly
+appearing, flowers, kindly faces, and then one face--the exquisite,
+watching face of the Princess Vista at the window, with her hair partly
+brushed ... and then darkness....
+
+... When he woke, it was early morning. The sun was pricking through
+the leaves of the forest, the birds were singing so sweetly and
+swiftly that it was as if their notes overlapped and made one sound on
+which everything was threaded like curious and beautiful beads on a
+silver cord. The old man was gone; and before Hazen, the way, empty and
+green, led on with promise of surprise.
+
+And now as he went forward, eating his bread and gathering berries,
+Hazen had never felt so able to make his future. It was as if he were
+not one boy but many boys in one, and they all ready to do his bidding.
+Surely, he thought, his fortune must lie at the first turn of the path!
+
+But at the first turn of the path he met a little lad no older than
+himself, who was drawing a handcart filled with something covered, and
+he was singing merrily.
+
+“Hello,” said the Merry Lad. “Where are _you_ going?”
+
+“Nowhere in particular,” said Hazen. And though he had readily confided
+to the old man what he was hoping to find, someway Hazen felt that if
+he told the Merry Lad, he would laugh at him. And that no one likes,
+though it is never a thing to fear.
+
+“Come on with me,” said the Merry Lad. “I am going in the town to sell
+my images. There will be great sport.”
+
+And, without stopping to think whether his fortune lay that way, Hazen,
+whose blood leapt at the idea of the town and its sports, turned and
+went with him.
+
+The Merry Lad was very merry. He told Hazen more games and riddles
+than ever he had heard. He sang him songs, did little dances for him
+in the open glades, raced with him, and when they reached the dusty
+highway, got him in happy talk with the other wayfarers. And by the
+time they gained the town, they were a gay little company. There the
+Merry Lad took his images to the market-place and spread them under a
+tree--little figures made to represent Mirth, Merriment, Laughter, Fun,
+Fellowship, and Delight--no end there was to the variety and charm of
+the little images, and no end to all that the Merry Lad did to attract
+the people to them. He sang and danced and whistled and even stood on
+his head, and everyone crowded about him and was charmed.
+
+“Pass my cap about,” he said, while he danced, to Hazen. “They will
+give us money.”
+
+So Hazen passed the Merry Lad’s cap, and the people gave them money.
+They filled the cap, indeed, with clinking coins, and went away
+carrying the images. And by nightfall the Merry Lad and Hazen had more
+money than they knew how to use.
+
+“Oh,” the Merry Lad cried, “we shall have a glorious time. Come!”
+
+Now Hazen had never been in the town at night, and he had never been
+in any town at any time without some of the king’s servants for whom
+he had had to fetch and carry. To him the streets were strange and
+wonderful, blazing with lights, filled with gayly dressed folk, and
+sounding now and again to strains of music. But the Merry Lad seemed
+wholly at home, and he went here and there like a painted moth,
+belonging to the night and a part of it. They feasted and jested and
+joyed, and most of all they spent the money that they had earned, and
+they spent it on themselves. I cannot tell you the things that they
+bought. They bought a wonderful, tropical, talking bird; they bought a
+little pony on which they both could ride, with the bird on the pony’s
+neck; they bought a tiny trick monkey and a suit of Indian clothes with
+fringed leggings and head-feathers; and a music-box that played like
+a whole band. And when the evening with its lights and pantomimes was
+over, they pitched their tent on the edge of the town, picketed the
+pony outside, brought the other things safely within, and lay down to
+sleep.
+
+Now, since they had no pillows, Hazen took the picture-book which
+the princess had given him and made his pillow of that. And as soon
+as everything was quiet, and the Merry Lad and the talking bird
+were asleep and the pony was dozing at its picket, the princess’s
+picture-book began to talk to Hazen. I do not mean that it said
+words--it is a great mistake to think that everything that is said must
+be said in words--but it talked to him none the less, and better than
+with words. It showed him the princess in her blue gown sitting in the
+window-seat with her little blue slippers crossed. It showed him her
+face as she taught him about the sun and the world, and taught him
+her picture-book through. It reminded him that his page-boy’s dress
+was worn because, in his heart, he was her page. It brought back the
+picture of her standing at the window, with her hair partly brushed,
+to wave him a good-bye--“_Now_, good-bye,” he could hear her little
+voice. He remembered now that he had started out to find his fortune
+and to become wise, _really_ good, loved, and beautiful. And lo, all
+this that he had done all day with the Merry Lad--was it helping him to
+any of these?
+
+As soon as he knew this, he rose softly and, emptying his pockets of
+his share of the money earned that day, he laid it near the Merry Lad’s
+pillow, took the picture-book, and slipped away.
+
+The Merry Lad did not wake, but the talking bird stirred on his perch
+and called after him: “Stay where you are! Stay where you are!” And
+the words seemed to echo in Hazen’s head and were repeated there as if
+another voice had said them, and while he hesitated at the door of the
+tent, he knew what that other voice was: It was within his head indeed,
+and it was the voice of that breezy little Self, all merry and fluffy
+and light as lace--the Fun Self itself!
+
+And then he knew that all day long that was the voice that he had been
+obeying when he went with the Merry Lad, and all day long that Self had
+been guiding him, and had been his ruler. And he himself had not been
+king of the Selves at all!
+
+Hazen slipped out into the night and ran as fast as he could. Nearly
+all that night he travelled without stopping, lest when day came the
+Merry Lad should overtake him. And when day did come, Hazen found
+himself far away, and passing the gate of a garden where, in the dawn,
+a youth was walking, reading a book. Him Hazen asked if he might come
+in the garden and rest for a little.
+
+This Bookman, who was pleasant and gentle and seemed half dreaming,
+welcomed him in, and gave him fruit to eat, and Hazen fell asleep in
+the arbour. When he awoke, the Bookman sat beside him, still reading,
+and seeing that the boy was awake, he began reading to him.
+
+He read a wonderful story about the elements of which everything
+in the world is made. He read that they are a great family of more
+than seventy, and so magically arranged that they make a music, done
+in octaves like the white keys of a piano. So that a man, if he is
+skilful, can play with these octaves as he might with octaves of sound,
+and with a thousand variations can make what he will, and almost play
+for himself a strain of the heavenly harmony in which things began. You
+see what wonderful music that would be? Hazen saw, and he could not
+listen enough.
+
+Until dark he was in the garden, eating fruit and listening; and the
+Bookman, seeing how he loved to listen, asked him if he would not stay
+on in the garden, and live there awhile. And without stopping to think
+whether his fortune lay that way, Hazen said that he would stay.
+
+Everything that the Bookman read to him was like magic, and it taught
+Hazen to do wonderful things. For example, he learned marvellous ways
+with sentences and with words. The Bookman showed him how to get inside
+of words, as if they had doors, so that Hazen could look from out the
+words that were spoken almost as if they had been little boxes, and he
+inside. The Bookman showed him how to look behind the words on a page
+and to see how different they seemed that way. He would say a sentence,
+and instantly it would become solid, and he would set it up, and Hazen
+could hang to it, or turn upon it like a turning-bar. It was all great
+sport. For sentences were not the only things with which he could
+juggle. He showed Hazen how to think a thing and have _that_ become
+solid in the air, too. Just as one might think, “Now I will plant my
+garden,” and presently there the garden is, solid; or, “Now I will get
+my lesson,” and presently, sure enough, there the lesson _is_, in one’s
+head, _so_ the Bookman taught Hazen to do with nearly all his thoughts,
+making many and many of them into actions or else into a solid, so that
+it could be handled as a garden can.
+
+And at last, one night, Hazen thought of the Princess Vista, hoping
+that that thought would become solid too, and that the princess would
+be there before him, for he wished very much to see her. But it did not
+do so, and he asked the Bookman the reason.
+
+“Why does not my thought about the Princess Vista become solid, and the
+princess be here beside me?” he asked wistfully.
+
+“Some thoughts take a very long time to become solid,” said the
+Bookman, gently, “and sometimes we have to travel a long way to make
+them so. If you think of the princess long and hard enough, I daresay
+that you will go to her some day--and there she will be, solid.”
+
+But of course as soon as Hazen began thinking of the princess long and
+hard, he wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be doing
+something that should hasten the time of seeing her, which could not
+well be until he had made his fortune. So thereupon he told the Bookman
+that he must be leaving the garden.
+
+“I knew that the day must come,” said the Bookman, sadly. “_Could_ you
+not stay?”
+
+And when he said that, Hazen wanted so very much to stay there in the
+enchantment of the place, that it seemed as if a voice in his own
+head were echoing the words. And while he hesitated at the gate of
+the garden, he knew what that other voice was! It was within his head
+indeed, and it was the voice of that strange, fascinating Self from
+which he had found that he could hardly look away--the Knowledge Self
+itself. And then he knew that all this time in this garden, it was
+this voice that he had been obeying and it had been guiding him. He
+himself had not been king of the Selves at all. So when he knew that,
+he hesitated not a moment, for he saw that although the Bookman was
+far finer than the Merry Lad, still neither must be king, but only he
+himself must be king.
+
+“Alas!” he cried, as he left the garden, “I am not nearer to making my
+fortune now than I was at the beginning!”
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+KING (_continued_)
+
+
+So Hazen left the garden and the gentle Bookman, who was loath to let
+him go, and hurried out into the world again.
+
+He travelled now for many days, hearing often of far countries which
+held what he sought, but never reaching any of them. Always he did what
+tasks came to his hand, for this seemed a good way toward fortune. But
+sometimes the Envy Self and the Discontented Self spoke loudly in his
+head so that he thought that it was he himself who was speaking, and
+he obeyed them, and stopped his work, and until the chance to finish
+it was lost, he did not know that it was these Selves who had made
+him cease his task and lose his chance and be that much farther from
+fortune. For that was the way of all the Selves--they had a clever
+fashion of making Hazen think that their voices were his own voice, and
+sometimes he could hardly tell the difference.
+
+At last, one night, he came to a hill, sloping gently as if something
+beautiful were overflowing. Its trees looked laid upon the mellow
+west beyond. The turf was like some Titan woman’s embroidery, sheared
+and flowered. Hazen looked at it all, and at the great sky and the
+welcoming distance, and before he knew whether it came as a thought or
+as a song, he had made a little rhyme:--
+
+ Do you wish you had a world of gold
+ With a turquoise roof on high,
+ And a coral east and a ruby west
+ And diamonds in the sky?
+
+ Do you wish there were little doors of air
+ That a child might open wide,
+ Where were emerald chairs and a tourmaline rug
+ And a moonstone moon beside?
+
+ Do you wish the lakes were silver plates
+ And the sea a sapphire dish?
+ What a wonderful, wonderful world it is--
+ For haven’t you got your wish?
+
+He liked to sing this, and he loved the hill and the evening. He lay
+there a long time, making little rhymes and loving everything. Next
+day he wandered away in the woods, and asked for food at a hut, and
+offered the bewildered woman a rhyme in payment, and at night he
+returned to his hill, and there he lived for days, playing that he
+was living all alone in the world--that there was not another person
+anywhere on the earth.
+
+But one night when he was lying on the hillside, composing a song to
+the Littlest Leaf in the Wood, suddenly the voice of his song was not
+so loud as a voice within him which seemed to say how much he delighted
+to be singing. And then he knew the voice--that it was the voice of the
+Beauty Self in his own head, that it was that voice that had made him
+linger on the hillside and had commanded him to sing about the beauty
+in the world _and to do nothing else_. And all this time it had been
+king of the Selves, and not he!
+
+He rose and fled down the hillside, and for days he wandered alone,
+sick at heart because this fair Beauty Self had tricked him into
+following her _and no other_, even as the Fun Self and the Knowledge
+Self had done. But even while he wandered, grieving, again and again
+the Idle Self, the Strong Self, the Discontented Self, deceived him
+for a little while and succeeded in making their own voices heard, and
+now and again the little shadowy Selves--the Malice and Cruel and Envy
+Selves drew very near him and tried to speak for him. And they all
+fought to keep him from being king and to deceive him into thinking
+that they spoke for him.
+
+One brooding noonday, as Hazen was travelling, alone and tired, on the
+highroad, a carriage overtook him, and the gentleman within, looking
+sharply at him, ordered the carriage stopped, and asked him courteously
+if he was not the poet whose songs he had sometimes heard, and of whose
+knowledge and good-fellowship others had told him. It proved that it
+was no other than Hazen whom he meant, and he took him with him in
+his carriage to a great, wonderful house overlooking the valley, and
+commanding a sovereign mountain on whose very summit stood a deserted
+castle. It seemed as if merely looking on that wonderful prospect would
+help one to be wise and _really_ good and beautiful and worthy to be
+loved.
+
+At once Hazen’s host, the Gentleman of the Carriage, began showing
+him his treasures and all that made life for him. The house was
+filled with curious and beautiful things, pictures, ivories, marbles,
+and tapestries, and with many friends. In the evenings there were
+always festivities; mirth and laughter were everywhere, and Hazen
+was laden with gifts of these and other things, and delighted in the
+entertainment. But by day, in a high-ceiled library and a cool study,
+the two spent hours pouring over letters and science, finding out
+the secrets of the world, getting on the other side of words, saying
+sentences, and thinking thoughts that became solid; or they would
+wander on the hillsides and carry rare books and dream of the beauty in
+the world and weave little songs. Now they would be idle, now absorbed
+in feats of strength, and now they would descend into the town and
+there delight in its great sport. And in all this Hazen had some part
+and earned his own way, because of his cleverness and willingness to
+enter in the life and belong to it.
+
+One day, standing on a balcony of the beautiful house, looking across
+at the mountain and the deserted castle, Hazen said aloud:--
+
+“This is the true life. This is fortune. For now I hear all the voices
+of all my Selves, and I give good things to each, and I am king of
+them all!”
+
+But even as he spoke he heard another voice sounding within his own,
+and it laughed, and cracked as it laughed, so that it sounded like
+something being broken that could never be mended.
+
+“I told you so, Hazen! I told you so!” it cried. “Being loved and
+_really_ good do not mean making our fortune. Just one thing means
+fortune, and that is being rich. To be rich, _rich_, means good times
+and learning and beauty and idleness. I’ve fought every one of the
+others, and now you’ve got all that they had to offer, because you have
+let me be king--_me and no other_.”
+
+To his horror, Hazen recognized the voice of the dwarf, the Riches
+Self, and knew that he was deceived again, that he himself was ruler of
+nothing, and that the dwarf was now king of all his Selves.
+
+When he realized this, it seemed to Hazen that his heart was pierced
+and that he could not live any longer. Suppose--ah, suppose that he did
+get back to the Princess Vista now--what had he to take to her? Could
+he give her himself--a Self of which not he but the dwarf was the
+owner?
+
+Somehow, in spite of their protestations and persuadings, Hazen said
+good-bye to them all, to his host and to those who had detained him,
+and he was off down into the valley alone--not knowing where he was
+going or what he was going to do, or what hope now remained that he
+should ever be any nearer the fortune for which he had so hopefully set
+out.
+
+It was bright moonlight when he came to the edge of a fair, green,
+valley meadow. The whiteness was flooding the world, as if it would
+wash away everything that had ever been and would begin it all over
+again. And in the centre of the meadow, all the brightness seemed to
+gather and thicken and glitter, as if something mysterious were there.
+It drew Hazen to itself, as if it were so pure that it must be what
+he was seeking, and he broke through the hedge and stepped among the
+flowers of the lush grass, and he stood before it.
+
+It was a fountain of water, greater than any fountain that Hazen had
+ever seen or conceived. It rose from the green in pure strands of
+exquisite firmness, in almost the slim lines and spirals of a stair;
+and its high, curving spray and its plash and murmur made it rather
+like a gigantic white tree, with music in its boughs--the tree of life
+itself.
+
+Hazen could no more have helped leaping in the fountain than he could
+have helped his joy in its beauty. He sprang in the soft waters as
+if he were springing into arms, and it drew him to itself as if he
+belonged to it. The waters flowed over him, and he felt purified, and
+as if a healing light had shone through him, body and mind.
+
+But to his amazement, he did not remain in the fountain’s basin.
+Gently, as if he were upborne by unseen hands, he mounted with the rise
+of the fountain, in its slim lines and spirals, until he found himself
+high above the meadow in a silvery tower that was thrown out from the
+fountain itself. And there, alone in that lofty silence, it was as if
+he were face to face with himself and could see his own heart.
+
+Then the Thought spoke to him which had spoken to him long ago that
+morning in the king’s kitchen, and again on that first night in the
+wood.
+
+“Hazen!” it said, “you are not wise or _really_ good or loved or
+beautiful. Why don’t you become so?”
+
+“I!” said Hazen, sadly. “I have lost my chance. I came out to find my
+fortune and I have thrown it away.”
+
+But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and
+over so many times that at last he answered:--
+
+“What, then, must I do?” he asked.
+
+And then he listened, there in the night and the stillness, to hear
+what it was that he must do. And this was the first time that ever he
+had listened like this, or questioned carefully his course. Always
+before he had done what seemed to him the thing that he wished to do,
+without questioning whether his fortune lay that way.
+
+“Bravely spoken, Hazen,” said the Thought, then. “Someone near is in
+great need. Find him and help him.”
+
+Instantly Hazen leaped lightly to the ground, and ran away through
+the moonlit meadow, and he sought as never in his life had he sought
+anything before, for the one near, in great need, whom he was to find
+and help. All through the night he sought, and with the setting of
+the moon he was struggling up the mountain, because it seemed to him
+that he must do some hard thing, and this was hard. In the early dawn
+he stood on the mountain’s very summit, and knocked at the gate of the
+deserted castle there. And it was the forsaken castle of his father,
+the king, whom the Princess Vista’s father had conquered; but this
+Hazen did not know.
+
+No sound answered his summons, so he swung the heavy gate on its broken
+hinges and stepped within. The court yard was vacant and echoing and
+grass-grown. Rabbits scuttled away at his approach, and about the
+sightless eyes of the windows, bats were clinging and moving. The clock
+in the tower was still and pointed to an hour long-spent. The whole
+place breathed of things forgotten and of those who, having loved them,
+were forgotten too.
+
+Hazen mounted the broad, mossy steps leading to the portals, and he
+found one door slightly ajar. Wondering greatly, he touched it open,
+and the groined hall appeared like a grim face from behind a mask.
+On the stone floor, not far beyond the threshold, lay an old man,
+motionless. And when, uttering a little cry of pity and amazement,
+Hazen stooped over him, he knew him at once to be that old man who had
+greeted him at the entrance to the wood on the evening of the day on
+which he himself had left the king’s palace.
+
+What with bringing him water and bathing his face and chafing his
+hands, Hazen at last enabled the old man to speak, and found that he
+had been nearly all his life-time the keeper of the castle and for
+some years its only occupant. He was not ill, but he had fallen and
+was hurt, and he had lain for several days without food. So Hazen, who
+knew well how to do it, kindled a fire of fagots in the great, echoing
+castle kitchen, and, from the scanty store which he found there,
+prepared broth and eggs, and then helped the old man to his bed in the
+little room which had once been a king’s cabinet.
+
+“Lad, lad!” said the old man, when he had remembered Hazen. “And
+have you found your fortune? And are you by now wise, _really_ good,
+beautiful, and loved?”
+
+“Alas!” said Hazen, only, and could say no more.
+
+The old man nodded. “I know, I know,” he said sadly. “The little
+Selves have been about, ruling here and ruling there. Is it not so? Sit
+here a little, and let us talk about it.”
+
+Then Hazen told him all that had befallen since that night when they
+sat together in the wood. And though his adventures seemed to Hazen
+very wonderful, the old man merely nodded, as if he were not hearing
+but only remembering.
+
+“Ay,” he said, at the last, “I have met them all--the Merry Lad, the
+Bookman, and all the rest, and have dwelt a space with some. And I,
+too, have come to the fountain in the night, and have asked what it was
+that I should do.”
+
+“But tell me, sir,” said Hazen, eagerly, “how was it that I was told at
+the fountain that there was one near in great need. Did the fountain
+know you? Or did my Thought? And how could that be?”
+
+“Nay, lad,” said the old man, “but always, for everyone, there is
+someone near in need--yet. One has only to look.”
+
+Then he talked to Hazen more about his fortune, and again the old man’s
+meaning was in his mere presence, so that whether he talked about the
+stars or the earth or the ways of men, he made Hazen know fascinating
+things about them all. And now Hazen listened far differently from the
+way that he had listened that other time when they had talked, and it
+was as if the words had grown, and as if they meant more than once they
+had meant.
+
+Now, whoever has stood for the first time in a great, empty castle
+knows that there is one thing that he longs to do above all other
+things, and this is to explore. And when the afternoon lay brooding
+upon the air, and slanting sun fell through the dusty lattices, Hazen
+asked the old man eagerly if he might wander through the rooms.
+
+“As freely,” answered the old man, willingly, “as if you were the
+castle’s prince.”
+
+Thus it chanced that, after all the years, Hazen, though he was far
+from dreaming the truth, was once more roaming through the rooms of his
+birthplace and treading the floors that had once echoed the step of his
+father, the king.
+
+It was a wonderful place, the like of which Hazen thought he had never
+seen before, save only in the palace of the father of the princess.
+Above stairs the rooms had hardly been disturbed since that old day of
+the hurried flight of all his father’s court. There was a great room
+of books, as rich in precious volumes as the king’s library which he
+already knew, and there, though this he could not guess, his own father
+had been wont to sit late in the night, consulting learned writers and
+dreaming of the future of his little son. There was the chapel, where
+they had brought Hazen himself to be christened, in the presence of all
+the court; there the long banqueting room to which he had once been
+carried so that the nobles might pledge him their fealty, the arched
+roof echoing their shouts. The throne room, the council room, the state
+drawing rooms--through all these, with their dim, dusty hangings and
+rich, faded furnishings, Hazen footed; and at last, up another stair,
+he came to the private apartments of the king and queen themselves.
+
+Breathing the life of another time the rooms lay, as if partly
+remembering and partly expecting. In the king’s room was the hunting
+suit that he had thrown off just before the attack, the book that he
+had been reading, the chart that he had consulted. In the queen’s
+room were tarnished golden toilet articles and ornaments, and in her
+wardrobe her very robes hung, dusty and mouldering, the gold thread and
+gold fringes showing black and sad.
+
+And then Hazen entered a room which seemed to have been a child’s
+room--and it was his room, of his first babyhood. Something in him
+stirred and kindled, almost as if his body remembered, though his mind
+could not do so. Toys lay scattered about--tops, a football, books, and
+a bank. The pillow of the small white bed was indented as if from the
+pressure of a little head, and a pair of tiny shoes, one upright, one
+overturned, were on the floor. Hazen picked up one little shoe and held
+it for a minute in his hand. He wondered if some of the little garments
+of the child, whoever he was, might not be in the hanging room. And he
+opened the closed door.
+
+The door led to a closet and, as he had guessed, little garments were
+hanging there. But it was not these that caught his eye and held him
+breathless and spellbound on the threshold. On the high shelf of the
+closet stood a small glass casket. And in the casket was a little bit
+of live thing that fluttered piteously, as if begging to be released,
+and frantic with joy at the coming of light from without.
+
+Hazen’s heart beat as he took the casket in his hand. It was the most
+wonderful little box that ever he had seen. And the little living thing
+was something like a fairy and something like a spirit and so beautiful
+that it seemed to Hazen that he must have it for his own. Something
+stirred and kindled in his mind so that it was almost a memory, and he
+said to himself:--
+
+“I have seen a casket like this. I have _had_ a casket like this. Nay,
+but the very earliest thing that ever I can remember is a casket like
+this from which no one knew how to release this little living spirit.”
+
+For the little spirit was fast in the crystal prison, and if one broke
+the casket, one would almost certainly harm the spirit--but what other
+way was there to do?
+
+With the casket in his hand and the little spirit fluttering within,
+Hazen ran back below stairs to the old man.
+
+“Look!” Hazen cried. “This casket! It is from the closet shelf of some
+child’s room. I remember a casket such as this, and within it a little
+living spirit. I have _had_ a casket such as this! What does it mean?”
+
+Then the old man, who had been keeper there when the castle was taken,
+trembled and peered into Hazen’s face.
+
+“Who are you?” the old man cried. “Who are you--and what is your name?”
+
+“Alas,” said Hazen, sadly, “I was but the furnace boy to the king of a
+neighbouring country, and who I am I do not know. But as for my name,
+that is Hazen, and I know not what else.”
+
+Then the old man cried out, and tried to bow himself, and to kiss
+Hazen’s hand.
+
+“Prince Hazen!” cried he. “You are no other. Ah, God be praised. You
+are the son of my own beloved king.”
+
+As well as he could for his joy and agitation, the old man told Hazen
+everything: how the castle had been taken by that king of a neighbour
+country--who did _not_ know that neighbours are nearly one’s own
+family--how Hazen had been made prisoner, and how he was really heir
+to this kingdom and to all its ample lands. And how the magic casket,
+which after all these years the old man now remembered, was to make
+Hazen, and no other, wise and _really_ good and loved and beautiful,
+if only the little spirit could be freed.
+
+“But how am I to do that?” Hazen cried. “For to break the casket would
+be to harm the spirit. And what other way is there to do?”
+
+“Alas,” answered the old man, “that I do not know. I think that this
+you must do alone. As for me, my life is almost spent. And now that I
+have seen you, my prince, the son of my dear sovereign, there is left
+to me but to die in peace.”
+
+At this, Hazen, remembering how much he owed the wonderful old man for
+that enchanted talk in the wood, when he had taught him fascinating
+things about the stars and the earth and the ways of men, and had shown
+him the inside of his own head and all those Selves of his and he their
+king if he would be so--remembering all these things Hazen longed to do
+something for him in return. But what could he do for him, he the heir
+of a conquered kingdom and a desolate palace? Yet the old man had been
+his father’s servant; and it was he whom the Thought at the fountain
+had bidden him to help; but chiefly Hazen’s heart overflowed with
+simple pity and tenderness for the helpless one. And in that pity the
+Thought spoke again:--
+
+“Give him the casket,” it said.
+
+Hazen hesitated--and in an instant his head was a chaos of voices. It
+was as if all the little Selves, even those which had now long been
+silent, were listening, were suddenly fighting among themselves in open
+combat to see what they could make Hazen do.
+
+“That beautiful thing!” cried the Beauty Self. “Keep it--keep it,
+Hazen!”
+
+“You will never have another chance at a fortune if you give it up!”
+cried the Discontented Self.
+
+“If you throw away your chance at a fortune, your life will be a life
+of hard work--and where will your good time come in?” cried the little
+Fun Self, anxiously.
+
+“You will have only labour and no leisure for learning--” warned the
+Knowledge Self.
+
+“What of the Princess Vista? Do you not owe it to her to keep the
+casket? And is it not _right_ that you should keep the casket and grow
+wise and _really_ good and loved and beautiful?” they all argued in
+turn. And above them all sounded the terrible, cracked voice of the
+dwarf, not laughing now, but fighting for his life:--
+
+“Fool! Nothing counts but your chance at fortune. If you part with the
+casket, you part with _me!_”
+
+But sweet and clear through the clamour sounded the solemn insisting of
+the Thought:--
+
+“Give him the casket--give him the casket, Hazen.”
+
+Quickly Hazen knelt beside the old man, and placed the magic casket in
+his hands.
+
+“Lo,” said Prince Hazen, “I have nothing to give you, save only this.
+But it may be that we can yet find some way to release the spirit and
+that then you can have the good fortune that this will give. Take the
+casket--it is yours.”
+
+In an instant, and noiselessly, the magic casket fell in pieces in
+Hazen’s hands, and vanished. And with a soft sound of escaping wings
+the little spirit rose joyously and fluttered toward Hazen, and
+alighted on his breast. There were sudden sweetness and light in all
+the place, and a happiness that bewildered Hazen--and when he looked
+again, the little spirit had disappeared--but his own breast was filled
+with something new and marvellous, as if strange doors to himself had
+opened, and as if the spirit had found lodging there forever.
+
+In the clear silence following upon the babel of the little voices
+of all the mean and petty Selves, Hazen was aware of a voice echoing
+within him like music; and he knew the Thought now better than he knew
+himself, who had so many Selves, and he knew that when it spoke to him
+softly, softly, he would always hear.
+
+“If you had kept the magic casket for yourself,” it said, “the spirit
+would have drooped and died. _It was only by giving the casket away
+that the spirit could ever be free._ It was only when the spirit became
+yours that you could hope to be wise and good and beautiful and worthy
+to be loved. And now where is the Princess Vista’s picture-book?”
+
+All this time Hazen had not lost the picture-book of the princess,
+and now it was lying on the floor near where he was that night
+to have slept. He caught it up and turned the pages, and the old
+familiar pictures which the princess had shown him that morning in the
+window-seat made him long, as he had not longed since he had left the
+palace, to see her again.
+
+He turned to the old man.
+
+“There is a certain princess--” he began.
+
+“Ay,” said the old man, gently, “so there is always, my prince. Go to
+her.”
+
+The mere exquisite presence of that spirit in the room seemed to have
+healed and invigorated the old man, and he had risen to his feet,
+clothed with a new strength. He set about searching in the king’s
+wardrobe for suitable garments for his young prince, and in a cedar
+chest he found vestments of somewhat ancient pattern, but of so rich
+material and so delicately made that the ancient style did but add to
+their beauty.
+
+When he had made Hazen ready, there was never a fairer prince in the
+world. Then the old man led him below stairs and showed him in a
+forgotten room, of which he himself only had the key, a box containing
+the jewels of the queen, his mother. So, bearing these, save one with
+which he purchased a horse for his needs, Prince Hazen set out for the
+palace of the princess.
+
+It chanced that it was early morning when Prince Hazen entered the
+palace grounds which he had left as a furnace boy. And you must know
+that, since his leaving, years had elapsed; for though he had believed
+himself to have stayed with the Merry Lad but one day, and with the
+Bookman but a few days, and but a little time on the hills singing
+songs, and in byways listening to the voices of Idleness, Strength, and
+the rest, and lingering in that fair home where the Dwarf had sent him,
+yet in reality with each one he had spent a year and more, so that now
+he was like someone else.
+
+But the princess’s father’s palace garden was just the same, and Hazen
+entered by the east gate, which still no one could lock; and to be back
+within the garden was as wonderful as bathing in the ocean or standing
+on a high mountain or seeing the dawn. His horse bore him along between
+the flowering shrubs and the hollyhocks; he heard the fountains
+plashing and the song-sparrows singing and the village bells faintly
+sounding; he saw the goldfish and the water-lilies gleam in the pool,
+and the horses cantering about the paddock. And all at once it seemed
+to him that the day was his and the world was his, to do with them what
+he would.
+
+So he galloped round the east wing of the palace, and looked up
+eagerly and longingly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the
+Princess Vista, watching. But when she saw him, she drew far back as if
+she were afraid. And Prince Hazen, as he bowed low in his saddle, could
+think of no word to say to her that seemed a word to be said. He could
+only cry up to her:--
+
+“Oh, Princess Vista. Come down! Come down! Come down--and teach me
+about the whole world.”
+
+He galloped straight to the great entrance way, and leaped from his
+horse, and no one questioned him, for they all knew by his look that he
+came with great authority. And he went to the king’s library, to that
+room which was as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree, and filled with
+mystery, and waited for her, knowing that she would come.
+
+She entered the room almost timidly, as, once upon a time, the little
+furnace boy had entered. And when she saw him waiting for her before
+the window-seat, nothing could have exceeded her terror and her wonder
+and her delight. And now her eyes were looking down, and she did _not_
+ask him what he was doing there.
+
+“Oh, Princess Vista,” he said softly, “I love you. I want to be loved!”
+
+“Who are you--that want so much?” the princess asked--but her eyes
+knew, and her smile knew.
+
+“Someone who has brought back your picture-book,” said Prince Hazen. “I
+pray you, teach it to me again.”
+
+“Nay,” said the princess, softly, “I have taught you a wrong thing. For
+I have taught you that there are many suns. And instead there is only
+one sun, and it brings only one day--and that day is this day!”
+
+It was so that she welcomed him back.
+
+They went to the king, her father, and told him everything. And when he
+knew that his daughter loved Prince Hazen, he restored his kingdom to
+him, and named him his own successor. And Hazen was crowned king, with
+much magnificence, and his father’s courtiers, who were living, were
+returned to his court, and that wise, wonderful old man, who had shown
+him the inside of his own head, was given a place of honour near the
+king.
+
+But on the day of the coronation, louder than the shouts of the people,
+and nearer even than the voice of his queen, sounded that voice of the
+wise and good Self, which was but the Thought, deep within the soul of
+the king:--
+
+“Hail to Hazen--King of All His Selves!”
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE WALK
+
+
+“What’s the latest you ever stayed up?” Delia demanded of Mary
+Elizabeth and me.
+
+“I sat up till ten o’clock once when my aunt was coming,” I boasted.
+
+“Once I was on a train that got in at twelve o’clock,” said Mary
+Elizabeth, thoughtfully, “but I was asleep till the train got in. Would
+you call that sitting up till twelve o’clock?”
+
+On the whole, Delia and I decided that you could not impartially call
+it so, and Mary Elizabeth conceded the point. Her next best experience
+was dated at only half past nine.
+
+“I was up till eleven o’clock lots of times.” Delia threw out
+carelessly.
+
+We regarded her with awe. Here was another glory for her list. Already
+we knew that she had slept in a sleeping car, patted an elephant, and
+swum four strokes.
+
+“What’s the earliest you ever got up?” Delia pursued.
+
+Here, too, we proved to have nothing to compete with the order of
+Delia’s risings. However, this might yet be mended. There seemed never
+to be the same household ban on getting up early that there was on
+staying up late.
+
+“Let’s get up some morning before four o’clock and take a walk,” I
+suggested.
+
+“My brother got up at half past three once,” Mary Elizabeth announced.
+
+“Well,” I said, “let’s get up at half past three. Let’s do it to-morrow
+morning.”
+
+Mary Elizabeth and I had stretched a string from a little bell at
+the head of her bed to a little bell at the head of my bed. This the
+authorities permitted us to ring so long as there was discernible a
+light, or any other fixed signal, at the two windows; and also after
+seven o’clock in the morning. But of course the time when we both
+longed most frantically to pull the cord was when either woke at night
+and lay alone in the darkness. In the night I used to put my hand on
+the string and think how, by a touch, I could waken Mary Elizabeth,
+just as if she were in my room, just as if we were hand in hand. I
+used to think what joy it would be if all little children on the same
+side of the ocean were similarly provided, and if no one interfered.
+A little code of signals arose in my mind, a kind of secret code which
+should be heard by nobody save those for whom they were intended--for
+sick children, for frightened children, for children just having a bad
+dream, for motherless children, for cold or tired or lonely children,
+for all children sleepless for any cause. I used to wish that little
+signals like this could be rung for all unhappy children, night or day.
+Why, with all their inventions, had not grown people invented this? Of
+course they would never make things any harder for us than they could
+help (we thought). But why had they not done this thing to make things
+easier?
+
+The half past three proposal was unanimously vetoed within doors: We
+might rise at five o’clock, no earlier. This somewhat took edge from
+the adventure, but we accepted it as next best. Delia was to be waked
+by an alarm clock. Mary Elizabeth and I felt that, by some mysterious
+means, we could waken ourselves; and we two agreed to call each other,
+so to say, by the bells.
+
+When I did waken, it was still quite dark, and when I had found light
+and a clock, I saw that it was only a little after three. As I had
+gone to bed at seven, I was wide awake at three; and it occurred to me
+that I would stay up till time to call Mary Elizabeth. This would be
+at half past four. Besides, stopping up then presented an undoubted
+advantage: It enabled me to skip my bath. Clearly I could not, with
+courtesy, risk rousing the household with many waters.
+
+I dressed in the dark, braided my own hair in the dark--by now I could
+do this save that the plait, when I brought it over my shoulder, still
+would assume a jog--and sat down by the open window. It was one of the
+large nights ... for some nights are undeniably larger than others.
+When I was on the street with my hand in a grown-up hand, the night
+was invariably bounded by trees, fences, houses, lawns, horse-blocks,
+and the like. But when I stepped to the door alone at night, I always
+noticed that it stretched endlessly away. So it was now. I could slip
+out the screen, as I had discovered earlier in the season when I had
+felt the need of feeding a nest of house-wrens in the bird-house below
+my sill--and I took out the screen now, and leaned out in the darkness.
+The stars seemed very near--I am always glad that I did not know how
+far away they are, for they looked so friendly near. If only, I used
+to think, the clouds would form _behind_ the stars and leave them all
+shiny and blurry bright in the rain. What were they? How came they to
+be in our world’s sky?
+
+I suppose that I had been ten minutes at the window that morning when
+I saw a light briefly flash in Mary Elizabeth’s window. Instantly, I
+softly pulled my bell. She answered, and then I could see her, dim in
+the window once more dark.
+
+“It isn’t time yet!” she called softly--our houses were very near.
+
+“Not yet,” I answered, “but I’m going to stay up.”
+
+Mary Elizabeth briefly considered this.
+
+“What for?” she propounded.
+
+I had not thought what for.
+
+“To--why to be up early,” I answered confidently. “I’m all dressed.”
+
+The defence must have carried conviction.
+
+“I will, too,” Mary Elizabeth concluded.
+
+She disappeared and, after a suitable time, reappeared at the window,
+presumably fully clothed. I detached the bell from my bed and sat with
+it in my hand, and I found afterward that she had done the same. From
+time to time we each gave the cord a slight, ecstatic pull. The whole
+mystery of the great night lay in those gentle signals.
+
+It is unfortunate to have to confess that, after a time, the mystery
+palled. But it did. Stars, wide, dark, moonless lawn, empty street,
+all these blurred and merged in a single impression. This was one of
+chilliness. Even calling through the night at intervals, and at the
+imminent risk of being heard, lost its charm, because after a little
+while there was nothing left to call. “How still it is!” and “Nobody
+but us is up in town,” and “Won’t Delia be mad?” lose their edge when
+repeated for about the third time each. Moreover, I was obliged to face
+a new foe: I was getting sleepy.
+
+Without undue disturbance of the cord, I managed to consult the clock
+once more. It was five minutes of four. There remained more than an
+hour to wait! It was I who capitulated.
+
+“Mary Elizabeth,” I said waveringly, “would you care very much if I was
+to lay down just a little to rest my eyes?”
+
+“No, I wouldn’t care,” came with significant alacrity. “I will, too.”
+
+I lay down on the covers and pulled a comforter about me. As I drifted
+off I remember wondering how the dark ever kept awake all night. For it
+was awake. To know that one had only to listen.
+
+We all had a signal which we called a “trill,” made by tongue and
+teeth, with almost the force of a boy and a blade of grass. This,
+produced furiously beneath my window, was what wakened me. Delia stood
+between the two houses, engaged with such absorption in manufacturing
+this sound that she failed to see me at the window. A moment after
+I had hailed her, Mary Elizabeth appeared at her window, looking
+distinctly distraught.
+
+Seeing us fully dressed, Delia’s indignation increased.
+
+“Why didn’t you leave me know you were up?” she demanded shrilly. “It’s
+a quarter past five. I been out here fifteen minutes.”
+
+We were assuring her guiltily that we would be right down when there
+came an interruption.
+
+“_Delia!_”
+
+Delia’s father, in a gray bath-robe, stood at an upper window of their
+house across the street.
+
+“What do you mean by waking up the whole neighbourhood?” he inquired,
+not without reason. “Now I want you to come home.”
+
+“We were going walking,” Delia reminded him.
+
+“You are coming home at once after this proceeding,” Delia’s father
+assured her. “No more words please, Delia.”
+
+He disappeared from the window. Delia moved reluctantly across the
+street. As she went, she threw a resentful glance at Mary Elizabeth and
+me, each.
+
+“I’m sorry, Delia!” we called softly in chorus. She made no reply. Mary
+Elizabeth and I were left staring at each other down our bell-rope,
+no longer taut, but limp, as we had left it earlier.... Even in that
+stress, the unearthly sweetness of the morning smote me--the early sun,
+the early shadows. It all looked so exactly as if it had expected you
+not to be looking. This is the look of outdoors that, _now_, will most
+quickly take me back.
+
+“It wouldn’t be fair to go walking without Delia,” said Mary Elizabeth,
+abruptly and positively.
+
+“No,” I agreed, with equal decision. Then, “We might as well go back to
+bed,” I pursued the subject further.
+
+“Let’s,” said Mary Elizabeth.
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+THE GREAT BLACK HUSH
+
+
+On that special night, which somehow I remember with tenderness, I
+sometimes think now--all these years after--that I should like to have
+been with those solitary, sleepy little figures, trying so hard to get
+near to mystery. I should think that a Star Story must have come in
+anybody’s head to tell them. Like this:--
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Once, when it didn’t matter to anybody whether you were late or early,
+or quick or slow, not only because there wasn’t anybody and there
+wasn’t any you, but because it was back in the beginning when there
+were no lates and earlies and quicks and slows, _then_ things began to
+happen in the middle of the Great Black Hush which was all there was to
+everything.
+
+The Great Black Hush reached all the way around the Universe and in
+directions without any names, and it was huge and humble and superior
+and helpless and mighty and in other ways it was very much indeed like
+a man. And as there was nothing to do, the Great Black Hush was bored
+past extinction and almost to creation. For there wasn’t anything else
+about save only the Wind, and the Wind would have nothing whatever to
+do with him and always blew right by.
+
+Now, inasmuch as everything that is now was then going to be created,
+it was all waiting somewhere to be created; and nothing is clearer than
+that. Lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and
+Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and paints and planets
+and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all, were
+waiting to be created, and among them waited people. I cannot tell you
+where they waited, because there was no where; but they were waiting,
+as anybody can see, for time to be begun.
+
+Among the people who were waiting about was one special baby, who was
+just big enough to reach out after everything and to try to put it in
+his mouth, and they had an awful time with him. He put his little hands
+on coloured things and on flame things and on air and on water and on
+musics, and he wanted to know what they all were, and he tried to put
+them in his mouth. And his mother was perfectly distracted, and she
+told him so, openly.
+
+[Illustration: “TO SEE WHAT RUNNING AWAY IS REALLY LIKE.”]
+
+“Special Baby,” she said to him openly, “I don’t see why every hair
+in my head is not pure white. And if you don’t stop making so much
+trouble, I’ll run away.”
+
+“Run away,” thought the Special Baby. “Now what thing is that?”
+
+And he stretched out his little hand to see, but there wasn’t anything
+there, and he couldn’t put it in his mouth; so without letting anybody
+know, he started off all by himself to see what running away is really
+like.
+
+He ran and he ran, past lines and colours and blocks and flame and
+music and paint and planets, all waiting about to begin, till he began
+to notice the Great Black Hush, where it lay all humble and important,
+and bored past extinction and almost to creation.
+
+“What thing is that?” thought the Special Baby, and put out his little
+hand to get it and put it in his mouth.
+
+So he touched the Great Black Hush, and under the little hand the Great
+Black Hush felt as never he had felt before. For the Special Baby’s
+hand was soft and wandering and most clinging--any General Baby’s hand
+will give you the idea if you care to try. And it made it seem as if
+there were something to do.
+
+All through his huge, helpless, superior, and mighty being the Great
+Black Hush was stirred, and when the Special Baby was frightened and
+would have gone back, the Great Black Hush did the most astonishing
+things to try to keep him. He plaited the darkness up like a ruffle
+and waved it like a flag and opened it like a flower and shut it like
+a door and poured it about like water, all to keep the Special Baby
+amused. But though the Special Baby tried to put most of these and
+_all_ the dark in his mouth, still on the whole he was badly frightened
+and wanted his mother, and he began to cry to show how much he wanted
+her. And then the Great Black Hush was at his wits’ end.
+
+“Now, who is there to be the mother of this Special Baby?” he cried in
+despair, for there wasn’t anything else anywhere around, save only the
+Wind, and the Wind always blew right by. But the blowing by must have
+been because the Great Black Hush had never spoken before, for these
+were the first words that ever he had said; and the Wind, on hearing
+them, stopped still as a stone, and listened.
+
+“Would I do?” the Wind asked, and the Great Black Hush was so
+astonished that he almost dropped the Special Baby.
+
+“Would I do?” asked the Wind again, and made the dark like blown
+garments and like long, blown hair and tender motions, such as women
+make. And she took the Special Baby in her arms and rocked him as
+gently as boughs, so that he laughed with delight and tried to put the
+wind in his mouth and finally went to sleep, with his beads on.
+
+“_Now_ what’ll we do?” said the Great Black Hush, hanging about, all
+helpless and mighty.
+
+“We can get along without a cradle,” said the Wind, “because I will
+rock him to sleep in my arms.” (This was before time began and before
+they laid them down to go to sleep alone in a dark room.) “But we
+ought, we _ought_,” she added, “to have something for him to play with
+when he wakes up.” (This was before time began and before anybody ate.
+But they always played. That came first.)
+
+“If he had something to play with, what would that look like?” asked
+the Great Black Hush, all helpless.
+
+“It musn’t have points like scissors, or ends like string, and the
+paint mustn’t come off. I think,” said the Wind, “it ought to look like
+a shining ball.”
+
+“By my distance,” said the Great Black Hush, all mighty, “that’s what
+it shall look like.”
+
+Then he began to make a plaything, and he worked all over him and all
+over everywhere at the fashioning. I don’t know how he did it, because
+I wasn’t there, and I can’t reckon how long it took him, because there
+wasn’t any time, but I know some things about it all, and one is that
+he finally got it done.
+
+“Look!” the Great Black Hush cried to the Wind,--for she paid more
+attention to the Special Baby now than she did to him. And when she
+looked, there hung in the sky, a great, enormous, shining ball.
+
+“That’s big enough so he can’t get it in his mouth,” she said
+approvingly. “It’s really ginginatic.”
+
+“You mean gigantic, dear,” said the Great Black Hush, all superior. But
+the Wind didn’t care because words hadn’t been used long enough to fit
+closely, and besides he had said “dear” and she knew what _that_ meant.
+“Dear” came before “gigantic.”
+
+“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”
+
+But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must
+have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered
+however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself
+making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings
+looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything
+the Wind had told him to make and he didn’t know whether anything
+else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all
+swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.
+
+By-and-by--there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and
+that is why so many people prefer it--when he couldn’t stay any longer,
+he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.
+
+“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby
+woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.
+
+But he wasn’t cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all
+the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging,
+swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands
+for them, but they were so big he couldn’t put them in his mouth and so
+he might reach out all he pleased.
+
+“_Ho_,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was
+before.”
+
+But the Wind sighed a little.
+
+“I wish everything were more so,” she said. “I ought to have a place to
+take the Special Baby and make his clothes and mend his socks and tie
+on his shoes and rub his little back. Also, I want to learn a lullaby,
+and this is so public.”
+
+Then the Great Black Hush thought and thought, and remembered that away
+back on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, there
+was a tidy little place that might be just the thing. It was _not_ up
+to date, because there wasn’t any date, but still he thought it might
+be just the thing.
+
+“By the welkin,” he said, “I know a place that is the place. I’ll go
+and sweep it out.”
+
+“Not so fast,” said the Wind, gently. “I go also. I want to be sure
+that there are enough closets--” or whatever would have corresponded to
+that before there was any Modern at all.
+
+So the three went away together and groped about on the Outermost Way
+and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, and there the Wind swept it out
+tidily and there they made their home. And when it was all done,--which
+took a great while because the Wind kept wanting additions put
+on,--they came out and sat at the door of the place, the Great Black
+Hush and the Wind and the Special Baby between.
+
+And as they did that a wonderful thing was true. For now that the
+Great Black Hush had withdrawn to his new home, lo, all the swinging
+plaything balls were shining through space, and there was light. And
+the man and the woman and the child at the door of the first home
+looked in one another’s faces. And the man and the woman were afraid of
+the light and their look clung each to the other’s in that fear; but
+the Special Baby stretched out his little hands and tried to put the
+light in his mouth.
+
+“Don’t, dear,” said the woman, and her voice sounded quite natural.
+
+“Pay attention to me and not to the Baby,” said the man, and _his_
+voice sounded quite natural, and very mighty, so that the woman
+obeyed--until the Special Baby wanted her again.
+
+And that was when she made her lullaby, and it was the first song:--
+
+WIND SONG[B]
+
+ Horn of the morning!
+ And the little night pipings fail.
+ The day is launched like a hollow ship
+ With the sun for a sail.
+ The way is wide and blue and lone
+ With all its miles inviolate
+ Save for the swinging stars we’ve sown
+ And a thistle of cloud remote and blown.
+ Oh, I passion for something nearer than these!
+ How shall I know that this live thing is I
+ With only the morning for proof and the sky?
+ I long for a music more soft to its keys,
+ For a touch that shall teach me the new sureties.
+ Give me some griefs and some loyalties
+ And a child’s mouth on my own!
+
+ Lullaby, lullaby,
+ Babe of the world, swing high,
+ Swing low.
+ I am a mother you never may know,
+ But oh
+ And oh, how long the wind will know you,
+ With lullabies for the dead night through.
+ Babe of the earth, as I blow ...
+ Swing high,
+ To touch at the sky,
+ And at last lie low.
+ Lullaby....
+
+[B] Reproduced by permission of _The Craftsman_.
+
+But meanwhile the Special Baby’s real mother--the one who had told him
+about running away--was hunting and hunting and _hunting_ for him and
+going nearly distracted and expecting every hair in her head to turn
+pure white. She went about among all the rest, asking and calling and
+wanting to know, and finally she made up her mind that she would not
+stay where she was, but that she would run away and hunt for him. And
+she did. And when all the things that were waiting to be born heard
+about it, there was no holding them back either. So out they came,
+lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s
+arks and mechanical toys and mountains and planets and paints and air
+and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all came out in the
+wake of the lost Special Baby. And some came early and some came late,
+some hurried and some hung back. And among all these came people, and
+many and many of the to-be-born things were hidden in peoples’ hearts
+and did not appear till long after; and this was true of some things
+which I have not mentioned at all, and of some that have not appeared
+even yet. But some people did not bring anything in their hearts, and
+they merely observed that it was a shameful waste, so many shining
+balls swinging about and only the Special Baby to play with them, and
+_he_ evidently eternally lost.
+
+But the Special Baby’s real mother didn’t say a word. She only ran and
+ran on, asking and calling and wanting to know. And at last she came
+to the Outermost Way and near the Wild Wing of Things, and the Special
+Baby heard her coming. And when he heard that, he made his choicest
+coo-noise in his throat and he stretched out his arms to his real
+mother that he was used to.
+
+And when his real mother heard the coo-noise, she brushed aside the
+Wild Wing of Things and took him in her arms--and she never saw the
+Wind and the Great Black Hush at all, because they are that kind. So
+she carried the Special Baby off, kicking and crowing and catching at
+the swinging, shining balls--but they were too big to put in his mouth
+so there was no danger--and _she_ hunted up a place where she could
+make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his
+little back. But about them all things were going on, and everybody
+else was doing the same thing, so nobody noticed.
+
+Then, all alone before their home on the Outermost Way and beneath the
+Wild Wing of Things that was all brushed aside, the Great Black Hush
+and the Wind looked at each other. And their look clung, as when they
+had first found light, and they were afraid. For now all space was
+glowing and shining with swinging balls, and all the things were being
+born and making homes, and time was rushing by so fast that it awed
+them who had never seen such a thing before.
+
+“_What_ have we done?” demanded the Great Black Hush.
+
+But the Wind was not so much concerned with that. She only grieved and
+grieved for the Special Baby. And the Great Black Hush comforted her,
+and I think he comforts her unto this day.
+
+Only at night. Then, as you know, the Great Black Hush comes from the
+Outermost Way and fills the air, and with him often and often comes the
+Wind. And together they wander among all the shining balls--you will
+know this, if you listen, on many a night--and together they look for
+the Special Baby. But _he_ has grown up, long and long ago, only he
+still stretches out his hands to everything, for he is the way he was
+made.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+THE DECORATION OF INDEPENDENCE
+
+
+That year we celebrated Fourth of July in the Wood Yard.
+
+The town had decided not to have a celebration, though we did not know
+who had done the actual deciding, and this we used to talk about.
+
+“How can the _town_ decide anything?” Delia asked sceptically. “When
+does it do it?”
+
+“Why,” said Margaret Amelia--to whom, her father being a judge, we
+always turned to explain matters of state, “its principal folks say so.”
+
+“Who are its principal folks?” I demanded.
+
+“Why,” said Margaret Amelia, “I should think you could tell that. They
+have the stores and offices and live in the residence part.”
+
+I pondered this, for most of the folk in the little town did neither of
+these things.
+
+“Why don’t they have another Fourth of July for the rest, then,” I
+suggested, “and leave them settle on their own celebration?”
+
+Margaret Amelia looked shocked.
+
+“I guess you don’t know much about the Decoration of Independence,”
+said she.
+
+The Decoration of Independence--we all called it this--was, then, to go
+by without attention because the Town said so.
+
+“The Town,” said Mary Elizabeth, dreamily, “the Town. It sounds like
+somebody tall, very high, and pointed at the top, with the rest of her
+dark and long and flowy--don’t it?”
+
+“City,” she and I were agreed, sounded like somebody light and sitting
+down with her skirts spread out.
+
+“Village” sounded like a little soft hollow, not much of any colour,
+with a steeple to it.
+
+“I like ‘Town’ best,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It sounds more like a
+mother-woman. ‘City’ sounds like a lady-woman. And ‘Village’ sounds
+like a grandma-woman. I like ‘Town’ best.”
+
+“What I want to do,” Margaret Amelia said restlessly, “is to spend
+my Fourth of July dollar. I had a Fourth of July dollar ever since
+Christmas. It’s no fun spending it with no folks and bands and wagons.”
+
+“I’ve got my birthday dollar yet,” I contributed. “If I spent it for
+Fourth of July, I’d be glad of it, but if I spend it for anything else,
+I’ll want it back.”
+
+“I had a dollar,” said Calista, gloomily, “but I used a quarter of
+it up on the circus. Now I’m glad I did. I wish’t I’d stayed to the
+sideshow.”
+
+“Stitchy Branchitt says,” Betty offered, “that the boys are all going
+to Poynette and spend their money there. Poynette’s got exercises.”
+
+Oh, the boys would get a Fourth. Trust them. But what about us? We
+could not go to Poynette. We could not rise at three A.M. and
+fire off fire-crackers. No fascinating itinerant hucksters would come
+the way of a town that held no celebration. We had nowhere to spend our
+substance, and to do that was to us what Fourth of July implied.
+
+The New Boy came wandering by, eating something. Boys were always
+eating something that looked better than anything we saw in the
+candy-shop. Where did they get it? This that he had was soft and pink
+and chewy, and it rapidly disappeared as he approached us.
+
+Margaret Amelia Rodman threw back her curls and flashed a sudden
+radiant smile at the New Boy. She became quite another person from the
+judicious, somewhat haughty creature whom we knew.
+
+“Let’s us get up a Fourth of July celebration,” she said.
+
+We held our breath. It never would have occurred to us. But now that
+she suggested it, why not?
+
+The New Boy leaped up on a gate-post and sat looking down at us,
+chewing.
+
+“How?” he inquired.
+
+“Get up a partition,” said Margaret Amelia. “Circulate it like for
+take-a-walk at school or teacher’s present, and all sign.”
+
+“And take it to who?” asked the New Boy.
+
+Margaret Amelia considered.
+
+“My father,” she proposed.
+
+The scope of the idea was enormous. Her father was a judge and wore
+very black clothes every day, and never spoke to any of us. Therefore
+he must be a great man. Doubtless he could do anything.
+
+Boys, as we knew them, usually flouted everything that we
+said, but--possibly because of Margaret Amelia’s manner of
+presentation--this suggestion seemed to strike the New Boy favourably.
+Afterward we learned that this was probably partly owing to the fact
+that the fare to Poynette was going to eat distressingly into the boys’
+Fourth money, unless they walked the ten miles.
+
+By common consent we had Margaret Amelia and the New Boy draw up the
+“partition.” But we all spent a long time on it, and at length it
+read:--
+
+ * * * * *
+
+ “We the Undersigned want there should be a July 4 this year.
+ We the Undersigned would like a big one. But if it can’t be so
+ very big account of no money, We the Undersigned would like one
+ anyway, and hereby respectfully partition about this in the
+ name of the Decoration of Independence.”
+
+There was some doubt whether or not to close this document with “Always
+sincerely” but we decided to add only the names, and these we set out
+to secure, the New Boy carrying one copy and Margaret Amelia another. I
+remember that, to honour the occasion, she put on a pale blue crocheted
+shawl of her mother’s and we all trailed in her wake, worshipfully.
+
+The lists grew amazingly. Long before noon we had to get new papers. By
+night we had every child that we knew, save Stitchy Branchitt. He had a
+railroad pass to Poynette, and he favoured the out-of-town celebration.
+But the personal considerations of economic conditions were as usual
+sufficient to swing the event, and the next morning I suppose that
+twenty-five or thirty of us, bearing the names of three or four times
+as many, marched into Judge Rodman’s office.
+
+On the stairs Margaret Amelia had a thought.
+
+“Does your father pay taxes?” she inquired of Mary Elizabeth--who was
+with us, having been sent down town for starch.
+
+“On his watch--he used to,” said Mary Elizabeth, doubtfully. “But he
+hasn’t got that any more.”
+
+“Well, I don’t know,” said Margaret Amelia, “whether we’d really
+ought to of put down any names that their fathers don’t pay taxes. It
+may make a difference. I guess you’re the only one we got that their
+fathers don’t--that he ain’t--”
+
+I fancy that what Margaret Amelia had in mind was that Mary Elizabeth’s
+father was the only one who lived meanly; for many of the others must
+have gone untaxed, but they lived in trim, rented houses, and we knew
+no difference.
+
+Mary Elizabeth was visibly disturbed.
+
+“I never thought of that,” she said. “Maybe I better scratch me off.”
+
+But there seemed to me to be something indefinably the matter with this.
+
+“The Fourth of July is for everybody, isn’t it?” I said. “Didn’t the
+whole country think of it?”
+
+“I think it’s like a town though,” said Margaret Amelia. “The principal
+folks decided it, I’m sure. And they _always_ pay taxes.”
+
+We appealed to the New Boy, as authority superior even to Margaret
+Amelia. How was this--did the Decoration of Independence mean
+everybody, or not? Could Mary Elizabeth sign the partition since her
+father paid no taxes?
+
+“Well,” said the New Boy, “it _says_ everybody, don’t it? But nobody
+ever gets to ride in the parade but distinguished citizens--it always
+says them, you know. I s’pose maybe it meant the folks that pays the
+taxes, only it didn’t like to put it in.”
+
+“I better take my name off,” said Mary Elizabeth, decidedly. “It might
+hurt.”
+
+So the New Boy produced a stump of pencil, and we found the right
+paper, and held it up against the wall of the stairway, and Mary
+Elizabeth scratched her name off.
+
+“I won’t come up, then,” she whispered to me, and made her way down the
+stairs, her head held very high.
+
+Judge Rodman was in his office--he makes, I find, my eternal picture
+of “judge,” short, thick, frock-coated, bearded, bald, spectacled,
+square-toed, and with his hands full of loose papers and his
+watch-chain shining.
+
+“Bless us,” he said, too, as a judge should.
+
+Margaret Amelia was ahead,--still in the pale blue crocheted
+shawl,--and she and the New Boy laid down the papers, and the judge
+picked them up, and read. His big pink face flushed the more, and
+he took off his spectacles and brushed his eyes, and he cleared his
+throat, and beamed down on us, and stood nodding.... I remember that he
+had an editorial in his paper the next night called “A Lesson to the
+Community,” and another, later, “Out of the Mouths of Babes”--for Judge
+Rodman was a very great man, and owned the newspaper and the brewery
+and the principal department store, and had been to the legislature;
+and his newspaper was always thick with editorials about honouring the
+flag and reverencing authority and the beauties of home life--Miss
+Messmore used to cut them out and read them to us at General Exercises.
+
+So Judge Rodman called a Town meeting in the Engine House, and we all
+hung about the door downstairs, because they said that if children
+went to the meeting, they would scrape their feet on the bare floor
+so that nobody could hear a sound; and so we waited outside until we
+heard hands clapped and the Doxology sung, and then we knew that it had
+passed.
+
+We were having a new Court House that year, so the Court House yard
+was not available for exercises: and the school grounds had been sown
+with grass seed in the beginning of vacation, and the market-place was
+nothing but a small vacant lot. So there was only one place to have
+the exercises: the Wood Yard. And as there was very little money to
+do anything with, it was voted to ask the women to take charge of the
+celebration and arrange something “tasty, up-to-date, and patriotic,”
+as Judge Rodman put it. They set themselves to do it. And none of
+us who were the children then will ever forget that Fourth of July
+celebration--yet this is not because of what the women planned, nor of
+anything that the committee of which Judge Rodman was chairman thought
+to do for the sake of the day.
+
+Our discussion of their plans was not without pessimism.
+
+“Of course what they get up won’t be any _real_ good,” the New Boy
+advanced. “They’ll stick the school organ up on the platform, and
+that sounds awful skimpy outdoors. And the church choirs’ll sing. And
+somebody’ll stand up and scold and go on about nothing. But it’ll get
+folks here, and balloon men, and stuff to sell, and a band; so I s’pose
+we can stand the other doin’s.”
+
+“And there’s fireworks on the canal bank in the evening,” we reminded
+him.
+
+Fourth of July morning began as usual before it dawned. The New Boy and
+the ten of his tribe assembled at half past three on the lawn between
+our house and that of the New Family, and, at a rough estimate, each
+fired off the cost of his fare to Poynette and return. Mary Elizabeth
+and I awoke and listened, giving occasional ecstatic pulls at our bell.
+Then we rose and watched the boys go ramping on toward other fields,
+and, we breathed the dim beauty of the hour, and, I think, wondered if
+it knew that it was Fourth of July, and we went back to bed, conscious
+that we were missing a good sixth of the day, a treasure which, as
+usual, the boys were sharing.
+
+After her work was done, Mary Elizabeth and I took our bags of
+torpedoes and popped them off on the front bricks. Delia was allowed
+to have fire-crackers if she did not shoot them off by herself, and
+she was ardently absorbed in them on their horse-block, with her
+father. Calista had brothers, and had put her seventy-five cents in
+with their money on condition that she be allowed to stay with them
+through the day. Margaret Amelia and Betty always stopped at home until
+annual giant crackers were fired from before their piazza, with Judge
+Rodman officiating in his shirt-sleeves, and Mrs. Rodman watching in
+a starched white “wrapper” on the veranda and uttering little cries,
+all under the largest flag that there was in the town, floating from
+the highest flagpole. Mary Elizabeth and I had glimpses of them all in
+a general survey which we made, resulting in satisfactory proof that
+the expected merry-go-round, the pop-corn wagon, a chocolate cart, an
+ice-cream cone man, and a balloon man and woman were already posted
+expectantly about.
+
+“If it wasn’t for them, though,” observed Mary Elizabeth to me, “the
+town wouldn’t be really acting like Fourth of July, do you think so? It
+just kind of lazes along, like a holiday.”
+
+We looked critically at the sunswept street. The general aspect of the
+time was that people had seized upon it to do a little extra watering,
+or some postponed weeding, or to tinker at the screens.
+
+“How could it act, though?” I inquired.
+
+“Well,” said Mary Elizabeth, “a river flows, don’t it? And I s’pose a
+mountain towers. And the sea keeps a-coming in ... and they all act
+like themselves. Only just a Town don’t take any notice of itself--even
+on the Fourth.”
+
+That afternoon we were all dressed in our white dresses--“Mine used
+to have a sprig in it,” said Mary Elizabeth, “but it’s so faded out
+anybody’d ’most say it was white, don’t you think so?”--and we
+children met at the Rodmans’--where Margaret Amelia and Betty appeared
+in white embroidered dresses and blue ribbons and blue stockings, and
+we marched down the hill, behind the band, to the Wood Yard. The Wood
+Yard had great flags and poles set at intervals, with bunting festooned
+between, and the platform was covered with bunting, and the great
+open space of the yard was laid with board benches. Place in front
+was reserved for us, and already the rest of the town packed the Yard
+and hung about the fences. Stitchy Branchitt had given up his journey
+to Poynette after all, and had established a lemonade stand at the
+Wood Yard gate--“a fool thing to do,” the New Boy observed plainly.
+“He knows we’ve spent all we had, and the big folks never think
+your stuff’s clean.” But Stitchy was enormously enjoying himself by
+deafeningly shouting:--
+
+“Here’s what you get--here’s what you get--here’s what you get.
+Cheap--cheap--_cheap_!”
+
+“Quit cheepin’ like some kind o’ bir-r-rd,” said the New Boy, out of
+one corner of his mouth, as he passed him.
+
+Just inside the Wood Yard gate I saw, with something of a shock, Mary
+Elizabeth’s father standing. He was leaning against the fence, with
+his arms folded, and as he caught the look of Mary Elizabeth, who was
+walking with me, he smiled, and I was further surprised to see how
+kind his eyes were. They were almost like my own father’s eyes. This
+seemed to me somehow a very curious thing, and I turned and looked at
+Mary Elizabeth, and thought: “Why, it’s her _father_--just the same as
+mine.” It surprised me, too, to see him there. When I came to think of
+it, I had never before seen him where folk were. Always, unless Mary
+Elizabeth were with him, he had been walking alone, or sitting down
+where other people never sat.
+
+Judge Rodman was on the platform, and as soon as the band and the
+choirs would let him--he made several false starts at rhetorical pauses
+in the music--he introduced a clergyman who had always lived in the
+town and who prayed for the continuance of peace and the safe conquest
+of all our enemies. Then Judge Rodman himself made the address, having
+generously consented to do so when it was proposed to keep the money
+in the town by hiring a local speaker. He began with the Norsemen and
+descended through Queen Isabella and Columbus and the Colonies, making
+a détour of Sir Walter Raleigh and his cloak, Benedict Arnold, Israel
+Putnam and Pocahontas, and so by way of Valley Forge and the Delaware
+to Faneuil Hall and the spirit of 1776. It was a grand flight, filled
+with what were afterward freely referred to as magnificent passages
+about the storm, the glory of war, and the love of our fellow-men.
+
+(“Supposing you happen to love the enemy,” said Mary Elizabeth,
+afterward.
+
+“Well, a pretty thing that would be to do,” said the New Boy, shocked.
+
+“We had it in the Sunday school lesson,” Mary Elizabeth maintained.
+
+“Oh, well,” said the New Boy. “I don’t mean about such things. I mean
+about what you _do_.”
+
+But I remember that Mary Elizabeth still looked puzzled.)
+
+Especially was Judge Rodman’s final sentence generally repeated for
+days afterward:--
+
+“At Faneuil Hall,” said the judge, “the hour at last had struck. The
+hands on the face of the clock stood still. ‘The force of Nature could
+no further go.’ The supreme thing had been accomplished. Henceforth
+we were embalmed in the everlasting and unchangeable essence of
+freedom--freedom--_freedom_.”
+
+Indeed, he held our attention from the first, both because he did not
+read what he said, and because the ice in the pitcher at his elbow had
+melted before he began and did not require watching.
+
+Then came the moment when, having completed his address, he took up
+the Decoration of Independence, to read it; and began the hunt for his
+spectacles. We watched him go through his pockets, but we did so with
+an interest which somewhat abated when he began the second round.
+
+“What _is_ the Decoration of Independence, anyhow?” I whispered to Mary
+Elizabeth, our acquaintance with it having been limited to learning it
+“by heart” in school.
+
+“Why, don’t you know?” Mary Elizabeth returned. “It’s that thing Miss
+Messmore can say so fast. It’s when we was the British.”
+
+“Who decorated it?” I wanted to know.
+
+“George Washington,” replied Mary Elizabeth.
+
+“How?” I pressed it. “How’d he do it?”
+
+“I don’t know--but I think that’s what he wanted of the cherry
+blossoms,” said she.
+
+At this point Judge Rodman gave up the search.
+
+“I deeply regret,” said he, “that I shall be obliged to forego my
+reading of our national document which, next to the Constitution
+itself, best embodies our unchanging principles.”
+
+And then he added something which smote the front rows suddenly
+breathless:--
+
+“However, it occurs to me, since this is preeminently the children’s
+celebration and since I am given to understand that our public schools
+now bestow due and proper attention upon the teaching of civil
+government, that it will be a fitting thing, a moving thing even, to
+hear these words of our great foundation spoken in childish tones. Miss
+Messmore, can you, as teacher of the city schools, in the grades where
+the idea of our celebration so fittingly originated, among the tender
+young, can you recommend, madam, perhaps, one of your bright pupils
+to repeat for us these undying utterances whose commitment has now
+become, as I understand it, a part of our public school curriculum?”
+
+There was an instant’s pause, and then I heard Margaret Amelia Rodman’s
+name spoken. Miss Messmore had uttered it. Judge Rodman was repeating
+it, smiling blandly down with a pleased diffidence.
+
+“There can be no one more fitted to do this, Judge Rodman,” Miss
+Messmore had promptly said, “than your daughter, Margaret Amelia, at
+whose suggestion this celebration, indeed, has come about.”
+
+Poor Margaret Amelia. In spite of her embroidered gown, her blue
+ribbons, and her blue stockings, I have seldom seen anyone look so
+wretched as did she when they made her mount that platform. To give her
+courage her father met her, and took her hand. And then, in his pride
+and confidence, something else occurred to him.
+
+“Tell us, Margaret Amelia,” he said with a gesture infinitely paternal,
+“how came the children to think of demanding of us wise-heads that we
+give observance to this day which we had already voted to let slip past
+unattended? What spirit moved the children to this act?”
+
+At first Margaret Amelia merely twisted, and fingered her sash at
+the side. Margaret Amelia was always called on for visitors’ days,
+and the like. She could usually command her faculties and give a
+straightforward answer, not so much because of what she knew as because
+of her unfailing self-confidence. Of this her father was serenely
+aware; but, aware also that the situation made unusual demands, he
+concluded to help her somewhat.
+
+“How came the children,” he encouragingly put it, “to think of making
+this fine effort to save our National holiday this year?”
+
+Margaret Amelia straightened slightly. She faced her audience with
+something of her native confidence, and told them:--
+
+“Why,” she said, “we all had some Fourth of July money, and there
+wasn’t going to be any way to spend it.”
+
+A ripple of laughter ran round, and Judge Rodman’s placid pink turned
+to purple.
+
+“I fear,” he observed gravely, “that the immediate nature of the event
+has somewhat obscured the real significance of the children’s most
+superior movement. Now, my child! Miss Messmore thinks that you should
+recite for us at least a portion of the Declaration of Independence.
+Will you do so?”
+
+Margaret Amelia looked at him, down at us, away toward the waiting Wood
+Yard, and then at Miss Messmore.
+
+“Is it that about ‘The shades of night were falling fast’?” she
+demanded.
+
+In the roar of laughter that followed, Margaret Amelia ran down, poor
+child, and sobbed on Miss Messmore’s shoulder. I never think of that
+moment without something of a return of my swelling sympathy for her
+who suffered this species of martyrdom, and so needlessly. I have seen,
+out of schools and out of certain of our superstitions, many martyrdoms
+result, but never one that has touched me more.
+
+I do not know whether something of this feeling was in the voice that
+we next heard speaking, or whether that which animated it was only its
+own bitterness. That voice sounded, clear and low-pitched, through the
+time’s confusion.
+
+“I will read the Declaration of Independence,” it said.
+
+And making his way through the crowd, and mounting the platform steps,
+we saw Mary Elizabeth’s father.
+
+Instinctively I put out my hand to her. But he was wholly himself,
+and this I think that she knew from the first. He was neatly dressed,
+and he laid his shabby hat on the table and picked up the book with a
+tranquil air of command. I remember how frail he looked as he buttoned
+his worn coat, and began to read.
+
+“‘We, the people of the United States--’”
+
+It was the first time that I had ever thought of Mary Elizabeth’s
+father as to be classed with anybody. He had never had employment, he
+belonged to no business, to no church, to no class of any sort. He
+merely lived over across the tracks, and he went and came alone. And
+here he was saying “_We_, the people of the United States,” just as if
+he belonged.
+
+When my vague fear had subsided lest they might stop his reading
+because he was not a taxpayer, I listened for the first time in my life
+to what he read. To be sure, I had--more or less--learned it. Now I
+listened.
+
+“Free and equal,” I heard him say, and I wondered what this meant.
+“Free and equal.” But there were Mary Elizabeth and I, were we equal?
+Perhaps, though, it didn’t mean little girls--only grown-ups. But there
+were Mary Elizabeth’s father and mother, and all the other fathers
+and mothers, they were grown up, and were they equal? And what were
+they free from, I wondered. Perhaps, though, I didn’t know what these
+words meant. “Free and equal” sounded like fairies, but folks I was
+accustomed to think of as burdened, and as different from one another,
+as Judge Rodman was different from Mary Elizabeth’s father. This,
+however, was the first time that ever I had caught the word right: Not
+Decoration, but Declaration of Independence, it seemed!
+
+Mary Elizabeth’s father finished, and closed the book, and stood for
+a moment looking over the Wood Yard. He was very tall and pale, and
+seeing him with something of dignity in his carriage I realized with
+astonishment that, if he were “dressed up,” he would look just like
+the men in the choir, just like the minister himself. Then suddenly
+he smiled round at us all, and even broke into a moment of soft and
+pleasant laughter.
+
+“It has been a long time,” he said, “since I have had occasion to
+remember the Declaration of Independence. I am glad to have had it
+called to my attention. We are in danger of forgetting about it--some
+of us. May I venture to suggest that, when it is taught in the schools,
+it be made quite clear to whom this document refers. And for the rest,
+my friends, God bless us all--some day.”
+
+“Bless us,” was what Judge Rodman had said. I remember wondering if
+they meant the same thing.
+
+He turned and went down the steps, and at the foot he staggered a
+little, and I saw with something of pride that it was my father who
+went to him and led him away.
+
+At once the band struck gayly into a patriotic air, and the people on
+all the benches got to their feet, and the men took off their hats. And
+above the music I heard Stitchy Branchitt beginning to shout again:--
+
+“Here’s what you get--here’s what you get--here’s what you get!
+Something cheap--cheap--_cheap!_”
+
+ * * * * *
+
+When I came home from the fireworks with Delia’s family and Mary
+Elizabeth, my father and mother were sitting on the veranda.
+
+“It’s we who are to blame,” I heard my father saying, “though we’re
+fine at glossing it over.”
+
+I wondered what had happened, and I sat down on the top step and began
+to untie my last torpedo from the corner of my handkerchief. Mary
+Elizabeth had one left, too, and we had agreed to throw them on the
+stone window-sills of our rooms as a final salute.
+
+“Let’s ask her now,” said father.
+
+Mother leaned toward me.
+
+“Dear,” she said, “father has been having a talk with Mary Elizabeth’s
+father and mother. And--when her father isn’t here any more--which may
+not be long now, we think ... would you like us to have Mary Elizabeth
+come and live here?”
+
+“With us?” I cried. “_With us?_”
+
+Yes, they meant with us.
+
+“To work?” I demanded.
+
+“To be,” mother said.
+
+“Oh, yes, _yes!_” I welcomed it. “But her father--where will he be?”
+
+“In a little while now,” father said, “he will be free--and perhaps
+even equal.”
+
+I did not understand this wholly. Besides, there was far too much to
+think about. I turned toward the house of the New Family. A light
+glowed in Mary Elizabeth’s room. I brought down my torpedo on the
+brick walk, and it exploded merrily, and from Mary Elizabeth’s window
+came an answering pop.
+
+“Then Mary Elizabeth will get free and equal too!” I cried joyously.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+EARTH-MOTHER
+
+
+And for that day and that night, and for all the days and all the
+nights, I should like to tell a story about the Earth, and about some
+of the things that it keeps expecting.
+
+And if it were Sometime Far Away--say 1950--or 2050--or 3050--I should
+like to meet some Children of Then, and tell them this story about Now,
+and hear them all talk of what a curious place the earth must have been
+long ago, and of how many things it did not yet do.
+
+And their Long Ago is our Now!
+
+ * * * * *
+
+For ages and ages (I should say to the Children of Then) the Earth was
+a great round place of land and water, with trees, fields, cities,
+mountains, and the like dotted about on it in a pattern; and it spun
+and spun, out in space, like an enormous engraved ball tossed up in the
+air from somewhere. And many people thought that this was all there was
+to know about it, and after school they shut up their geographies and
+went about engraving new trees, fields, cities, and such things on the
+outside of the earth. And they truly thought that this was All, and
+they kept on doing it, rather tired but very independent.
+
+Now the Earth had a friend and companion whom nobody thought much
+about. It was Earth’s Shadow, cast by the sun in the way that any other
+shadow is cast, but it was such a big shadow that of course it fell
+far, far out in space. And as Earth went round, naturally its Shadow
+went round, and if one could have looked down, one would have seen the
+Shadow sticking out and out, so that the Earth and its Shadow-handle
+would have seemed almost like a huge saucepan filled with cities and
+people, all being held out over the sun, to get them done.
+
+Among the cities was one very beautiful City. She wore robes of
+green or of white, delicately embroidered with streets in a free and
+exquisite pattern, and her hair was like a flowing river, and at night
+she put on many glorious jewels. And she had the power to change
+herself at will into a woman. This was a power, however, which she had
+never yet used, and indeed she did not yet know wholly that she had
+this power, but she used to dream about it, and sometimes she used to
+sing about the dream, softly, to herself. Men thought that this song
+was the roar of the City’s traffic, but it was not so.
+
+Now the Earth was most anxious for this City to become a woman because,
+although the Earth whirled like an enormous engraved ball and seemed
+like a saucepan held over the sun, still all the time it was really
+just the Earth, and it was very human and tired and discouraged, and
+it needed a woman to rest it and to sing to it and to work with it, in
+her way. But there were none, because all the ordinary women were busy
+with _their_ children. So the only way seemed to be for the City to be
+a woman, as she knew how to be; and the Earth was most anxious to have
+this happen. And it tried to see how it could bring this about.
+
+I think that the Earth may have asked the Moon, because she is a woman
+and might be expected to know something about it. But the Moon, as
+usual, was asleep on the sky, with a fine mosquito-netting of mist all
+about her, and she said not a word. (If you look at the Moon, you
+can see how like a beautiful, sleeping face she seems.) I think that
+the Earth may have asked Mars, too, because he is so very near that
+it would be only polite to consult him. But he said: “I’m only a few
+million years old yet. Don’t expect me to understand either cities or
+people.” And finally the Earth asked its Shadow.
+
+“Shadow, dear,” it said, “you are pretty deep. Can’t you tell me how to
+make this City turn into a woman? For I want her to work with me, in
+_her_ way.”
+
+The Shadow, who did nothing but run to keep up with the Earth, let a
+few thousand miles sweep by, and then it said:--
+
+“Really, I wouldn’t know. I’m not up on much but travel.”
+
+“Well,” said the Earth, “then please just ask the Uttermost Spaces. You
+continually pass by that way and somebody ought to know something.”
+
+So the Shadow swept along the Uttermost Spaces and made an
+abyss-to-abyss canvass.
+
+“The Uttermost Spaces want to know,” the Shadow reported next day,
+“whether in all that City there is a child. They said if there is, it
+could probably do what you want.”
+
+“A child,” said the Earth. “Well, sea caves and firmaments. Of course
+there is. What do the Uttermost Spaces think I’m in the Earth business
+for if it isn’t for the Children?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said its Shadow, rather sulkily. “I’m only telling you
+what I heard. If you’re cross with me, I won’t keep up with you. I’m
+about tired of it anyway.”
+
+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the Earth, “You mustn’t mind me. I’m
+always a little sunstruck. A thousand thanks. Come along, do.”
+
+“A child,” thought the Earth, “a child. How could a child change a City
+into a woman? And _what_ child?”
+
+But it was a very wise old Earth, and to its mind all children are
+valuable. So after a time it concluded that one child in that City
+would be as good as another, and perhaps any child could work the
+miracle. So it said: “I choose to work the miracle that child who is
+thinking about the most beautiful thing in the world.”
+
+Then it listened.
+
+Now, since the feet of people are pressed all day long to earth, it
+is true that the Earth can talk with everyone and, by listening, can
+know what is in each heart. When it listened this time, it chanced that
+it was the middle of the night, when nearly every little child was
+sleeping and dreaming. But there was one little girl lying wide awake
+and staring out her bedroom window up at the stars, and as soon as the
+Earth listened to her thoughts, it knew that she was the one.
+
+Of what do you suppose she was thinking? She was thinking of her
+mother, who had died before she could remember her, and wondering
+where she was; and she was picturing what her mother had looked like,
+and what her mother would have said to her, and how her mother’s
+arms would have felt about her, and her mother’s good-night kiss;
+and she was wondering how it would be to wake in the night, a little
+frightened, and turn and stretch out her arms and find her mother
+breathing there beside her, ready to wake her and give her an
+in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss and send her back to sleep again. And
+she thought about it all so longingly that her little heart was like
+nothing in the world so much as the one word “Mother.”
+
+“It will be you,” said the Earth.
+
+So the Earth spoke to its Shadow who was, of course, just then fastened
+to that same side, it being night.
+
+“Shadow, dear,” Earth said, like a prescription, “fold closely about
+her and drop out a dream or two. But do not let her forget.”
+
+So Shadow folded about her and dropped out a dream or two. And all
+night Earth lapped her in its silences, but they did not let her
+forget. And Shadow left word with Morning, telling Morning what to do,
+and she kissed the little girl’s eyelids so that the first thing she
+thought when she waked was how wonderful it would be to be kissed awake
+by her mother. And her little heart beat _Mother_ in her breast.
+
+As soon as she was dressed (“Muvvers wouldn’t pinch your feet with the
+button-hook, or tie your ribbon too tight, or get your laxtixs short
+so’s they pull,” she thought), as soon as she was dressed, and had
+pressed her feet to Earth, Earth began to talk to her.
+
+“Go out and find a mother,” it said to her.
+
+“My muvver is dead,” thought the little girl.
+
+Earth said: “I am covered with mothers and with those who ought to be
+mothers. Go to them. Tell them you haven’t any mother. Wouldn’t one of
+those be next best?”
+
+And the Earth said so much, and the little girl’s heart so strongly
+beat _Mother_, that she could not help going to see.
+
+On the street she looked very little and she felt--oh, _much_ littler
+than in the house with furniture. For the street seemed to be merely a
+world of Skirts--skirts everywhere and also the bottoms of men’s coats
+with impersonal Legs below. And these said nothing. Away up above were
+Voices, talking very fast, and to one another, and entirely leaving
+her out. She was out of the conversations and out of account, and it
+felt far more lonely than it did with just furniture. Now and then
+another child would pass who would look at her as if she really were
+there; but everyone was hanging on its mother’s hand or her Skirt, or
+else, if the child were alone, a Voice from ahead or behind was saying:
+“Hurry, dear. Mother won’t wait. Come and see what’s in _this_ window.”
+Littlegirl thought how wonderful that would be, to have somebody ahead
+looking back for her, and she waited on purpose, by a hydrant, and
+pretended that she was going to hear somebody saying: “_Do_ come on,
+dear. Mother’ll be late for her fitting.” But nobody said anything.
+Only an automobile stood close by the hydrant and in it was a little
+yellow-haired girl, and just at that moment a lady came from a shop and
+got in the automobile and handed the little girl a white tissue-paper
+parcel and said: “Sit farther over--there’s a dear. Now, that’s for
+you, but don’t open it till we get home.” _What_ was in the parcel,
+Littlegirl wondered, and stood looking after the automobile until it
+was lost. One little boy passed her, holding tightly to his mother’s
+hand, and she stooping over him and he _crying_. Littlegirl tried to
+think what could be bad enough to cry about when you had hold of your
+mother’s hand and she was bending over you. A stone in your shoe? Or
+a pin in your neck? Or because you’d lost your locket? But would any
+of those things matter enough to cry when your mother had hold of your
+hand? She looked up at the place beside her where her own mother would
+be walking and tried to see where her face would be.
+
+And as she looked up, she saw the tops of the high buildings across
+the street, and below them the windows hung thick as pictures on a
+wall, and thicker. The shop doors were open like doors to wonderful,
+mysterious palaces where you went in with your mother and she picked
+out your dresses and said: “Wouldn’t you like this one, dear? Mother
+used to have one like this when _she_ was a little girl.” And
+Littlegirl saw, too, one of the side streets, and how it was all lined
+with homes, whose doors were shut, like closed lips with nothing to say
+to anybody save those who lived there--the children who were promised
+Christmas trees--and _got_ them, too. And between shops and homes was
+the world of Skirts and Voices, mothers whose little girls were at
+home, daddys who would run up the front steps at night and cry: “Come
+here, Puss. Did you grow any since morning?” Or, “_Where’s my son?_”
+(Littlegirl knew how it went--she had heard them.) Shops and homes and
+crowds--a City! A City for everybody but her.
+
+When the Earth--who all this time was listening--heard her think that,
+it made to flow up into her little heart the longing to belong to
+somebody. And Littlegirl ran straight up to a lady in blue linen, who
+was passing.
+
+“Are you somebody’s muvver?” she asked.
+
+The lady looked down in the little face and stood still.
+
+“No,” she said soberly.
+
+Littlegirl slipped her hand in her white glove.
+
+“I aren’t anybody’s little girl,” she said. “Let’s trade each other.”
+
+And the Earth, who was listening, made to flow in the lady’s heart an
+old longing.
+
+“Let’s go in here, at any rate,” said the Lady, “and talk it over.”
+
+So they went in a wonderful place, all made of mirrors, and jars of
+bonbons, and long trays, as big as doll cradles, and filled with
+bonbons too. And they sat at a cool table, under a whirry fan, and had
+before them thick, foamy, frozen chocolate. And the Blue Linen Lady
+said:--
+
+“But whose little girl are you, really?”
+
+“I’m _my_ little girl, I think,” said Littlegirl. “I don’t know who
+else’s.”
+
+“With whom do you live?” asked the Lady.
+
+“Some peoples,” said Littlegirl, “that’s other people’s muvvers. Don’t
+let’s say about them.”
+
+“What shall we say about?” asked the Lady, smiling.
+
+“Let’s pretend you was my muvver,” said Littlegirl.
+
+The lady looked startled, but she nodded slowly.
+
+“Very well,” she said. “I’ll play that. How do you play it?”
+
+Littlegirl hesitated and looked down in her chocolate.
+
+“I don’t know berry well,” she said soberly. “_You_ say how.”
+
+“Well,” said the Lady, “if you were my little girl, I should probably
+be saying to you, ‘Do you like this, dear? Don’t eat it fast. And take
+little bits of bites.’ And you would say, ‘Yes, mother.’ And then what?”
+
+Littlegirl looked deep down her chocolate. She was making a cave in one
+side of it, with the foamy part on top for snow. And while she looked
+the snow suddenly seemed to melt and brim over, and she looked at the
+lady mutely.
+
+“I don’t know how,” she said; “I don’t know how!”
+
+“Never mind!” said the Lady, very quickly and a little unsteadily,
+“I’ll tell you a story instead--shall I?”
+
+So the Blue Linen Lady told her a really wonderful story. It was about
+a dwarf who was made of gold, all but his heart, and about what a
+terrible time he had trying to pretend that he was a truly, flesh and
+blood person. It made him so unhappy to have to pretend all the time
+that he got _scandalous_ cross to everybody, and nothing could please
+him. His gold kept getting harder and harder till he could move only
+with the greatest difficulty, and it looked as if his heart were going
+golden too. And if it did, of course he would die. But one night, just
+as the soft outside edges of his heart began to take on a shining
+tinge, a little boy ran out in the road where the dwarf was passing,
+and in the dark mistook him for his father, and jumped up and threw
+his arms about the dwarf’s neck and hugged him. And of a sudden the
+dwarf’s heart began to beat, and when he got in the house, he saw that
+he wasn’t gold any more, and he wasn’t a dwarf--but he was straight
+and strong and real. “And so,” the Lady ended it, “you must love every
+grown-up you can, because maybe their hearts are turning into gold and
+you can stop it that way.”
+
+“An’ must _you_ love every children?” asked Littlegirl, very low.
+
+“Yes,” said the Lady, “I must.”
+
+“An’ will you love me an’ be my muvver?” asked Littlegirl.
+
+The Blue Linen Lady sighed.
+
+“You dear little thing,” she said, “I’d love it--I’d love it. But I
+truly haven’t any place for you to live--or any time to give you.
+Come now--I’m going to get you some candy and take you back where you
+belong--_in an automobile_. Won’t that be fun?”
+
+But when she turned for the candy, Littlegirl slipped out the door and
+ran and ran as fast as she could. (She had thanked the lady, first
+thing, for the thick, frozen, foamy chocolate, so _that_ part was
+all right.) And Littlegirl went round a corner and lost herself in a
+crowd--in which it is far easier to lose yourself than in the woods.
+And there she was again, worse off than before, because she had felt
+how it would feel to feel that she had a mother.
+
+The Earth--who would have shaken its head if it could without
+disarranging everything on it--said things instead to its Shadow--who
+was by now on the other side of the world from the City.
+
+“Shadow, dear,” said the Earth, “what _do_ you think of that?”
+
+“The very Uttermost Spaces are ashamed for her,” said the Shadow.
+
+But of course the Blue Linen Lady had no idea that the Earth and its
+Shadow and the Uttermost Spaces had been watching to see what she did.
+
+Littlegirl ran on, many a weary block, and though she met
+mother-looking women she dared speak to none of them for fear they
+would offer to take her back in an automobile, with some candy, to the
+people with whom she lived-without-belonging. And of late, these people
+had said things in her presence about the many mouths to feed, and she
+had heard, and had understood, and it had made her heart beat _Mother_,
+as it had when she wakened that day.
+
+At last, when she was most particularly tired, she came to the park
+where it was large and cool and woodsy and wonderful. But in the park
+the un-motherness of things was worse than ever. To be sure, there
+were no mothers there, only nurse-maids. But the nurse-maids and the
+children and the covers-to-baby-carriages were all so ruffly or lacy
+or embroidery or starchy and so white that _mother_ was written all
+over them. Nobody else could have cared to have them like that. How
+wonderful it would be, Littlegirl thought, to be paid attention to as
+if you were a really person and not just hanging on the edges. Even
+the squirrels were coaxed and beckoned. She sat down on the edge of
+a bench on which an old gentleman was feeding peanuts to a squirrel
+perched on his knee, and she thought it would be next best to having
+a Christmas tree to be a squirrel and have somebody taking pains like
+that to keep her near by.
+
+“Where’s your nurse, my dear?” the old gentleman asked her finally, and
+she ran away so that he should not guess that she was her own little
+girl and nobody else’s.
+
+Wherever she saw a policeman, she lingered beside a group of children
+so that he would think that she belonged to them. And once, for a long
+way, she trotted behind two nurses and five children, pretending that
+she belonged. Once a thin, stooped youth in spectacles called her and
+gave her an orange. He was sitting alone on a bench with his chin in
+his chest, and he looked ill and unhappy. Littlegirl wondered if this
+was because he didn’t have any mother either, and she longed to ask
+him; but she was afraid he would not want to own to not having any, in
+a world where nearly everyone seemed to have one. So she played through
+the long hours of the morning. So, having lunched on the orange, she
+played through the long hours of the afternoon. And then Dusk began to
+come--and Dusk meant that Earth’s Shadow had run round again, and was
+coming on the side where the City lay.
+
+And when the Shadow reached the park, there, on a knoll beside a
+barberry bush, he found Littlegirl lying fast asleep.
+
+In a great flutter he questioned the Earth.
+
+“Listen,” said Shadow, “what _are_ you thinking of? Here is the child
+who was to work the miracle and make the City turn into a woman. And
+she is lying alone in the park. And I’m coming on and I’ll have to make
+it all dark and frighten her. What does this mean?”
+
+But the Earth, who is closer to people than is its Shadow, merely
+said:--
+
+“Wait, Shadow. I am listening. I can hear the speeding of many feet.
+And I think that the miracle has begun.”
+
+It was true that all through the City there was the speeding of many
+feet, and on one errand. Wires and messengers were busy, automobiles
+were busy, blue-coated men were busy, and all of them were doing the
+same thing: Looking for Littlegirl. Busiest of all was the Blue Linen
+Lady, who felt herself and nobody else responsible for Littlegirl’s
+loss.
+
+“It is too dreadful,” she kept saying over and over, “I had her with
+me. She gave me my chance, and I didn’t take it. If anything has
+happened to her, I shall never forgive myself.”
+
+“That’s the way people always talk _afterward_,” said the Earth’s
+Shadow. “Why don’t they ever talk that way before? I’d ask the
+Uttermost Spaces, but I know they don’t know.”
+
+But the wise Earth only listened and made to flow to the Blue Linen
+Lady’s heart an old longing. And when they had traced Littlegirl as far
+as the park--for it seemed that many of the busy Skirts and Coats and
+Voices had noticed her, only they were so very busy--the Blue Linen
+Lady herself went into the park, and it was the light of her automobile
+that flashed white on the glimmering frock of Littlegirl.
+
+Littlegirl was wakened, as never before within her memory she had been
+wakened, by tender arms about her, lifting her, and soft lips kissing
+her, many and many a time. And waking so, in the strange, great Dark,
+with the new shapes of trees above her and tenderness wrapping her
+round, and an in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss on her lips, Littlegirl
+could think of but one thing that had happened:--
+
+“Oh, I’m _glad_ I died--I’m _glad_ I died!” she said.
+
+“You haven’t died, you little thing!” cried the Blue Linen Lady.
+“You’re alive--and if they’ll let you stay, you’re never going to leave
+me. I’ve made up my mind to _that_. Come--come, dear.”
+
+Littlegirl lay quite still, too happy to speak or think. For somebody
+had said “dear,” had even said “Come, dear.” And it didn’t mean a
+little girl away ahead, or away back, or in an automobile. _It meant
+her._
+
+The Earth’s Shadow brooded over the two and helped them to be very near.
+
+“It’s worth keeping up with you all this time,” Shadow said to the
+Earth, “to see things like this. Even the Uttermost Spaces are touched.”
+
+But the Earth was silent, listening. For the City, the beautiful,
+green-robed City lying in her glorious night jewels, knew what was
+happening too. And when the Lady lifted Littlegirl, to carry her
+away, it was as if something had happened which had touched the life
+of the City herself. She listened, as the Earth was listening, and the
+soft crooning which men thought was the roar of her traffic was really
+her song about what she heard. For the story of Littlegirl spread and
+echoed, and other children’s stories like hers were in the song, and it
+was one of the times when the heart of the City was stirred to a great,
+new measure. At last the City understood the homelessness of children,
+and their labour, and their suffering, and the waste of them; and she
+brooded above them like a mother.... And suddenly she knew herself,
+that she _was_ the mother of all little children, and that she must
+care for them like a mother _if she was to keep herself alive_. And if
+they were to grow up to be her Family, and not just her pretend family,
+with nobody looking out for anybody else--as no true family would do.
+
+“Is it well?” asked the Shadow, softly, of the Earth.
+
+“It is well,” said the Earth, in deep content. “Don’t you hear the
+human voices beginning to sing with her? Don’t you see the other
+Cities watching? Oh, it is well indeed.”
+
+“I’ll go and mention it to the Uttermost Spaces,” said the Shadow.
+
+And, in time, so he did.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THREE TO MAKE READY
+
+
+Red mosquito-netting, preferably from peach baskets, was best for
+bottles of pink water. You soaked the netting for a time depending in
+length on the shade of pink you desired--light, deep, or plain. A very
+little red ink produced a beautiful red water, likewise of a superior
+tint. Violet ink, diluted, remained true to type. Cold coffee gave the
+browns and yellows. Green tissue paper dissolved into somewhat dull
+emerald. Pure blue and orange, however, had been almost impossible to
+obtain save by recourse to our paint boxes, too choice to be used in
+this fashion, or to a chance artificial flower on an accessible hat--of
+which we were not at all too choice, but whose utilization might be
+followed, not to say attended, by consequences.
+
+That August afternoon we were at work on a grand scale. At the Rodmans,
+who lived on the top of the hill overlooking the town and the peaceful
+westward-lying valley of the river, we had chosen to set up a great
+Soda Fountain, the like of which had never been.
+
+“It’s the kind of a fountain,” Margaret Amelia Rodman explained, “that
+knights used to drink at. That kind.”
+
+We classified it instantly.
+
+“Now,” she went on, “us damsels are getting this thing up for the
+knights that are tourmeying. If the king knew it, he wouldn’t leave
+us do it, because he’d think it’s beneath our dignity. But he don’t
+know it. He’s off. He’s to the chase. But all the king’s household is
+inside the palace, and us damsels have to be secret, getting up our
+preparations. Now we must divide up the--er--responsibility.”
+
+I listened, spellbound.
+
+“I thought you and Betty didn’t like to play Pretend,” I was surprised
+into saying.
+
+“Why, we’ll pretend if there’s anything to pretend _about_ that’s
+real,” said Margaret Amelia, haughtily.
+
+They told us where in the palace the various ingredients were likely to
+be found. Red mosquito-netting, perhaps, in the cellar--at this time
+of day fairly safe. Red and violet ink in the library--very dangerous
+indeed at this hour. Cold coffee--almost unobtainable. Green tissue
+paper, to be taken from the flower-pots in the dining-room--exceedingly
+dangerous. Blue and orange, if discoverable at all, then in the
+Christmas tree box in the trunk room--attended by few perils as to
+meetings en route, but in respect to appropriating what was desired, by
+the greatest perils of all.
+
+This last adventure the Rodmans themselves heroically undertook. It was
+also conceded that, on their return from their quest--provided they
+ever did return alive--it would be theirs to procure the necessary
+cold coffee. The other adventures were distributed, and Mary Elizabeth
+and I were told off together to penetrate the cellar in search of red
+mosquito-netting. The bottles had already been collected, and these
+little Harold Rodman was left to guard and luxuriously to fill with
+water and luxuriously to empty.
+
+There was an outside cellar door, and it was closed. This invited
+Mary Elizabeth and me to an expedition or two before we even entered.
+We slid from the top to the bottom, sitting, standing, and backward.
+Then, since Harold was beginning to observe us with some attention, we
+lifted the ring--_the ring_--in the door and descended.
+
+“Aladdin immediately beheld bags of inexhaustible riches,” said Mary
+Elizabeth, almost reverently.
+
+First, there was a long, narrow passage lined with ash barrels, a
+derelict coal scuttle, starch boxes, mummies of brooms, and the like.
+But at this point if we had chanced on the red mosquito-netting, we
+should have felt distinctly cheated of some right. A little farther on,
+however, the passage branched, and we stood in delighted uncertainty.
+If the giant lived one way and the gorgon the other, which was our way?
+
+The way that we did choose led into a small round cellar, lighted
+by a narrow, dusty window, now closed. Formless things stood
+everywhere--crates, tubs, shelves whose ghostly contents were shrouded
+by newspapers. It occurred to me that I had never yet told Mary
+Elizabeth about our cellar. I decided to do so then and there. She
+backed up against the wall to listen, manifestly so that there should
+be nothing over her shoulder.
+
+Our cellar was a round, bricked-in place under the dining-room.
+Sometimes I had been down there while they had been selecting preserves
+by candle-light. And I had long ago settled that the curved walls
+were set with little sealed doors behind each of which _He_ sat.
+These _He’s_ were not in the least unfriendly--they merely sat there
+close to the wall, square shouldered and very still, looking neither
+to right nor left, waiting. Probably, I thought, it might happen
+some day--whatever they waited for; and then they would all go away.
+Meanwhile, there they were; and they evidently knew that I knew they
+were there, but they evidently did not expect me to mention it; for
+once, when I did so, they all stopped doing nothing and looked at me,
+all together, as if something used their eyes for them at a signal.
+It was to Mary Gilbraith that I had spoken, while she was at our
+house-cleaning, and the moment I had chosen was when she was down in
+the cellar without a candle and I was lying flat on the floor above
+her, peering down the trap doorway.
+
+“Mary,” I said, “they’s a big row of _He’s_ sitting close together
+inside the wall. They’ve got big foreheads. Bang on the wall and see
+if they’ll answer--” for I had always longed to bang and had never
+quite dared.
+
+“Oh, my great Scotland!” said Mary Gilbraith, and was up the ladder
+in a second. That was when they looked at me, and then I knew that I
+should not have spoken to her about them, and I began to see that there
+are some things that must not be said. And I felt a kind of shame, too,
+when Mary turned on me. “You little Miss,” she said wrathfully, “with
+your big eyes. An’ myself bitin’ on my own nerves for fear of picking
+up a lizard for a potato. Go play.”
+
+“I _was_ playing,” I tried to explain.
+
+“Play playthings, then, and not ha’nts,” said Mary.
+
+So I never said anything more to her, save about plates and fritters
+and such things.
+
+To this recital Mary Elizabeth listened sympathetically.
+
+“There’s just one great big one lives down in our cellar,” she confided
+in turn. “Not in the wall--but out loose. When the apples and stuff go
+down there, I always think how glad he is.”
+
+“Are you afraid of him?” I asked.
+
+“Afraid!” Mary Elizabeth repeated. “Why, no. Once, when I was down
+there, I tried to pretend there wasn’t anything lived there--and _then_
+it was frightening and I was scared.”
+
+I understood. It would indeed be a great, lonely, terrifying world if
+these little friendly folk did not live in cellars, walls, attics,
+stair-closets and the like. Of course they were friendly. Why should
+they be otherwise?
+
+“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-t,” something went, close by Mary Elizabeth’s head.
+
+We looked up. The dimness of the ceiling was miles deep. We could not
+see a ceiling.
+
+“St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t,” it went again. And this time it did not stop, and
+it began to be accompanied by a rumbling sound as from the very cave
+inside the world.
+
+Mary Elizabeth and I took hold of hands and ran. We scrambled up the
+steps and escaped to the sultry welcome of bright day. Out there
+everything was as before. Little Harold was crossing the lawn carrying
+a flower-pot of water which was running steadily from the hole in the
+bottom. With the maternal importance of little girls, we got the jar
+from him and undertook to bring him more water. And when he led us to
+the source of supply, this was a faucet in the side of the house just
+beyond a narrow, dusty, cellar window. When he turned the faucet, we
+were, so to speak, face to face with that R-s-t-t-t-t-t.
+
+Mary Elizabeth and I looked at each other and looked away. Then we
+looked back and braved it through.
+
+“Anyway,” she said, “we were afraid of a truly thing, and not of a
+pretend thing.”
+
+There seemed to us, I recall, a certain loyalty in this as to a creed.
+
+Already Delia had returned from the library. The authorities refused
+the ink. One might come in there and write with it, but one must
+not take it from the table. Calista arrived from the dining-room. A
+waiting-woman to the queen, she reported, was engaged in dusting the
+sideboard and she herself had advanced no farther than the pantry door.
+It remained only for Margaret Amelia and Betty to come from their
+farther quest bearing a green handbill which they thought might take
+the place of Calista’s quarry if she returned empty-handed; but we were
+no nearer than before to blue and orange materials, or to any other.
+
+We took counsel and came to a certain ancient conclusion that in union
+there is strength. We must, we thought we saw, act the aggressor. We
+moved on the stronghold together. Armed with a spoon and two bottles,
+we found a keeper of properties within who spooned us out the necessary
+ink; tea was promised to take the place of coffee if we would keep out
+of the house and not bother anybody any more, indefinitely; shoe-polish
+was conceded in a limited quantity, briefly, and under inspection; and
+we all descended into Aladdin’s cave and easily found baskets to which
+red mosquito-netting was clinging in sufficient measure. Then we sat in
+the shade of the side lawn and proceeded to colour many waters.
+
+It was a delicate task to cloud the clear liquid to this tint and that,
+to watch it change expression under our hands, pale, deepen, vary to
+our touch; in its heart to set jewels and to light fires. We worked
+with deep deliberation, testing by old standards of taste set up by
+at least two or three previous experiences, consulting one another’s
+soberest judgment, occasionally inventing a new liquid. I remember that
+it was on that day that we first thought of bluing. Common washing
+bluing, the one substance really intended for colouring water, had so
+far escaped our notice.
+
+“Somebody,” observed Margaret Amelia, as we worked, “ought to keep
+keeping a look-out to see if they’re coming back.”
+
+Delia, who was our man of action, ran to the clothes-reel, which stood
+on the highest land of the castle grounds, and looked away over the
+valley.
+
+“There’s a cloud of dust on the horizon,” she reported, “but I think
+it’s Mr. Wells getting home from Caledonia.”
+
+“Wouldn’t they blare their horns before they got here?” Mary Elizabeth
+wanted to know.
+
+“What was a knight _for_, anyway?” Delia demanded.
+
+“_For?_” Margaret Amelia repeated, in a kind of personal indignation.
+“Why, to--to--to right wrongs, of course.”
+
+Delia surveyed the surrounding scene through the diluted red ink in a
+glass-stoppered bottle.
+
+“I guess I know that,” she said. “But I mean, what was his job?”
+
+We had never thought of that. Did one, then, have to have a job other
+than righting wrongs?
+
+Margaret Amelia undertook to explain.
+
+“Why,” she said, “it was this way: Knights liberated damsels and razed
+down strongholds and took robber chieftains and got into adventures.
+And they lived off the king and off hermits.”
+
+“But what was the end of ’em?” Delia wanted to know. “They never
+married and lived happily ever after. They married and just kept right
+on going.”
+
+“That was on account of the Holy Grail,” said Mary Elizabeth. It
+was wonderful, as I look back, to remember how her face would light
+sometimes; as just then, and as when somebody came to school with the
+first violets.
+
+“The what?” said Delia.
+
+“They woke up in the night sometimes,” Mary Elizabeth recited softly,
+“and they saw it, in light, right there inside their dark cell. And
+they looked and looked, and it was all shiny and near-to. And when
+they saw it, they knew about all the principal things. And those that
+never woke up and saw it, always kept trying to, because they knew they
+weren’t _really_ ones till they saw. Most everybody wasn’t really,
+because only a few saw it. Most of them died and never saw it at all.”
+
+“What did it look like?” demanded Delia.
+
+“Hush!” said Calista, with a shocked glance, having somewhere picked up
+the impression that very sacred things, like very wicked things, must
+never be mentioned. But Mary Elizabeth did not heed her.
+
+“It was all shining and near to,” she repeated. “It was in a great,
+dark sky, with great, bright worlds falling all around it, but it was
+in the centre and it didn’t fall. It was all still, and brighter than
+anything; and when you saw it, you never forgot.”
+
+There was a moment’s pause, which Delia broke.
+
+“How do you know?” she demanded.
+
+Mary Elizabeth was clouding red mosquito-netting water by shaking soap
+in it, an effect much to be desired. She went on shaking the corked
+bottle, and looking away toward the sun slanting to late afternoon.
+
+“I don’t know how I know,” she said in manifest surprise. “But I know.”
+
+We sat silent for a minute.
+
+“Well, I’m going back to see if they’re coming home from the hunt
+_now_,” said Delia, scrambling up.
+
+“From the _chase_,” Margaret Amelia corrected her loftily, “and from
+the tourmey. I b’lieve,” she corrected herself conscientiously, “that
+had ought to be tourmament.”
+
+This time Delia thought that she saw them coming, the king and his
+knights, with pennons and plumes, just entering Conant Street down by
+the Brices. As we must be ready by the time the party dismounted, there
+was need for the greatest haste. But we found that the clothes-reel,
+which was to be the fountain, must have a rug and should have flowing
+curtains if it were to grace a castle courtyard; so, matters having
+been further delayed by the discovery of Harold about to drink the
+vanilla water, we concluded that we had been mistaken about the
+approach of the knights; and that they were by now only on the bridge.
+
+A journey to the attic for the rug and curtains resulted in delays,
+the sight of some cast-off garments imperatively suggesting the
+fitness of our dressing for the rôle we were to assume. This took some
+time and was accompanied by the selection of new names all around.
+At last, however, we were back in the yard with the rugs and the
+muslin curtains in place, and the array of coloured bottles set up
+in rows at the top of the carpeted steps. Then we arranged ourselves
+behind these delicacies, in our bravery of old veils and scarves and
+tattered sequins. Harold was below, as a page, in a red sash. “A little
+foot-page,” Margaret Amelia had wanted him called, but this he himself
+vetoed.
+
+“Mine feet _big_ feet,” he defended himself.
+
+Then we waited.
+
+We waited, chatted amiably, as court ladies will. Occasionally we rose
+and scanned the street, and reported that they were almost here. Then
+we resumed our seats and waited. This business had distinctly palled on
+us all when Delia faced it.
+
+“Let’s have them get here if they’re going to,” she said.
+
+So we sat and told each other that they were entering the yard, that
+they were approaching the dais, that they were kneeling at our feet.
+But it was unconvincing. None of us really wanted them to kneel or
+knew what to do with them when they did kneel. The whole pretence was
+lacking in action, and very pale.
+
+“It was lots more fun getting ready than this is,” said Calista,
+somewhat brutally.
+
+We stared in one another’s faces, feeling guilty of a kind of
+disloyalty, yet compelled to acknowledge this great truth. In our
+hearts we remembered to have noticed this thing before: That getting
+ready for a thing was more fun than doing that thing.
+
+“Why couldn’t we get a quest?” inquired Margaret Amelia. “Then it
+wouldn’t have to stop. It’d last every day.”
+
+That was the obvious solution: We would get a quest.
+
+“Girls can’t quest, can they?” Betty suggested doubtfully.
+
+We looked in one another’s faces. Could it be true? Did the damsels sit
+at home? Was it only the knights who quested?
+
+Delia was a free soul. Forthwith she made a precedent.
+
+“Well,” she said, “I don’t know whether they did quest. But they can
+quest. So let’s do it.”
+
+The reason in this appealed to us all. Immediately we confronted the
+problem: What should we quest for?
+
+We stared off over the valley through which the little river ran
+shining and slipped beyond our horizon.
+
+“I wonder,” said Mary Elizabeth, “if it would be wrong to quest for the
+Holy Grail _now_.”
+
+We stood there against the west, where bright doors seemed opening in
+the pouring gold of the sun, thick with shining dust. The glory seemed
+very near. Why not do something beautiful? Why not--why not....
+
+
+
+
+The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the
+same author, and new fiction
+
+
+
+
+_By the Same Author_
+
+
+Christmas
+
+BY ZONA GALE
+
+Author of “Mothers to Men,” “The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre.”
+Illustrated in colors by LEON SOLON.
+
+_Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.30 net; postpaid, $1.42_
+
+A town in the Middle West, pinched with poverty, decides that it will
+have no Christmas, as no one can afford to buy gifts. They perhaps
+foolishly reckon that the heart-burnings and the disappointments of
+the children will be obviated by passing the holiday season over with
+no observance. How this was found to be simply and wholly impossible,
+how the Christmas joys and Christmas spirit crept into the little town
+and into the hearts of its most positive objectors, and how Christmas
+cannot be arbitrated about, make up the basis of a more than ordinarily
+appealing novel. Incidentally it is a little boy who really makes
+possible a delightful outcome. A thread of romance runs through it all
+with something of the meaning of Christmas for the individual human
+being and for the race.
+
+ “A fine story of Yuletide impulses in Miss Gale’s best
+ style.”--_N. Y. World._
+
+ “No living writer more thoroughly understands the true spirit
+ of Christmas than does Zona Gale.”--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+ “‘Christmas’ is that rare thing, a Yuletide tale, with a touch
+ of originality about it.”--_N. Y. Press._
+
+ “The book is just the thing for a gift.”--_Chicago Tribune._
+
+
+
+
+_The Other Books of Miss Gale_
+
+
+Mothers to Men
+
+_Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.62 net_
+
+The author is singularly successful in detaching herself from all
+the wear and tear of modern life and has produced a book filled with
+sweetness, beautiful in ideas, charming in characterizations, highly
+contemplative, and evidencing a philosophy of life all her own.
+
+ “One of the most widely read of our writers of short
+ fiction.”--_The Bookman._
+
+
+Friendship Village
+
+_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net_
+
+ “As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and sometimes
+ both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows whether
+ laughter or tears are fittest.”--_The New York Times._
+
+
+The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre
+
+_Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net_
+
+_Macmillan Fiction Library_
+
+_12mo, $.50 net_
+
+ “It contains the sort of message that seems to set the world right
+ for even the most depressed, and can be depended upon to sweeten
+ every moment spent over it.”--_San Francisco Chronicle._
+
+
+Friendship Village Love Stories
+
+_Decorated cloth, gilt top, 12mo, $1.50 net_
+
+ Miss Gale’s pleasant and highly individual outlook upon life has
+ never been revealed to better advantage than in these charming
+ stories of the heart affairs of the young people of Friendship
+ Village.
+
+
+
+
+_New Macmillan Fiction_
+
+
+MRS. WATTS’S NEW NOVEL
+
+ Van Cleve
+
+ BY MARY S. WATTS
+
+ Author of “Nathan Burke,” “The Legacy,” etc.
+
+ _Cloth, 12mo._
+
+ Never has the author of “Nathan Burke” and “The Legacy” written
+ more convincingly or appealingly than in this story of modern
+ life. Those who have enjoyed the intense realism of Mrs.
+ Watts’s earlier work, the settings of which have largely been
+ of the past, will welcome this book of the present in which she
+ demonstrates that her skill is no less in handling scenes and
+ types of people with which we are familiar than in the so-called
+ “historical” novel. “Van Cleve” is about a young man who, while
+ still in his early twenties, is obliged to support a family of
+ foolish, good-hearted, ill-balanced women, and one shiftless,
+ pompous old man, his grandmother, aunt, cousin, and uncle. Van
+ Cleve proves himself equal to the obligation--and equal, too, to
+ many other severe tests that are put upon him by his friends.
+ Besides him there is one character which it is doubtful whether
+ the reader will ever forget--Bob. His life not only shapes Van
+ Cleve’s to a large extent, but that of several other people,
+ notably his sister, the girl whom Van Cleve loves in his patient
+ way.
+
+
+The Valley of the Moon
+
+ BY JACK LONDON
+
+ With Frontispiece in Colors by GEORGE HARPER
+
+ _Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.35 net_
+
+ A love story in Mr. London’s most powerful style, strikingly
+ contrasted against a background of present-day economic
+ problems--that is what “The Valley of the Moon” is. The hero,
+ teamster, prize-fighter, adventurer, man of affairs, is one of
+ Mr. London’s unforgettable big men. The romance which develops
+ out of his meeting with a charming girl and which does not end
+ with their marriage is absorbingly told. The action of the plot
+ is most rapid, one event following another in a fashion which
+ does not allow the reader to lose interest even temporarily. “The
+ Valley of the Moon” is, in other words, an old-fashioned London
+ novel, with all of the entertainment that such a description
+ implies.
+
+
+Robin Hood’s Barn
+
+ BY ALICE BROWN
+
+ Author of “Vanishing Points,” “The Secret of the Clan,” “The
+ Country Road,” etc.
+
+ With Illustrations in Colors and in Black and White by
+ H. M. CARPENTER
+
+ _Decorated cloth, 12mo, $0.00 net_
+
+ Miss Brown’s previous books have given her a distinguished
+ reputation as an interpreter of New England life. The idealism,
+ the quaint humor, the skill in character drawing, and the
+ dramatic force which have always marked her work are evident in
+ this charming story of a dream that came true. The illustrations,
+ the frontispiece being in colors, the others in black and white,
+ are by Mr. Horace Carpenter, whose sympathetic craftsmanship is
+ widely known and appreciated.
+
+
+Deering at Princeton
+
+ BY LATTA GRISWOLD
+
+ Author of “Deering of Deal”
+
+ With Illustrations by E. C. CASWELL
+
+ _Decorated cloth, 12mo; preparing_
+
+ This is a college story that reads as a college story should.
+ Here Mr. Griswold tells of Deering’s Princeton years from
+ his freshman days to his graduation. A hazing adventure of
+ far-reaching importance, a football game or two in which Deering
+ has a hand, a reform in the eating club system, the fraternity
+ régime of Princeton, initiated by Deering and carried through
+ at the sacrifice of much that he values, a touch of sentiment
+ centering around a pretty girl who later marries Deering’s
+ roommate, besides many lively college happenings which only one
+ familiar with the life could have chronicled, go to the making of
+ an intensely interesting tale.
+
+
+Tide Marks
+
+ BY MARGARET WESTRUP
+
+ _Decorated cloth, 12mo; preparing_
+
+ A novel of unusual interest and power told in a style both
+ convincing and distinctive. Margaret Westrup promises to be one
+ of the literary finds of the season.
+
+
+The Will to Live
+
+ BY M. P. WILLCOCKS
+
+ Author of “The Wingless Victory,” etc.
+
+ _Cloth, 12mo; preparing_
+
+ In description, in vividness of character depiction, in
+ cleverness of dialogue, and in skill of plot construction, Miss
+ Willcocks’ previous books have displayed her rare ability. “The
+ Will to Live” is perhaps her most mature work; it is a story with
+ which one is sure to be satisfied when the last page is turned.
+
+ THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
+ Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+In the advertisements at the end of the book, the price of $0.00 is as
+published.
+
+Variations in spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained
+as they appear in the original publication except as follows:
+
+ Page 145
+ “_We are all alike, all of us who live!_ _changed to_
+ _We are all alike, all of us who live!_
+
+ Page 229
+ resentfully “And now she’s in her _changed to_
+ resentfully. “And now she’s in her
+
+ Page 281
+ for this seemed a a good way _changed to_
+ for this seemed a good way
+
+ Page 286
+ I’ve fought everyone of _changed to_
+ I’ve fought every one of
+
+ Page 289
+ him and help him. _changed to_
+ him and help him.”
+
+ Page 396
+ London’s unforgetable big men _changed to_
+ London’s unforgettable big men
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When I Was a Little Girl, by Zona Gale
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of When I Was a Little Girl, by Zona Gale
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license
+
+
+Title: When I Was a Little Girl
+
+Author: Zona Gale
+
+Illustrator: Agnes Pelton
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2019 [EBook #60457]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr class="divider" />
+<h1>WHEN I WAS A LITTLE GIRL</h1>
+
+
+<div class="hidehand">
+<hr class="divider2" />
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<img src="images/cover2.jpg" width="400" height="584" alt="Cover" />
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider2" />
+
+<div class="figcenter width200">
+<img src="images/colophon.png" width="200" height="65" alt="Colophon" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="center p120">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+<small>NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS<br />
+ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO</small></p>
+
+<p class="center p120">MACMILLAN & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span><br />
+<small>LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA<br />
+MELBOURNE</small></p>
+
+<p class="center p120">THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, <span class="smcap">Ltd.</span><br />
+<small>TORONTO</small></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider2" />
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="frontispiece" id="frontispiece"></a>
+<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" width="400" height="644" alt="Frontispiece" /><br />
+SOMEWHERE BEYOND SEALED DOORS
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+</div>
+<p class="center p180">WHEN I WAS A LITTLE<br />
+GIRL</p>
+
+<p class="center p140 mt3"><small>BY</small><br />
+ZONA GALE</p>
+
+<p class="center mt3">AUTHOR OF “THE LOVES OF PELLEAS AND ETARRE,”<br />
+“FRIENDSHIP VILLAGE,” ETC.</p>
+
+<p class="center mt3 p120"><small>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY</small><br />
+AGNES PELTON</p>
+
+<p class="center ornate p140">New York</p>
+<p class="center p130">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY<br />
+<small>1913</small></p>
+
+<p class="center"><i>All rights reserved</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1911, by The Curtis Publishing Company.</p>
+
+<hr class="small" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1913,<br />
+By</span> THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.</p>
+
+<hr class="small" />
+
+<p class="center">Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1913.</p>
+
+
+<p class="center ornate">Norwood Press</p>
+<p class="center">J. B. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.<br />
+Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<p class="center ornate p140">To</p>
+
+<p class="center">THE LITTLE GIRL ON CONANT STREET<br />
+AND TO THE<br />
+MEMORY OF HER GRANDMOTHER<br />
+HARRIET BEERS</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">vii</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="contents" id="contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table summary="Contents">
+<tr>
+<th class="tdr">CHAPTER</th>
+<th class="tdl"> </th>
+<th class="tdr2">PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">I.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">In Those Days</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#i">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">II.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">In No Time</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ii">16</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">III.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">One for the Money</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iii">35</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IV.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The Picnic</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#iv">53</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">V.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The King’s Trumpeter</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#v">77</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VI.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">My Lady of the Apple Tree</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vi">103</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The Princess Romancia</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#vii">118</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">VIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Two for the Show</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#viii">147</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">IX.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Next Door</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#ix">159</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">X.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">What’s Proper</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#x">173</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XI.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Dolls</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xi">192</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Bit-Bit</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xii">211</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Why</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiii">228</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIV.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">King</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xiv">247</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XV.</td>
+<td class="tdl"><span class="smcap">King</span> (<i>continued</i>)</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xv">281</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVI.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The Walk</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvi">307</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The Great Black Hush</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xvii">315</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XVIII.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">The Decoration of Independence</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xviii">329</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XIX.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Earth-Mother</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xix">354</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdr">XX.</td>
+<td class="tdl smcap">Three to Make Ready</td>
+<td class="tdr2"><a href="#xx">375</a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">viii</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">ix</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<table summary="List of Illustrations">
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Somewhere beyond sealed doors</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<th class="tdl"> </th>
+<th class="tdr">FACING PAGE</th>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Sat on a rock in the landscape and practised</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#sat">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Little by little she grew silent and refused to join in
+the games</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#little">128</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">But the minute folk left the room—ah, then!</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#but">168</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">She settled everything in that way; she counted the
+petals of fennel daisies and blew thistle from
+dandelions</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#she">196</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">Then out of the valley a great deev arose</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#then">216</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="tdl">To see what running away is really like</td>
+<td class="tdr"><a href="#to">316</a>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">x</a></span></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> used to be a little girl who does not come here any more. She is
+not dead, for when certain things happen, she stirs slightly where she
+is, perhaps deep within the air. When the sun falls in a particular
+way, when graham griddle cakes are baking, when the sky laughs
+sudden blue after a storm, or the town clock points in its clearest
+you-will-be-late way at nine in the morning, when the moonlight is on
+the midnight and nothing moves—then, somewhere beyond sealed doors,
+the little girl says something, and it is plain that she is here all
+the time.</p>
+
+<p>You little child who never have died, in these stories I am trying
+to tell you that now I come near to understanding you. I see you
+still, with your over-long hair and your over-much chattering, your
+naughtiness and your dreams. I know the qualities that made you
+disagreeable and those that made you dear, and I look on you somewhat
+as spirit looks on spirit, understanding from within. I wish that
+we could live it again, you and I—not all of it, by any means, and
+not for a serious business; but now and then, for a joy and for an
+idleness. And this book is a way of trying to do it over again,
+together.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">Will you care to come from the quiet where you are, near to me and
+yet remote? I think that you will come, for you were wont untiringly
+to wonder about me. And now here I am, come true, so faintly like her
+whom you dreamed, yet so like you yourself, your child, fruit of your
+spirit, you little shadowy mother....</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">xii</a></span>
+If only words were moments</div>
+<div class="line">And I knew where they fly,</div>
+<div class="line">I’d make a tale of time itself</div>
+<div class="line">To tell you by and bye.</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">If only words were fathoms</div>
+<div class="line">That let us by for pearls,</div>
+<div class="line">I’d make a story ocean-strange</div>
+<div class="line">For little boys and girls.</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">But words are only shadow things.</div>
+<div class="line">I summon all I may.</div>
+<div class="line">Oh, see—they try to spell out Life!</div>
+<div class="line">Let’s act it, like a play.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">1</a></span>
+
+<p class="center p180">When I was a Little Girl</p>
+</div>
+
+<h2 class="no-break"><a name="i" id="i"></a>I<br />
+<span>IN THOSE DAYS</span></h2>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">In</span> those days time always bothered us. It went fast or it went slow,
+with no one interfering. It was impossible to hurry it or to hold it
+back.</p>
+
+<p>“Only ten weeks more,” we invariably said glibly, when the Spring term
+began.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">“Just think! We’ve—got—t-e-n—weeks!” we told one another at the
+beginning of vacation, what time we came home with our books, chanting
+it:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line outdent">“<em>No more Latin,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>No more French,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>No more sitting on a hard wood bench.</em>”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">—both chorally and antiphonally chanting it.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, in spite of every encouragement, the Spring term lasted
+immeasurably and the Summer vacation melted. It was the kindred
+difference of experience respectively presented<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">2</a></span> by a bowl of hot
+ginger tea and an equal bulk of ice-cream.</p>
+
+<p>In other ways time was extraordinary. We used to play with it: “Now is
+now. But now that other Now is gone and a Then is now. How did it do
+it? How do all the Nows begin?”</p>
+
+<p>“When is the party?” we had sometimes inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“To-morrow,” we would be told.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning, “Now it’s to-morrow!” we would joyfully announce, only
+to be informed that it was, on the contrary, to-day. But there was no
+cause for alarm, for now the party, it seemed, had changed too, and
+that would be to-day. It was frightfully confusing.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>When</em> is to-morrow?” we demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“When to-day stops being,” they said.</p>
+
+<p>But never, never once did to-day stop that much. Gradually we
+understood and humoured the pathetic delusion of the Grown-ups: <em>To-day
+lasted always and yet the poor things kept right on forever waiting for
+to-morrow.</em></p>
+
+<p>As for me, I had been born without the time sense. If I was told that
+we would go to drive in ten minutes, I always assumed that I could
+finish dressing my doll, tidy my play-house, put<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">3</a></span> her in it with all
+her family disposed about her down to the penny black-rubber baby
+dressed in yarn, wash my face and hands, smooth my hair (including
+the protests that these were superfluous), make sure that the kitten
+was shut in the woodshed ... long before most of which the family
+was following me, haling me away, chiding me for keeping older folk
+waiting, and the ten minutes were gone far by. Who would have thought
+it? Ten minutes seem so much.</p>
+
+<p>And if I went somewhere with permission to stay an hour! Then the
+hour stretched invitingly before me, a vista lined with crowding
+possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>“How long can you stay?” we always promptly asked our guests, for there
+was a feeling that the quality of the game to be entered on depended
+on the time at our disposal. But when they asked me, it never was
+conceivable that anything so real as a game should be dependent on
+anything so hazy as time.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, a whole hour!” I would say royally. “Let’s play City.”</p>
+
+<p>With this attitude Delia Dart, who lived across the street, had no
+patience. Delia was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> definite. Her evenly braided hair, her square
+finger tips, her blunt questions, her sense of what was due to
+Delia—all these were definite.</p>
+
+<p>“City!” she would burst out. “You can’t play City unless you’ve got all
+afternoon.”</p>
+
+<p>And Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman, who were pretty definite too,
+would back Delia up; but since they usually had permission to stay all
+afternoon, they would acquiesce when I urged: “Oh, well, let’s start
+in anyhow.” Then about the time the outside wall had been laid up in
+the sand-pile and we had selected our building sites, the town clock
+would strike my hour, which would be brought home to me only by Delia
+saying:—</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you go. Will she care if you’re late?”</p>
+
+<p>On such occasions we never used the substantive, but merely “she.”
+It is worth being a child to have a sense of values so simple and
+unassailable as that.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to do just this much. I can run all the way home,” I would
+answer; and I would begin on my house walls. But when these were
+done, and the rooms defined by moist sand partitions, there was all
+the fascination of its garden, with walks to be outlined with a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span>
+shingle and sprays of Old Man and cedar to be stuck in for trees, and
+single stems of Fever-few and Sweet Alyssum or Flowering-currant and
+Bleeding-heart for the beds, and Catnip for the borders, and a chick
+from Old-Hen-and-Chickens for a tropical plant. We would be just begun
+on the stones for the fountain when some alien consciousness, some
+plucking at me, would recall the moment. And it would be half an hour
+past my hour.</p>
+
+<p>“You were to come home at four o’clock,” Mother would say, when I
+reached there panting.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Why</em> did I have to come home at four o’clock?” I would finally give
+way to the sense of great and arbitrary wrong.</p>
+
+<p>She always told me. I think that never in my life was I bidden to
+do a thing, or not to do it, “because I tell you to.” But never
+once did a time-reason seem sufficient. What were company, a
+nap-because-I-was-to-sit-up-late, or having-to-go-somewhere-else beside
+the reality of that house which I would never occupy, that garden where
+I would never walk?</p>
+
+<p>“You can make it the next time you go to Delia’s,” Mother would say.
+But I knew that this was impossible. I might build another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> house,
+adventure in another garden; this one was forever lost to me.</p>
+
+<p>“... only,” Mother would add, “you can not go to Delia’s for ...” she
+would name a period that yawned to me as black as the abyss. “...
+because you did not come home to-day when you were told.” And still
+time seemed to me indefinite. For now it appeared that I should never
+go to Delia’s again.</p>
+
+<p>I thought about it more and more. What was this time that was laid on
+us so heavy? Why did I have to get up <em>because</em> it was seven o’clock,
+go to school <em>because</em> it was nine, come home from Delia’s <em>because</em>
+the clock struck something else ... above all, why did I have to go to
+bed <em>because</em> it was eight o’clock?</p>
+
+<p>I laid it before my little council.</p>
+
+<p>“Why do we have to go to bed because it’s bed-time?” I asked them.
+“Which started first—bed-time or us?”</p>
+
+<p>None of us could tell. Margaret Amelia Rodman, however, was of opinion
+that bed-time started first.</p>
+
+<p>“Nearly everything was here before we were,” she said gloomily. “We
+haven’t got anything in the house but the piano and the rabbits that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span>
+wasn’t first before us. Mother told father this morning that we’d had
+our stair-carpet fifteen years.”</p>
+
+<p>We faced that. Fifteen years. Nearly twice as long as we had lived. If
+a stair-carpet had lasted like that, what was the use of thinking that
+we could find anything to control on the ground of our having been here
+first?</p>
+
+<p>Delia Dart, however, was a free soul. “<em>I</em> think we begun before
+bed-time did,” she said decidedly. “Because when we were babies,
+we didn’t have any bed-time. Look at babies now. They don’t have
+bed-times. They sleep all the while.”</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Bed-time must have started after we did. Besides, we
+remembered that it was movable. Once it had been half past seven. Now
+it was eight. Delia often sat up, according to her own accounts, much
+later even than this.</p>
+
+<p>“Grown-ups don’t have any bed-time either,” Betty took it up. “They’re
+like babies.”</p>
+
+<p>This was a new thought. How strange that Grown-ups and babies should
+share this immunity, and only we be bound.</p>
+
+<p>“Who <em>made</em> bed-time?” I inquired irritably.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span>
+“S-h-h!” said Delia. “God did.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Delia, “anyway, he makes us sleepy.”</p>
+
+<p>This I also challenged. “Then why am I sleepier when I go to church
+evenings than when I play Hide-and-go-seek in the Brice’s barn
+evenings?” I submitted.</p>
+
+<p>This was getting into theology, and Delia used the ancient method.</p>
+
+<p>“We aren’t supposed to know all those things,” she said with
+superiority, and the council broke up.</p>
+
+<p>That night I brought my revolt into the open. At eight o’clock I was
+disposing the articles in my play-house so that they all touched,
+in order that they might be able to talk during the night. It was
+well-known to me that inanimate objects must touch if they would
+carry on conversation. The little red chair and the table, the blue
+paper-weight with a little trembling figure inside, the silver vase,
+the mug with “Remember me” in blue letters, the china goat, all must be
+safely settled so that they might while away the long night in talk.
+The blue-glass paper weight with the horse and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> rider within, however,
+was uncertain what he wanted to companion. I tried him with the china
+horse and with the treeful of birds and with the duck in a boat, but
+somehow he would not group. While he was still hesitating, it came:—</p>
+
+<p>“Bed-time, dear,” they said.</p>
+
+<p>I faced them at last. I had often objected, but I had never reasoned it
+out.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m not sleepy,” I announced serenely.</p>
+
+<p>“But it’s bed-time,” they pressed it mildly.</p>
+
+<p>“Bed-time is when you’re sleepy,” I explained. “I’m not sleepy. So it
+can’t be bed-time.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bed-time is eight o’clock,” they said with a hint of firmness, and
+picked me up strongly and carried me off; and to my expostulation that
+the horse and his rider in the blue paper-weight would have nobody to
+talk to all night, they said that he wouldn’t care about that; and when
+I wept, they said I was cross, and that proved it was Bed-time.</p>
+
+<p>There seemed no escape. But once—once I came near to understanding.
+Once the door into Unknown-about Things nearly opened for me, and just
+for a moment I caught a glimpse.</p>
+
+<p>I had been told to tidy my top bureau drawer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> I have always loathed
+tidying my top bureau drawer. It is so unlike a real task. It is made
+up of odds and ends of tasks that ought to have been despatched long
+ago and gradually, by process of throwing away, folding, putting in
+boxes, hanging up, and other utterly uninteresting operations. I can
+create a thing, I can destroy a thing, I can keep a thing as it was;
+but to face a top bureau drawer is none of these things. It is a motley
+task, unclassified, without honour, a very tag-end and bobtail of a
+task, fit for nobody.</p>
+
+<p>I was thinking things that meant this, and hanging out the window. It
+was a gentle day, like a perfectly natural human being who wants to
+make friends and will not pretend one iota in order to be your friend.
+I remember that it was a still day, that I loved, not as I loved Uncle
+Linas and Aunt Frances, who always played with me and gave me things,
+but as I loved Mother and father when they took me somewhere with them,
+on Sunday afternoons.... I had a row of daffodils coming up in the
+garden. I began pretending that they were marching down the border,
+down the border, down the border to the big rock by the cooking-apple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
+tree—why of course! I had never thought of it, but that rock was where
+they got their gold....</p>
+
+<p>A house-wren came out of a niche in the porch and flew down to the
+platform in the boxalder, where father was accustomed to feed the
+birds. The platform was spread with muffin crumbs. The little wren ate,
+and flew to the clothes-line and poured forth his thankful exquisite
+song. I had always felt regret that we had no clothes reel that
+would whirl like a witch in the wind, but instead merely a system of
+clothes-lines, duly put up on Mondays; but the little wren evidently
+did not know the difference.</p>
+
+<p>“Abracadabra, make me sing like that....” I told him. But I hadn’t said
+the right thing, and he flew away and left me not singing. I began
+thinking what if he <em>had</em> made me sing, and what if I had put back my
+head and gone downstairs singing like a wren, and gone to arithmetic
+class singing like a wren, and nobody could have stopped me, and nobody
+would have wanted to stop me....</p>
+
+<p>... I leaned over the sill, holding both arms down and feeling the
+blood flow down and weight my fingers like a pulse. What if I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> should
+fall out the window and instead of striking the ground hard, as folk do
+when they fall out of windows, I should go softly through the earth,
+and feel it pressing back from my head and closing together behind my
+heels, and pretty soon I should come out, plump ... before the Root of
+Everything and sit there for a long time and watch it grow....</p>
+
+<p>... I looked up at the blue, glad that I was so near to it, and thought
+how much pleasanter it would be to fly right away through the blue and
+see what colour it was lined with. Pink, maybe—rose-pink, which showed
+through at sunset when the sun leaped at last through the blue and it
+closed behind him. Rose-pink, like my best sash and hair-ribbons....</p>
+
+<p>That brought me back. My best sash and hair-ribbons were in my top
+drawer. Moreover, there were foot-steps on the stairs and at the very
+door.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you finished?” Mother asked.</p>
+
+<p>I had not even opened the drawer.</p>
+
+<p>“You have been up here one hour,” Mother said, and came and stood
+beside me. “What have you been doing?”</p>
+
+<p>I began to tell her. I do not envy her her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> quandary. She knew that I
+was not to be too heavily chided and yet—the top drawers of this world
+must be tidied.</p>
+
+<p>“Think!” she said. “That Hour has gone out the window without its work
+being done. And now this Hour, that was meant for play, has got to
+work. But not you! You’ve lost your turn. Now it’s Mother’s turn.”</p>
+
+<p>She made me sit by the window while she tidied the drawer. I was not to
+touch it—I had lost my turn. While she worked, she talked to me about
+the things she knew I liked to talk about. But I could not listen. It
+is the only time in my life that I have ever really frantically wanted
+to tidy a top bureau drawer of anybody’s.</p>
+
+<p>“Now,” she said when she had done, “this last Hour will meet the
+Hour-before-the-last, and each of them will look the way the other
+ought to have looked, and they will be all mixed up. And all day I
+think they will keep trying to come back to you to straighten them out.
+But you can’t do it. And they’ll have to be each other forever and ever
+and ever.”</p>
+
+<p>She went away again, and I was left face to face with the very heart of
+this whole perplexing Time business: those two Hours that would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> always
+be somewhere trying to be each other, forever and ever, and always
+trying to come back for me to straighten them out.</p>
+
+<p>Were there Hours out in the world that were sick hours, sick because we
+had treated them badly, and always trying to come back for folk to make
+them well?</p>
+
+<p>And were there Hours that were busy and happy somewhere because they
+had been well used and they didn’t have to try to come back for us to
+patch them up?</p>
+
+<p>Were Hours like that? Was Time like that?</p>
+
+<p>When I told Delia of the incident, she at once characteristically
+settled it.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, if they wasn’t any time,” she said, “we’d all just wait and wait
+and wait. They couldn’t have that. So they set something going to get
+us going to keep things going.”</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, in later life, when I have seen folk lunch because it is one
+o’clock, worship because it is the seventh day, go to Europe because it
+is Summer, and marry because it is high time, I wonder whether Delia
+was not right. Often and often I have been convinced that what Mother
+told me about the Hours trying to come back to get one to straighten
+them out is true<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> with truth undying. And I wish, that morning by the
+window, and at those grim, inevitable Bed-times, that I, as I am now,
+might have told that Little Me this story about how, just possibly,
+they first noticed time and about what, just possibly, it is.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="ii" id="ii"></a>II<br />
+<span>IN NO TIME</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds were counted
+and named, consider how peculiar it all must have seemed. For example,
+when the Unknown-about Folk of those prehistoric times wished to know
+<em>when</em> a thing would happen, of course they can have had no word
+<em>when</em>, and no answer. If a little Prehistoric Girl gave a party, she
+cannot have known when to tell her guests to come, so she must have
+had to wait until the supper was ready and then invite them; and if
+they were not perfectly-bred little guests, they may have been offended
+because they hadn’t been invited before—only they would not have known
+how to say or to think “before,” so they cannot have been quite sure
+what they were offended at; but they may have been offended anyway, as
+happens now with that same kind of guest. And if a little Prehistoric
+Boy asked his father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> to bring him a new eagle or a new leopard for a
+pet, and his father came home night after night and didn’t bring it,
+the Prehistoric Boy could not say, “<em>When</em> will you bring it, sir?”
+because there was no when, so he may have asked a great many other
+questions, and been told to sit in the back of the cave until he could
+do better. Nobody can have known how long to boil eggs or to bake
+bread, and people must have had to come to breakfast and just sit and
+wait and wait until things were done. Worst of all, nobody can have
+known that time is a thing to use and not to waste. Since they could
+not measure it, they could not of course tell how fast it was slipping
+away, and they must have thought that time was theirs to do with what
+they pleased, instead of turning it all into different things—this
+piece into sleep, this piece into play, this piece into tasks and
+exercise and fun. Just as, in those days, they probably thought that
+food is to be eaten because it tastes good and not because it makes
+the body grow, so they thought that time was a thing to be thrown away
+and not to be used, every bit—which is, of course, a prehistoric way
+to think. And nobody can have known about birthdays, and no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> story can
+have started “Once upon a time,” and everything must have been quite
+different.</p>
+
+<p>About then,—only of course they didn’t know it was then—a Prehistoric
+Mother said one morning to her Prehistoric Little Daughter:—</p>
+
+<p>“Now, Vertebrata, get your practising done and then you may go to
+play.” (It wasn’t a piano and it wasn’t an organ, but it was a lovely,
+reedy, blow-on-it thing, like a pastoral pipe, and little girls always
+sat about on rocks in the landscape, as soon as they had had their
+breakfasts, and practised.)</p>
+
+<p>So Vertebrata took her reed pipes and sat on a rock in the landscape
+and practised—all of what we now know (but she did not know) would be
+five minutes. Then she came in the cave, and tossed the pipes on her
+bed of skins, and then remembered and hung them in their place above
+the fireplace, and turned toward the doorway. But her mother, who was
+roasting flesh at the fire, called her back.</p>
+
+<p>“Vertebrata,” she said, “did I not tell you to practise?”</p>
+
+<p>“I did practise,” said Vertebrata.</p>
+
+<p>“Then practise and practise,” said her mother,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> not knowing how else to
+tell her to do her whole hour. Her mother didn’t know hours, but she
+knew by the feel of her feelings when Vertebrata had done enough.</p>
+
+<p>So Vertebrata sat on a rock and did five minutes more, and came and
+threw her pipes on her bed of skins, and remembered and hung them up,
+and then turned toward the door of the cave. But her mother looked up
+from the flesh-pot and called her back again.</p>
+
+<p>“Vertebrata,” she said, “do you want mother to have to speak to you
+again?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, <em>indeed</em>, muvver,” said her little daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“Then practise and practise and practise,” said her mother. “If you
+can’t play when you grow up, what will people think?”</p>
+
+<p>So Vertebrata went back to her landscape rock, and this thing was
+repeated until Vertebrata had practised what we now know (but she did
+not know) to have been a whole hour. And you can easily see that in
+order to bring this about, what her mother must have said to her the
+last time of all was this:—</p>
+
+<p>“I want you to practise and practise and practise and practise and
+practise and practise and practise and practise and practise and
+practise<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> and practise and practise—” <em>or</em> something almost as long.</p>
+
+<p>Now of course it was very hard for her mother to say all this besides
+roasting the flesh and tidying the cave, so she made up her mind that
+when her Prehistoric Husband came home, he must be told about it. And
+when the sun was at the top of the sky and cast no shadow, and the
+flesh was roasted brown and fragrant, she dressed it with pungent
+herbs, and raked the vegetables out of the ashes and hid the dessert in
+the cool wall of the cave—<em>that</em> was a surprise—and spread the flat
+rock at the door of the cave and put vine-leaves in her hair and, with
+Vertebrata, set herself to wait.</p>
+
+<p>There went by what we now know to have been noon, and another hour, and
+more hours, and all afternoon, and all early twilight, and still her
+Prehistoric Husband did not come home to dinner. Vertebrata was crying
+with hunger, and the flesh and the vegetables were ice-cold, and the
+Prehistoric Wife and Mother sat looking straight before her without
+smiling. And then, just as the moon was rising red over the soft breast
+of the distant wood, the Prehistoric Father appeared, not looking as if
+he had done anything.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span>
+“Is dinner ready?” he asked pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>Now this was the last straw, and the Prehistoric Wife and Mother said
+so, standing at the door of the cave, with Vertebrata crying in the
+offing.</p>
+
+<p>“Troglodyte,” she said sadly (that was what she called him), “dinner
+has been ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and ready and
+ready ...” and she showed him the ice-cold roasted flesh and vegetables.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m <em>so</em> sorry, dearest. I never knew,” said the Troglodyte,
+contritely, and did everything in the world that he could do to show
+her how sorry he was. He made haste to open his game-bag, and he drew
+out what food he had killed, and showed her a soft, cock-of-the-rock
+skin for a cap for her and a white ptarmigan breast to trim it with,
+and at last she said—because nobody can stay offended when the
+offender is sorry:—</p>
+
+<p>“Well, dear, say no more about it. We’ll slice up the meat and it will
+do very well cold, and I’ll warm up the potatoes with some brown butter
+(or the like). But hurry and bathe or I’ll be ready first <em>again</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>So he hurried and bathed in the brook, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> the cave smelled savoury
+of the hot brown butter, and Vertebrata had a Grogan tail stuck in her
+hair, and presently they sat down to supper. And it was nearly eight
+o’clock, but they didn’t know anything about <em>that</em>.</p>
+
+<p>When the serious part of supper was done, and the dessert that was a
+surprise had been brought and had surprised and gone, Vertebrata’s
+mother sat up very straight and looked before her without smiling. And
+she said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Now, something must be done.”</p>
+
+<p>“About what, Leaf Butterfly?” her husband asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Vertebrata doesn’t practise enough and you don’t come home to dinner
+enough,” she answered, “and something must be done.”</p>
+
+<p>“I did practise—wunst,” said Vertebrata.</p>
+
+<p>“But you should practise once and once and once and once and once and
+once, and so on, and not have to be told each once,” said her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“I did come home to dinner,” said the Prehistoric Husband, waving his
+hand at his empty platter.</p>
+
+<p>“But you should come first and first and first and first and first, and
+so on, and not let the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> dinner get ice-cold,” said his wife. “Hear a
+thing,” said she.</p>
+
+<p>She sprinkled some salt all thick on the table and took the stick on
+which the flesh had been roasted, and in the salt she drew a circle.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” she said, “is the sky. And this place, at the top, is the top
+of the sky. And when the sun is at the top of the sky and there is no
+shadow, I will have ready the dinner, hot and sweet in the pot, and
+dessert—for a surprise. And when the sun is at the top of the sky
+and there is no shadow, do you come to eat it, <em>always</em>. That will be
+dinner.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight—for in those
+first days even true knights were willing that women should cook and
+cave-tidy for them all day long and do little else. But that was long
+ago and we must forgive it.</p>
+
+<p>Then she made a mark in the salt at the edge of the circle a little way
+around from the first mark.</p>
+
+<p>“When the sun is at the edge of the sky and all red, and the shadows
+are long, and the dark is coming, I will have ready berries and nuts
+and green stuffs and sweet syrups and other things that I shall think
+of—for you. And when the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> sun is at the edge of the sky and all red,
+and the shadows are long, and the dark is coming, do you hurry to us,
+<em>always</em>. That will be supper.”</p>
+
+<p>“That is well,” said the Troglodyte, like a true knight.</p>
+
+<p>Then she drew the stick a long way round.</p>
+
+<p>“This is sleep,” she said. “This place here is waking, and breakfast.
+And then next the sun will be at the top of the sky again. And we will
+have dinner in the same fashion. And this is right for you. But what to
+do with the child I don’t know, unless I keep her practising from the
+time the sun is at the top of the sky until it is at the bottom. For if
+she can’t play when she grows up, what will people think?”</p>
+
+<p>Now, while she said this, the Prehistoric Woman had been sitting with
+the stick on which the flesh had been roasted held straight up in her
+fingers, resting in the middle of the ring which she had made in the
+salt. And by now the moon was high and white in the sky. And the Man
+saw that the moon-shadow of the stick fell on the circle from its
+centre to beyond its edge. And presently he stretched out his hand and
+took the stick from her, and held it so and sat very still, thinking,
+thinking, thinking....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
+“Faddie,” said Vertebrata—she called him that for loving—“Faddie,
+will you make me a little bow and arrow and scrape ’em white?”</p>
+
+<p>But her father did not hear her, and instead of answering he sprang
+up and began drawing on the soft earth before the cave a deep, deep
+circle, and he ran for the long stick that had carried his game-bag
+over his shoulder, and in the middle of the earth circle he set the
+stick.</p>
+
+<p>“Watch a thing!” he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Vertebrata and her mother, understanding little but trusting much, sat
+by his side. And together in the hot, white night the three watched the
+shadow of the stick travel on the dial that they had made. Of course
+there was no such thing as bed-time then, and Vertebrata usually sat
+up until she fell over asleep, when her mother carried her off to her
+little bed of skins; but this night she was so excited that she didn’t
+fall over. For the stick-shadow moved like a finger; like, indeed, a
+living thing that had been in the world all the time without their
+knowing. And they watched it while it went a long way round the circle.
+Then her mother said, “Nonsense, Vertebrata, you must be sleepy now
+whether you know it or not,” and she put her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span> to bed, Vertebrata saying
+all the way that she was wide awake, just like in the daytime. And
+when her mother went back outside the cave, the Man looked up at her
+wonderfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Trachystomata,” said he (which is to say “siren”), “if the sun-shadow
+will do the same thing as the moon-shadow, we have found a way to make
+Vertebrata practise enough.”</p>
+
+<p>In the morning when Vertebrata came out of the cave—she woke alone and
+dressed alone, just like being grown-up—she found her mother and her
+father down on their hands and knees, studying the circle in the soft
+earth and the long sun-shadow of the stick. And her mother called her
+and she went running to her. And her mother said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Now we will have breakfast, dear, and then you get your pipes and come
+here and practise. And when you begin, we will lay a piece of bone
+where the shadow stands, and when I feel the feeling of enough, I will
+tell you, and you will stop practising, and we will lay another piece
+of bone on that shadow. And after this you will always practise from
+one bone to another, forever.”</p>
+
+<p>Vertebrata could hardly wait to have breakfast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span> before she tried it,
+and then she ran and brought her pipes and sat down beside the circle.
+And her father did not go to his hunting, or her mother to her cooking
+and cave-tidying, but they both sat there with Vertebrata, hearing her
+pipe and watching the shadow finger move, and waiting till her mother
+should feel the feeling of enough.</p>
+
+<p><em>Now!</em> Since the world began, the Hours, Minutes, and Seconds had been
+hanging over it, waiting patiently until people should understand
+about them. But nobody before had ever, ever thought about them, and
+Vertebrata and her mother and her father were the very first ones who
+had even begun to understand.</p>
+
+<p>So it chanced that in the second that Vertebrata began to pipe and the
+bone was laid on the circle, <em>that</em> Second (deep in the air and yet
+as near as time is to us) knew that it was being marked off at last
+on the soft circle of the earth, and so did the next Second, and the
+next, and the next, and the next, until sixty of them knew—and there
+was the first Minute, measured in the circle before the cave. And other
+Minutes knew what was happening, and they all came hurrying likewise,
+and they filled the air with exquisite,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> invisible presences—all to
+the soft sound of little Vertebrata’s piping. And she piped, and piped,
+on the lovely, reedy, blow-on-it instrument, and she made sweet music.
+And for the first time in her little life, her practising became to her
+not merely practising, but music-making—there, while she watched the
+strange Time-shadow move.</p>
+
+<p>“J—o—y!” cried the Seconds, talking among themselves. “People are
+beginning to know about us. It is <em>time</em> that they should.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah!” they cried again. “We can go faster than anything.”</p>
+
+<p>“Think of all of our poor brothers and sisters that have gone, without
+anybody knowing they were here,” they mourned.</p>
+
+<p>“Pipe, pipe, pipe,” went Vertebrata, and the little Seconds danced by
+almost as if she were making them with her piping.</p>
+
+<p>The Minutes, too, said things to one another—who knows if Time is so
+silent as we imagine? May not all sorts of delicate conversations go on
+in the heart of time about which we never know anything—Second talking
+with Second, and Minute answering to Minute; and the grave Hours,
+listening to everything we say and seeing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> everything we do, confiding
+things to the Day about us and about Eternity from which they have
+come. I cannot tell you what they say about you—you will know that, if
+you try to think, and especially if you stand close to a great clock
+or hear it boom out in the night. And I cannot tell you what they say
+about Eternity. But I think that this may be one of the songs that they
+sing:—</p>
+
+<p class="center nmb">SONG OF THE MINUTES</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">We are a garland for men,</div>
+<div class="line">We are flung from the first gate of Time,</div>
+<div class="line">From the touch that opened the minds of men</div>
+<div class="line">Down to the breath of this rhyme.</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">We are the measure of things,</div>
+<div class="line">The rule of their sweep and stir,</div>
+<div class="line">But whenever a little girl pipes and sings,</div>
+<div class="line">We will keep time for her.</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">We are a touching of hands</div>
+<div class="line">From those in the murk of the earth,</div>
+<div class="line">Through all who have garnered life in their hands</div>
+<div class="line">And wrought it from death unto birth.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">We are the measure of things,</div>
+<div class="line">The rule of their stir and sweep,</div>
+<div class="line">And wherever a little child weeps or sings</div>
+<div class="line">It is his soul we keep.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>At last, when sixty Minutes had danced and chorussed past, there was,
+of course, the first rosy Hour ever to have her coming and passing
+marked since earth began. And when the Hour was gone, Vertebrata’s
+mother felt the feeling of enough, and she said to Vertebrata:—</p>
+
+<p>“That will do, dear. Now you may go and play.”</p>
+
+<p>That was the first exact hour’s practising that ever any little girl
+did by any sort of clock.</p>
+
+<p>“Ribbon-fish mine,” said the Prehistoric Man to his wife, when
+Vertebrata had finished, “I have been thinking additional thoughts. Why
+could we not use the circle in other ways?”</p>
+
+<p>“What ways, besides for your coming home and for Vertebrata’s
+practising?” asked the Prehistoric Woman; but we must forgive her for
+knowing about only those two things, for she was a very Prehistoric
+Woman indeed.</p>
+
+<p>“Little bones might be laid between the big bones,” said the Man—and
+by that of course<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> he meant measuring off minutes. “By certain of them
+you could roast flesh and not kneel continually beside the fire. By
+certain of them you could boil eggs, make meet the cakes, and not be in
+peril of burning the beans. Also....”</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a moment, looking away over the soft breast of the
+wood where the sun was shining its utmost, because it has so many
+reasons.</p>
+
+<p>“When I look at that moving finger on the circle thing,” he said
+slowly, “it feels as if whoever made the sun were saying things to me,
+but with no words. For his sun moves, and the finger on the circle
+thing moves with it—as if it were telling us how long to do this
+thing, and how long to do that thing—you and me and Vertebrata. And
+we must use every space between the bones—and whoever made the sun is
+telling us this, but with no words.”</p>
+
+<p>The Prehistoric Woman looked up at her husband wonderfully.</p>
+
+<p>“You are a great man, Troglodyte!” she told him.</p>
+
+<p>At which he went away to hunt, feeling for the first time in his
+prehistoric life as if there were a big reason, somewhere out in the
+air, why he should get as much done as he could.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> And the Prehistoric
+Woman went at her baking and cave-tidying, but always she ran to the
+door of the cave to look at the circle thing, as if it bore a great
+message for her to make haste, a message with no words.</p>
+
+<p>As for Vertebrata, she had taken her pipes and danced away where,
+on rocks in the landscape, the other little Prehistorics sat about,
+getting their practising done. She tried to tell them all about the
+circle thing, waving her pipes and jumping up and down to make them
+understand, and drawing circles and trying to play to them about it on
+her pipes; and at last they understood a little, like understanding a
+new game, and they joined her and piped on their rocks all over the
+green, green place. And the Seconds and Minutes and Hours, being fairly
+started to be measured, all came trooping on, to the sound of the
+children’s piping.</p>
+
+<p>When the sun was at the top of the sky, Vertebrata remembered, and she
+stuck a stick in the ground and saw that there was almost no shadow.
+So she left the other children and ran very hard toward her own cave.
+And when she had nearly reached it, somebody overtook her, also running
+very hard.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="sat" id="sat"></a>
+<img src="images/i_032fp.jpg" width="400" height="536" alt="" />
+<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Sat on a rock in the landscape and practised.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span>
+“Faddie!” she called, as she called when she meant loving—and he swung
+her up on his shoulder and ran on with her. And they burst into the
+open space before the cave just as the shadow-stick pointed straight to
+the top of the circle thing.</p>
+
+<p>There, before the door of the cave, was the flat rock, all set with
+hot baked meat and toothsome piles of roast vegetables and beans that
+were not burned. And the Prehistoric Woman, with vine-leaves in her
+hair, was looking straight before her and smiling. And that was the
+first dinner of the world that was ever served on time, and since that
+day, to be late for dinner is one of the things which nobody may do;
+and perhaps in memory of the Prehistoric Woman, when this occurs, the
+politest ladies may always look straight before them <em>without smiling</em>.</p>
+
+<p>“Is dinner ready, Sea Anemone?” asked the Man.</p>
+
+<p>“On the bone,” replied his wife, pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s for ’sert?” asked Vertebrata.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a surprise,” said her mother—which is always the proper answer
+to that question.</p>
+
+<p>And while they sat there, the Days and Weeks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> and Months and Years
+were coming toward them, faster than anything, to be marked off on the
+circle thing before the door, <em>and to be used</em>. And they are coming
+yet, like a message—but with no words.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="iii" id="iii"></a>III<br />
+<span>ONE FOR THE MONEY</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> were burying snow. Calista Waters had told us about it, when, late
+in April, snow was found under a pile of wood in our yard. We wondered
+why we had never thought of it before when snow was plentiful. We had
+two long tins which had once contained ginger wafers. These were to be
+packed with snow, fastened tight as to covers, and laid deep in the
+earth at a distance which, by means of spoons and hot water, we were
+now fast approaching.</p>
+
+<p>It was Spring-in-earnest. The sun was warm, robins were running on the
+grass, already faintly greened where the snow had but just melted;
+a clear little stream flowed down the garden path and out under the
+cross-walk. The Wells’s barn-doors stood open, somebody was beating
+a carpet, there was a hint of bonfire smoke in the air, there were
+little stirrings and sounds that belonged to Spring as the gasoline
+wood-cutter belonged to Fall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span>
+Calista was talking.</p>
+
+<p>“And then,” she said, “some hot Summer day, when they’re all sitting
+out on the lawn in the shade, with thin dresses and palm-leaf fans,
+we’ll come and dig it up, and carry ’em big plates of feathery white
+snow, with a spoon stuck in.”</p>
+
+<p>We were silent, picturing their delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Miss Messmore says,” I ventured, not without hesitation, “that snow is
+all bugs.”</p>
+
+<p>In fact all of us had been warned without ceasing not to eat snow—but
+there were certain spots where it was beyond human power to resist
+it: Mr. Britt’s fence, for instance, on whose pickets little squares
+of snow rested, which, eaten off by direct application of the lips,
+produced a slight illusion of partaking of caramels.</p>
+
+<p>Delia stopped digging. “Maybe they won’t eat it when we bring it to
+them in Summer?” she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“Then we will,” said Calista, promptly. Of course they would not have
+the heart to forbid us to eat it in, say, June.</p>
+
+<p>About a foot down in the ground we set the two tins side by side in an
+aperture lined and packed with snow and filled in with earth.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> Over it
+we made a mound of all the snow we could find in the garden. Then we
+adjourned to the woodshed and sat on the sill and the sawbuck and the
+work-bench.</p>
+
+<p>“What makes us give it away?” said Delia Dart, abruptly. “Why don’t we
+sell it? We’d ought to get fifteen cents a dish for it by June.”</p>
+
+<p>We began a calculation, as rapid as might be. Each tin would hold at
+least six dishes.</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t we bury more?” said Calista, raptly. “Why didn’t we bury a
+tubful?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’d be an awful job to dig the hole,” I objected. “Besides, they’d
+miss the tub.”</p>
+
+<p>The latter objection was insurmountable, so we went off to the garden
+to hunt pig-nuts. A tree of these delicacies grew in the midst of the
+potato patch, and some of the nuts were sure to have lain winter-long
+in the earth and to be seasoned and edible.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s all ask to go to the Rodmans’ this afternoon and tell Margaret
+Amelia and Betty about the snow,” Calista suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got to go calling.”</p>
+
+<p>They regarded me pityingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t you come over there afterwards?” they suggested.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span>
+This, I knew, was useless. We should not start calling till late.
+Besides, I should be hopelessly dressed up.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Delia, soothingly, “<em>we’ll</em> go anyhow. Are you going to
+call where there’s children?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think so,” I said, darkly. “We never do.”</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon was one whose warm air was almost thickened by sun. The
+maple buds were just widening into little curly leaves; shadows were
+beginning to show; and everywhere was that faint ripple of running
+water in which Spring speaks. But then there was I, in my best dress,
+my best coat, my best shoes, my new hat, and gloves, faring forth to
+make calls.</p>
+
+<p>This meant merely that there were houses where dwelt certain Grown-ups
+who expected me to be brought periodically to see them, an expectation
+persevered in, I believe, solely as a courtesy to my family. Twice a
+year, therefore, we set out; and the days selected were, as this one,
+invariably the crown and glory of all days: Days meet for cleaning
+out the play-house, for occupying homes scraped with a shingle in the
+softened soil, for assisting at bonfires,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> to say nothing of all that
+was to be done in damming up the streams of the curbs and turning aside
+the courses of rivers.</p>
+
+<p>The first call was on Aunt Hoyt—no true aunt, of course, but “aunt”
+by mutual compliment. She lived in a tiny house on Conant Street, set
+close to the sidewalk and shaded by an enormous mulberry tree. I sought
+out my usual seat, a little hardwood stool to whose top was neatly
+tacked a square of Brussels carpeting and whose cover, on being lifted,
+revealed a boot-jack, a shoe-brush, and a round box of blacking. The
+legs were deeply notched, and I amused myself by fitting my feet in the
+notches and occasionally coming inadvertently back to the floor with an
+echoing bump.</p>
+
+<p>Now and then Aunt Hoyt, who was little and wrinkled, and whose glasses
+had double lenses in the middle so that I could not keep my eyes from
+them when she spoke, would turn to address an observation at me.</p>
+
+<p>“How long her hair is! Do you think it is quite healthy for her to have
+such long hair? I’ll warrant you don’t like to have it combed, do you,
+dear?”</p>
+
+<p>If Aunt Hoyt had only known the depth of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span> the boredom with which I had
+this inane question put to me! It was one of the wonders of my days:
+the utterly absurd questions that grown-up people could ask.</p>
+
+<p>For example: “How do you do to-day?” What had any reasonable child
+to answer to that? Of course one was well. If one wasn’t, one would
+be kept at home. If one wasn’t, one wasn’t going to tell anyway. Or,
+“What’s she been doing lately?” Well! Was one likely to reply: “Burying
+snow. Hunting pig-nuts. Digging up pebbles from under the eaves. Making
+a secret play-house in the currant bushes that nobody knows about?” And
+unless one did thus tell one’s inmost secrets, what was there left to
+say? And if one kept a dignified silence, one was sulky!</p>
+
+<p>“She’s a good little girl, I’m sure. Is she much help to you?” Aunt
+Hoyt asked that day, and patted my hair as we took leave. Dear Aunt
+Hoyt, I know now that she was lonesome and longed for children and,
+like many another, had no idea how to treat them, save by making little
+conversational dabs at them.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was Aunt Arthur, who lived in a square brick house that
+always smelled cool.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span> At her house I invariably sat on a Brussels
+“kick-about” in the bay window and looked at a big leather “Wonders
+of Earth and Sea,” with illustrations. Sometimes she let me examine a
+basket of shells that she herself had gathered at the beach—I used
+to look at her hands and at her big, flat cameo ring and marvel that
+they had been so near to the ocean. Once or twice, when I wriggled too
+outrageously, she would let me go into the large, dim parlour, with
+its ostrich egg hanging from the chandelier and the stuffed blackbird
+under an oval glass case before the high mirror, and the coral piled
+under the centre-table and the huge, gilt-framed landscape which she
+herself had painted. But this day, between the lace curtains hanging
+from their cornices, I caught sight of Calista and Delia racing up the
+hill to the Rodmans, and the entire parlour was, so to say, poisoned.
+In desperation I went back and asked for a drink of water—my ancient
+recourse when things got too bad.</p>
+
+<p>Aunt Barker’s was better—there was a baby there. But that day ill-luck
+went before me, for he was asleep and they refused to let me look at
+him, because they said that woke him up.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> I disbelieved this, because I
+saw no reason in it, and nobody gave me a reason. I resolved to try it
+out the first time I was alone with a sleeping baby. I begged boldly to
+go outdoors, and Mother would have consented, but Aunt Barker said that
+a man was painting the lattice and that I would in every probability
+lean against the lattice, or brush the paint pots, or try to get a
+drink at the pump, which, I gathered, splashed everybody for miles
+around. So I sat in a patent rocker, and the only rift in a world of
+black cloud was that, by rocking far enough, the patent rocker could be
+made to give forth a wholly delectable squeak. Of course fate swiftly
+descended; I was bidden discontinue the squeak, and nothing remained to
+me.</p>
+
+<p>Then we went to Grandma Bard’s. I did not in the least know why, but
+the little rag-carpeted sitting-room, the singing kettle on the back of
+the coal stove, the scarlet geraniums on the window, the fascinating
+picture on the clock door, all entertained me at once. Grandma Bard
+wore a black lace cap, and she bade me sit by her and instantly gave
+me a peppermint drop from the pocket of her black sateen apron. She
+asked me no questions, but while she talked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span> with Mother, she laid
+together two rose-coloured—rose-coloured!—bits of her patchwork and
+quietly handed them to me to baste—none of your close stitches, only
+basting! Then she folded a newspaper and asked me to cut it and scallop
+it for her cupboard shelf. Then she found a handful of hickory nuts and
+brought me the tack-hammer and a flat-iron....</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Mother, let’s <em>not</em> go yet,” I heard myself saying.</p>
+
+<p>Going home—a delicate business, because stepping on any crack meant
+being poisoned forthwith—I tried to think it out: What was it that
+Mother and Grandma Bard knew that the rest didn’t know? I gave it up.
+All I could think of was that they seemed to know me.</p>
+
+<p>“Isn’t Grandma Bard just grand?” I observed fervently.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m afraid,” Mother said thoughtfully, “that sometimes she has rather
+a hard time to get on.”</p>
+
+<p>I was still turning this in my mind as we passed the wood yard. The
+wood yard was a series of vacant lots where some mysterious person
+piled cords and cords of wood, which smelled sweet and green and gave
+out cool breaths. Sometimes the gasoline wood-cutter worked in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> there,
+and we would watch till it had gone, and then steal in and bring away a
+baking-powder can full of sawdust. We never knew quite what to do with
+this sawdust. It was not desirable for mud-pies, and there was nothing
+that we knew of to be stuffed with it. Yet when we could, we always
+saved it. Perhaps it gave us an excuse to go into the wood yard, at
+which we always peeped as we went by. This day, I lagged a few steps
+behind and looked in, expectant of the same vague thing that we always
+expected, and never defined—a bonfire, a robber, an open cave, some
+changed aspect, I did not know what. And over by the sawdust pile, I
+saw, stepping about, a little girl in a reddish dress—a little girl
+whom I had never seen before. She looked up and saw me stand staring at
+her; and her gaze was so clear and direct that I felt obliged to say
+something in defence of my intrusion.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>Her face suddenly brightened. “Hello,” she replied, and after a moment
+she added: “I thought you was going to say ‘how de do.’”</p>
+
+<p>A faint spark of understanding leapt between us. Dressed-up little
+girls usually did say “how<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span> de do.” It was only in a kind of
+unconscious deference to her own appearance that I had not done so. She
+was unkempt and ragged—her sleeve was torn from cuff to elbow.</p>
+
+<p>“What you doing here?” I inquired, not averse to breaking the business
+of calling by a bit of gossip.</p>
+
+<p>At this she did for the third time what I had been vaguely conscious
+of her having done: She glanced over her shoulder toward a corner of
+the yard which the piled wood concealed from me. I stepped forward and
+looked there.</p>
+
+<p>On an end of wood-pile which we children had pulled down so as to
+make a slope to ascend its heights, a man was sitting. His head and
+shoulders were drooping, his legs were relaxed, and his hands were
+hanging loose, as if they were heavy. His eyes were closed and his lips
+were parted, yet about the face, with its fair hair and beard, there
+was something singularly attractive and gentle. He looked like a man
+who would tell you a story.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s he?” I asked, and involuntarily I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>The girl began backing a little away from me, her eyes on my face, her
+finger on her lips.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
+“It’s my father,” she said. “He’s—resting.”</p>
+
+<p>I had never heard of a man resting in the daytime. Save, perhaps, on
+Sunday afternoons, this was no true function of men. I longed to look
+at the man and understand better, but something in the little girl’s
+manner forbade me. I looked perplexedly after her. Then I peered round
+the fence post and saw my Mother standing under a tree, waiting for
+me. She beckoned. I took one more look inside the fence, and I saw the
+little girl sit down beside the sleeping man and fold her hands. The
+afternoon sun smote across the long wood yard, with its mysterious
+rooms made by the piling of the cords. It seemed impossible that this
+strange, still place, with its thick carpet of sawdust and its moist
+odours, should belong at all to the commonplace little street. And the
+two strange occupants gave the last touch to its enchantment.</p>
+
+<p>I ran to overtake Mother, and I tried to tell her something of what I
+had seen. But some way my words gave nothing of the air of the place
+and of the two who waited there for something that I could not guess.
+Already I knew this about words—that they were all very well for
+<em>saying</em> a thing, but seldom for letting anybody <em>taste</em> what you were
+talking about.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
+I did not give up trying to tell it until we passed the Rodmans’.
+From the direction of their high-board fence I heard voices. Margaret
+Amelia and Betty and Delia and Calista were engaged in writing on the
+weathered boards of the fence with willows dipped in the clear-flowing
+gutter stream.</p>
+
+<p>“Got it done?” I called mysteriously.</p>
+
+<p>They turned, shaking their heads.</p>
+
+<p>“It was all melted,” they replied. “We couldn’t find another bit.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well,” I cried, “you come on over after supper. I’ve got something
+to tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Something to tell you” would, of course, bring anybody anywhere.
+After supper they all came “over.” It was that hour which only village
+children know—that last bright daylight of slanting sun and driven
+cows tinkling homeward; of front-doors standing open and neighbours
+calling to one another across the streets, and the sky warm in the
+quiet surface of some little water from whose bridge lads are tossing
+stones or hanging bare-footed from the timbers. We withdrew past the
+family, sitting on the side-porch, to the garden, where the sun was
+still golden on the tops of the maples.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
+“Mother says,” I began importantly, “that she thinks Grandma Bard has
+a hard time to get along. Well, you know our snow? Well, you know you
+said you couldn’t find any more to bury? Well, why don’t we dig up
+ours, right now, and sell it and give the money to Grandma Bard?”</p>
+
+<p>I must have touched some answering chord. Looking back, I cannot
+believe that this was wholly Grandma Bard. Could it be that the others
+had wanted to dig it up, independent of my suggestion? For there was
+not one dissenting voice.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion seemed to warrant the best dishes. I brought out six china
+plates and six spoons. These would be used for serving my own family,
+while the others took the two cans and ran home with them to their
+families.</p>
+
+<p>We dug rapidly now, the earth being still soft. To our surprise, the
+tops of the tins were located much nearer to the surface than we had
+supposed after our efforts of the morning to reach a great depth. The
+snow in which we had packed the cans had disappeared, but we made
+nothing of that. We drew out the cans,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span> had off their tops, and gazed
+distressfully down into clear water.</p>
+
+<p>“It went and melted!” said Calista, resentfully.</p>
+
+<p>In a way, she regarded it as her personal failure, since the ceremony
+had been her suggestion in the first place.</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind, Calista,” we said, “you didn’t know.”</p>
+
+<p>Calista freely summed up her impressions.</p>
+
+<p>“How <em>mean!</em>” she said.</p>
+
+<p>We gravely gathered up the china plates and turned toward the
+house—and now I was possessed of a really accountable desire to get
+the plates back in their places as quickly as possible.</p>
+
+<p>On the way a thought struck us simultaneously. Poor Grandma Bard!</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s all go to see her to-morrow anyhow,” I suggested—largely, I am
+afraid, because the memory of my entertainment there was still fresh in
+my mind.</p>
+
+<p>When, after a little while, we came round the house where the older
+ones were sitting, and heard them discussing uninteresting affairs,
+we regarded them with real sympathy. They had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> so narrowly missed
+something so vastly, absorbingly interesting.</p>
+
+<p>From Delia’s room a voice came calling as, at intervals, other voices
+were heard calling other names throughout the neighbourhood—they were
+at one with the tinkle of the bells and the far-off yodel of the boys.</p>
+
+<p>“Delia!”</p>
+
+<p>“Good night,” said Delia, briefly, and vanished without warning, as at
+the sound of any other taps. Soon after, the others also disappeared;
+and I crept up on the porch and lay down in the hammock.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s she been doing <em>now</em>?” somebody instantly asked me.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment I thought of telling; but not seriously.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently they had not expected an answer, for they went on talking.</p>
+
+<p>“... yes, I had looked forward to it for a long while. Of course we had
+all counted on it. It was a great disappointment.”</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere in me the words echoed a familiar and recent emotion. So!
+They too had their disappointments ... even as we. Of course whatever
+this was could have been nothing like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> losing a fortune in melted snow.
+Still, I felt a new sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Mother turned to me.</p>
+
+<p>“We are going to ask Grandma Bard to come to live with us,” she said.
+“Will you like that?”</p>
+
+<p>I sat up in the hammock. “All the time?” I joyfully inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“For the rest of the time,” Mother said soberly. “It seems as if one
+ought to take a child,” she added to the others, “when one takes
+anybody....”</p>
+
+<p>“Still,” said father, “till we get in our heads something of what the
+state owes to old folks, there’s nobody but us to do its work....”</p>
+
+<p>I hardly heard them. To make this come true at one stroke! Even to be
+able to adopt a child! How easily they could do things, these grown-up
+ones; and how magnificently they acted as if it were nothing at all ...
+like the giants planting city-seed and watching cities grow to the size
+and shape of giants’ flower beds....</p>
+
+<p>They went on talking. Some of the things that they said we might have
+said ourselves. In some ways they were not so very different<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span> from us.
+Yet think what they could accomplish.</p>
+
+<p>Watching them and listening, there in the April twilight, I began to
+understand. It was not only that they could have their own way. But for
+the sake of things that we had never yet so much as guessed or dreamed,
+it was desirable to be grown up.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="iv" id="iv"></a>IV<br />
+<span>THE PICNIC</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was Delia Dart who had suggested our Arbour Day picnic. “Let’s have
+some fun Arbour Day,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>We had never thought of Arbour Day in that light. Exercises, though
+they presented the open advantage of escape from the school grind, were
+no special fun. Fun was something much more intimate and intangible,
+definite and mysterious, casual and thrilling—and other anomalies.</p>
+
+<p>“Doing what?” we demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” said Delia, restlessly, “go off somewheres. And eat things. And
+do something to tell about and make their eyes stick out.”</p>
+
+<p>We were not old enough really to have observed this formula for
+adventure. Hitherto we had always gone merely because we went. Yet
+all three motives appealed to us. And events fostered our faint
+intention. At the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> opening of school that morning, Miss Messmore made
+an announcement.... I remember her grave way of smiling and silent
+waiting, so that we hung on what she was going to say.</p>
+
+<p>“To-morrow,” she said, “is Arbour Day. All who wish will assemble here
+at the usual hour in the afternoon. We are to plant trees and shrubs
+and vines about the schoolhouse. There will be something for each one
+to plant. But this is not required. Any who do not wish to be present
+may remain away, and these will not be marked absent. Only those may
+plant trees who wish to plant trees. I hope that all children will take
+advantage of their opportunity. Classes will now pass to their places.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia telegraphed triumphantly in several directions. We could hardly
+wait to confer. At recess we met immediately in the closet under the
+stairs, a closet intended primarily for chalk, erasers, brooms, and
+maps, but by virtue of its window and its privacy put to sub-uses of
+secret committee meetings.</p>
+
+<p>“I told you,” said Delia. And such was Delia’s magnetism that we felt
+that she had told us. “Let’s take our lunch and start as soon as we get
+out.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
+“Couldn’t we go after the exercises?” Calista Waters submitted
+waveringly.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>After!</em>” said Delia, scornfully. “It’ll be three o’clock. <em>That’s</em> no
+fun. We want to start by twelve, prompt, and stay till six.”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia Rodman bore out Delia’s contention. She and Betty had
+a dozen eggs saved up from their pullets. They would boil them and
+bring them. “The pullets?” Calista demanded aghast and was laughed
+into subjection, and found herself agreeing and planning in order to
+get back into favour. Delia and the Rodmans were, I now perceive, born
+leaders of mediæval living.</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t you wait till Saturday?” I finally said, from out a silence
+that had tried to produce this earlier. “That’s only two days.”</p>
+
+<p>“Saturday!” said Delia. “Anybody can have a picnic Saturday. This is
+most as good as running away.”</p>
+
+<p>And of course it was. But....</p>
+
+<p>“Who wants to plant a tree?” Delia continued. “They’ll plant all
+they’ve got whether we’re here or not, won’t they?”</p>
+
+<p>That was true. They would do so. It was clearly a selfish wish to
+participate that was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> agitating Calista and me. In the end we were
+outvoted, and we went. Our families, it seemed, all took the same
+attitude: We need not plant trees if we did not wish to plant trees.
+Save in the case of Harold Rodman. He was ruled to be too small to walk
+to Prospect Hill, and he preferred going back to school to staying at
+home alone.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t plant no tree, though,” he announced resentfully, as we left
+him. “I’m goin’ dig ’em all up!” he shouted after us. “Every one in the
+world!”</p>
+
+<p>It was when I was running round the house to get my lunch that I came
+for the second time face to face with Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth was sitting flat on the ground, cleaning knives which
+I recognized as our kitchen knives. This she was doing by a simple
+process, not unknown to me and consisting of driving the knife into the
+ground up to its black handle and shoving it rapidly up and down. It
+struck me as very strange that she should be there, in <em>our</em> back yard,
+cleaning <em>our</em> knives, and I somewhat resented it. For it is curious
+how much of a savage a little girl in a white apron can really be. But
+then I did not at once recognize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span> her as the girl whom I had seen in
+the wood yard.</p>
+
+<p>I remember her sometimes as I saw her that day. She had straight brown
+hair the colour of my own, and her thick pig-tail, which had fallen
+over her shoulder as she worked, was tied with red yarn. Her face was a
+lovely, even cream colour, with no freckles such as diversified my own
+nose, and with no other colour in her cheek. Her hands were thin and
+veined, with long, agile fingers. The right sleeve of her reddish plaid
+dress was by now slit almost to the shoulder, and her bare arm showed,
+and it was nearly all wrist. She had on a boy’s heavy shoes, and these
+were nearly without buttons.</p>
+
+<p>“What you doing?” I inquired, coming to a standstill.</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her face and smiled, not a flash of a smile, but a slow
+smile of understanding me.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” she replied, and went on with her task.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s your name?” I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary Elizabeth,” she answered, and did not ask me my name. This
+was her pathetic way of deference to me because my clothing and my
+“station” were other than hers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
+I went on to the house, but I went, looking back.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother,” I said, “who is she? The little girl out there.”</p>
+
+<p>While she put up my lunch in the Indian basket, Mother told me how Mary
+Elizabeth had come that morning asking for something to do. She had set
+her to work, and meanwhile she was finding out who she was. “I gave
+her something to eat,” Mother said. “And I have never seen even you so
+hungry.” Hungry and having no food. I had never heard of such a thing
+at first hand—not nearer than in books and in Sunday school. But ...
+hungry that way, and in our yard!</p>
+
+<p>It was chiefly this that accounted for my invitation to her—this,
+and the fact that, as she came to the door to tell my Mother good-bye
+and to take what she had earned, she gave me again that slow,
+understanding-me smile. Anyway, as we walked toward the gate, I
+overtook her with my Indian basket.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you want to come to the picnic with us?” I said.</p>
+
+<p>She stared at me. “What do you do?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span>
+“Why,” I said, “a picnic? Eat in the woods and—and get things, and sit
+on the grass. Don’t you think they’re fun?”</p>
+
+<p>“I never was to one,” she answered, but I saw how she was watching me
+almost breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, then,” I insisted carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Honest?” she said. “Me?”</p>
+
+<p>When she understood, I remember how she walked beside me, looking at me
+as if she might at any moment find out her mistake.</p>
+
+<p>Delia, waiting impatiently at our gate with her own basket,—somehow I
+never waited at the gates of others, but it was always they who waited
+at mine,—bade me hurry, stared at Mary Elizabeth, and serenely turned
+her back on her.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” I said, “is Mary Elizabeth. I asked her to go to our picnic.
+She’s going. I’ve got enough lunch. This is Delia.”</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that they looked at each other furtively—so much of the
+stupidity of being a knight with one’s visor lowered yet hangs upon
+us—and then Delia plucked me, visibly, by the sleeve and addressed me,
+audibly, in the ear.</p>
+
+<p>“What’d you go and do that for?” said she. And I who, at an early age,
+resented being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> plucked by the sleeve as a bird resents being patted
+on the head, or the wall of any personality trembles away when it is
+tapped, took Mary Elizabeth by the hand and marched on to meet the
+Rodmans and Calista.</p>
+
+<p>Calista was a vague little soul, with no sense of facts. She was always
+promising to walk with two girls at recess, which was equivalent to
+asking two to be her partners in a quadrille. It simply could not be
+done. So Calista was forever having to promise to run errands with
+someone after school to make amends for not having walked with her at
+recess. She seldom had a grievance of her own, but she easily fell in
+with the grievances of others. When I presented Mary Elizabeth to her,
+Calista received her serenely as a part of the course of human events;
+and so I think she would have continued to regard her, without great
+attention and certainly with no criticism, had she not received the
+somewhat powerful suggestion of Delia and Margaret Amelia and Betty
+Rodman. The three fell behind Mary Elizabeth and me as we trotted down
+the long street on which the April sun smote with Summer heat.</p>
+
+<p>“—over across the railroad tracks and picks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> up tin cans and old
+rubbers and sells ’em and drinks just awful and got ten children and
+got arrested,” I heard Delia recounting.</p>
+
+<p>“The idea. To our picnic,” said Margaret Amelia’s thin-edged voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Without asking us,” Betty whispered, anxious to think of something of
+account to say.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth heard. I have seen that look of dumb, unresentful
+suffering in many a human face—in the faces of those who, by the Laws
+of sport or society or of jurisprudence, find no escape. She had no
+anger, and what she felt must have been long familiar. “I’d better go
+home,” she said to me briefly.</p>
+
+<p>I still had her by the hand. And it was, I am bound to confess, as no
+errant but chiefly as antagonist to the others that I pulled her along.
+“You got to come,” I reminded her. “You said you would.”</p>
+
+<p>It was cruel treatment, by way of kindness. The others, quickly
+adapting themselves, fell into the talk of expeditions, which is never
+quite the same as any other talk; and the only further notice that they
+took of Mary Elizabeth was painstakingly to leave her out. They never
+said anything to her, and when she ventured<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span> some faint word, they
+never answered or noticed or seemed to hear. In later years I have had
+occasion to observe, among the undeveloped, these same traces of tribal
+antagonisms.</p>
+
+<p>As we went, I had time to digest the hints which I had overheard
+concerning Mary Elizabeth’s estate. I knew that a family having many
+children had lately come to live “across the tracks,” and that, because
+of our anxiety to classify, the father was said to be a drunkard. I
+looked stealthily at Mary Elizabeth, with a certain respect born of her
+having experience so transcending my own. Telling how many drunken men
+and how many dead persons, if any, we had seen was one of our modes
+of recreation when we foregathered. Technically Mary Elizabeth was, I
+perceived, one of the vague “poor children” for whom we had long packed
+baskets and whom we used to take for granted as barbarously as they
+used to take for granted the plague. Yet now that I knew one such,
+face to face, she seemed so much less a poor child than a little girl.
+And though she said so little, she had a priceless manner of knowing
+what I was driving at, which not even Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman
+had, and they were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> the daughters of an assemblyman, and had a furnace
+in their house, and had had gold watches for Christmas. It was very
+perplexing.</p>
+
+<p>“First one finds a May-flower’s going to be a princess!” Delia shouted.
+Delia was singularly unimaginative; the idea of royalty was her
+single entrance to fields of fancy. The stories that I made up always
+began “Once there was a fairy”; Margaret and Betty started at gnomes
+and dwarfs; Calista usually selected a poor little match girl or a
+boot-black asleep in a piano box; but Delia invariably chose a royal
+family, with many sons.</p>
+
+<p>We ran, shouting, across the stretch of scrub-oak which stretched
+where the town blocks of houses and streets gave it up and reverted to
+the open country. To reach this unprepossessing green place, usually
+occupied by a decrepit wagon and a pile of cord-wood, was like passing
+through a doorway into the open. We expressed our freedom by shouting
+and scrambling to be princesses—all, that is, save Mary Elizabeth. She
+went soberly about, a little apart, and I wished with all my heart that
+she might find the first May-flower; but she did not do so.</p>
+
+<p>We hunted for wind-flowers. It was on Prospect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span> Hill that these first
+flowers—wind-flowers, pasque flowers, May-flowers, however one has
+learned to say them—were found in Spring—the <em>anemone patens</em> which,
+next to pussy-willows themselves, meant to us Spring. A week before
+Nellie Pitmouth had brought to school the first that we had seen.
+Nellie had our pity because she drove the cows to pasture before
+she came to school, but she had her reward, for it was always she
+who found the first spoils. I remember those mornings when I would
+reach school to find a little group about Nellie in whose hands would
+be pussy-willows, or the first violets, or our rarely found white
+violets. For a little while, in the light of real events like these,
+Nellie enjoyed distinction. Then she relapsed into her usual social
+obscurity and the stigma of her gingham apron which she wore even on
+half holidays. This day we pressed hard for her laurels, scrambling in
+the deep mould and dead leaves in search of the star faces on silvery,
+silken, furry stems. We hoped untiringly that we might some day find
+arbutus, which grew in abundance only eighteen miles away, on the
+hills. In Summer we patiently looked for wintergreen, which they were
+always finding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> farther up the river. And from the undoubted dearth
+of both we escaped with a pretence to the effect that we were under a
+spell, and that some day, the witch having died, we should walk on our
+hill and find the wintergreen come and the arbutus under the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>By five o’clock we had been hungry for two hours, and we spread our
+lunch on the crest. Prospect Hill was the place to which we took our
+guests when we had them. It was the wide west gateway of the town,
+where through few ventured, for it opened out on the bend of the little
+river, navigable only to rowboats and launches, and flowing toward us
+from the west. You stood at the top of a sharp declivity, and it was
+like seeing a river face to face to find it flowing straight toward
+you, out of the sky, bearing little green islands and wet yellow
+sandbars. It almost seemed as if these must come floating toward us
+and bringing us everything.... For these were the little days, when we
+still believed that everything was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>We quickly despatched the process of “trading off,” a sandwich for an
+apple, a cooky for a cake, and so on, occasionally trading back<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> before
+the bargain had been tasted. Mary Elizabeth sat at one side; even after
+I had divided my lunch and given her my basket for a plate, she sat a
+very little away from us—or it may be my remembrance of her aloofness
+that makes this seem so. Each of the others gave her something from
+her basket—but it was the kind of giving which makes one know what
+a sad word is the word “bestow.” They “bestowed” these things. Since
+that time, when I have seen folk administering charity, I have always
+thought of the manner, ill-bred as is all condescension, in which we
+must have shared our picnic food with Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>I believe that this is the first conversation that ever I can remember.
+Up to this time, I had talked as naturally as the night secretes
+dreams, with no sense of responsibility for either to mean anything.
+But that day I became uncomfortably conscious of the trend of the talk.</p>
+
+<p>“I have to have my new dress tried on before supper,” Delia announced,
+her back to the river and her mouth filled with a jam sandwich. “It’s
+blue plaid, with blue buttons and blue tassels on,” she volunteered.</p>
+
+<p>“My new dress Aunt Harriet brought me<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span> from the City isn’t going to be
+made up till last day of school,” Margaret Amelia informed us. “It’s
+got pink flowers in and it cost sixty cents a yard.”</p>
+
+<p>“Margaret and I are going to have white shoes before we go visiting,”
+Betty remembered.</p>
+
+<p>“I got two new dresses that ain’t made up yet. Mamma says I got so many
+I don’t need them,” observed Calista, with an indifferent manner and a
+soft, triumphant glance. Whereat we all sat silent.</p>
+
+<p>I struggled with the moment, but it was too much for me.</p>
+
+<p>“I got a white silk lining to my new dress,” I let it be known.
+“It’s made, but I haven’t had it on yet. China silk,” I added
+conscientiously. Then, moved perhaps by a common discomfort, we all
+looked toward Mary Elizabeth. I think I loved her from that moment.</p>
+
+<p>“None of you’s got the new style sleeves,” she said serenely, and held
+aloft the arm whose sleeve was slit from wrist to shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>We all laughed together, but Delia pounced upon the arm. She caught and
+held it.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s that on your arm?” she cried, and we all looked. From the elbow
+up the skin was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span> mottled a dull, ugly purple, as if rough hands had
+been there.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth flushed. “Ain’t you ever had any bruises on you?” she
+inquired in a tone so finely modulated that Delia actually hastened to
+defend herself from the impeachment of inexperience.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure,” she said heartily. “I counted ’em last night. I got seven.”</p>
+
+<p>“I got five and a great long skin,” Betty competed hotly.</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh,” said Calista, “I’ve got a scratch longer than my hand is.
+Teacher said maybe I’d get an infect,” she added importantly.</p>
+
+<p>Then we kept on neutral ground, such as blank-books and Fourth of July
+and planning to go bare-foot some day, until Calista attacked a pickled
+peach which she had brought.</p>
+
+<p>“Our whole cellar’s full of pickled peaches,” I incautiously observed.
+“I could have brought some if I’d thought.”</p>
+
+<p>“We got more than that,” said Delia, instantly. “We got a thousand
+glasses of jelly left over from last year.”</p>
+
+<p>“A thousand!” repeated Margaret Amelia, in derision. “A hundred, you
+mean.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
+“Well,” Delia said, “it’s a lot. And jars and jars and jars of
+preserves. And cans and cans and <em>cans</em>....”</p>
+
+<p>The others took it up. Why we should have boasted of the quantity of
+fruit in our parents’ cellars, I have no notion, save that it was
+for the unidentified reason which impels all boasting. When I am in
+a very new bit of country, where generalizations and multiplications
+follow every fact, I am sometimes reminded of the fashion of our talk
+whose statements tried to exceed themselves, in a kind of pyrotechnic
+pattern bursting at last into nothing and the night. We might have been
+praising climate or crops or real estate.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth spoke with something like eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>“We got a bottle of blackberry cordial my grandmother made before she
+died,” she said. “We keep it in the top bureau drawer.”</p>
+
+<p>“What a funny place to keep it....” Delia began, and stopped of her own
+accord.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that everybody was willing enough to let Mary Elizabeth help
+pick up the dishes. Then she took a tree for Pussy-wants-a-corner,
+which always follows the picnic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> part of a picnic. But hardly anyone
+would change trees with her, and by the design which masks as chance,
+everyone ran to another tree. At last she casually climbed her tree,
+agile as a cat, a feat which Delia alone was shabby enough to pretend
+not to see.</p>
+
+<p>We started homeward when the red was flaming up in the west and falling
+deep in the heart of the river. By then Mary Elizabeth was almost at
+ease with us, but rather, I think, because of the soft evening, and
+perhaps in spite of our presence.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh!” she cried. “Somebody grabbed the sun and pulled it down. I saw it
+go!”</p>
+
+<p>Delia looked shocked. “You oughtn’t to tell such things,” she reproved
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth flung up the arm with the torn sleeve and ran beside us,
+laughing with abandon. We were all running down the slope in the red
+light.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re Indians, looking for roots for the medicine-man,” Delia called;
+“Yellow Thunder is sick. So is Red Bird. We’re hunting roots.”</p>
+
+<p>She was ahead and we were following. We caught at the dead mullein
+stalks and milkweed pods and threw them away, and leaped up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span> and pulled
+at the low branches with their tender buds. We were filled with the
+flow of the Spring and seeking to express it, as in the old barbaric
+days, by means of destruction.... At the foot of the slope a little
+maple tree was growing, tentative as a sunbeam and scarcely thicker,
+left by the Spring that had last been that way. When she reached it,
+Delia laid hold on it, and had it out by its slight root, and tossed it
+on the moss.</p>
+
+<p>“W-h-e-e-e!” cried Delia, “I wish it was Arbour Day to-morrow too!”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth stopped laughing. “I turn here,” she said. “It’s the
+short cut. Good-bye—I had a grand time. The best time I ever had.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia pretended not to hear. She said nothing. The others called casual
+good-byes over shoulder. Going home, they rebuked me soundly for having
+invited Mary Elizabeth. Delia rehearsed the array of reasons. If she
+came to school, we would have to <em>know</em> her, she wound up. I remember
+feeling baffled and without argument. All that they said was true, and
+yet—</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going to see her,” I announced stoutly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span> more, I dare say, because
+I was tired and a little cross than from real loyalty.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll catch some disease,” said Delia. “I know a girl that went to
+see some poor children and she caught the spinal appendicitis and died
+before she got back home.”</p>
+
+<p>We went round by the schoolhouse, drawn there by a curiosity that
+had in it inevitable elements of regret. There they were, little
+dead-looking trees, standing in places of wet earth, and most of them
+set somewhat slanting. Everyone was gone, and in the late light the
+grounds looked solemn and different.</p>
+
+<p>“Just think,” said Delia, “when we grow up and the trees grow up, we
+can tell our children how we planted ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, we never—” Calista began.</p>
+
+<p>“Our school did, didn’t it?” Delia contended. “And our school’s we,
+isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>But we overruled her. No, to the end of time, the trees that stood in
+those grounds would have been planted by other hands than ours. We
+were probably the only ones in the school who hadn’t planted a tree.
+“I don’t care, do you?” we demanded of one another, and reiterated our
+denial.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
+“I planted a-a-a—-Never-green!” Harold Rodman shouted, running to meet
+us.</p>
+
+<p>“So did we!” we told him merrily, and separated, laughing. It had, it
+seemed, been a great day, in spite of Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>I went into the house, and hovered about the supper table. I perceived
+that I had missed hot waffles and honey, and these now held no charm.
+Grandmother Beers was talking.</p>
+
+<p>“When I was eight years old,” she said, “I planted it by the well. And
+when Thomas went back to England fifty years after, he couldn’t reach
+both arms round the trunk. And there was a seat there—for travellers.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her, and thought of that giant tree. Would those
+dead-looking little sticks, then, grow like that?</p>
+
+<p>“If fifty thousand school children each planted a tree to-day,” said my
+mother, “that would be a forest. And planting a forest is next best to
+building a city.”</p>
+
+<p>“Better,” said my father, “better. What kind of tree did you plant,
+daughter?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>I hung my head. “I—we—there was a picnic,” I said. “We didn’t <em>have</em>
+to plant ’em. So we had a picnic.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
+My father looked at me in the way that I remember.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s it,” he said. “For everyone who plants a tree, there are half
+a dozen that have a picnic. And two dozen that cut them down. At last
+we’ve got one in the family who belongs to the majority!”</p>
+
+<p>When I could, I slipped out in the garden. It was darkening; the frogs
+in the Slough were chorussing, and down on the river-bank a cat-bird
+sang at intervals, was silent long enough to make you think that he
+had ceased, and then burst forth again. The town clock struck eight,
+as if eight were an ancient thing, full of dignity. Our kitchen clock
+answered briskly, as if eight were a proud and novel experience of its
+own. The ’bus rattled past for the Eight-twenty. And away down in the
+garden, I heard a step. Someone had come in the back gate and clicked
+the pail of stones that weighted its chain.</p>
+
+<p>I thought that it would be one of the girls, who not infrequently chose
+this inobvious method of entrance. I ran toward her, and was amazed to
+find Mary Elizabeth kneeling quietly on the ground, as she had been
+when I came upon her at noon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
+“What you doing?” I demanded, before I could see what she was doing.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>I stooped. And she had a little maple tree, for which she was hollowing
+a home with a rusty fire-shovel that she had brought with her.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s the one Delia Dart pulled out,” she said. “I thought it’d be kind
+of nice to put it here. In your yard. You could bring the water, if you
+want.”</p>
+
+<p>I brought the water. Together we bent in the dusk, and we set out the
+little tree, near the back gate, close to my play-house.</p>
+
+<p>“We’d ought to say a verse or something,” I said vaguely.</p>
+
+<p>“I can’t think of any,” Mary Elizabeth objected.</p>
+
+<p>Neither could I, but you had to say something when you planted a tree.
+And a line was as good as a verse.</p>
+
+<p>“‘God is love’ ’s good enough,” said Mary Elizabeth, stamping down the
+earth. Then we dismissed the event, and hung briefly above the back
+gate. Somehow, I was feeling a great and welcome sense of relief.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
+“It was kind o’ nice to do that,” I observed, with some embarrassment.</p>
+
+<p>“No, it wasn’t either,” rejoined Mary Elizabeth, modestly.</p>
+
+<p>We stood kicking at the gravel for a moment. Then she went away.</p>
+
+<p>I faced about to the quiet garden. And suddenly, for no reason that I
+knew, I found myself skipping on the path, in the dark, just as if the
+day were only beginning.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="v" id="v"></a>V<br />
+<span>THE KING’S TRUMPETER</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> so it is for that night long ago when Mary Elizabeth and I stood by
+the tree and tried to think of something to say, that after all these
+years I have made the story of Peter.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Long years ago, when the world was just beginning to be, there was a
+kingdom which was not yet finished. Of course when a world has just
+stopped being nothing and is beginning to be something, it takes a
+great while to set all the kingdoms going. And this one wasn’t done.</p>
+
+<p>For example, in the palace garden where little Peter used to play,
+the strangest things were to be met. For the mineral kingdom was just
+beginning to be vegetable, and the vegetable was just beginning to
+be animal, and the animal was just beginning to be man,—and man was
+just, just beginning to know about his living<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span> spirit. Do you see what
+<em>that</em> means? While you looked at a mound of earth it became a bush—or
+a very little time afterward, as time in these things is reckoned.
+While you looked at a beast-shaped bush—all bushes at night are shaped
+like beasts—it became a living animal—or, again, a <em>very</em> little
+afterward. And men had by no means got over being apes, tigers, swine,
+and dogs, and sometimes you hardly knew which a man was, a real man or
+one of these animals. And spirits were growing in men as fast as this
+might be. Everything, you see, lay in savage angles and wild lines.</p>
+
+<p>Little Peter was playing one morning in the palace garden, and such
+playing as it was! He would be moulding little balls of loam and
+fashioning them with seeds, when suddenly they would break into life as
+buds and then as flowers, almost as one now sees twigs of wood break
+into life, or as quiet cocoons become living butterflies—for the world
+is not so different. Or Peter would be playing with a spongy-looking
+mass on a rock in the brook, when it would break from its rock and go
+gayly swimming about, and be a fish-thing. Or he would push at a bit of
+ooze with a cat-tail, and a little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span> flying life would mount abruptly
+and wing away. It was exciting playing in those days, and some of the
+things you can do in these days. Only then it was all new, so Peter
+could see just how wonderful it was.</p>
+
+<p>Now, that morning the king was walking in his palace garden. And he was
+troubled, for everywhere that he looked there were loose ends and rough
+edges, and shapeless things waiting to be fashioned, and it was so all
+over his kingdom. There was such a great lot to do that he could not
+possibly do it all alone—no king, however industrious, could have done
+it all. And he longed for the help of all his subjects. So when the
+king came on little Peter, busily making living things where none had
+been before, he was mightily pleased, and he sat down with the little
+lad on a grassy platform in the midst of the garden.</p>
+
+<p>“Lo, now, little lad,” said the king, “what do you play?”</p>
+
+<p>Instead of playing at keeping store or keeping house or at acting or
+hunting or exploring, little Peter was playing another game.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m playing it’s creation, your majesty,” he answered, “and I’m
+playing help the king.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
+“Lo, now,” said the king, “I would that all my subjects would play as
+well as you.”</p>
+
+<p>The king thought for a moment, looking out on all the savage angles and
+wild lines, while little Peter watched a bit of leaf mould becoming a
+green plant.</p>
+
+<p>“Summon me my hundred heralds!” the king suddenly bade his servants.</p>
+
+<p>So the servants summoned the hundred heralds, who hurried into their
+blue velvet and silver buckles and came marching, twenty abreast,
+across the grassy plateau, where the morning sun made patterns like
+wings, and among the wings they bowed themselves and asked the king his
+will.</p>
+
+<p>“Hundred heralds,” said the king, “be it only that you do this
+willingly, I would that you go out into my kingdom, into its highways
+and even to its loneliest outposts, and take my people my message. Cry
+to them, until each one hears with his heart as well as his head: ‘The
+world is beginning. You must go and help the king.’”</p>
+
+<p>Now, little Peter, when he heard the message, rose and stood beside the
+king, and in his breast something thrilled and trembled like a smitten
+chord. But as for the hundred heralds, they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> were troubled as one
+man—though he not yet wholly a man.</p>
+
+<p>“O king,” they said, twenty at a time, “blue velvet and silver buckles
+are meet for the streets of cities and to call men to feasting
+and to honour the king. But as for the highways and the loneliest
+outposts—that is another matter.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what of the message?” the king asked sadly, and this none of the
+heralds knew how to answer; and presently the king sent them away, for
+he would never have unwilling service in his palace or in his kingdom.
+And as they went, little Peter looked after them, and he saw, and
+the king saw, that for all their blue velvet and silver buckles, the
+hundred heralds, marching away twenty abreast, were not yet all men,
+but partly they were apes in manner and swine at heart. And little
+Peter wondered if he fashioned them as he did his bits of mould,
+whether they would burst from a sheath, <em>all</em> men, as burst his little
+plants.</p>
+
+<p>“Summon me my thousand trumpeters!” the king bade his servants next.</p>
+
+<p>The thousand trumpeters hurried into their purple velvet and their lace
+collars and seized their silver trumpets, and came marching fifty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span>
+abreast across the grassy plateau, where the noon sun made a blinding
+light, like the light of another sun; and they bowed themselves in the
+brightness and asked the king his will.</p>
+
+<p>But when the king had told them his will and had repeated the message
+and asked them if they could go willingly, the thousand trumpeters were
+troubled as one man—and he not yet wholly a man.</p>
+
+<p>“O king,” said they, in fifties and one hundreds, “lo, now, these
+silver trumpets. These are meet to sound up and down the streets of
+cities and to call men to feasting and to honour the king, and never
+are they meet to sound in the lonely outposts. Pray thee, O king, keep
+us near thee.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what of the message?” the king asked, and none of his trumpeters
+could help him there, and he would have no unwilling service in his
+palace or in his kingdom, so he sent them all away. And as they went,
+little Peter looked after them, and he saw, and the king saw, that for
+all their purple velvet and lace collars, the thousand trumpeters,
+marching away fifty abreast, were not all men, but they were apes in
+manner and swine and hounds at heart. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> little Peter almost wished
+that he could fashion them as he did his bits of mould and see if they
+would not change into something better.</p>
+
+<p>So then the king called a meeting of his High Council, and his
+councillors hurried into their robes of state and appeared on the
+grassy plateau when the evening was lighting the place to be a glory.</p>
+
+<p>“Lo, now,” said the king, “I needs must send a message to all my
+people. Let us devise or dream some way to take it.”</p>
+
+<p>When they heard the message, the councillors nodded, with their hands
+over their mouths, looking at the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Then the king said—there, in the beginning of the world:—</p>
+
+<p>“I have a thought about a wire which shall reach round the earth and
+oversea and undersea, on which a man may send a message. And a thought
+I have about a wire which shall stretch across the land, and upon that
+wire a voice may travel alone. And a thought about messages that shall
+pierce the air with no wire and no voice. But none of these things is
+now.”</p>
+
+<p>(“Nay,” said the council, murmuring among themselves, “or ever shall
+be.”)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span>
+“—and if they were,” said the king, “I would have one serve me even
+better than these, to reach the head and the heart of my people. How
+shall I do this thing? For I must have help in finishing my kingdom.”</p>
+
+<p>The council, stepping about in the slanting light, disputed the matter,
+group by group, but there lay nowhere, it seemed, a conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>“You yourselves,” the king cried at last, “who know well that the
+kingdom must be completed, you yourselves gather the people in
+multitudes together and tell them the message.”</p>
+
+<p>But at this the High Council twitched their robes of state and would
+have none of it.</p>
+
+<p>“Who would sit in the high places if we did <em>that</em>?” said they.</p>
+
+<p>So the king sent them all away, and little Peter, standing beside the
+king, looked after them. And he saw, and the king saw, how, under their
+robes of state, the High Council had not entirely stopped being ape
+and swine and hound and tiger and, early in the world as it was, still
+there seemed no great excuse for that.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, sire,” said little Peter, “I wish I could play with them as I play
+with my bits of mould<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> and loam and could turn them into something
+better and alive.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well said, little Peter,” replied the king, smiling sadly.</p>
+
+<p>And now the west, which had been like a vast, stained-glass window,
+streaming with warm light, fell into gray opaqueness, and the grassy
+plateau became a place of shadows in which night things were born
+gently. And the king looked away to the beast-shaped bushes and to all
+the striving land.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my kingdom, my kingdom!” he cried, grieving. “Now, would that this
+little Peter here could help you in the making.”</p>
+
+<p>And then little Peter stood upright in the faint light.</p>
+
+<p>“May it please the king,” he said softly, “I will take the message to
+his people.”</p>
+
+<p>The king stared down at him.</p>
+
+<p>“You?” he said. “<em>You</em>, little man? And how, pray, would you take my
+message?”</p>
+
+<p>“May it please the king,” said little Peter, “I would tell everyone in
+the kingdom till all should have been told.”</p>
+
+<p>“Little man,” said the king, “you are no bigger than a trumpet.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span>
+“Ay,” said the little lad, “I think that is what I am. I would that I
+be not Peter, but Trumpeter. So send me forth.”</p>
+
+<p>At this the king laughed, and for the laughter his heart was the
+lighter. He touched the boy’s brow.</p>
+
+<p>“See, then, I touch your brow, little Trumpeter,” he said. “Go
+forth—and do you know my message?”</p>
+
+<p>“You had first touched my heart, your majesty,” said the little boy,
+“and the message is there.”</p>
+
+<p>You would think, perhaps, that Peter would have waited till the
+morning, but he would not wait an hour. He made a little packet
+of linen and of food, and just as the folk within the palace were
+beginning their evening revelry, he stepped out on the highway and
+fared forth under the moon.</p>
+
+<p>But fancy walking on such a highway as that! At first glance it looked
+like any other night road, stretching between mysterious green. But not
+anything there could be depended upon to stay as it was. A hillock,
+lying a little way ahead, became, as he reached it, a plumy shrub,
+trembling with amazement at its transformation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a></span> from dead earth to
+living green. At a turn in the road, a low bush suddenly walked away
+into the wood, a four-footed animal. Everything changed as he looked at
+it, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it was. The world was
+beginning!</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of a hill, where the shadows were thick, Peter met the
+first one to whom he could give his message. The man was twisted and
+ragged and a beggar, and he peered down in Peter’s face horribly.</p>
+
+<p>“Sir,” said Peter, courteously, “the world is beginning. You must go
+and help the king.”</p>
+
+<p>“Help the king!” cried the beggar, and his voice was uneven, like a
+bark or a whine that was turning into words. “I can’t help the king
+without my supper.”</p>
+
+<p>“Supper is only supper,” said little Peter, who had never in his life
+been hungry. “One must help the king—that is more.”</p>
+
+<p>The beggar struck the ground with his staff.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m hungry,” he said like a bark. “I want some supper and some dinner
+and all the way back to breakfast before I help the king, world or no
+world!”</p>
+
+<p>And suddenly little Peter understood what it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span> is to be hungry, and
+that, if folk were hungry, they must first find means of feeding
+themselves before they could listen. So he gave the beggar all that he
+had of food in his packet, which was the least that he could do, and
+sent him on his way, charging him with the message.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">At the top of the hill, Peter came on another man, sitting under a
+sycamore tree. The man was a youth, and very beautiful, and he was
+making a little song, which went like this:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line outdent">“<em>Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>Here one, there one, natal to its hour,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>You shall be a flower.</em>”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Though Peter did not know what the song might mean, yet it fell sweetly
+upon the night, and he liked to listen. And when it was done, he went
+and stood before the youth.</p>
+
+<p>“Sir,” he said, “the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.”</p>
+
+<p>“I know, I know, little lad,” said the youth, and his voice was clear,
+like bird-notes that were turning into words. “I, too, tell the
+message, making it in a song.”</p>
+
+<p>And these words made Peter glad, so that his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a></span> strength was new, and he
+ran on with the poet’s gentle music in his ears.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot tell you how far Peter went, but he went very far, and to
+many a lonely outpost, and away and away on a drear frontier. It was
+long to go and hard to do, but that is the way the world is made; and
+little Peter went on, now weary, now frightened, now blithe, now in
+good company, now alone and in the dark. I cannot tell you all the
+adventures he had and all the things he did—perhaps you will know
+these in some other way, sometime. And there were those to whom he
+told the message who listened, or set out in haste for the king’s
+palace; and some promised that they would go another day, and a few ran
+to tell others. But many and many were like the hundred heralds and
+the thousand trumpeters and the king’s High Council, and found many
+a reason why they might not set out. And some there were who mocked
+Peter, saying that the world indeed was doing very well without their
+help and would work itself out if only one would wait; and others would
+not even listen to the little lad.</p>
+
+<p>At last, one morning when the whole world seemed glad that it was
+beginning and seemed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a></span> long to tell about it, little Peter entered a
+city, decorated for a festival. Everywhere were garlands of vines and
+of roses, bright rugs and fluttering pennons and gilded things, as if
+the world had been long enough begun so that already there were time
+to take holidays. The people were flooding the streets and crowding
+the windows, and through their holiday dress Peter could see how some
+minced and mocked a little like apes, and others peered about like
+giraffes, and others ravened for food and joy, like the beggar or the
+bear or the tiger, and others kept the best, like swine, or skulked
+like curs, or plodded like horses, or prattled like parrots. Animals
+ran about, dumb like the vegetables they had eaten. Vegetables were
+heaped in the stalls, mysterious as the earth which they had lately
+been. The buildings were piled up to resemble the hills from whose
+substance they had been created, and their pillars were fashioned like
+trees. Everywhere were the savage angles and wild lines of one thing
+turning into another. And Peter longed to help to fashion them all, as
+he fashioned his little balls of mould and loam.</p>
+
+<p>“There is so much yet to do,” thought little<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> Peter, “I wonder that
+they take so much time for holidays.”</p>
+
+<p>So he ran quickly to a high, white place in the midst of the town,
+where they were making ready to erect the throne of the king of the
+carnival, and on that he stood and cried:—</p>
+
+<p>“Hear me—hear me! The world is beginning. You must go and help the
+king.”</p>
+
+<p>Now, if those about the carnival throne had only said: “What is that to
+us? Go away!” Peter would have been warned. But they only nodded, and
+they said kindly: “Yes, so it is—and we mean to help presently. Come
+and help us first!” And one of the revellers, seeing Peter, how little
+he was, picked him up and held him at arm’s length and cried:—</p>
+
+<p>“Lo, now, this little lad. He is no bigger than a trumpet....”</p>
+
+<p>(That was what the king had said, and it pleased Peter to hear it said
+again.)</p>
+
+<p>“... Let us take him,” the revellers went on, “and <em>have</em> him for a
+trumpet. And take him with us in our great procession. What think ye?”</p>
+
+<p>“And may I cry out what message I please?” little Peter asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span>
+“Surely,” answered all the revellers, gayly. “What is that to us, so
+that you come with us?”</p>
+
+<p>They picked him up and tossed him on their shoulders—for he was of
+about a brazen trumpet’s weight, no more;—and Peter clapped his hands
+for joy, for he was a boy and he loved to think that he would be a part
+of that gorgeous procession. And they took him away to the great tent
+on the city green where everyone was dressing for the carnival.</p>
+
+<p>Peter never had seen anything so strange and wonderful as what was
+within that tent. In it everything and everybody had just been or was
+just going to be something or somebody else. Not only had the gay
+garments piled on the floor just been sheep’s and silkworm’s coats,
+not only had the colours laid upon them just been roots and stems and
+herb-leaves, not only had the staves been tree’s boughs and elephant’s
+tusks, but the very coal burning in the braziers and the oil in the
+torches had once been sunshine, and the very flames had been air, and
+before that water, and so on. But, most of all, the people showed what
+they had been, for in any merry-making the kinds of animals in folk
+can<em>not</em> be covered up; and it was a regular menagerie.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a></span>
+They took little Peter and dressed him like a trumpet. They thrust both
+his legs into one long cloth-of-gold stocking, and he held his arms
+tightly at his sides while they wound his little body in ruffles of
+gold-coloured silk, growing broader and broader into a full-gathered
+ruff from which his laughing face peeped out. And he was so slender and
+graceful that you could hardly have told him from a real, true, golden
+trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>Then the procession was ready to start, all lined up in the great
+tent. And the heralds and the music all burst out at once as the green
+curtain of the tent was drawn aside, and the long, glittering line
+began to move. Little heralds, darting about for all the world like
+squirrels and chipmunks; a great elephant of a master of ceremonies,
+bellowing out the order of the day as if he had been presiding over
+the jungle; a group of men high in the town’s confidence, whose spots
+proclaimed them once to have been leopards, and other things; long,
+lithe harlequins descended from serpents; little, fat clowns still
+showing the magpie; prominent citizens, unable as yet to conceal the
+fox and the wolf in their faces; the mayor of the town, revealing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">94</a></span> the
+chameleon in his blood; little donkey men; and a fine old gentleman or
+two made like eagles—all of them getting done into men as quickly as
+possible. In the midst rode the king of the carnival, who had evidently
+not long since been a lion, and that no doubt was why they picked him
+out. He rode on a golden car from which sprays of green sprang out to
+reach from side to side of the broad street. And at his lips, held like
+a trumpet, he carried little Peter, one hand on Peter’s feet set to the
+kingly lips, and the other stretched out to Peter’s breast.</p>
+
+<p>Then Peter lifted up his shrill little voice and shouted loud his
+message:—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>The world is beginning! The world is beginning! The world is
+beginning! You must go and help the king. You must go-o-o and help the
+king!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>But just as he cried that, the carnival band struck into a merry march,
+and all the heralds were calling, and the people were shouting, and
+Peter’s little voice did not reach very far.</p>
+
+<p>“Shout again!” bade the king of the carnival, who did not care in the
+least what Peter said, so long only as he acted like a trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>So Peter shouted again—shouted his very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> best. He shouted as loudly
+as he did at play, as loudly as when he swam and raced in the water,
+as loudly as any boy could shout. But it seemed to him that his voice
+carried hardly farther than the little chipmunk-and-squirrel heralds
+before him, and that nobody heard him.</p>
+
+<p>Still, it was all such fun! The glitter of the procession, the
+eagerness of the people, the lilt and rhythm of the music. And fun
+over all was it to be carried by the carnival king himself, high above
+everyone and dressed like a golden trumpet. Surely, surely no boy
+ever had more fun than that! Surely, surely it was no great marvel
+that after a little time, so loud was the clamour and so fast the
+excitement, that Peter stopped crying his message, and merely watched
+and laughed and delighted with the rest.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down through the thronged streets they went, that great,
+glittering procession, winding its mile or more of spangles and gilding
+and gay dress and animals richly caparisoned. Everywhere the crowded
+walks and windows and balconies sent cheers into the air, everywhere
+flowers were thrown and messages tossed and melody flooded. And
+wherever that long line passed, everyone noted the king’s trumpet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span>
+pointed it out and clapped hands and tried to throw upon it garlands.
+And there was so much to see, and so much excitement there was in the
+hour, that at last little Peter did not even think of his message, and
+only jested and made merry. For it was the most wonderful game that
+ever he had played.</p>
+
+<p>“How now, my little trumpeter?” the king of the carnival would say
+sometimes, when he rested his arms and held Peter at his side.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, <em>well</em>, your majesty!” Peter would cry, laughing up at him.</p>
+
+<p>“This is all a fine game and nothing more,” the king of the carnival
+would tell him. “Is this not so?”</p>
+
+<p>Then he would toss the boy on high again, away above the golden car,
+and Peter would cry out with the delight of it. And though there were
+no wings and no great brightness in the air, yet the hour was golden
+and joy was abroad like a person.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, a band of mountebanks, dressed like ploughmen and
+harvesters, came tumbling and racing by the procession, and calling to
+everyone to come to a corn husking on the city green.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">97</a></span>
+“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks—husks—husks!”
+they cried.</p>
+
+<p>But there was such a tumult that no one could well hear what they said,
+and presently they appealed to the carnival king to tell the people.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, O king, they hear us not for the noise of thy passing,” said
+they. “Prithee tell the people what we would say.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell the people, my little trumpeter!” cried the king, and lifted
+Peter to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>And Peter shouted out with all his might.</p>
+
+<p>“Husks! Husks! A corn husking on the city green. Husks—husks—husks!”</p>
+
+<p>“Bravely done!” called the mountebanks, in delight, and ran alongside
+the car, leaping and tumbling and grotesquely showing their delight.
+“Bravely done! Tell the people—bid the people come!”</p>
+
+<p>So Peter called again, and yet again, at the full strength of his
+little voice. And it seemed to him that the people surely listened,
+and it was a delight and a flattery to be the one voice in the great
+procession, save only the music’s voice.</p>
+
+<p>At last, for one moment it chanced that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">98</a></span> bands ceased altogether
+their playing, so that there was an instant of almost silence.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Husks, husks, husks!</em>” he cried, with all his might.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">And as he did that, thin and clear through the silence, vexed somewhat
+by the voices of the people,—now barks, now whines, now bellows, now
+words,—Peter caught a little wandering melody, as though a bird’s
+singing were turning into words:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line outdent">“<em>Open, world, your trembling petals slowly,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>Here one, there one, natal to its hour</em>....”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="noi">and in the midst of that motley throng, Peter, looking down,
+saw the poet whom he had left on the hill-top, now wandering alone and
+singing his message to his lute.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, the king! Oh, <em>my</em> king!” cried little Peter, as if he had had a
+great wound.</p>
+
+<p>“What now, my little trumpeter?” asked the carnival king.</p>
+
+<p>“Not you—<em>not</em> you!” cried Peter. “Oh, set me down,—set me down. Oh,
+what have I done?”</p>
+
+<p>“How <em>now</em>, little Trumpet?” cried the carnival king. But Peter,
+instead of stretching<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> out his little body, slim and trumpet-graceful,
+turned and fell at the king’s feet in the car and slipped from his
+grasp and scrambled through the branching green and reached the street.</p>
+
+<p>There, in the wonder and then the mockery of the people, he began
+struggling to free himself from the ruffles of cloth-of-gold about his
+body. Some laughed, some ran from him as if he were mad, and some,
+wishing for themselves the golden ruffles, helped him to pull them off
+and to strip down the clinging golden stocking that bound his limbs.
+And then, being close to the city gates, little Peter ran, all naked as
+he was, without the gates and on to the empty road. And he ran sobbing
+out his heart:—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my king! I would have told them that the world is beginning—but,
+instead I have told them only to get them husks!”</p>
+
+<p>Now the poet, who had seen it all—and who understood—ceased his song
+and made his way as quickly as might be for the press of the people,
+and ran after Peter, and fared along the road beside him, trying to
+comfort him. But the little lad might not be comforted, and he only
+cried out again:—</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span>
+“The king—the king! I would have given them his message—and I bade
+them only to get them husks!”</p>
+
+<p>So the poet—who understood—said no word at all, but he shielded Peter
+with his mantle; and then he took his lute and walked beside the little
+lad, singing.</p>
+
+<p>They had gone but a short distance when they reached the top of a hill,
+where the sun shone with exceeding brightness, and the poet noted
+that the light fell almost like little wings. Peter saw none of this,
+for his hands were still covering his face. But he heard the poet’s
+singing interrupted by a voice. The voice was uneven—like a bark or
+a whine that is turning into words—but yet its words were clear and
+unmistakable. And they were:—</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Sirs, the world is beginning. You must go and help the king.</em>”</p>
+
+<p>Peter looked up and he saw the man who had spoken, a man twisted and
+ragged, but who smiled down into the little boy’s face so gently that,
+for a moment, Peter did not know him; and then he recognized that
+beggar to whom, on that night long ago, he had given food and the
+message.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">101</a></span>
+“Ay, friend!” the poet was answering him ringingly, “and we go!”</p>
+
+<p>The beggar hurried on, and the poet touched Peter’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, now, little Peter,” he said, “grieve not your heart too much.
+For you it was who told the beggar the message—from the top of the
+hill I heard—and I saw you give him food. Can you tell any man without
+some good coming true of the tidings? Then it may well be that there
+are those in the town to whom you told the king’s message who will
+remember, too. Go we forth together to try again!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter looked down the long highway, stretching between the mysterious
+green, where shrubs changed to animals in so little a space; and
+then he looked away to the king’s kingdom and saw how it was not
+finished—because the world had just stopped being nothing and was
+beginning to be something—and he looked back towards the city where,
+as at the court, men had not yet done being animals. Everything
+was changing, as if nothing were meant to be merely what it is.
+And everything was in savage angles and wild lines. The world was
+beginning. The people <em>must</em> be told to go and help the king.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">102</a></span>
+“Go we forth together to try again,” the poet repeated.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">He touched his lute, and its melody slipped into the sunshine.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line outdent">“<em>Toward the time when, holden in a vessel holy,</em></div>
+<div class="line"><em>You shall be a flower.</em>”</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>Then Peter stretched out his arms, and his whole slender little body
+became like one trumpet voice, and that voice strong and clear to reach
+round the world itself.</p>
+
+<p>“I try once again!” he answered. “The world is beginning. <em>I must go
+and help the king.</em>”</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="vi" id="vi"></a>VI<br />
+<span>MY LADY OF THE APPLE TREE</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Our</span> lawn was nine apple trees large. There were none in front, where
+only Evergreens grew, and two silver Lombardy poplars, heaven-tall. The
+apple trees began with the Cooking-apple tree by the side porch. This
+was, of course, no true tree except in apple-blossom time, and at other
+times hardly counted. The length of twenty jumping ropes—they call
+them skipping ropes now, but we never called them so—laid one after
+another along the path would have brought one to the second tree, the
+Eating-apple tree, whose fruit was red without and pink-white within.
+To this day I do not know what kind of apples those were, whether
+Duchess, Gilliflower, Russet, Sweet, or Snow. But after all, these only
+name the body of the apple, as Jasper or Edith names the body of you.
+The soul of you, like the real sense of Apple, lives nameless all its
+days. Sometime we must play<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> the game of giving us a secret name—the
+Pathfinder, the Lamplighter, the Starseeker, and so on. But colours and
+flavours are harder to name and must wait longer than we.</p>
+
+<p>... Under this Nameless tree, then, the swing hung, and to sit in the
+swing and have one’s head touch apple-blossoms, and mind, not touch
+them with one’s foot, was precisely like having one’s swing knotted to
+the sky, so that one might rise in rhythm, head and toe, up among the
+living stars. I can think of no difference worth the mentioning, so
+high it seemed. And if one does not know what rhythm is, one has only
+to say it over: Spring, Summer, apple-blossom, apple; new moon, old
+moon, running river, echo—and then one will know.</p>
+
+<p>“I would pick some,” said Mother, looking up at the apple-blossoms, “if
+I only knew which ones will never be apples.”</p>
+
+<p>So some of the blossoms would never be apples! Which ones? <em>And why?</em></p>
+
+<p>“Why will some be apples and some others never be apples?” I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>But Mother was singing and swinging me, and she did not tell.</p>
+
+<p>“Why will you be apples and you not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">105</a></span> apples, and me not know which,
+and you not know which?” I said to the apple-blossoms when next my head
+touched them. Of course, you never really speak to things with your
+throat voice, but you think it at them with your head voice. Perhaps
+that is the way they answer, and that is why one does not always hear
+what they say....</p>
+
+<p>The apple-blossoms did not say anything that I could hear. The
+stillness of things never ceased to surprise me. It would have been far
+less wonderful to me if the apple-blossoms and the Lombardy poplars and
+my new shoes had answered me sometimes than that they always kept their
+unfriendly silence. One’s new shoes <em>look</em> so friendly, with their
+winking button eyes and their placid noses! And yet they act as cross
+about answering as do some little boys who move into the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>... Indeed, if one comes to think of it, one’s shoes are rather like
+the sturdy little boys among one’s clothes. One’s slippers are more
+like little girls, all straps and bows and tiptoes. Then one’s aprons
+must be the babies, long and white and dainty. And one’s frocks and
+suits—that is to say, one’s <em>new</em> frocks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">106</a></span> suits—are the ladies
+and gentlemen, important and elegant; and one’s everyday things are
+the men and women, neither important nor elegant, but best of all; and
+one’s oldest garments are the witches, shapeless and sad and haunted.
+This leaves ribbons and sashes and beads to be fairies—both good and
+bad.</p>
+
+<p>The silence of the Nameless tree was to lift a little that very day.
+When Mother had gone in the house,—something seemed always to be
+pulling at Mother to be back in the house as, in the house, something
+always pulled at me to be back out-of-doors,—I remember that I was
+twisting the rope and then lying back over the board, head down,
+for the untwisting. And while my head was whirling and my feet were
+guiding, I looked up at the tree and saw it as I had never seen it
+before: soft falling skirts of white with lacy edges and flowery
+patterns, drooping and billowing all about a pedestal, which was the
+tree trunk, and up-tapering at the top like a waist—why, the tree was
+a lady! Leaning in the air there above the branches, surely I could
+see her beautiful shoulders and her white arms, her calm face and her
+bright hair against the blue. She had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> risen out of the trunk at the
+tree’s blossoming and was waiting for someone to greet her.</p>
+
+<p>I struggled out of the swing and scrambled, breathless, back from the
+tree and looked where she should be. Already I knew her. Nearly, I knew
+the things that she would say to me—sometimes now I know the things
+that she would have said if we had not been interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>The interruption came from four girls who lived, as I thought, outside
+my world,—for those were the little days when I did not yet know
+that this cannot be. They were the Eversley sisters, in full-skirted,
+figured calico, and they all had large, chapped hands and wide teeth
+and stout shoes. For a year they had been wont to pass our house on the
+way to the public school, but they had spoken to me no more than if
+I had been invisible—until the day when I had first entered school.
+After that, it was as if I had been born into their air, or thrown in
+the same cage, or had somehow become one of them. And I was in terror
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>“Come ’ere once!” they commanded, their voices falling like sharp
+pebbles about the Apple-blossom lady and me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">108</a></span>
+Obediently I ran to the front fence, though my throat felt sick when
+I saw them coming. “Have an apple core? Give us some of them flowers.
+Shut your eyes so’s you’ll look just like you was dead.” These were
+the things that they always said. Something kept telling me that I
+ought not to tell them about my lady, but I was always wanting to win
+their approval and to let them know that I was really more one of them
+than they thought. So I disobeyed, and I told them. Mysteriously,
+breathlessly I led them back to the tree; and feeling all the time that
+I was not keeping faith, I pointed her out to them. I showed them just
+where to look, beginning with the skirts, which surely anybody could
+see.... I used often to dream that a crowd of apish, impish little folk
+was making fun of me, and that afternoon I lived it, standing out alone
+against those four who fell to instant jeering. If they had stooped and
+put their hands on their knees and hopped about making faces, it would
+have been no more horrible to me than their laughter. It held for me
+all the sense of bad dreams, and then of waking alone, in the middle of
+the night. The worst was that I could find no words to make them know.
+I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span> could only keep saying, “She is there, she is there, she is there.”
+By some means I managed not to cry, not even when they each broke a
+great branch of blossoms from the Eating-apple tree and ran away,
+flat-footed, down the path; not indeed until the gate had slammed and I
+turned back to the tree and saw that my lady had gone.</p>
+
+<p>There was no doubt about it. Here were no longer soft skirts, but only
+flowery branches where the sunlight thickened and the bees drowsed.
+My lady was gone. Try as I might, I could not bring her back. So she
+had been mocking me too! Otherwise, why had she let me see her so that
+I should be laughed at, and then herself vanished? Yet, even then, I
+remember that I did not doubt her, or for a moment cease to believe
+that she was really there; only I felt a kind of shame that I could
+see her, and that the others could not see her. I had felt the same
+kind of shame before, never when I was alone, but always when I was
+with people. We played together well enough,—Pom, pom, pullaway,
+Minny-minny motion, Crack-the-whip, London Bridge, and the rest, save
+that I could not run as fast as nearly everybody. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> the minute we
+stopped playing and <em>talked</em>, then I was always saying something so
+that the same kind of shame came over me.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Delia crossing the street. In one hand she held two cookies which
+she was biting down sandwich-wise, and in the other hand two cookies,
+as yet unbitten. The latter she shook at me.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew I’d see you,” she called resentfully. “I says I’d give ’em to
+you if I saw you, and if I didn’t see you—”</p>
+
+<p>She left it unfinished at a point which gave no doubt as to whose
+cookies they might have been had I not been offensively about. But
+the cookies were fresh, and I felt no false delicacy. However, after
+deliberation, I ate my own, one at a time, rejecting the sandwich
+method.</p>
+
+<p>“It lasts them longest,” I explained.</p>
+
+<p>“The other way they bite thicker,” Delia contended.</p>
+
+<p>“Your teeth don’t taste,” I objected scientifically.</p>
+
+<p>Delia opened her eyes. “Why, they do too!” she cried.</p>
+
+<p>I considered. I had always had great respect for the strange chorus
+of my teeth, and I was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> perfectly ready to regard them as having
+independent powers.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, not when you eat tipsy-toes like that,” said Delia, scornfully.
+“Lemme show you....” She leaned for my cooky, her own being gone. I ran
+shamelessly down the path toward the swing, and by the time the swing
+was reached I had frankly abandoned serial bites.</p>
+
+<p>I sat on the grass, giving Delia the swing as a peace-offering. She
+took it, as a matter of course, and did not scruple to press her
+advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you want to swing me?” she said.</p>
+
+<p>I particularly disliked being asked in that way to do things. Grown-ups
+were always doing it, and what could be more absurd: “Don’t you want
+to pick up your things now?” “Don’t you want to let auntie have that
+chair?” “Don’t you want to take this over to Mrs. Rodman?” The form of
+the query always struck me as quite shameless. I truthfully shook my
+head.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m company,” Delia intimated.</p>
+
+<p>“When you’re over to my house, I have to let you swing because you’re
+company,” I said speculatively, “and when I’m over to your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">112</a></span> house, I
+have to let you swing because it’s your swing.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care about being company,” said Delia, loftily, and started
+home.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll swing you. I was only fooling!” I said, scrambling up.</p>
+
+<p>It worked—as Delia knew it would and always did work. All the same,
+as I pushed Delia, with my eyes on the blue-check gingham strap
+buttoned across the back of her apron, I reflected on the truth and
+its parallels: How, when Delia came to see me, I had to “pick up” the
+playthings and set in order store or ship or den or cave or county fair
+or whatnot because Delia had to go home early; and when I was over to
+Delia’s, I had to help put things away because they were hers and she
+had got them out.</p>
+
+<p>Low-swing, high-swing, now-I’m-going-to-run-under-swing—I gave them
+all to Delia and sank on the grass to watch the old cat die. As it
+died, Delia suddenly twisted the rope and then dropped back and lay
+across the board and loosed her hands. I never dared “let go,” as we
+said, but Delia did and lay whirling, her hair falling out like a sun’s
+rays, and her eyes shut.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">113</a></span>
+I watched her, fascinated. If she opened her eyes, I knew how the
+picket fence would swim for her, no longer a line but a circle. Then
+I remembered what I had seen in the tree when I was twisting, and I
+looked back....</p>
+
+<p>There she was! Quite as I had fleetingly seen her, with lacy skirts
+and vague, sweeping sleeves and bending line of shoulder, my Lady of
+the Tree was there again. I looked at her breathlessly, unsurprised at
+the gracious movement of her, so skilfully concealed by the disguises
+of the wind. Oh, was she there all the time, or only in apple-blossom
+time? Would she be there not only in white Spring but in green Summer
+and yellow Fall—why, perhaps all those times came only because she
+changed her gown. Perhaps night came only because she put on something
+dusky, made of veils. Maybe the stars that I had thought looked to be
+caught in the branches were the jewels in her hair. And the wind might
+be her voice! I listened with all my might. What if she should tell me
+her name ... and know my name!...</p>
+
+<p>“Seventeen un-twists,” announced Delia. “Did you ever get that many out
+of such a little stingy swing as you gave me?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">114</a></span>
+I did not question the desirability of telling Delia. The four Eversley
+girls had been barbarians (so I thought). Delia I had known always. To
+be sure, she had sometimes failed me, but these times were not real. My
+eyes were on the tree, and Delia came curiously toward me.</p>
+
+<p>“Bird?” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head and beckoned her. Still looking at my lady, I drew
+Delia down beside me, brought her head close to mine.</p>
+
+<p>“Look,” I said, “her skirt is all branches—and her face is turned the
+other way. See her?”</p>
+
+<p>Delia looked faithfully. She scanned the tree long and impartially.</p>
+
+<p>“See her? See her?” I insisted, under the impression that I was
+defining her. “It’s a lady,” I breathed it finally.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” said Delia, “you mean that side of the tree is the shape of one.
+Yes, it is—kind of. I’m going home. We got chocolate layer cake for
+supper. Good-bye. Last tag.”</p>
+
+<p>I turned to Delia for a second. When she went, I looked back for my
+lady—but she had gone. Only—now I did not try to bring her back.
+Neither did I doubt her, even then.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">115</a></span> But there came back a certain
+loneliness that I had felt before, only never so much as now. Why was
+it that the others could not see?</p>
+
+<p>I lay face downward in the grass under the tree. There were other
+things like this lady that I had been conscious of, which nobody else
+seemed to care about. Sometimes I had tried to tell. More often I had
+instinctively kept still. Now slowly I thought that I understood: I was
+different. Different from the whole world. Did I not remember how, when
+I walked on the street, groups of children would sometimes whisper:
+“There she is—there she is!” Or, “Here she comes!” I had thought, poor
+child, that this would be because my hair was long, like little Eva’s
+in the only play that most of us had seen. But now I thought I knew
+what they had known and I had not known: That I was different.</p>
+
+<p>I dropped my face in the crook of my arm and cried—silently, because
+to cry aloud seemed always to have about it a kind of nakedness; but I
+cried sorely, pantingly, with aching throat, and tried to think it out.</p>
+
+<p>What was this difference? I had heard them say in the house that my
+head was large, my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">116</a></span> hair too long to let me be healthy; and the four
+Eversleys always wanted me to shut my eyes so that I should look dead.
+But it was something other than these. Maybe—I shall never forget the
+grip of that fear—maybe I was not human. Maybe I was Adopted. I had no
+clear idea what Adopted meant, but my impression was that it meant not
+to have been born at all. That was it. I was like the apple-blossoms
+that would never be apples. I was just a Pretend little girl, a kind of
+secret one, somebody who could never, never be the same as the rest.</p>
+
+<p>I turned from that deep afternoon and ran for the wood-pile where I had
+a hiding-place. Down the path I met Mother and clung to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother, Mother!” I sobbed. “Am I adopted?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, dear,” she said seriously. “You are mine. What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Promise me I’m not!” I begged.</p>
+
+<p>“I promise,” she said. “Who has been talking to you? You little lamb,
+come in the house,” she added. “You’re tired out, playing.”</p>
+
+<p>I went with her. But the moment had entered me. I was not like the
+rest. I said it over, and every time it hurt. There is no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">117</a></span> more
+passionate believer in democracy than a child.</p>
+
+<p>Across the street Delia was sitting on the gate-post, ostentatiously
+eating chocolate layer cake, and with her free hand twisting into
+a curl the end of her short braid. Between us there seemed to have
+revealed itself a gulf, life-wide. Had Delia always known about me? Did
+the Rodman girls know? And Calista? The four Eversleys must know—this
+was why they laughed so.... But I remember how, most of all, I hoped
+that Mary Elizabeth did not know—yet.</p>
+
+<p>From that day I faced the truth: I was different. I was somehow not
+really-truly. And it seemed to me that nothing could ever be done about
+it.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">118</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="vii" id="vii"></a>VII<br />
+<span>THE PRINCESS ROMANCIA</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> night I could not go to sleep with the knowledge. If only I, as I
+am now, might have sat on the edge of the bed and told a story to me
+as I was then! I am always wishing that we two might have known each
+other—I as I am now and I as I was then. We should have been so much
+more interested in each other than anybody else could ever be. I can
+picture us looking curiously at each other through the dark, and each
+would have wished to be the other—how hard we would have wished that.
+But neither of us would have got it, as sometimes happens with wishes.</p>
+
+<p>Looking back on that night, and knowing how much I wanted to be like
+the rest, I think this would be the story that I, as I am now, would
+have told that Little Me.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Once upon a time to the fairy king and queen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">119</a></span> there was born a little
+daughter. And the king, being a modern fairy, determined to invite to
+the christening of his daughter twelve mortals—a thing never before
+countenanced in fairy ceremony. And of course all unreal people are
+always very particular about their ceremonies being <em>just</em> so.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delicate and difficult task to make out that mortal invitation
+list, for it was very hard to find in the world twelve human beings
+who, at a fairy party, would exactly fit in. After long thought and
+consultation with all his ministers and councillors, the king made out
+the following list:—</p>
+
+<p>A child; a poet; a scientist; a carpenter; a prophet; an artist; an
+artisan; a gardener; a philosopher; a woman who was also a mother; a
+man who was also a father; and a day labourer.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think that will do <em>at all</em>?” the fairy king asked the fairy
+queen, tossing over the list.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, dear,” she replied, “it’s probably the best you can do. You know
+what people are.” She hesitated a mere breath—a fairy’s breath—and
+added: “I do wonder a little, though, just <em>why</em> the day labourer.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">120</a></span>
+“My dear,” said the king, “some day you will understand that, and many
+other things as well.”</p>
+
+<p>The christening room was a Vasty Hall, whose deep blue ceiling was as
+high as the sky and as strange as night. Lamps, dim as the stars, hung
+very high, and there was one silver central chandelier, globed like the
+moon, and there were frescoes like clouds. The furnishings of the Vasty
+Hall were most magnificent. There were pillars like trees spreading out
+into capitals of intricate and leafy design. Lengths of fair carpet ran
+here and there, as soft and shining as little streams; there were thick
+rugs as deep as moss, seats of native carved stone, and tapestries as
+splendid as vistas curtaining the distance. And the music was like the
+music of All-night, all done at once.</p>
+
+<p>To honour the occasion the fairy guests had all come dressed as
+something else—for by now, of course, the fairies are copying many
+human fashions. One was disguised as a Butterfly with her own wings
+prettily painted. One represented a Rose, and she could hardly be
+distinguished from an American Beauty. One was made up as a Light,
+whom nobody could recognize.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">121</a></span> One was a White Moth and one was a
+Thistle-down, and there were several fantastic toilettes, such as a
+great Tulle Bow, a Paper Doll, and an Hour-glass. As for the Human
+Beings present, they all came masked as themselves, as usual; and their
+names I cannot give you, though sometimes I see someone with dreaming
+eyes whom I think may possibly have been one of those twelve—for of
+course it must have made a difference in their looks ever afterward.
+It was a very brilliant assemblage indeed, and everyone was most
+intangible and elusive, which are fairy terms for well-behaved.</p>
+
+<p>While the guests were waiting for the fairy baby princess to be brought
+in, they idled about, with that delightful going-to-be-ice-cream
+feeling which you have at any party in some form or another, only
+you must <em>never</em> say so, and they exchanged the usual pleasant
+nothing-at-alls. It is curious how very like human nothings fairy
+nothings are.</p>
+
+<p>For example:—</p>
+
+<p>“There is a great deal of night about,” said the Butterfly Fairy with a
+little shiver. “If I were a truly butterfly, I should never be able to
+find my way home.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">122</a></span>
+“And there is such a fad for thunder-and-lightning this season,” added
+the Paper Doll Fairy, agreeably.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you remember,” asked the White Moth Fairy, “the night that we all
+dressed as white moths and went to meet the moon? We flew until we were
+all in the moonlight, and then we knew that we had met her. I wonder
+why more people do not meet the moon-rise?”</p>
+
+<p>“That reminds me,” said the Thistle-down Fairy, “of the day we all made
+up as snowflakes and went to find the Spring. Don’t you know how she
+surprised us, in the hollow of the lowland? And what a good talk we
+had? I wonder why more people do not go to meet the Spring?”</p>
+
+<p>“A charming idea!” cried the Rose Fairy to the Light Fairy, and the
+Light Fairy shone softly upon her, precisely like an answer.</p>
+
+<p>Then somebody observed that the wind that night was a pure soprano, and
+the guests amused themselves comparing wind-notes; how on some nights
+the wind is deep bass, like a man’s voice, raging through the world;
+and sometimes it is tenor, sweet, and singing only serenades; and
+sometimes it is all contralto and like a lullaby;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">123</a></span> and sometimes, but
+not often, it is like harp music played on the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the whole dark lifted, like a garment; and moonlight flooded
+the Vasty Hall. And as if they had filtered down the air with the
+light, the fairy christening party entered—not as we enter a room, by
+thresholds and steps, but the way that a thought comes in your head and
+you don’t know how it got there.</p>
+
+<p>The christening party wore robes of colours that lie deep between
+the colours and may hardly be named. And, in a secret ceremony, such
+as attends the blooming of flowers, the fairy baby was christened
+Romancia. Then the fairies brought her many offerings; and these having
+been received and admired, a great hush fell on the whole assembly,
+for now the twelve Human Beings came forward with their gifts. And
+everyone, except, indeed, the princess herself, was wild with curiosity
+to see what they had brought.</p>
+
+<p>No one left a card with any gift, but when the fairy king came to look
+them over afterward, he felt certain who had brought each one. The
+gifts were these: A little embroidered gown which should make everyone
+love the princess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">124</a></span> while she wore it; a gazing crystal which would
+enable the princess to see one hundred times as much as anybody else
+saw; certain sea secrets and sea spells; a lyre which played itself;
+a flask containing a draught which should keep the princess young; a
+vial of colours which hardly anyone ever sees; flowers and grasses and
+leaves which could be used almost like a dictionary to spell out other
+things; an assortment of wonderful happy fancies of every variety; a
+new rainbow; a box of picture cards of the world, every one of which
+should come true if one only went far enough; and a tapestry of the
+universe, wrapped around a brand-new idea in a box.</p>
+
+<p>When these things had been graciously accepted by the king, there was
+a stir in the company, and sweeping into its midst came another Human
+Being, one who thought that she had every right to be invited to the
+christening, but who had not been invited. All the fairies shrank back,
+for it was an extraordinary-looking Human Being. She was tall and lithe
+and wore a sparkling gown, and her face had the look of many cities,
+and now it was like the painted cover of an empty box, and all the time
+it had the meaning only of those who never look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">125</a></span> at the stars, or walk
+in gardens, or think about others rather than themselves, or listen to
+hear what it is right for them to do. This kind of Human Being is one
+who not often has any good gift to give to anyone, and this the fairies
+knew.</p>
+
+<p>The Vasty Hall became very quiet to see what she had brought, for no
+one understood what she could possibly have to bestow upon a baby. And
+without asking leave of the king or the queen, she bent over the child
+and clasped on her wrist the tiniest bracelet that was ever made in the
+world, and she snapped its lock as fast as the lock on a fetter, and
+held up the tiniest key that ever was wrought.</p>
+
+<p>“The princess,” she cried, “shall seem <em>different from everyone else</em>.
+She shall seem like nobody who is or ever has been. As long as she
+wears her bracelet, this shall be true; and that she may never lose it,
+I shall hold her bracelet’s key. Hail to this little princess child,
+who shall seem like nobody in the world!”</p>
+
+<p>Now, no one present was quite certain what this might mean, but the
+lady’s robe was so beautifully embroidered and sparkling, and her voice
+was such a thing of loops and curves, that nearly everyone accepted the
+gift as something<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">126</a></span> fine after all, and the queen gave her her hand to
+kiss. But the king, who was a very wise fairy, said nothing at all, and
+merely bowed and eyed the bracelet, in deep thought.</p>
+
+<p>His meditation was interrupted by a most awkward incident. In the
+excitement of the bestowal of gifts by the Human Beings, and in the
+confusion of the entrance of the thirteenth and uninvited Human Being,
+one of them all had been forgotten and had got himself shuffled well
+at the back of everyone. And now he came pressing forward in great
+embarrassment, to bring his gift. It was the day labourer, and several
+of the Human Beings drew hastily back as he approached the dais. But
+everyone fell still farther back in consternation when it was seen
+what he had brought. For on the delicate cobweb coverlet of the little
+princess’s bed, he cast a spadeful of earth.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s all I’ve got,” the man said, “or I’d brought a better.”</p>
+
+<p>The earth all but covered the little bed of the princess, and it was
+necessary to lift her from it, which the fairy queen did with her own
+hands, flashing a reproachful glance at her husband, the king. But
+when the party had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">127</a></span> trooped away for the dancing,—with the orchestra
+playing the way a Summer night would sound if it were to steep itself
+in music, so that it could only be heard and not seen,—then the king
+came quietly back to the christening chamber and ordered the spadeful
+of earth to be gathered up and put in a certain part of the palace
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>And so (the Human Beings having gone home at once and forgotten that
+they had been present), when the music lessened to silence and the
+fairies stole from note to note and at last drifted away as invisibly
+as the hours leave a dial, they passed, in the palace garden, a great
+corner of the rich black earth which the day labourer had brought to
+the princess. And it was ready for seed sowing.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Romancia grew with the days and the years, and from the
+first it was easily to be seen that certainly she seemed different
+from everyone in the world. As a baby she began talking in her cradle
+without having been taught—not very plainly, to be sure, or so that
+anybody in particular excepting the fairy queen understood her—but
+still she talked. As a little girl she seemed always to be listening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">128</a></span>
+to things as if she understood them as well as she did people, or
+better. When she grew older, nobody knew quite how she differed, but
+everybody agreed that she seemed different. And this the princess knew
+better than anybody, and most of the time it made her hurt all over.</p>
+
+<p>When the fairies played at thistle-down ball, the princess often played
+too, but she never felt really like one of them all. She felt that they
+were obliged to have her play with them because she was the princess,
+and not because they wanted her. When they played at hide-and-go-seek
+in a flower bed, somehow the others always hid together in the big
+flowers, and the princess hid alone in a tulip or a poppy. And whenever
+they whispered among themselves, she always fancied that they were
+whispering of her. She imagined herself often looked at with a smile or
+a shrug; she began to believe that she was not wanted but only endured
+because she was the princess, and she was certain that no one liked
+her for herself alone, because she was somehow so different. Little by
+little she grew silent, and refused to join in the games, and sat apart
+alone. Presently she began to give blunt answers and to take exception
+and even to disagree. And, of course, little by little the court began
+secretly to dislike her, and to cease to try to understand her, and
+they told one another that she was hopelessly different and that that
+was all that there was to be said about her.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="little" id="little"></a>
+<img src="images/i_128fp.jpg" width="400" height="625" alt="" />
+<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">Little by little she grew silent and refused to join
+in the games.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">129</a></span>
+But in spite of all this, the Princess Romancia was very beautiful, and
+the fame of her beauty went over the whole of fairyland. When enough
+years had gone by, fairy princes from this and that dominion began to
+come to the king’s palace to see her. But though they all admired the
+princess’s great beauty, many were of course repelled by her sharp
+answers and her constant suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>But at last the news of the princess’s beauty and strangeness reached
+the farthest border of fairyland and came to the ears of the young
+Prince Hesperus. Now Prince Hesperus, who was the darling of his
+father’s court and beloved of everybody, was tired of everybody. “Every
+fairy is like every other fairy,” he was often heard saying wearily.
+“I do wish I could find somebody with a few new ways. One would think
+fairies were all cut from one pattern!” Therefore, when word came to
+him of the strange and beautiful Princess Romancia, who was believed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">130</a></span>
+to be different from everyone else in the world, you can imagine with
+what haste he made ready and set out for her father’s place.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Hesperus arrived at the palace at twilight, when the king’s
+garden was wrapped in that shadow light which no one can step through,
+<em>if he looks</em>, without feeling somewhat like a fairy himself and
+glad to be one. He sent his servants on ahead, folded his wings, and
+proceeded on foot through the silent gardens. And in a little arbour
+made of fallen petals, renewed each day, he came on the Princess
+Romancia, asleep. He, of course, did not recognize her, but never,
+since for him the world began, had the prince seen anyone so beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>His step roused her and she sprang to her feet. And as soon as he
+looked at her, Prince Hesperus found himself wanting to tell her of
+what he had just been thinking, and before he knew it he was doing so.</p>
+
+<p>“I have just been thinking,” he said, “what a delightful pet a
+leaf-shadow would make, if one could catch it and tame it. I wonder if
+one could do it? Think how it would dance for one, all day long.”</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Romancia stared a little.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">131</a></span>
+“But when the sun went down,” she was surprised into saying, “the
+shadow would be dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not at all,” the prince replied, “it would only be asleep. And it
+would never have to be fed, and it could live in one’s palace.”</p>
+
+<p>“I would like such a pet,” said the princess, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>“If I may walk with you,” said the prince, “we will talk more about it.”</p>
+
+<p>They walked together toward the palace and talked more about it, so
+that the Princess Romancia quite forgot to be more different than she
+was, and the prince forgot all about everything save his companion.
+And he saw about her all the gifts of tenderness and vision and magic,
+of sea secrets and sea spells, of music and colours and knowledge and
+charming notions which the Human Beings had brought her at her birth,
+though these hardly ever were visible <em>because</em> the princess seemed
+so different from everybody else. And when, as they drew near the
+palace, their servants came hastening to escort them, the two looked at
+each other in the greatest surprise to find that they were prince and
+princess. For all other things had seemed so much more important.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">132</a></span>
+Their formal meeting took place that evening in the Vasty Hall, where,
+years before, the princess had been christened. Prince Hesperus was
+filled with the most joyous anticipation and awaited his presentation
+to the princess with the feeling that fairyland was just beginning. But
+the princess, on the other hand, was no sooner back in the palace among
+her ladies than the curse of her terrible christening present descended
+upon her as she had never felt it before. How, the poor princess
+thought, could the prince possibly like her, who was so different from
+everybody in the world? While she was being dressed, every time that
+her ladies spoke in a low tone, she imagined that they were speaking of
+her; every time that one smiled and shook her head, the princess was
+certain that it was in pity of her. She fancied that they knew that
+her walk was awkward, her voice harsh, her robe in bad taste, and an
+old fear came upon her that the palace mirrors had all been changed
+to conceal from her that she was really very ugly. In short, by the
+time that she was expected to descend, poor Princess Romancia had made
+herself utterly miserable.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, when, in her gown of fresh cobweb,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">133</a></span> the princess entered the
+hall and the prince hastened eagerly forward, she hardly looked at him.
+And when, at the banquet that followed, he sat beside her and tried to
+continue their talk of the arbour and the walk, she barely replied at
+all.</p>
+
+<p>“How beautiful you are,” he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>“So is the night,” said the princess, “and you do not tell the night
+that it is beautiful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Your eyes are like stars,” the prince said.</p>
+
+<p>“There are real stars above,” said the princess.</p>
+
+<p>“You are like no one else!” cried the prince.</p>
+
+<p>“At least you need not charge me with that,” said the poor princess.</p>
+
+<p>Nor would she dance with him or with anyone else. For she imagined that
+they did not wish to dance with her, and that her dancing was worse
+than anyone’s. And as soon as she was able, and long before cock-crow,
+she slipped away from them all and went to sleep in a handy crocus cup.</p>
+
+<p>Now at all this the king and queen were nearly as distressed as the
+prince, and they were obliged to tell Prince Hesperus the whole story
+of the christening. When he heard about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">134</a></span> uninvited Human Being who
+had given the baby princess this dreadful present and had kept the key
+to the bracelet which was its bond, he sprang up and grasped his tiny
+sword.</p>
+
+<p>“I will go out in the world and find this Human Being,” he cried, “and
+I will bring back the bracelet key.”</p>
+
+<p>Without again seeing the princess, Prince Hesperus left the palace and
+fared forth on his quest. And when she found that he was gone, she was
+more wretched than ever before. For in her life no one had ever talked
+to her as he had talked, speaking his inmost fancies, and when she had
+lost him, she wanted more than ever to talk with him. But the king, who
+was a very wise fairy, did not tell her where the prince had gone.</p>
+
+<p>And now the Princess Romancia did not know what to do with herself. The
+court was unbearable; all her trivial occupations bored her; and the
+whole world seemed to have been made different from all other worlds.
+Worst to endure was the presence of her companions, who all seemed to
+love and to understand one another, while she only was alone and out of
+their sympathy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">135</a></span>
+“Oh,” she cried, “if only I had a game or a task to do with somebody or
+something that didn’t know I am different—that wouldn’t know who I am!”</p>
+
+<p>And she thought longingly of the prince’s fancy about the leaf-shadow
+for a pet which should dance with one all day long.</p>
+
+<p>“A leaf-shadow would not know that I am not like everybody else!” the
+poor princess thought.</p>
+
+<p>One night, when a fairy ring had been formed in an open grassy space
+among old oaks, the princess could bear it all no longer. When the
+music was at its merriest and a band of strolling goblin musicians were
+playing their maddest, she slipped away and returned to the palace by
+an unfrequented path and entered a long-disused part of the garden.
+And there, in a corner where she had never before walked, she came on
+a great place of rich, black earth, which, in the sweet Spring air,
+lay ready for the sowing. It was the spadeful of earth which the day
+labourer had brought to her christening; and there, for all these
+years, the king had caused it to remain untouched, its own rank weed
+growth enriching its richness, until but a touch would now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">136</a></span> turn it
+to fruitage. And seeing it so, and being filled with her wish for
+something which should take her thought away from herself and from her
+difference from all the world, the Princess Romancia was instantly
+minded to make a garden.</p>
+
+<p>Night being the work time and play time of the fairies, the princess
+went at once to the palace granaries and selected seeds of many kinds,
+flower and vegetable and fern seeds, and she brought them to this
+corner of rich earth, and there she planted them, under the moon. She
+would call no servants to help her, fearing lest they would smile among
+themselves at her strange doing. All night she worked at the planting,
+and when morning came, she fell asleep in a mandrake blossom, and woke
+hungry for a breakfast of honeydew and thinking of nothing save getting
+back to her new gardening.</p>
+
+<p>The Wind helped her, and as the days passed, the Sun and the Rain
+helped her, and she used certain magic which she knew, so that
+presently her garden was a glory. Poppies and corn, beans and berries,
+green peas and sweet peas, pinks and potatoes, celery and white phlox,
+melons and cardinal flowers—all these grew wonderfully together, as
+it were, hand in hand,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">137</a></span> as they will grow for fairy folk, and in such
+great luxuriance that the princess wrought early and late to keep them
+ordered and watered. She would have no servants to help her, for she
+grew more and more to love her task. For here at last in her garden
+she had found those whom she could not imagine to be smiling among
+themselves at anything that she said or did; but all the green things
+responded to her hands like friends answering to a hand clasp, and when
+the flowers nodded to one another, this meant only that a company of
+little leaf-shadows were set dancing on the earth, almost as if they
+had been tamed to be her pets, according to the prince’s fancy.</p>
+
+<p>Up at the palace the queen and the ladies-in-waiting to the queen and
+the princess regarded all this as but another sign of poor Romancia’s
+strangeness. From her tower window the queen peered anxiously down at
+her daughter toiling away at sunrise.</p>
+
+<p>“Now she is raising carrots and beets,” cried the queen, wringing her
+hands. “She grows more different from us every moment of her life!”</p>
+
+<p>“She seems to do so,” admitted the king;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">138</a></span> but he was very wise; and,
+“Let her be,” he commanded everybody. “We may see what this all means,
+and a great many other things as well.”</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Prince Hesperus, journeying from land to land and from height
+to valley, was seeking in vain for the one person who, as he thought,
+could remove from the princess the curse of her difference from all the
+rest of the world. And it was very strange how love had changed him;
+for now, instead of his silly complaint that every fairy is like every
+other fairy, and his silly longing for a different pattern in fairies,
+he sought only for the charm which should make his beloved princess
+like everybody else. Where should he find this terrible Human Being,
+this uninvited one who held the key to the princess’s bracelet that was
+so like a fetter?</p>
+
+<p>He went first to the town nearest to fairyland. The people of the town,
+having no idea how near to fairyland they really were, were going
+prosaically about their occupations, and though they could have looked
+up into the magic garden itself, they remained serenely indifferent.
+There he found the very mother who had been at the christening of the
+princess; and alighting close<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">139</a></span> to a great task that she was doing
+for the whole world, he tried to ask her who it was who makes folk
+different from all the rest. But she could not hear his tiny, tiny
+voice which came to her merely as a thought about something which could
+not possibly be true. In a pleasant valley he came on that one who,
+at the christening, had brought the lyre which played of itself, but
+when the prince asked him his question, he fancied it to be merely
+the wandering of his own melody, with a note about something new to
+his thought. The poet by the stream singing of the brotherhood of
+man, the prophet on a mountain foreseeing the brotherhood as in a
+gazing crystal, the scientist weaving the brotherhood in a tapestry
+of the universe—none of these knew anyone who can possibly make folk
+different from everybody else, nor did any of the others on whom Prince
+Hesperus chanced.</p>
+
+<p>When one day he thought that he had found her, because he met one whose
+face had the look of many cities and was like the painted cover of an
+empty box, straightway he saw another and another and still others, men
+and women both, who were like her, with only the meaning of those who
+never look at the stars, or walk in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">140</a></span> gardens, or think about others
+rather than themselves, or listen to hear what is right for them to do.
+And then he saw that these are many and many, who believe themselves to
+be different from everybody else and who try to make others so, and he
+saw that it would be useless to look further among them for that one
+who had the key for which he sought.</p>
+
+<p>So at last Prince Hesperus turned sadly back toward the palace of the
+princess.</p>
+
+<p>“Alas,” said the prince, “it is for her own happiness that I seek to
+have her like other people. For myself I would love her anyway. But
+yet, what am I to do—for she seems so different that she will never
+believe that I love her!”</p>
+
+<p>It was already late at night when the prince found himself in the
+neighbourhood of the palace, and being tired and travel-worn, he
+resolved to take shelter in the cup of some flower and wait until the
+palace revelries were done. Accordingly he entered the garden of an
+humble cottage and crept within the petals of a wild lily growing in
+the long, untended grass.</p>
+
+<p>He had hardly settled himself to sleep when he heard from the cottage
+the sound of bitter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">141</a></span> crying. Now this is a sound which no fairy will
+ever pass by or ever so much as hear about without trying to comfort,
+and at once Prince Hesperus rose and flew to the sill of an open
+lattice.</p>
+
+<p>He looked in on a poor room, with the meanest furnishings. On a
+comfortless bed lay the father of the house, ill and helpless. His wife
+sat by his side, and the children clung about her, crying with hunger
+and mingling their tears with her own. The man turned and looked at
+her, making a motion to speak, and Prince Hesperus flew into the room
+and alighted on the handle of a great spade, covered with earth, which
+stood in a corner.</p>
+
+<p>“Wife,” the man said, “I’ve brought you little but sorrow and hunger.
+I would have brought you more if I had had better. And now I see you
+starve.”</p>
+
+<p>“I am not <em>too</em> hungry,” the wife said—but the children sobbed.</p>
+
+<p>Prince Hesperus waited not a moment. He flew into the night and away
+toward the palace, and missing the fairy ring where among old oaks the
+fairies were dancing, he reached the palace by an unfrequented path and
+entered a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">142</a></span> disused part of the palace garden. And there, in a corner
+which he had never visited, Prince Hesperus saw a marvellous mass of
+bloom and fruit—poppies and corn, beans and berries, green peas and
+sweet peas, pinks and potatoes, celery and white phlox, melons and
+cardinal flowers—all growing wonderfully together, as it were, hand in
+hand. And above them, in a moon-flower clinging to the wall, sat the
+Princess Romancia, rocking in the wind and brooding upon her garden.</p>
+
+<p>“Come!” cried Prince Hesperus. “There is a thing to do!”</p>
+
+<p>The princess looked at him a little fearfully, but he paid almost no
+attention to her, so absorbed he was in what he wished to have done.</p>
+
+<p>“Hard by is a family,” said the prince, “dying of hunger. Here is food.
+Hale in these idlers dancing in the light of the moon, and let us carry
+the family the means to stay alive.”</p>
+
+<p>Without a word the princess went with him, and they appeared together
+in the fairy ring and haled away the dancers. And when these understood
+the need, they all joined together, fairies, goblin musicians and all,
+and hurried away to the garden of the princess.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">143</a></span>
+They wove a litter of sweet stems and into this they piled all the food
+of the princess’s tending. And when the queen would have had them send
+to the palace kitchen for supplies, the king, who was a wise fairy,
+would not permit it and commanded that all should be done as the prince
+wished. So when the garden was ravaged of its sweets, they all bore
+them away, and trooped to the cottage, and cast them on the threshold.
+And then they perched about the room, or hovered in the path of the
+moonlight to hear what should be said. And Prince Hesperus and Princess
+Romancia listened together upon the handle of the poor man’s spade.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of the gifts the wife sprang up joyfully and cried out to her
+husband, and the children wakened with happy shouts.</p>
+
+<p>“Here is food—food!” they cried. “Oh, it must be from the fairies.”</p>
+
+<p>The sick man looked and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” he said, “the Little Folk have remembered us. They have brought
+us rich store in return for my poor spadeful of earth.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the prince and princess and all the court understood that this
+poor man whom they had helped was that very day labourer who had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">144</a></span>
+come to the christening of the princess. And swift as a moonbeam—and
+not unlike one—Prince Hesperus darted from beside the princess and
+alighted on the man’s pillow.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah,” he cried, “can you not, then, tell me who it is who has the power
+to make one different from everybody else in the world?”</p>
+
+<p>In half delirium the day labourer heard the voice of the prince and
+caught the question. But he did not know that it was the voice of the
+prince, and he fancied it to be the voice of the whole world, as it
+were throbbing with the prince’s question. And he cried out loudly in
+answer:—</p>
+
+<p>“No one has that power! No one is different! Those who seem different
+hold no truth. We are all alike, all of us that live!”</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly the prince turned to the king and the queen and the court.</p>
+
+<p>“The uninvited Human Being,” he cried, “did she say that the princess
+should <em>be</em> different from all the world, or that she should merely
+<em>seem</em> different?”</p>
+
+<p>The queen and the court could not remember, but the king, who was a
+wise fairy, instantly remembered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">145</a></span>
+“She said that she should <em>seem</em> different,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Then the prince laughed out joyfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” he cried, “seem different, indeed! There are many and many who
+may do that. But this man speaks truth and out of his spadeful of earth
+we have learned it,
+<a name="quote" id="quote"></a><ins title="Original has extraneous open quote"><em>We</em></ins><em> are all alike, all of us who
+live!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>With that he grasped his tiny sword and flew to the side of the
+princess and lifted her hand in his. And with a swift, deft stroke he
+cut from her wrist the bracelet that was like a fetter, and he took her
+in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, my princess,” he cried. “You have seemed different from us all
+only because you would have it so!”</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Romancia looked round on the court, and suddenly she saw
+only the friendliness which had always been there if she could have
+believed. She looked on her father and mother, the king and the queen,
+and she saw only tenderness. She looked on the day labourer and his
+family and understood that, fairy and princess though she was, she was
+like them and they were like her. Last, she looked in the face of the
+prince—and she did not look away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">146</a></span>
+Invisibly, as the hours leave a dial, the fairies drifted from the
+little room and back to the fairy ring among the old oaks to dance
+for very joyousness. The labourer and his family, hearing them go,
+were conscious of a faint lifting of the dark, as if morning were
+coming, bringing a new day. And to the Princess Romancia, beside Prince
+Hesperus, the world itself was a new world, where she did not walk
+alone as she had thought, but where all folk who will have it so walk
+together.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">147</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="viii" id="viii"></a>VIII<br />
+<span>TWO FOR THE SHOW</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">First</span> of all there was Every Day, with breakfast, lunch, outdoors,
+dinner, and evenings.</p>
+
+<p>Then there were Sundays, which were quite another kind of time,
+as different as layer cake from sponge cake: With breakfast late,
+and mustn’t-jump-rope, and the living-room somehow different, the
+Out-of-doors moved farther off, our play-house not waiting for us
+but acting busy at something else in which we had no part; the swing
+hanging useless as it did when we were away from home and thought about
+it in the night; bells ringing as if it were <em>their</em> day; until we were
+almost homesick to hear the grocer’s cart rattle behind the white horse.</p>
+
+<p>There were school half holidays when the sun shone as it never shone
+before, and we could not decide how to spend the time, and to look
+ahead seemed a glorious year before dark.</p>
+
+<p>There were the real holidays—Christmas<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">148</a></span> and the Fourth and Birthdays,
+which didn’t seem like days of time at all, but were like fairies of
+time, not living in any clock.</p>
+
+<p>And Company-time, when we were not to go in certain rooms, or sing in
+the hall, and when all downstairs seemed unable to romp with us.</p>
+
+<p>And Vacation-time, when 9 o’clock and 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock meant
+nothing, and the face of the clock never warned or threatened and the
+hands never dragged, and Saturday no longer stood out but sank into
+insignificance, and the days ran like sands.</p>
+
+<p>All these times there were when life grew different and either let us
+in farther than ever before or else left us out altogether. But almost
+the strangest and best of these was house-cleaning time.</p>
+
+<p>Screens out, so that the windows looked like faces and not like masks!
+The couch under the Cooking-apple tree! We used to lie on the couch and
+look up in the boughs and wish that they would leave it there forever.
+What was the rule that made them take it in? Mattresses in the backyard
+to jump on and lie on and stare up from, so differently, into the blue.
+Rugs like rooms, opening out into an adjoining pansy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">149</a></span> bed. Chairs set
+about on the grass, as if at last people had come to understand, as we
+had always understood, that the Outdoors is a real place to be in, and
+not just a place to pass through to get somewhere else. If only, if
+only some day they had brought the piano out on the lawn! To have done
+one’s practising out there, just as if a piano were born, not made!
+But they never did that, and we were thankful enough for the things
+that they did do. When Saturday came, I found with relief that they had
+still the parlour and one bedroom left to do. I had been afraid that by
+then these would be restored to the usual dry and dustless order.</p>
+
+<p>In the open window of the empty sitting-room I was sitting negligently
+that morning, when I saw Mr. Britt going by. He was as old as anyone I
+knew in the world—Mr. Britt must have been fifty. I never thought of
+him as <em>folks</em> at all. There were the other neighbours, all dark-haired
+and quick and busy at the usual human errands; and then there was Mr.
+Britt, leaving his fruit trees and his rose bushes to go down to his
+office in the Court House. He had white hair, a long square white
+beard, and he carried a stick with a crook in the handle. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">150</a></span> watched
+him pityingly. His life was all done, as tidy as a sewed seam, as
+sure as a learned lesson. All lived out, a piece at a time, just as
+I planned mine. How immeasurably long it had taken him; what a slow
+business it must have seemed to him; how very old he was!</p>
+
+<p>At our gate he stopped. Mr. Britt’s face was pink, and there were
+pleasant wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and when he talked, he
+seemed to think about you.</p>
+
+<p>“Moving?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“House-cleaning,” I explained with importance.</p>
+
+<p>“Fine day of it,” he commented and went on. He always sighed a little
+when he spoke, not in sorrow; but in a certain weariness.</p>
+
+<p><em>In forty-two years I should be as old as that.</em> Forty-two years—more
+than five life-times, as I knew them.</p>
+
+<p>I was still looking after him, trying to think it through—a number as
+vast as the sky of stars was vast—when round the corner, across the
+street, the Rodman girls appeared. (“Margaret and Betty Rodman?” my
+mother used to inquire pointedly when I said “the Rodman girls.”) In
+their wake was their little brother, Harold. I hailed them joyously.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">151</a></span>
+“Come on over! It’s house-cleaning.”</p>
+
+<p>“We were,” admitted Betty, as they ran. “We saw the things out in the
+yard, and we asked right off. We can stay a whole hour.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t we get Mary Gilbraith to tell us when it’s an hour?” Margaret
+Amelia suggested as they came in at the gate. “Then we won’t have to
+remember.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Gilbraith stood beating a curtain, and we called to her. She
+nodded her head, wound in a brown veil.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure,” she said. “And don’t you children track up them clean floors
+inside there.”</p>
+
+<p>I glanced over my shoulder into the empty room.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall I get down,” I inquired of my guests, “or will you get up?”</p>
+
+<p>They would get up, and they did so. We three just fitted the sill, with
+Harold looking wistfully upward.</p>
+
+<p>“Go find a nice stick,” Margaret Amelia advised him maternally.</p>
+
+<p>“What’ll we play?” I was pursuing politely. “Pretend?” I intimated.
+Because of course there is nothing that is quite so much fun as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">152</a></span>
+pretend. “Or real?” I conceded the alternative its second place.</p>
+
+<p>“Pretend what?” Betty wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what difference does that make?” I inquired scornfully. “We can
+decide that after.”</p>
+
+<p>However, we duly weighed the respective merits of Lost-in-the-Woods,
+Cave-in-the Middle-of-the-World, and Invisible, a selection always
+involving ceremony.</p>
+
+<p>“Harold can’t play any of them,” Margaret Amelia remembered
+regretfully. “He don’t stay lost nor invisible—he wriggles. And Cave
+scares him.”</p>
+
+<p>We considered what to do with Harold, and at last mine was the
+inspiration—no doubt because I was on the home field. In a fence
+corner I had a play-house, roofed level with the fence top. From my
+sand-pile (sand boxes came later—mine was a corner of the garden
+sacred to me) we brought tin pails of earth which we emptied about the
+little boy, gradually covering his fat legs and nicely packing his
+plaid skirt. Then we got him a baking-powder can cover for a cutter and
+a handleless spoon, and we went away. He was infinitely content.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">153</a></span>
+“Makin’ a meat pie,” he confided, as we left him.</p>
+
+<p>Free, we were drawn irresistibly back to the out-of-doors furniture. We
+jumped in the middle of the mattresses lying in the grass, we hung the
+comforters and quilts in long overlapping rows on the clothes line and
+ran from one end to the other within that tent-like enclosure. Margaret
+Amelia arranged herself languidly on the Brussels couch that ordinarily
+stood in the upstairs hall piled with leather-bound reports, but now,
+scales falling from our eyes, we saw to be the bank of a stream whereon
+Maid Marian reclined; but while Betty and I were trying to decide which
+should be Robin Hood and which Alan-a-dale (alas, for our chivalry ...
+we were both holding out to be Robin) Maid Marian settled it by dancing
+down the stair carpet which made a hallway half across the lawn. We
+followed her. The terminus brought us back to the parlour window. We
+stepped on the coping and stared inside. This was our parlour! Yet
+it looked no more like the formal room which we seldom entered than
+a fairy looks like a mortal. Many and many a time an empty room is
+so much more a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">154</a></span> suggestive, haunted, beckoning place than ever it
+becomes after its furniture gets it into bondage. Rooms are often free,
+beautiful creatures before they are saddled and bridled with alien
+lives and with upholstery, and hitched for lumbering, permanent uses. I
+felt this vaguely even then.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s like the cloth in the store,” I observed, balancing on my stomach
+on the sill. “It’s heaps prettier before it’s made up into clothes.”</p>
+
+<p>“How funny,” said Margaret Amelia. “I like the trimming on, and the
+pretty buttons.”</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s play,” I said hurriedly; for I had seen in her eyes that look
+which always comes into eyes whose owners have just called an idea
+“funny.”</p>
+
+<p>“Very well. But,” said Betty, frankly, “I’m awful sick of playing
+Pretend. You always want to play that. We played that last time anyhow.
+Let’s play Store. Let’s play,” she said, with sudden zest, “Furniture
+Store, outdoors.”</p>
+
+<p>The whole lawn became the ground floor for our shop. Forthwith we
+arranged the aisles of chairs, stopping to sit in this one and that “to
+taste the difference.” To sit in the patent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">155</a></span> upholstered rocker, close
+to the flowering currant bush fragrant with spicy, yellow buds was like
+being somewhere else.</p>
+
+<p>“This looks like the pictures of greenhouses,” said Margaret Amelia,
+dragging a willow chair to the Bridal Wreath at the fork in the brick
+walk. She idled there for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“Emily Broom says that when they moved she rode right through town on
+their velvet lounge on the dray,” she volunteered.</p>
+
+<p>We pictured it mutely. Something like that had been a dream of mine.
+Now and then, I had walked backward on the street to watch a furniture
+wagon delivering a new chair that rocked idle and unoccupied in the
+box. I always marvelled at the unimaginativeness of the driver which
+kept him on the wagon seat.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve never moved,” I confessed regretfully.</p>
+
+<p>“We did,” said Betty, “but they piled everything up so good there
+wasn’t anything left to sit on. I rode with the driver—but his seat
+wasn’t very high,” she added, less in the interest of truth than with a
+lingering resentment.</p>
+
+<p>“Stitchy Branchett told me,” contributed Margaret Amelia, “once he set
+on the top step of the step ladder on one of their dray loads.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">156</a></span>
+“I don’t believe it,” I announced flatly. “It’d tip and pitch him off.”</p>
+
+<p>“He <em>said</em> he did,” Margaret Amelia held. “Betty heard him. Didn’t he,
+Betty? Who I don’t believe is Joe Richmond. He says he went to sleep on
+a mattress on the dray when they moved. He couldn’t of.”</p>
+
+<p>“Course he couldn’t of,” we all affirmed.</p>
+
+<p>“Delia says they’ve moved six times that she can remember of and she’s
+rode on every load,” I repeated.</p>
+
+<p>We all looked enviously across at Delia’s house. Then, moved by
+a common impulse, we scrambled back to make the most of our own
+advantages, such as they were.</p>
+
+<p>At last the ground floor of the furniture store was all arranged, and
+the two show windows set with the choicest pieces to face the street.
+And when we were ready to open the place to the general public, we sat
+on the edge of the well curb and surveyed our results.</p>
+
+<p>“Now let’s start,” said Margaret Amelia.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant—the precision with which these things happen is almost
+conscious—Mary Gilbraith briefly put her head out the kitchen window.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">157</a></span>
+“It’s just edgin’ on ’leven,” she announced. “You children keep your
+feet off them mattresses.”</p>
+
+<p>We stared at one another. This was incredible. Margaret Amelia and
+Betty had just come. We had hardly tasted what the morning might have
+held. Our place of business was only at this moment ready for us. We
+had just meant to begin.</p>
+
+<p>There was no appeal. We went down the garden path for Harold. He sat
+where we had left him, somewhat drowsy in the warm sun, patting an
+enormous mound of moist earth. Busy with our own wrongs, we picked him
+up and stood him on his feet without warning him. An indignant roar
+broke from him.</p>
+
+<p>“Just goin’ frost my meat pie!” he wailed. “Wiv chocolate on!”</p>
+
+<p>Some stirring of pity for our common plight may have animated us—I do
+not remember. But he was hurried off. I went with them to the fence,
+gave them last tag as became an hostess, stood on the gate as it swung
+shut, experienced the fine jar and bang of its closing, and then hung
+wistfully across it, looking for the unknown.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">158</a></span>
+The elm and maple shadows moved pleasantly on the cream-coloured brick
+walk whose depths of tone were more uneven than the shadows. An oriole
+was calling, hanging back downward from a little bough. Somebody’s dog
+came by, looked up at me, wagged his tail, and hurried on about his
+business. Looking after him, I saw Mr. Britt coming slowly home with
+his mail. At our gate he stopped.</p>
+
+<p>“Playing something?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Welcoming any sympathy, I told him how we had just got ready to play
+when it was time to stop. He nodded with some unexpected understanding,
+closing his eyes briefly.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s it,” he said. “We all just get ready when it’s time to stop.
+Fine day of it,” he added, and sighed and went on.</p>
+
+<p>I stared after him. Could it be possible that his life had not seemed
+long to him? That he felt as if he had hardly begun? I dismissed this
+as utterly improbable. Fifty years!</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">159</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="ix" id="ix"></a>IX<br />
+<span>NEXT DOOR</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> house next door had been vacant for two months when the New Family
+moved in. We had looked forward with excitement, not unmodified by
+unconscious aversion, to the arrival of the New Family.</p>
+
+<p>“Have they any girls?” we had inquired when the To Rent sign had come
+down.</p>
+
+<p>They had, it appeared, one girl. We saw her, with wavy hair worn “let
+down” in the morning, though we ourselves wore let-down hair only for
+occasions, pig-tails denoting mornings. She had on new soles—we saw
+them showing clean as she was setting her feet daintily; and when we,
+who were walking the fence between the two houses, crossed glances with
+her, we all looked instantly away, and though it was with regret that
+we saw her put into the ’bus next day to go, we afterward learned, to
+spend the Spring with her grandmother in a dry climate,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">160</a></span> we still felt
+a certain satisfaction that our social habits were not to be disquieted.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing at all had been suspected of a New Boy. Into that experience I
+came without warning.</p>
+
+<p>I was sitting on the flat roof of my play-house in the fence corner,
+laboriously writing on the weathered boards with a bit of a picket,
+which, as everybody knows, will make very clear brown letters, when the
+woodshed door of the house next door opened, and the New Boy came out.
+He came straight up to the fence and looked up at me, the sun shining
+in his eyes beneath the rimless plush cap which he was still wearing.
+He was younger than I, so I was not too afraid of him.</p>
+
+<p>“What you got?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>I showed him my writing material.</p>
+
+<p>“I wrote on a window with a diamond ring a’ready,” he submitted.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard of this, but I had never wholly credited it and I said
+so. Besides, it would wear the ring out and who wanted to wear out a
+diamond ring to write on a window?</p>
+
+<p>“It don’t wear it out,” the New Boy said. “It can keep right on writing
+forever and ever.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">161</a></span>
+“Nothing can keep right on forever,” I contended.</p>
+
+<p>He cast about for an argument.</p>
+
+<p>“Trees does,” he produced it.</p>
+
+<p>I glanced up at them. They certainly seemed to bear him out. I decided
+to abandon the controversy, and I switched with some abruptness to
+a subject not unconnected with trees, and about which I had often
+wondered.</p>
+
+<p>“If you was dirt,” I observed, “how could you decide to be into a
+potato when you could be into an apple just as well?”</p>
+
+<p>The New Boy was plainly taken aback. Here he was, as I see now, doing
+his best to be friendly and to make conversation personal, to say
+nothing of his having condescended to parley with a girl at all, and I
+was rewarding him with an abstraction.</p>
+
+<p>Said he: “Huh?”</p>
+
+<p>“If you was dirt—” I began a little doubtfully, but still sticking to
+the text.</p>
+
+<p>“I ain’t dirt,” denied the New Boy, with some heat.</p>
+
+<p>“I says, if you <em>was</em> dirt—” I tried to tell him, in haste and some
+discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>He climbed down from the fence on which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">162</a></span> had been socially
+contriving to stick, though his was the “plain” side.</p>
+
+<p>“There ain’t any girl,” he observed with dignity, “going to call me
+dirt, nor call me if-I-was-dirt, either,” and stalked back into the
+woodshed.</p>
+
+<p>I looked after him in the utmost distress. I had been dealing in what I
+had considered the amenities, and it had come to this. Already the New
+Boy hated me.</p>
+
+<p>I slipped to the ground and waited, watching through the cracks in the
+fence. Ages passed. At length I heard him call his dog and go whistling
+down the street. I climbed on the fence and sat looking over in the
+deserted garden.</p>
+
+<p>Round the corner of the house next door somebody came. I saw a long,
+gray plaid shawl, with torn and flapping tassels, pinned about a small
+figure, with long legs. As she put her hand on the latch, she flashed
+me her smile, and it was Mary Elizabeth. She went immediately inside
+the shed door, and left me staring. What was she doing there? What
+unexpected places I was always seeing her. Why should she go in the
+woodshed of the New Family whom we didn’t even know ourselves?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">163</a></span>
+After due thought, I dropped to the other side of the fence, and
+proceeded to the woodshed door myself. It was unlatched, and as I
+peered in, I caught the sweet, moist smell of green wood, like the
+cool breath of the wood yard, where I had first seen her. When my
+eyes became used to the dimness, I perceived Mary Elizabeth standing
+at the end of a pile of wood, of the sort which we used to denominate
+“chunks,” which are what folk now call fireplace logs, though they are
+not properly fireplace logs at all—only “chunks” for sitting-room
+stoves—and trying to look meet to new estates. They were evenly piled,
+and they presented a wonderful presence, much more human than a wall.</p>
+
+<p>“See,” said Mary Elizabeth, absorbedly, “every end of one is pictures.
+Here’s a wheel with a wing on, and here’s a griffin eating a lemon.”</p>
+
+<p>I stared over her shoulder, fascinated. There they were. And there were
+grapes and a chandelier and a crooked street....</p>
+
+<p>Some moments later we were aware that the kitchen door had opened, and
+that somebody was standing there. It was the woman of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">164</a></span> New Family,
+with a black veil wound round her head and the ends dangling. She shook
+a huge purple dust-cloth, and I do not seem to recall that there was
+anything else to her, save her face and veil and the cloth.</p>
+
+<p>“Now then!” she said briskly, and in a tone of dreadful warning. “<em>Now</em>
+then!”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth turned in the utmost eagerness and contrition.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” she said, “I come to see about the work.”</p>
+
+<p>The New Family Woman towered at us from the top of the three steps.</p>
+
+<p>“How much work,” she inquired with majesty, “do you think I’d get out
+of you, young miss, at this rate?”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth drew nearer to her and stood before her, down in the
+chips, in the absurd shawl.</p>
+
+<p>“If you’ll leave me come,” she said earnestly, “I’ll promise not to see
+pictures. Well,” she added conscientiously, “I’ll promise not to stop
+to look at ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>How much weight this would have carried, I do not know; but at that
+moment the woman chanced to touch with her foot a mouse-trap that
+stood on the top step, and it “sprung” and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">165</a></span> shed its cheese. In an
+instant Mary Elizabeth had deftly reset and restored it. This made an
+impression on the arbiter.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re kind of a handy little thing, I see,” she said. “And of course
+you’re <em>all</em> lazy, for that matter. And I do need somebody. Well, I’ve
+got a woman coming for to-day. You can begin in the morning. Dishes,
+vegetables, and general cleaning, and anything else I think you can do.
+Board and clothes only, mind you—and <em>them</em> only as long as you suit.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes’m. No’m. Yes’m.” Mary Elizabeth tried to agree right and left.</p>
+
+<p>Outside I skipped in the sun.</p>
+
+<p>“We’re going to be next-yard neighbours,” I cried, and that reminded
+me of the New Boy. I told her about him as we went round by the gate,
+there being no cross piece for a foothold on that side the fence.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” said Mary Elizabeth, “I know him. He’s drove me home by my
+braids. He doesn’t mean anything.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” I said earnestly, “when you get a chance, you tell him that I
+wasn’t calling him dirt. I says if he <em>was</em> dirt, how could he tell to
+be a potato or an apple.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">166</a></span>
+Mary Elizabeth nodded. “Lots of boys pretend mad,” she said
+philosophically, “to get you to run after them.”</p>
+
+<p>This was new to me. Could it be possible that you had to imagine
+folks, and what they really meant, as well as tending to all the other
+imagining?</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t you stay over?” I extended hospitality to Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>She could “stay over,” it seemed, and without asking. This freedom of
+hers used to fill me with longing. To “stay over” without asking, to go
+down town, to eat unexpected offerings of food, to climb a new tree,
+as Mary Elizabeth could do, and all without asking! It was almost like
+being boys.</p>
+
+<p>Now that Mary Elizabeth was to be a neighbour, a new footing was
+established. This I did not reason about, nor did I wonder why this
+footing might not be everybody’s footing. We merely set to work on the
+accepted basis.</p>
+
+<p>This comprised: Name, including middle name, if any, and for whom
+named; age, and birthday, and particulars about the recent or
+approaching birthday; brothers and sisters, together with their names,
+ages, and birthdays;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">167</a></span> birthstones; grade; did we comb our own hair;
+voluntary information concerning tastes in flowers, colours, and food;
+and finally an examination and trying on of each other’s rings. The
+stone had come out of Mary Elizabeth’s ring, and she had found a clear
+pink pebble to insert in its place. She had, she said, grated the
+pebble on a brick to make it fit and she herself thought that it looked
+better than the one that she had lost, “but,” she added modestly, “I
+s’pose it can’t be.”</p>
+
+<p>Then came the revelation. To finish comparing notes we sat down
+together in my swing. And partly because, when I made a new friend, I
+was nervously eager to give her the best I had and at once, and partly
+because I was always wanting to see if somebody <em>would</em> understand,
+and chiefly because I never could learn wisdom, I looked up in the
+apple tree, now forsaken of all its pink, and fallen in a great green
+stillness, and I told her about my lady in the tree. I told her,
+expecting now no more than I had received from Delia and the Eversley
+girls. But Mary Elizabeth looked up and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I know,” she said. “I’ve seen lots of ’em. They’s a lady in the willow
+out in our alley. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">168</a></span> see her when I empty the ashes and I pour ’em so’s
+they won’t blow on her.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked at her speechlessly. To this day I can remember how the little
+curls were caught up above Mary Elizabeth’s ear that morning. Struck by
+my silence she turned and regarded me. I think I must have blushed and
+stammered like a boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Can <em>you</em> see them too?” I asked. “In trees and places?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why, yes,” she said in surprise. “Can’t everybody?”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly I was filled with a great sense of protection for Mary
+Elizabeth. I felt incalculably older. She had not yet found out, and I
+must never let her know, that everybody does not see all that there is
+to be seen in the world!</p>
+
+<p>One at a time I brought out my treasures that morning and shared them
+with her, as treasures; and she brought out hers as matters of course.
+I remember that I told her about the Theys that lived in our house.
+They were very friendly and wistful. They never presumed or frightened
+one or came in the room when anyone was there. But the minute folk
+left the room—ah, then! They slipped out from everywhere and did
+their living. I was always trying to catch them. I would leave a room
+innocently, and then whirl and fling it open in the hope of surprising
+them. But always They were too quick for me. In the times when the
+family was in the rooms and They were waiting for us to go, They used
+to watch us, still friendly and wistful, but also a little critical.
+Sometimes a whole task, or a mood, could be got through pleasantly
+because They were looking on.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="but" id="but"></a>
+<img src="images/i_168fp.jpg" width="400" height="525" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">“<span class="smcap">But the minute folk left the room—ah then!</span>”</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">169</a></span>
+Mary Elizabeth nodded. “They like our parlour best,” she said. “They
+ain’t any furniture in there. They don’t come much in the kitchen.”</p>
+
+<p>It was the same at our house. They were always lurking in the curtained
+parlour, but the cheery, busy kitchen seldom knew them—except when one
+went out for a drink of water late at night. Then They barely escaped
+one.</p>
+
+<p>How she understood! Delia I loved with all the loyalties, but I could
+not help remembering a brief conversation that I had once held with her.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you have Theys at your house?” I had asked her, at the beginning of
+our acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">170</a></span>
+“Yes,” she admitted readily. “Company all this week. From Oregon. They
+do their hairs on kids.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t mean them,” I explained. “I mean Theys, that live in between
+your rooms.”</p>
+
+<p>“We don’t let mice get in <em>our</em> house,” she replied loftily. “Only
+sometimes one gets in the woodshed. Do you use Choke-’em traps, or
+Catch-’em-alive traps and have the cat there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Catch-them-alive-and-let-them-out-in-the-alley traps,” I told her, and
+gave up hope, I remember, and went on grating more sugar-stone for the
+mud-pie icing.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth and I made mud pies that morning too, but all the time
+we made them we pretended. Not House-keep, or Store, or Bakery, or
+Church-sale—none of these pale pretendings to which I had chiefly
+been bound, save when I played alone. But now every pie and cake
+that we finished we two carried carefully and laid here and there,
+under raspberry bushes, in the crotch of the apple tree, on the
+wood-chopper’s block.</p>
+
+<p>“For Them to get afterwards,” we said briefly. We did not explain—I
+do not think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">171</a></span> that we could have explained. And we knew nothing of the
+old nights in the motherland when from cottage supper tables scraps of
+food were flung through open doors for One Waiting Without. But this
+business made an even more excellent thing of mud-pie baking, always a
+delectable pastime.</p>
+
+<p>When the noon whistle was blowing up at the brick yard, a shadow
+darkened our pine board. It was the New Boy. One of his cheeks
+protruded extravagantly. Silently he held out to me a vast pink
+substance of rock-like hardness, impaled on a stick. Then, with an
+obvious effort, more spiritual than physical, he extracted from his
+pocket a third of the kind, for Mary Elizabeth, on whose presence he
+had not counted. We accepted gratefully, I in the full spirit of the
+offer. Three minutes later he and I were at our respective dinner
+tables, trying, I suppose, to discuss this surreptitious first course
+simultaneously with our soup; and Mary Elizabeth, on her way home, was
+blissfully partaking of her <em>hors d’œuvre</em>, unviolated by any soup.</p>
+
+<p>“What are the new children like, I wonder?” said Somebody Grown. “I see
+there are two. I don’t know a thing about the people, but we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">172</a></span> can’t
+call till the woman at least gets her curtains up.”</p>
+
+<p>I pondered this. “Why?” I ventured at last.</p>
+
+<p>“Because she wouldn’t want to see us,” was the reply.</p>
+
+<p>Were curtains, then, so important that one might neither call nor be
+called on without them? What other possible explanation could there be?
+Perhaps Mary Elizabeth’s mother had no curtains and that was why our
+mothers did not know her.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary Elizabeth is going to help do the work for the New Family, and
+live there,” I said at last. “Won’t it be nice to have her to play
+with?”</p>
+
+<p>“You must be very kind to her,” somebody said.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Kind to her!</em>” It was my first horrified look into the depths of the
+social condescensions. <em>Kind to her</em>—when I remembered what we shared!
+I thought of saying hotly that she was my best friend. But I was
+silent. There was, after all, no way to make anybody understand what
+had opened to me that morning.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">173</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="x" id="x"></a>X<br />
+<span>WHAT’S PROPER</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Delia</span> and Calista and Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman I loved with
+devotion. And Mary Elizabeth I likewise loved with devotion. Therefore,
+the fact that my four friends would not, in the language of the
+wise and grown world, “receive” Mary Elizabeth was to me bitter and
+unbelievable.</p>
+
+<p>This astounding situation, more than intimated on the day of the
+picnic, had its confirmation a few days after the advent of Mary
+Elizabeth in the New Family, when the six of us were seated on the
+edge of the board walk before our house. It was the middle of a June
+afternoon, a joyous, girlish day, with sun and wind in that feminine
+mood which is the frequent inheritance of all created things.</p>
+
+<p>“I could ’most spread this day on my bread like honey, and eat it
+up, and not know the difference,” said Mary Elizabeth, idly. “The
+queen’s honey—the queen’s honey—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">174</a></span> queen’s honey,” she repeated
+luxuriously, looking up into the leaves.</p>
+
+<p>Delia leaned forward. It particularly annoyed her to have Mary
+Elizabeth in this mood.</p>
+
+<p>“One, two, three, four, five of us,” Delia said, deliberately omitting
+Mary Elizabeth as, for no reason, she counted us.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth, released from tasks for an hour or two before time to
+“help with the supper,” gave no sign that she understood, save that
+delicate flush of hers which I knew.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she assented lazily, “one, two, three, four, five of us—” and
+she so contrived that five was her own number, and no one could tell
+whom of us she had omitted.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s play something,” I hurriedly intervened. “Let’s play Banquet.”</p>
+
+<p>Action might have proved the solvent, but I had made an ill-starred
+choice. For having selected the rectangle of lawn where the feast was
+to be spread, Mary Elizabeth promptly announced that she had never
+heard of a banquet for five people, and that we must have more.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve got six,” corrected Delia, unwarily.</p>
+
+<p>“Five,” Mary Elizabeth persisted tranquilly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">175</a></span> “and it’s not enough. We
+ought to have thirty.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where you going to get your thirty?” demanded the exasperated Delia.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said Mary Elizabeth, “<em>that’s</em> always easy!” And told us.</p>
+
+<p>The king would sit at the head, with his prime minister and a
+lord or two. At the foot would be the queen with her principal
+ladies-in-waiting (at <em>this</em> end, so as to leave room for their
+trains). In between would be the fool, the discoverer of the new land,
+the people from the other planets, us, and the animals.</p>
+
+<p>“‘The animals!’” burst out Delia. “Whoever heard of animals at the
+table?”</p>
+
+<p>Oh, but it was the animals that the banquet was for. They were talking
+animals, and everyone was scrambling to entertain them, and every place
+in which they ate they changed their shapes and their skins.</p>
+
+<p>“I never heard of such a game,” said Delia, outright, already
+sufficiently grown-up to regard this as a reason.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s not play it,” said Margaret Amelia Rodman, languidly, and,
+though Delia had the most emphasis among us, Margaret Amelia was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">176</a></span> our
+leader, and we abandoned the game. I cannot recall why Margaret Amelia
+was our leader, unless it was because she had so many hair-ribbons and,
+when we had pin fairs, always came with a whole paper, whereas the rest
+of us merely had some collected in a box, or else rows torn off. But I
+suppose that we must have selected her for some potentiality; or else
+it was that a talent for tyranny was hers, since this, like the habit
+of creeping on all fours and other survivals of prehistoric man, will
+often mark one of the early stages of individual growth.</p>
+
+<p>This time Calista was peace-maker.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s go for a walk,” she said. “We can do that before supper.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll have to be back in time to help <em>get</em> supper, won’t you?” Delia
+asked Mary Elizabeth pointedly.</p>
+
+<p>Again Mary Elizabeth was unperturbed, save for that faint flush.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she said, “I will. So let’s hurry.”</p>
+
+<p>We ran toward the school ground, by common consent the destination for
+short walks, with supper imminent, as Prospect Hill was dedicated to
+real walks, with nothing pressing upon us.</p>
+
+<p>“It says ‘Quick, quick, quick, quick,’” Mary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">177</a></span> Elizabeth cried, dragging
+a stick on the pickets of, so to say, a passing fence.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, that’s nothing but the stick noise hitting on the fence noise,”
+Delia explained loftily.</p>
+
+<p>“Which makes the loudest noise—the stick or the fence?” Mary Elizabeth
+put it to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Why—” said Delia, and Mary Elizabeth and I both laughed, like little
+demons, and made our sticks say, “Quick, quick, quick, quick” as far as
+the big post, that was so like a man standing there to stop us.</p>
+
+<p>“See the poor tree. The walk’s stepping on its feet!” cried Mary
+Elizabeth when we passed the Branchett’s great oak, that had forced
+up the bricks of the walk. (They must already have been talking of
+taking it down, that hundred-year oak, to preserve the dignity of the
+side-walk, for they did so shortly after.)</p>
+
+<p>This time it was Margaret Amelia who revolted.</p>
+
+<p>“Trees can’t walk,” she said. “There aren’t any <em>feet</em> there.”</p>
+
+<p>I took a hand. “You don’t know sure,” I reminded her. “When it’s dark,
+maybe they do walk. I’ll ask it.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">178</a></span>
+By the time I had done whispering to the bark, Delia said she was going
+to tell her mother. “Such <em>lies</em>,” she put it bluntly. “You’ll never
+write a book, I don’t care what you say. You got to tell the truth to
+write books.”</p>
+
+<p>“Everybody that tells the truth don’t write a book,” I contended—but
+sobered. I wanted passionately to write a book. What if this business
+of pretending, which Delia called lies should be in the way of truthful
+book-writing? But the habit was too strong for me. In that very moment
+we came upon a huge new ant-hill.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t step on that ant-hill. See all the ants—they say to step over
+it!” I cried, and pushed Delia round it with some violence.</p>
+
+<p>“Well—what makes you always so—<em>religious!</em>” she burst out, at the
+end of her patience.</p>
+
+<p>I was still hotly denying this implication when we entered the school
+yard, and broke into running; for no reason, save that entrances and
+beginnings always made us want to run and shout.</p>
+
+<p>The school yard, quite an ordinary place during school hours, became
+at the end of school a place no longer to be shunned, but wholly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">179</a></span>
+desirable. Next to the wood yard, it was the most mysterious place
+that we knew. In the school yard were great cords of wood, suitable
+for hiding; a basement door, occasionally left open, from which at any
+moment the janitor might appear to drive us away; a band-stand, covered
+with names and lacking enough boards so that one might climb up without
+use of the steps; a high-board fence on which one always longed to
+walk at recess; a high platform from which one had unavailingly pined
+to jump; outside banisters down which, in school-time, no one might
+slide, trees which no one might climb, corner brick-work affording
+excellent steps, which, then, none might scale; broad outside window
+ledges on which none might sit, loose bricks in the walks ripe for
+the prying-up, but penalty attended; a pump on whose iron handle the
+lightest of us might ride save that, in school-time, this was forbidden
+too. In school-time this yard, so rich in possibilities, was compact
+of restrictions. None of these things might be done. Once a boy had
+been expelled for climbing on the schoolhouse roof; and thereupon his
+father, a painter by trade, had taken the boy to work with him, and
+when<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">180</a></span> we saw him in overalls wheeling his father’s cart, we were told
+that <em>that</em> was what came of disobedience, although this boy might,
+easily no doubt, otherwise have become President of the United States.</p>
+
+<p>But after school! Toward supper-time, or in vacation-time, we used to
+love to linger about the yard and snatch at these forbidden pleasures.
+That is, the girls loved it. The boys had long ago had them all, and
+were off across the tracks on new adventures unguessed of us.</p>
+
+<p>If anybody found us here—we were promptly driven off. The principal
+did this as a matter of course, but the janitor had the same power
+and much more emphasis. If one of the board was seen passing, we hid
+behind everything and, as we were never clear just who belonged to the
+board, we hid when nearly all grown-folk passed. That the building and
+grounds were ours, paid for by our father’s taxes, and that the school
+officials and even the tyrannical janitor were town servants to help us
+to make good use of our own, no more occurred to us than it occurred
+to us to find a ring in the ground, lift it, and descend steps. Nor
+as much, for we were always looking for a ring to lift. To be sure,
+we might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">181</a></span> easily fall into serious mischief in this stolen use of our
+property; but that it was the function of one of these grown-ups, whom
+we were forever dodging, to be there with us, paid by the town to play
+with us, was as wild an expectation as that fairies should arrive with
+golden hoops and balls and wings. Wilder, for we were always expecting
+the fairies and, secretly, the wings.</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon we did almost all these forbidden things—swings and
+seesaws and rings would have done exactly as well, only these had
+not been provided—and then we went to rest in the band-stand. Mary
+Elizabeth and I were feeling somewhat subdued—neither of us shone much
+in feats of skill, and here Delia and Margaret Amelia easily put us in
+our proper places. Calista was not daring, but she was a swift runner,
+and this entitled her to respect. Mary Elizabeth and I were usually
+the first ones caught, and the others were not above explaining to us
+frankly that this was why we preferred to play Pretend.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s tell a story—you start it, Mary Elizabeth,” I proposed, anxious
+for us two to return to standing, for in collaborations of this kind
+Mary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">182</a></span> Elizabeth and I frankly shone—and the wish to shine, like the
+wish to cry out, is among the primitive phases of individual growth.</p>
+
+<p>“Let Margaret Amelia start it,” Delia tried to say, but already the
+story was started, Mary Elizabeth leaning far back, and beginning to
+braid and unbraid her long hair—not right away to the top of the
+braid, which was a serious matter and not to be lightly attempted with
+heavy hair, but just near the curling end.</p>
+
+<p>“Once,” she said, “a big gold sun was going along up in the sky,
+wondering what in the world—no, what in All-of-it to do with himself.
+For he was all made and done, nice and bright and shiny, and he wanted
+a place to be. So he knocked at all the worlds and said, ‘Don’t you
+want to hire a sun to do your urrants, take care of your garden, and
+behave like a fire and like a lamp?’ But all the worlds didn’t want
+him, because they all had engaged a sun first and they could only
+use one apiece, account of the climate. So one morning—he <em>knew</em> it
+was morning because he was shining, and when it was night he never
+shone—one morning....”</p>
+
+<p>“Now leave somebody else,” Delia suggested restlessly. “Leave Margaret
+Amelia tell.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">183</a></span>
+So we turned to her. Margaret Amelia considered solemnly—perhaps it
+was her faculty for gravity that made us always look up to her—and
+took up the tale:</p>
+
+<p>“One morning he met a witch. And he said, ‘Witch, I wish you
+would—would give me something to eat. I’m very hungry.’ So the witch
+took him to her kitchen and gave him a bowl of porridge, and it was hot
+and burned his mouth, and he asked for a drink of water, and—and—”</p>
+
+<p>“What was the use of having her a witch if <em>that</em> was all he was going
+to ask her?” demanded Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>“They <em>always</em> have witches in the best stories,” Margaret Amelia
+contended, “and anyway, that’s all I’m going to tell.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia took up the tale uninvited.</p>
+
+<p>“And he got his drink of water, pumped up polite by the witch herself,
+and she was going to put a portion in it. But while she was looking in
+the top drawer for the portion, the sun went away. And—”</p>
+
+<p>This time it was I who intervened.</p>
+
+<p>“‘Portion!’” I said with superiority. “Who ever heard of anybody
+drinking a <em>portion</em>? That word is <em>potient</em>.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">184</a></span>
+Delia was plainly taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re thinking of long division,” she said feebly.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m thinking of ‘Romeo and Juliet,’” I responded with dignity. “They
+had one, in the tomb, where Tybalt, all bloody—”</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t say that one—don’t say it!” cried Margaret Amelia. “I can see
+that one awful after the light is out. Go on, somebody, quick.”</p>
+
+<p>To take up her share of the story, Betty Rodman refused, point-blank. I
+think that her admission to our group must have been principally on the
+credentials of sistership to one of us, a basis at once pathetic and
+lovely.</p>
+
+<p>“I never can think of anything to have happen,” Betty complained, “and
+if I make something happen, then it ends up the story.”</p>
+
+<p>Calista had a nail in her shoe, and was too much absorbed in pounding
+it down with a stone to be approached; so, when we had all minutely
+examined the damage which the nail had wrought, it was my turn to take
+up the tale. And then the thing happened which was always happening
+to me: I could think of nothing to have the story do. At night, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">185</a></span>
+when I was alone, I could dream out the most fascinating adventures,
+but with expectant faces—or a clean pad—before me, I was dumb and
+powerless.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t feel like telling one just now,” said I, the proposer of the
+game, and went on digging leaves out of a crevice in the rotting rail.
+So Mary Elizabeth serenely took up the tale where she had left it.</p>
+
+<p>“One morning he looked over a high sky mountain—that’s what suns like
+to do best because it is so becoming—and he shone in a room of the sky
+where a little black star was sleeping. And he thought he would ask it
+what to do. So he said to it, ‘Little Black Star, where shall I be, now
+that I am all done and finished, nice and shiny?’ And the Little Black
+Star said: ‘You’re not done. What made you think you were done? Hardly
+anybody is ever done. I’ll tell you what to be. Be like a carriage
+and take all us little dark stars in, and whirl and whirl for about a
+million years, and make us all get bright too, and <em>then</em> maybe you’ll
+be a true sun—but not all done, even then.’ So that’s what he decided
+to do, and he’s up there now, only you can’t see him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">186</a></span> because he’s so
+far, and our sun is so bright, and he’s whirling and whirling, and lots
+more like him, getting to be made.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia followed Mary Elizabeth’s look into the blue.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t believe it,” said she. “The sun is biggest and the moon is
+next. How could there be any other sun? And it don’t whirl. It don’t
+even rise and set. It stands still. Miss Messmore said so.”</p>
+
+<p>We looked at Mary Elizabeth, probably I alone having any impulse to
+defend her. And we became aware that she was quite white and trembling.
+In the same moment we understood that we were hearing something which
+we had been hearing without knowing that we heard. It was a thin,
+wavering strain of singing, in a man’s voice. We scrambled up, and
+looked over the edge of the band-stand. Coming unevenly down the broken
+brick walk that cut the schoolhouse grounds was Mary Elizabeth’s
+father. His hat was gone. It was he who was singing. He looked as he
+had looked that first day that I had seen him in the wood yard. We knew
+what was the matter. And all of us unconsciously did the cruel thing of
+turning and staring at Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">187</a></span>
+In a moment she was over the side of the band-stand and running to
+him. She took him by the hand, and we saw that she meant to lead him
+home. Her little figure looked very tiny beside his gaunt frame, in its
+loosely hanging coat. I remember how the sun was pouring over them, and
+over the brilliant green beyond where blackbirds were walking. I have
+no knowledge of what made me do it—perhaps it was merely an attitude,
+created by the afternoon, of standing up for Mary Elizabeth no matter
+what befell; or it may have been a child’s crude will to challenge
+things; at any rate, without myself really deciding it, I suddenly took
+the way that she had taken, and caught up with the two.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary Elizabeth,” I meant to say, “I’m going.”</p>
+
+<p>But in fact I said nothing, and only kept along beside her. She looked
+at me mutely, and made a motion to me to turn back. When her father
+took our hands and stumblingly ran with us, I heartily wished that I
+had turned back. But nearly all the way he went peaceably enough. Long
+before we reached their home across the tracks, however, I heard the
+six o’clock whistles<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">188</a></span> blow, and pictured the wrath of the mistress of
+the New Family when Mary Elizabeth had not returned in time to “help
+with the supper.” Very likely now they would not let her stay, and this
+new companionship of ours would have to end. Mary Elizabeth’s home
+was on the extreme edge of the town, and ordinarily I was not allowed
+to cross the tracks. Mary Elizabeth might even move away—that had
+happened to some of us, and the night had descended upon such as these
+and we had never heard of them again: Hattie Schenck, whom I had loved
+with unequalled devotion, where, for example, was she? Was it, then, to
+be the same with Mary Elizabeth?</p>
+
+<p>Her mother saw us coming. She hurried down to the gateway—the gate
+was detached and lying in the weeds within—and even then I was
+struck by the way of maternity with which she led her husband to the
+house. I remember her as large-featured, with the two bones of her
+arms sharply defined by a hollow running from wrist to elbow, and she
+constantly held her face as if the sun were shining in her eyes, but
+there was no sun shining there. And somehow, at the gate she had a
+way of receiving him, and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">189</a></span> taking him with her. Hardly anything
+was said. The worst of it was that no one had to explain anything.
+Two of the little children ran away and hid. Someone dodged behind an
+open door. The man’s wife led him to the broken couch, and he lay down
+there like a little child. Standing in the doorway of that forlorn,
+disordered, ill-smelling room, I first dimly understood what I never
+have forgotten: That the man was not poor because he drank, as the
+village thought, but that he drank because he was poor. Instead of the
+horror at a drunken man which the village had laid it upon me to feel,
+I suddenly saw Mary Elizabeth’s father as her mother saw him when she
+folded her gingham apron and spread it across his shoulders and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Poor lad.”</p>
+
+<p>And when, in a few minutes, Mary Elizabeth and I were out on the street
+again, running silently, I remember feeling a great blind rage against
+the whole village and against the whole world that couldn’t seem to
+think what to do any more than Mary Elizabeth and I could think.</p>
+
+<p>The man of the New Family was watering the lawn, which meant that
+supper was done.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">190</a></span> We slipped in our back gate,—the New Family had
+none,—climbed the fence by my play-house, dropped down into the New
+Family’s garden, and entered their woodshed. In my own mind I had
+settled that I was of small account if I could not give the New Lady
+such a picture of what had happened that Mary Elizabeth should not lose
+her place, and I should not lose her.</p>
+
+<p>The kitchen door was ajar. The dish-pan was in the sink, the kettle was
+steaming on the stove. And from out the dining-room abruptly appeared
+Calista and <em>Delia</em>, bearing plates.</p>
+
+<p>“Girls!” I cried, but Mary Elizabeth was dumb.</p>
+
+<p>Delia carefully set down her plate in the dish-pan and addressed me:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you needn’t think you’re the only one that knows what’s proper,
+miss,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>Calista was more simple.</p>
+
+<p>“We wanted to get ’em all done before you got back,” she owned. “We
+would, if Margaret Amelia and Betty had of come. They wanted to, but
+they wouldn’t let ’em.”</p>
+
+<p>Back of Delia and Calista appeared the mistress of the house. She had
+on her afternoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">191</a></span> dress, and her curl papers were out, and she actually
+smiled at Mary Elizabeth and me.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Now</em> then!” she said to us.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>If I could have made a dream for that night, I think it would have been
+that ever and ever so many of us were sitting in rows, waiting to be
+counted. And a big sun came by, whirling and growing, to take us, and
+we thought we couldn’t all get in. But there was room, whether we had
+been counted or not.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">192</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xi" id="xi"></a>XI<br />
+<span>DOLLS</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> advent of the New Boy changed the face of the neighbourhood.
+Formerly I had been accustomed to peep through cracks in the fence
+only to look into a field of corn that grew at the side; or, on the
+other side, into raspberry bushes, where at any moment raspberries
+might be gathered and dropped over the fence to me. Also, there was
+one place in the deep green before those bushes where blue-eyed grass
+grew, and I had to watch for that. Then there was a great spotted dog
+that sometimes came, and when he had passed, I used to wait long by the
+high boards lest he should return and leap at me to whom, so far, he
+had never paid the slightest attention. As a child, my mother had once
+jumped down into a manger where a great spotted dog was inadvertently
+lying and, though from all accounts he was far more frightened than
+she, yet I feared his kind more than any other.... The only real
+excitement<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">193</a></span> that we had been wont to know in the neighbourhood occurred
+whenever there was a Loose Horse. Somebody would give the alarm, and
+then we would all make sure that the gates were latched and we would
+retire to watch him fearfully, where he was quietly cropping the
+roadside grass. But sometimes, too, a Loose Horse would run—and then I
+was terrified by the sound of his hoofs galloping on the sidewalk and
+striking on the bricks and boards. I was always afraid that a Loose
+Horse would see me, and nights, after one had disturbed our peace, I
+would dream that he was trying to find me, and that he had come peering
+between the dining-room blinds; and though I hid under the red cotton
+spread that was used “between-meals,” it never came down far enough,
+and he always stood there interminably waiting, and found me, through
+the fringe.</p>
+
+<p>But all these excitements were become as nothing. A new occupation
+presented itself. A dozen times a day now I had to watch through the
+fence-cracks, or through the knot-hole, or boldly between the pickets
+of the front fence, at the fascinating performances of the New Boy
+and his troops of friends. At any moment both<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">194</a></span> Mary Elizabeth and I
+would abandon what we were doing to go to stare at the unaccountable
+activities which were forever agitating them. They were always
+producing something from their pockets and examining it, with their
+heads together, or manufacturing something or burying something, or
+disputing about something unguessed and alluring. Their whole world
+was filled with doing, doing, doing, whereas ours was made wholly of
+watching things get done.</p>
+
+<p>On an afternoon Mary Elizabeth and I were playing together in our side
+yard. It was the day for Delia’s music lesson, and as she usually did
+her whole week’s practising in the time immediately preceding that
+event, the entire half day was virtually wasted. We could hear her
+going drearily over and over the first and last movements of “At Home,”
+which she had memorized and could play like lightning, while the entire
+middle of the piece went with infinite deliberation. Calista was, we
+understood (because of some matter pertaining to having filled the
+bath-tub and waded in it and ruined the dining-room ceiling), spending
+the day in her bed. And Margaret Amelia and Betty Rodman were being
+kept at home because the family<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">195</a></span> had company; and such was the prestige
+of the Rodmans that the two contrived to make this circumstance seem
+enviable, and the day before had pictured to us their embroidered white
+dresses and blue ribbons, and blue stockings, and the Charlotte Russe
+for supper, until we felt left out, and not in the least as if their
+company were of a kind with events of the sort familiar to us. Since I
+have grown up, I have observed this variety of genius in others. There
+is one family which, when it appears in afternoon gowns on occasions
+when I have worn a street dress, has power to make me wonder how I
+can have failed to do honour to the day; but who, when they wear
+street gowns and I am dressed for afternoon, invariably cause me to
+feel inexcusably overdressed. It is a kind of genius for the fit, and
+we must believe that it actually designates the atmosphere which an
+occasion shall breathe.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth and I were playing Dolls. We rarely did this on a
+pleasant day in Summer, Dolls being an indoor game, matched with
+carpets and furniture and sewing baskets rather than with blue sky and
+with the soft brilliance of the grass. But that day we had brought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">196</a></span>
+everything out in the side yard under the little catalpa tree, and my
+eleven dolls (counting the one without any face, and Irene Helena, the
+home-made one, and the two penny ones) were in a circle on chairs and
+boxes and their backs, getting dressed for the tea-party. There was
+always going to be a tea-party when you played Dolls—you of course had
+to lead up to something, and what else was there to lead up to save
+a tea-party? To be sure, there might be an occasional marriage, but
+boy-dolls were never very practical; they were invariably smaller than
+the bride-doll, and besides we had no mosquito-netting suitable for a
+veil. Sometimes we had them go for a walk, and once or twice we had
+tried playing that they were house-cleaning; but these operations were
+not desirable, because in neither of them could the dolls dress up, and
+the desirable part of playing dolls is, as everybody knows, to dress
+them in their best. That is the game. That, and the tea-party.</p>
+
+<p>“Blue or rose-pink?” Mary Elizabeth inquired, indicating the two best
+gowns of the doll she was dressing.</p>
+
+<p>It was a difficult question. We had never been able to decide which
+of these two colours we preferred. There was the sky for precedent of
+blue, but then rose-pink we loved so to say!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="she" id="she"></a>
+<img src="images/i_196fp.jpg" width="400" height="585" alt="" />
+<div class="caption"><span class="smcap">She settled everything in that way; she counted
+the petals of fennel daisies and blew thistle from dandelions.</span></div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">197</a></span>
+“If they’s one cloud in the sky, we’ll put on the rose-pink one,” said
+Mary Elizabeth. “And if there isn’t any, that’ll mean blue.”</p>
+
+<p>She settled everything that way—she counted the petals of fennel
+daisies, blew the thistle from dandelions, did one thing if she could
+find twelve acorns and another if they were lacking. Even then Mary
+Elizabeth seemed always to be watching for a guiding hand, to be
+listening for a voice to tell her what to do, and trying to find these
+in things of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>We dressed the Eleven in their best frocks, weighing each choice long,
+and seated them about a table made of a box covered with a towel. We
+sliced a doughnut and with it filled two small baskets for each end of
+the table, on which rested my toy castor and such of my dishes as had
+survived the necessity which I had felt for going to bed with the full
+set, on the night of the day, some years before, when I had acquired
+them. We picked all the flowers suitable for doll decorations—clover,
+sorrel, candytuft, sweet alyssum. We observed the unities<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">198</a></span> by retiring
+for a time sufficient to occupy the tea-party in disposing of the
+feast; and then we came back and sat down and stared at them. Irene
+Helena, I remember, had slipped under the table in a heap, a proceeding
+which always irritated me, as nakedly uncovering the real depths of
+our pretence—and I jerked her up and set her down, like some maternal
+Nemesis.</p>
+
+<p>In that moment a wild, I may almost say <em>thick</em>, shriek sounded through
+our block, and there came that stimulating thud-thud of feet on earth
+that accompanies all the best diversions, and also there came the
+cracking of things,—whips, or pistols, or even a punch, which rapidly
+operated will do almost as well. And down the yards of the block and
+over the fences and over the roof of my play-house came tumbling and
+shrieking the New Boy, and in his wake were ten of his kind.</p>
+
+<p>Usually they raced by with a look in their eyes which we knew well,
+though we never could distinguish whether it meant robbers or pirates
+or dragons or the enemy. Usually they did not even see us. But that
+day something in our elaborate preparation to receive somebody or to
+welcome something, and our eternal moment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">199</a></span> of suspended animation at
+which they found us, must have caught the fancy of the New Boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Halt!” he roared with the force and effect of a steam whistle, and in
+a moment they were all stamping and breathing about Mary Elizabeth and
+me.</p>
+
+<p>We sprang up in instant alarm and the vague, pathetic, immemorial
+impulse to defence. We need not have feared. The game was still going
+forward and we were merely pawns.</p>
+
+<p>“Who is the lord of this castle?” demanded the New Boy.</p>
+
+<p>“Bindyliggs,” replied Mary Elizabeth, without a moment’s hesitation, a
+name which I believe neither of us to have heard before.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is this Lord of Bindyliggs?” the New Boy pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth indicated the woodshed. “At meat,” she added gravely.</p>
+
+<p>“Forward!” the New Boy instantly commanded, and the whole troop
+disappeared in our shed. We heard wood fall, and the clash of meeting
+weapons, and the troop reappeared, two by way of the low window.</p>
+
+<p>“Enough!” cried the New Boy, grandly. “We have spared him, but there is
+not a moment to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">200</a></span> lose. You must come with us <em>immediately</em>. What you
+got to eat?”</p>
+
+<p>Raptly, we gave them, from under the wistful noses of Irene Helena and
+the doll without the face and the rest, the entire sliced doughnut, and
+two more doughnuts, dipped in sugar, which we had been saving so as to
+have something to look forward to.</p>
+
+<p>“Come with us,” said the New Boy, graciously. “To horse! We may reach
+the settlement by nightfall—<em>if</em> we escape the Brigands in the Wood.
+The Black Wood,” he added.</p>
+
+<p>Even then, I recall, I was smitten with wonder that he who had shown
+so little imagination in that matter of dirt and apples and potatoes
+should here be teeming with fancy on his own familiar ground. It was
+years before I understood that there are almost as many varieties of
+imaginative as of religious experience.</p>
+
+<p>Fascinated, we dropped everything and followed. The way led, it
+appeared, to the Wells’s barn, a huge, red barn in the block, with
+doors always invitingly open and chickens pecking about, and doves on a
+little platform close to the pointed roof.</p>
+
+<p>“Aw, say, you ain’t goin’ to take ’em along,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">201</a></span> are you?” demanded one
+knight, below his voice. “They’ll spoil everythin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re <em>rescuin’</em> ’em, you geezer,” the New Boy explained. “You got to
+have ’em along till you get ’em rescued, ain’t you? Arrest that man!”
+he added. “Put him in double irons with chains and balls on. And gag
+him, to make sure.”</p>
+
+<p>And it was done, with hardly a moment’s loss of time.</p>
+
+<p>We went round by the walk—a course to which the arrested one had time
+to refer in further support of his claim as to our undesirability.
+But he was drowned in the important topics that were afoot: the new
+cave to be explored where the Branchetts were putting a cellar under
+the dining-room, mysterious boxes suspected to contain dynamite being
+unloaded into the Wells’s cellar, and the Court of the Seven Kings, to
+which, it seemed, we were being conveyed in the red barn.</p>
+
+<p>“Shall we give ’em the password?” the New Boy asked, <em>sotto voce</em>, as
+we approached the rendezvous. And Mary Elizabeth and I trembled as we
+realized that he was thinking of sharing the password with us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">202</a></span>
+“<em>Naw!</em>” cried the Arrested One violently. “It’ll be all over town.”</p>
+
+<p>The New Boy drew himself up—he must have been good to look at, for I
+recall his compact little figure and his pink cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>“Can’t you tell when you’re gagged?” he inquired with majesty. “You’re
+playin’ like a girl yourself. I can give the password for ’em, though,”
+he added reasonably. So we all filed in the red barn, to the Court of
+the Seven Kings, and each boy whispered the password into the first
+manger, but Mary Elizabeth and I had it whispered for us.</p>
+
+<p>What the Court of the Seven Kings might have held for us we were never
+to know. At that instant there appeared lumbering down the alley a load
+of hay. Seated in the midst was a small figure whom we recognized as
+Stitchy Branchett; and he rose and uttered a roar.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, fellows!” he said. “We dast ride over to the Glen. I was
+lookin’ for you. Father said so.” And Stitchy threw himself on his
+back, and lifted and waved his heels.</p>
+
+<p>Already our liberators were swarming up the hay-rack, which had halted
+for them. In a twinkling they were sunk in that fragrance,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">203</a></span> kicking
+their heels even as their host. Already they had forgotten Mary
+Elizabeth and me, nor did they give us good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>We two turned and went through the Wells’s yard, back to the street.
+Almost at once we were again within range of the sounds of Delia,
+practising interminably on her “At Home.”</p>
+
+<p>“I never rode on a load of hay,” said Mary Elizabeth at length.</p>
+
+<p>Neither had I, though I almost always walked backward to watch one when
+it passed me.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you <em>s’pose</em> the password was?” said Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>It was days before we gave over wondering. And sometimes in later years
+I have caught myself speculating on that lost word.</p>
+
+<p>“I wonder what we were rescued from,” said Mary Elizabeth when we
+passed our woodshed door.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped and peered within. No Lord of Bindyliggs, though we had
+almost expected to see him stretched there, bound and helpless.</p>
+
+<p>What were we rescued from? <em>We should never know.</em></p>
+
+<p>We rounded the corner by the side yard. There sat our staring dolls,
+drawn up about the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">204</a></span> tea-table, static all. As I looked at them I was
+seized and possessed by an unreasoning fury. And I laid hold on Irene
+Helena, and had her by the heels, and with all my strength I pounded
+her head against the trunk of the catalpa tree.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth understood—when did she not understand?</p>
+
+<p>“Which one can I—which one can I?” she cried excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>“All of ’em!” I shouted, and one after another we picked up the Eleven
+by their skirts, and we threw them far and wide in the grass, and the
+penny dolls we hurled into the potato patch.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mary Elizabeth looked at me aghast.</p>
+
+<p>“Your dolls!” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care!” I cried savagely. “I’ll never play ’em again. I hate
+’em!” And I turned to Mary Elizabeth with new eyes. “Let’s go down town
+after supper,” I whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“I could,” she said, “but you won’t be let.”</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t ask,” I said. “I’ll go. When you get done, come on over.”</p>
+
+<p>I scorned to gather up the dolls. They were<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">205</a></span> in the angle below the
+parlour windows, and no one saw them. As soon as supper was finished,
+I went to my room and put on my best shoes, which I was not allowed to
+wear for everyday. Then I tipped my birthday silver dollar out of my
+bank and tied it in the corner of my handkerchief. Down in the garden I
+waited for Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>It was hardly dusk when she came. We had seen nothing of Delia, and we
+guessed that she was to stay in the house for the rest of the day as
+penance for having, without doubt, played “At Home” too badly.</p>
+
+<p>“You better not do it,” Mary Elizabeth whispered. “They might....”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on,” I said only.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s try a June grass,” she begged. “If the seeds all come off in my
+teeth, we’ll go. But if they don’t—”</p>
+
+<p>“Come on,” said I, “I’m not going to monkey with signs any more.”</p>
+
+<p>We climbed the back fence, partly so that the chain, weighted with a
+pail of stones, might not creak, and partly because to do so seemed
+more fitting to the business in hand. We ran crouching, thereby
+arousing the attention of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">206</a></span> old Mr. Branchett, who was training a
+Virginia creeper along his back fence.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, hello,” said he. “Pretty good runners for girls, seems to me.”</p>
+
+<p>Neither of us replied. Our souls were suddenly sickened at this sort of
+dealing.</p>
+
+<p>Wisconsin Street was a blaze of light. The ’buses were on their way
+from the “depots” to the hotels—nobody knew who might be in those
+’buses. They were the nexus between us and the unguessed world.
+Strangers were on the streets. Everything was in motion. Before
+Morrison’s grocery they were burning rubbish, some boys from the other
+end of town were running unconcernedly through the flames, and the
+smell of the smoke set us tingling. At the corner a man was pasting
+a circus bill—we stopped a moment to look down the throat of the
+hippopotamus. Away up the street a band struck up, and we took hold of
+hands again, and ran.</p>
+
+<p>We crossed the big square by the City Bank, under the hissing arc lamp.
+By the post-office a crowd of men and boys was standing, and between
+the files young women whom we knew, wearing ribbons and feathers, were
+passing in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">207</a></span> and out of the office and laughing. Bard’s jewellery store
+was brilliant—it looked lighter than any other store with its window
+of dazzling cut glass and its wonderful wall of clocks whose pendulums
+never kept pace. In a saloon a piano was playing—we glanced in with a
+kind of joyous fear at the green screen beyond the door. We saw Alma
+Fremont, whose father kept a grocery store, standing in the store door
+with a stick of pink candy thrust in a lemon, and we thought on the
+joy of having a father who was a grocer. We longed to stare in the
+barber-shop window, and looked away. But our instinctive destination
+was the place before the Opera House, where the band was playing. We
+reached it, and stood packed in the crowd, close to the blare of the
+music, and shivered with delight.</p>
+
+<p>“If only the fire-engine would come,” Mary Elizabeth breathed in my ear.</p>
+
+<p>But in a little while the guffaws, the jostling, the proximity of dirty
+coats, the odour of stale tobacco must have disturbed us, because
+gradually we edged a little away, and stood on the edge of the crowd,
+against an iron rail outside a billiard room. The band ceased, and went
+up<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">208</a></span> into the hall. We had a distinct impulse to do the next thing. What
+was there to do next? What was it that the boys did when they went
+down town evenings? What else did they do while we were tidying our
+play-houses for the night? For here we were, longing for play, if only
+we could think what to do.</p>
+
+<p>I felt a hand beneath my chin, lifting my face. There, in the press,
+stood my Father. Over his arm he carried my black jacket with the
+Bedford cord.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother thought you might be cold,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>I put on the jacket, and he took Mary Elizabeth and me by the hand, and
+we walked slowly back down Wisconsin Street.</p>
+
+<p>“We will see Mary Elizabeth safely home first,” my Father said, and we
+accompanied her to the New Family’s door.</p>
+
+<p>Once in our house, it was I who proposed going to bed, and the
+suggestion met with no opposition. Upstairs, I slipped the screen
+from my window and leaned out in the dusk. The night, warm, fragrant,
+significant, was inviting me to belong to it, was asking me, even as
+bright day had asked me, what it had in common with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">209</a></span> the stuffiness and
+dulness of forever watching others do things. Something hard touched my
+hand. It was my birthday dollar. It had not occurred to me to spend it.</p>
+
+<p>I saw my Father stroll back down the street, lighting a cigar. Below
+stairs I could hear my Mother helping to put away the supper dishes.
+A dozen boys raced through the alley, just on their way down town.
+So long as they came home at a stated hour at night, and turned up
+at table with their hands clean, who asked them where they had been?
+“Where have you been?” they said to me, the moment I entered the
+house—and to Delia and Calista and Margaret Amelia and Betty. We had
+often talked about it. And none of us had even ridden on a load of hay.
+We had a vague expectation that it would be different when we grew up.
+A sickening thought came to me: <em>Would it be different, or was this to
+be forever?</em></p>
+
+<p>I ran blindly down the stairs where my Mother was helping to put away
+the supper dishes—in the magic of the night, helping to put away the
+supper dishes.</p>
+
+<p>“Mother!” I cried, “Mother! Who made it so much harder to be a girl?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">210</a></span>
+She turned and looked at me, her face startled, and touched me—I
+remember how gently she touched me.</p>
+
+<p>“Before you die,” she said, “it will be easier.”</p>
+
+<p>I thought then that she meant that I would grow used to it. Now I know
+that she meant what I meant when I woke that night, and remembered my
+dolls lying out in the grass and the dew, and was not sorry, but glad:
+Glad that the time was almost come—for real playthings.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">211</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xii" id="xii"></a>XII<br />
+<span>BIT-BIT</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">At</span> the Rodmans’, who lived in a huge house on a hill, some of
+the rooms had inscriptions in them—or what I should have called
+mottoes—cunningly lettered and set about. Some of these were in
+Margaret Amelia’s and Betty’s room, above the mirror, the bed, the
+window; and there was one downstairs on a panel above the telephone.
+The girls said that they had an aunt who had written them “on purpose,”
+an aunt who had had stories in print. In my heart I doubted the part
+about the printed stories, and so did Mary Elizabeth, but we loved
+Margaret Amelia and Betty too well to let this stand between us. Also,
+we were caught by the inscriptions. They were these:</p>
+
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">FOR A CRADLE<a name="FNanchor_A" id="FNanchor_A"></a><a href="#Footnote_A" class="fnanchor">[A]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">I cannot tell you who I am</div>
+<div class="line">Nor what I’m going to be.</div>
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">212</a></span>
+<div class="line">You who are wise and know your ways</div>
+<div class="line">Tell me.</div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote">
+<p><a name="Footnote_A" id="Footnote_A"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A"><span class="label">[A]</span></a>
+Copyright, 1908, by Harper & Brothers.</p>
+</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">FOR THE MIRROR</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Look in the deep of me. What are we going to do?</div>
+<div class="line">If I am I, as I am, who in the world are you?</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">FOR AN IVORY COMB</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Use me and think of spirit, and spirit yet to be.</div>
+<div class="line">This is the jest: Could soul touch soul if it were not for me?</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">FOR THE DOLL’S HOUSE</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Girl-doll would be a little lamp</div>
+<div class="line">And shine like something new.</div>
+<div class="line">Boy-doll would be a telephone</div>
+<div class="line">And have the world speak through.</div>
+<div class="line">The Poet-doll would like to be</div>
+<div class="line">A tocsin with a tongue</div>
+<div class="line">To other little dolls like bells</div>
+<div class="line">Most sensitively rung.</div>
+<div class="line">The Baby-doll would be a flower,</div>
+<div class="line">The Dinah-doll a star,</div>
+<div class="line">And all—how ignominious!</div>
+<div class="line">Are only what they are.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">213</a></span></p>
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">WHERE THE BOUGHS TOUCH THE WINDOW</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">We lap on the indoor shore—the waves of the leaf mere,</div>
+<div class="line">We try to tell you as well as we can: We wonder what you hear?</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="center mt2 nmb">FOR ANOTHER WINDOW</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">I see the stones, I see the stars,</div>
+<div class="line">I know not what they be.</div>
+<div class="line">They always say things to themselves</div>
+<div class="line">And now and then to me.</div>
+<div class="line">But when I try to look between</div>
+<div class="line">Big stones and little stars,</div>
+<div class="line">I almost know ... but what I know</div>
+<div class="line">Flies through the window-bars.</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p class="nmb">And downstairs, on the Telephone:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">I, the absurdity,</div>
+<div class="line">Proving what cannot be.</div>
+<div class="line">Come, when you talk with me</div>
+<div class="line">Does it become you well</div>
+<div class="line">To doubt a miracle?</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>We did not understand all of them, but we liked them. And I am sure now
+that the inscriptions were partly responsible for the fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">214</a></span> that in a
+little time, with Mary Elizabeth and me to give them encouragement,
+everything, indoors and out, had something to say to us. These things
+we did not confide to the others, not even to Margaret Amelia and
+Betty who, when we stood still to spell out the inscriptions, waited
+a respectful length of time and then plucked at our aprons and said:
+“Come on till we show you something,” which was usually merely a crass
+excuse to get us away.</p>
+
+<p>So Mary Elizabeth and I discovered, by comparing notes, that at night
+our Clothes on the chair by the bed would say: “We are so tired. Don’t
+look at us—we feel so limp.”</p>
+
+<p>And the Night would say: “What a long time the Day had you, and how he
+made you work. Now rest and forget and stop being you, till morning.”</p>
+
+<p>Sleep would say: “Here I come. Let me in your brain and I will pull
+your eyes shut, like little blinds.”</p>
+
+<p>And in the morning the Stairs would say: “Come! We are all here,
+stooping, ready for you to step down on our shoulders.”</p>
+
+<p>Breakfast would say: “Now I’m going to be you—now I’m going to be you!
+And I have to be cross or nice, just as you are.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">215</a></span>
+Every fire that warmed us, every tree that shaded us, every path that
+we took, all these “answered back” and were familiars. Everything spoke
+to us, save only one. And this one thing was Work. Our playthings in
+the cupboard would talk to us all day long <em>until</em> the moment that we
+were told to put them in order, and then instantly they all fell into
+silence. Pulling weeds in the four o’clock bed, straightening books,
+tidying the outdoor play-house—it was always the same. Whatever we
+worked at kept silent.</p>
+
+<p>It was on a June morning, when the outdoors was so busy and beautiful
+that it was like a golden bee buried in a golden rose, that I finally
+refused outright to pick up a brown sunhat and some other things in
+the middle of the floor. Everything outdoors and in was smiling and
+calling, and to do a task was like going to bed, so far as the joy of
+the day was concerned. This I could not explain, but I said that I
+would not do the task, and this was high treason.</p>
+
+<p>Sitting in a straight-backed chair all alone for half an hour
+thereafter—the usual capital punishment—was like cutting off the head
+of the beautiful Hour that I had meant to have.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">216</a></span> And I tried to think
+it out. Why, in an otherwise wonderful world, did Work have to come and
+spoil everything?</p>
+
+<p>I do not recall that I came to any conclusion. How could I, at a time
+that was still teaching the Hebraic doctrine that work is a curse,
+instead of the new gospel—always dimly divined by children before our
+teaching has corrupted them,—that being busy is being alive, and that
+all work may be play if only we are shown how to pick out the kind that
+is play to us, and that doing nothing is a kind of death.</p>
+
+<p>And while I sat there alone on that straight-backed chair, I wish that
+I, as I am now, might have called in Mary Elizabeth, whom I could see
+drearily polishing the New Family’s lamp-chimneys, and that I might
+have told the story of Bit-bit.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Bit-bit, the smallest thing in the world, sat on the slipperiest edge
+of the highest mountain in the farthest land, weaving a little garment
+of sweet-grass. Then out of the valley a great Deev arose and leaned
+his elbows on the highest mountain and said what he thought—which is
+always a dangerous business.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="then" id="then"></a>
+<img src="images/i_216fp.jpg" width="400" height="587" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">“<span class="smcap">Then out of the valley a great Deev arose.</span>”</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">217</a></span>
+“Bit-bit,” said the Deev, “how dare you make up my sweet-grass so
+disgustin’ extravagant?”</p>
+
+<p>(It is almost impossible for a Deev to say his <em>ing’s</em>.)</p>
+
+<p>“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, without looking up from his work, “I have
+to make a garment to help clothe the world. Don’t wrinkle up my plan.
+And <em>don’t</em> put your elbows on the table.”</p>
+
+<p>“About my elbows,” said the Deev, “you are perfectly right, though
+Deevs always do that with their elbows. But as to that garment,” he
+added, “I’d like to know why you have to help clothe the world?”</p>
+
+<p>“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, still not looking up from his work, “I have
+to do so, because it’s this kind of a world. <em>Please</em> don’t wrinkle up
+things.”</p>
+
+<p>“I,” said the Deev, plainly, “will now show you what kind of a world
+this really is. And I rather think I’ll destroy you with a great
+destruction.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the Deev took the highest mountain and he tied its streams and
+cataracts together to make a harness, and he named the mountain new,
+and he drove it all up and down the earth. And he cried behind it:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">218</a></span>
+“Ho, Rhumbthumberland, steed of the clouds, trample the world into
+trifles and plough it up for play. Bit-bit is being taught his lesson.”</p>
+
+<p>From dawn he did this until the sky forgot pink and remembered only
+blue and until the sun grew so hot that it took even the sky’s
+attention, and the Deev himself was ready to drop. And then he pulled
+on the reins and Rhumbthumberland, steed of the clouds, stopped
+trampling and let the Deev lean his elbows on his back. And there,
+right between the Deev’s elbows, sat Bit-bit, weaving his garment of
+sweet-grass.</p>
+
+<p>“Thunders of spring,” cried the Deev, “aren’t you destroyed with a
+great destruction?”</p>
+
+<p>But Bit-bit never looked up, he was so busy.</p>
+
+<p>“Has anything happened?” he asked politely, however, not wishing to
+seem indifferent to the Deev’s agitation—though secretly, in his
+little head, he hated having people plunge at him with their eyebrows
+up and expect him to act surprised too. When they did that, it always
+made him savage-calm.</p>
+
+<p>“The world is trampled into trifles and ploughed up for play,” said
+the exasperated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">219</a></span> Deev, “<em>that’s</em> what’s happened. How dare you pay no
+attention?”</p>
+
+<p>“Deevy dear,” said Bit-bit, still not looking up from his task, “I
+have to work, whether it’s this kind of a world or not. I <em>wish</em> you
+wouldn’t wrinkle up things.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the Deev’s will ran round and round in his own head like a fly
+trying to escape from a dark hole—that is the way of the will of all
+Deevs—and pretty soon his will got out and went buzzle-buzzle-buzzle,
+which is no proper sound for anybody’s will to make. And when it did
+that, the Deev went off and got a river, and he climbed up on top of
+Rhumbthumberland and he swung the river about his head like a ribbon
+and then let it fall from the heights like a lady’s scarf, and then he
+held down one end with his great boot and the other end he emptied into
+the horizon. From the time of the heat of the sun he did this until
+the shadows were set free from the west and lengthened over the land,
+shaking their long hair, and then he lifted his foot and let the river
+slip and it trailed off into the horizon and flowed each way.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Now</em> then!” said the Deev, disgustingly pompous.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">220</a></span>
+But when he looked down, there, sitting on his own great foot, high and
+dry and pleasant, was Bit-bit, weaving his garment of sweet-grass and
+saying:</p>
+
+<p>“Deevy dear, a river washed me up here and I was so busy I didn’t have
+time to get down.”</p>
+
+<p>The Deev stood still, thinking, and his thoughts flew in and out like
+birds, but always they seemed to fly against window-panes in the air,
+through which there was no passing. And the Deev said, in his head:</p>
+
+<p>“Is there nothing in this created cosmos that will stop this little
+scrap from working to clothe the world? Or must I play Deev in earnest?”</p>
+
+<p>And that was what he finally decided to do. So he said things to his
+arms, and his arms hardened into stuff like steel, and spread out like
+mighty wings. And with these the Deev began to beat the air. And he
+beat it and beat it until it frothed. It frothed like white-of-egg and
+like cream and like the mid-waters of torrents, frothed a mighty froth,
+such as I supposed could never be. And when the froth was stiff enough
+to stand alone, the Deev took his steel-wing arm for a ladle, and he
+began to spread the froth upon the earth. And he spread and spread
+until<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">221</a></span> the whole earth was like an enormous chocolate cake, thick with
+white frosting—one layer, two layers, three layers, disgustingly
+extravagant, so that the little Deevs, if there had been any, would
+never have got the dish scraped. Only there wasn’t any dish, so they
+needn’t have minded.</p>
+
+<p>And when he had it all spread on, the Deev stood up and dropped his
+steel arms down—and even they were tired at the elbow, like any true,
+egg-beating arm—and he looked down at the great cake he had made.
+And there, on the top of the frosting, which was already beginning to
+harden, was sitting Bit-bit, weaving his garment of sweet-grass and
+talking about the weather:</p>
+
+<p>“I think there is going to be a storm,” said Bit-bit, “the air around
+here has been so disgustingly hard to breathe.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, very absently, the Deev let the steel out of his arms and made
+them get over being wings, and, in a place so deep in his own head that
+nothing had ever been thought there before, he <em>thought</em>:</p>
+
+<p>“There is more to this than I ever knew there is to anything.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">222</a></span>
+So he leaned over, all knee-deep in the frosting as he was, and he said:</p>
+
+<p>“Bit-bit, say a great truth and a real answer: What is the reason that
+my little ways don’t bother you? Or kill you? Or keep you from making
+your garment of sweet-grass?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said Bit-bit, in surprise, but never looking up from his work,
+“Deevy dear, that’s easy. I’m much, much, <em>much</em> too busy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Scrap of a thing,” said the Deev, “too busy to mind cataracts and an
+earth trampled to trifles and then frosted with all the air there is?”</p>
+
+<p>“Too busy,” assented Bit-bit, snapping off his thread. “And now I <em>do</em>
+hope you are not going to wrinkle up things any more.”</p>
+
+<p>“No,” said the Deev, with decision, “I ain’t.” (Deevs are always
+ungrammatical when you take them by surprise.) And he added very
+shrewdly, for he was a keen Deev and if he saw that he could learn,
+he was willing to learn, which is three parts of all wisdom: “Little
+scrap, teach me to do a witchcraft. Teach me to work.”</p>
+
+<p>At that Bit-bit laid down his task in a minute.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">223</a></span>
+“What do you want to make?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The Deev thought for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“I want to make a palace and a garden and a moat for <em>me</em>,” said he.
+“I’m tired campin’ around in the air.”</p>
+
+<p>“If that’s all,” said Bit-bit, “I’m afraid I can’t help you. I thought
+you wanted to work. Out of all the work there is in the world I should
+think of another one if I were you, Deevy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, I want to make a golden court dress for <em>me</em>, all
+embroidered and flowered and buttoned and gored and spliced,” said the
+Deev, or whatever these things are called in the clothing of Deevs;
+“I want to make one. I’m tired goin’ around in rompers.” (It wasn’t
+rompers, really, but it was what Deevs wear instead, and you wouldn’t
+know the name, even if I told you.)</p>
+
+<p>“Excuse me,” said Bit-bit, frankly, “I won’t waste time like that.
+Don’t you want to <em>work</em>?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the Deev, “I do. Maybe I don’t know what work is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe you don’t,” agreed Bit-bit. “But I can fix that. I’m going for a
+walk now, and there’s just room for you. Come along.”</p>
+
+<p>So they started off, and it was good walking, for by now the sun had
+dried up all the frosting;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">224</a></span> and the Deev trotted at Bit-bit’s heels,
+and they made a very funny pair. So funny that Almost Everything
+watched them go by, and couldn’t leave off watching them go by, and so
+followed them all the way. Which was what Bit-bit had <em>thought</em> would
+happen. And when he got to a good place, Bit-bit stood still and told
+the Deev to turn round. And there they were, staring face to face with
+Almost Everything: Deserts and towns and men and women and children and
+laws and governments and railroads and factories and forests and food
+and drink.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s your work,” said Bit-bit, carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>“Where?” asked the Deev, just like other folks.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Where?</em>” repeated Bit-bit, nearly peevish. “Look at this desert
+that’s come along behind us. Why don’t you swing a river over your
+head—you <em>could</em> do that, couldn’t you, Deevy?—and make things grow
+on that desert, and let people live on it, and turn ’em into folks? Why
+don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“It ain’t amusin’ enough,” said the Deev.</p>
+
+<p>(Deevs are often ungrammatical when they don’t take pains; and this
+Deev wasn’t taking <em>any</em> pains.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">225</a></span>
+“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at this town that has come along
+behind us, full of dirt and disease and laziness and worse. Why
+don’t you harness up a mountain—you <em>could</em> do that, couldn’t you,
+Deevy?—and plough up the earth and trample it down and let people live
+as they were meant to live, and turn them into folks? Why don’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“It couldn’t be done that way,” said the Deev, very much excited and
+disgustingly certain.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Bit-bit, “then look at the men and women and children that
+have come along behind us. What about them—what about <em>them</em>? Why
+don’t you make your arms steel and act as if you had wings, and beat
+the world into a better place for them to live, instead of making a
+cake of it. You could do it, Deevy—<em>anybody</em> could do that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the Deev, “I could do that. But it don’t appeal to me.”</p>
+
+<p>(Deevs are always ungrammatical when they are being emphatic, and now
+the Deev was being very emphatic. He was a keen Deev, but he would only
+learn what he wanted to learn.)</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">226</a></span>
+“Deevy <em>dear</em>,” cried Bit-bit, in distress because the Deev was such a
+disgusting creature, “then at least do get some sweet-grass and make a
+little garment to help clothe the world?”</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the use?” said the Deev. “Let it go naked. It’s always been
+that way.”</p>
+
+<p>So, since the Deev would not learn the work witchcraft, Bit-bit,
+very sorrowful, stood up and said a great truth and made a real
+answer—which is always a dangerous business.</p>
+
+<p>“You will, you will, you will do these things,” he cried, “because it’s
+that kind of a world.”</p>
+
+<p>And then the Deev, who had all along been getting more and more
+annoyed, pieced together his will and his ideas and his annoyance, and
+they all went buzzle-buzzle-buzzle together till they made an act. And
+the act was that he stepped sidewise into space, and he picked up the
+earth and put it between his knees, and he cracked it hard enough so
+that it should have fallen into uncountable bits.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s my nut,” said the Deev, “and now I’m going to eat it up.”</p>
+
+<p>But lo, from the old shell there came out a fair new kernel of a world,
+so lustrous and lovely that the Deev was blinded and hid his eyes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">227</a></span>
+Only first he had seen how the deserts were flowing with rivers and
+the towns were grown fair under willing hands for men and women and
+children to live there. And there, with Almost Everything, sat Bit-bit
+in his place, weaving a little garment of sweet-grass to clothe some
+mite of the world.</p>
+
+<p>“Now this time try not to wrinkle things all up, Deev,” said Bit-bit.
+“I must say, you’ve been doing things disgustingly inhuman.”</p>
+
+<p>So after that the Deev was left camping about in the air, trying to
+make for himself new witchcrafts. And there he is to this day, being
+a disgusting creature generally, and <em>only</em> those who are as busy as
+Bit-bit are safe from him.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">228</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xiii" id="xiii"></a>XIII<br />
+<span>WHY</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was a day when Mary Elizabeth and Delia and Calista and Betty
+and I sat under the Eating Apple tree and had no spirit to enter upon
+anything. Margaret Amelia was not with us, and her absence left us
+relaxed and without initiative; for it was not as if she had gone to
+the City, or to have her dress tried on, or her hair washed, or as if
+she were absorbed in any real occupation. Her absence was due to none
+of these things. Margaret Amelia was in disgrace. She was, in fact,
+confined in her room with every expectation of remaining there until
+supper time.</p>
+
+<p>“What’d she do?” we had breathlessly inquired of Betty when she had
+appeared alone with her tidings.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” replied Betty, “it’s her paper dolls and her button-house. She
+always leaves ’em around. She set up her button-house all over the rug
+in the parlour—you know,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">229</a></span> the rug that its patterns make rooms? An’
+she had her paper dolls living in it. That was this morning—and we
+forgot ’em. And after dinner, while we’re outdoors, the minister came.
+And he walked into the buttons and onto the glass dangler off the lamp
+that we used for a folding-doors. And he slid a long ways on it. And he
+scrushed it,” Betty concluded
+<a name="resentfully" id="resentfully"></a><ins title="Original omits period/fullstop">resentfully.</ins>
+“And now she’s in her room.”</p>
+
+<p>We pondered it. There was justice there, we saw that. But shut Margaret
+Amelia in a room! It was as ignominious as caging a captain.</p>
+
+<p>“Did she cry?” we indelicately demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Awful,” said Betty. “She wouldn’t of cared if it had only been
+raining,” she added.</p>
+
+<p>We looked hard at the sky. We should have been willing to have it rain
+to make lighter Margaret Amelia’s durance, and sympathy could go no
+further. But there was not a cloud.</p>
+
+<p>It was Mary Elizabeth who questioned the whole matter.</p>
+
+<p>“How,” said she, “does it do any good to shut her up in her room?”</p>
+
+<p>We had never thought of this. We stared<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">230</a></span> wonderingly at Mary Elizabeth.
+Being shut in your room was a part of the state of not being grown up.
+When you grew up, you shut others in their rooms or let them out, as
+you ruled the occasion to require. There was Grandmother Beers, for
+instance, coming out the door with scissors in her hands and going
+toward her sweet-pea bed. Once she must have shut Mother in her room.
+Mother!</p>
+
+<p>Delia was incurably a defender of things as they are. Whenever I am
+tempted to feel that guardians of an out-worn order must know better
+than they seem to know, I remember Delia. Delia was born reactionary,
+even as she was born brunette.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said she with finality, “that’s the way they punish you.”</p>
+
+<p>Taken as a fact and not as a philosophy, there was no question about
+this.</p>
+
+<p>“I was shut in one for pinching Frankie Ames,” I acknowledged.</p>
+
+<p>“I was in one for getting iron-rust on my skirt,” said Calista, “and
+for being awful cross when my bath was, and for putting sugar on the
+stove to get the nice smell.”</p>
+
+<p>“I was in one for telling a lie,” Betty admitted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">231</a></span> reluctantly. “And
+Margaret Amelia was in one for wading in the creek. She was in a
+downstairs one. And I took a chair round outside to help her out—but
+she wouldn’t do it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Pooh! I was in one lots of times,” Delia capped it. And, as usual,
+we looked at her with respect as having experiences far transcending
+our own. “I’ll be in one again if I don’t go home and take care of my
+canary,” she added. “Mamma said I would.”</p>
+
+<p>“Putting sugar on the stove isn’t as wicked as telling a lie, is it?”
+Mary Elizabeth inquired.</p>
+
+<p>We weighed it. On the whole, we were inclined to think that it was not
+so wicked, “though,” Delia put in, “you do notice the sugar more.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why do they shut you in the same way for the different wickeds?” Mary
+Elizabeth demanded.</p>
+
+<p>None of us knew, but it was Delia who had the theory.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” she said, “you’ve <em>got</em> to know you’re wicked. It don’t make
+any difference how wicked. Because you stop anyhow.”</p>
+
+<p>“No, you don’t,” Betty said decidedly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">232</a></span> “you’re always getting a new
+thing to be shut in about. Before you mean to,” she added perplexedly.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth looked away at Grandmother Beers, snipping sweet-peas.
+Abruptly, Mary Elizabeth threw herself on the grass and stared up
+through the branches of the Eating Apple tree, and then laid her arms
+straight along her sides, and began luxuriously to roll down a little
+slope. The inquiry was too complex to continue.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s go see if the horse-tail hair is a snake yet,” she proposed,
+sitting up at the foot of the slope.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll have to do my canary,” said Delia, but she sprang up with the
+rest of us, and we went round to the rain-water barrel.</p>
+
+<p>The rain-water barrel stood at the corner of the house, and reflected
+your face most satisfyingly, save that the eaves-spout got in the way.
+Also, you always inadvertently joggled the side with your knee, which
+set the water wavering and wrinkled away the image. At the bottom of
+this barrel invisibly rested sundry little “doll” pie-tins of clay,
+a bottle, a broken window-catch, a stray key, and the bowl of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">233</a></span>
+soap-bubble pipe, cast in at odd intervals, for no reason. There were a
+penny doll and a marble down there too, thrown in for sheer bravado and
+bitterly regretted.</p>
+
+<p>Into this dark water there had now been dropped, two days ago, a long
+black hair from the tail of Mr. Branchett’s horse, Fanny. We had been
+credibly informed that if you did this to a hair from a horse’s tail
+and left it untouched for twenty-four hours or, to be <em>perfectly</em> safe,
+for forty-eight hours, the result would inevitably be a black snake.
+We had gone to the Branchetts’ barn for the raw material and, finding
+none available on the floor, we were about to risk jerking it from the
+source when Delia had perceived what we needed caught in a crack of the
+stall. We had abstracted the hair, and duly immersed it. Why we wished
+to create a black snake, or what we purposed doing with him when we
+got him created, I cannot now recall. I believe the intention to have
+been primarily to see whether or not they had told us the truth—“they”
+standing for the universe at large. For my part, I was still smarting
+from having been detected sitting in patience with a handful of salt,
+by the mouse-hole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">234</a></span> in the shed, in pursuance of another recipe which I
+had picked up and trusted. Now if this new test failed....</p>
+
+<p>We got an old axe-handle from the barn wherewith to probe the water.
+If, however, the black snake were indeed down there, our weapon,
+offensive and defensive, would hardly be long enough; so we substituted
+the clothes-prop. Then we drew cuts to see who should wield it, and
+the lot fell to Betty. Gentle little Betty turned quite pale with the
+responsibility, but she resolutely seized the clothes-prop, and Delia
+stood behind her with the axe-handle.</p>
+
+<p>“Now if he comes out,” said Betty, “run for your lives. He might be a
+blue racer.”</p>
+
+<p>None of us knew what a blue racer might be, but we had always heard of
+it as the fastest of all the creatures. A black snake, it seemed, might
+easily be a blue racer. As Betty raised the clothes-prop, I, who had
+instigated the experiment, weakened.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe he won’t be ready yet,” I conceded.</p>
+
+<p>“If he isn’t there, I’ll never believe anything anybody tells me
+again—ever,” said Delia firmly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">235</a></span>
+The clothes-prop Betty plunged to the bottom, and lifted. No struggling
+black shape writhed about it. She repeated the movement, and this time
+we all cried out, for she brought up the dark discoloured rag of a
+sash of the penny doll, the penny doll clinging to it and immediately
+dropping sullenly back again. Grown brave, Betty stirred the water, and
+Delia, advancing, did the same with her axe-handle. Again and again
+these were lifted, revealing nothing. At last we faced it: No snake was
+there.</p>
+
+<p>“So that’s a lie, too,” said Delia, brutally.</p>
+
+<p>We stared at one another. I, as the one chiefly disappointed, looked
+away. I looked down the street: Mr. Branchett was hoeing in his garden.
+Delivery wagons were rattling by. The butter-man came whistling round
+the house. Everybody seemed so busy and so <em>sure</em>. They looked as if
+they knew why everything was. And to us, truth and justice and reason
+and the results to be expected in this grown-up world were all a
+confusion and a thorn.</p>
+
+<p>As we went round the house, talking of what had happened, our eyes were
+caught by a picture<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">236</a></span> which should have been, and was not, of quite
+casual and domestic import. On the side-porch of Delia’s house appeared
+her mother, hanging out Delia’s canary.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye,” said Delia, briefly, and fared from us, running.</p>
+
+<p>We lingered for a little in the front yard. In five minutes the
+curtains in Delia’s room stirred, and we saw her face appear, and
+vanish. She had not waved to us—there was no need. It had overtaken
+her. She, too, was “in her room.”</p>
+
+<p>Delicacy dictated that we withdraw from sight, and we returned to the
+back yard. As we went, Mary Elizabeth was asking:</p>
+
+<p>“Is telling a lie and not feeding your canary as wicked as each other?”</p>
+
+<p>It seemed incredible, and we said so.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you get shut up just as hard for both of ’em,” Mary Elizabeth
+reminded us.</p>
+
+<p>“Then I don’t believe any of ’em’s wicked,” said I, flatly. On which we
+came back to the garden and met Grandmother Beers, with a great bunch
+of sweet-peas in her hand, coming to the house.</p>
+
+<p>“Wicked?” she said, in her way of soft<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">237</a></span> surprise. “I didn’t know you
+knew such a word.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a word you learn at Sunday school,” I explained importantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Come over here and tell me about it,” she invited, and led the way
+toward the Eating Apple tree. And she sat down in the swing! Of course
+whatever difference of condition exists between your grandmother and
+yourself vanishes when she sits down casually in your swing.</p>
+
+<p>My Grandmother Beers was a little woman, whose years, in England, in
+“New York state,” and in her adopted Middle West, had brought her
+only peace within, though much had beset her from without. She loved
+Four-o’clocks, and royal purple. When she said “royal purple,” it was
+as if the words were queens. She was among the few who sympathized
+with my longing to own a blue or red or green jar from a drug store
+window. We had first understood each other in a matter of window-sill
+food: This would be a crust, or a bit of baked apple, or a cracker
+which I used to lay behind the dining-room window-shutter—the
+closed one. For in the house at evening it was warm and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">238</a></span> light and
+Just-had-your-supper, while outside it was dark and damp and big, and I
+conceived that it must be lonely and hungry. The Dark was like a great
+helpless something, filling the air and not wanting particularly to
+be there. Surely It would much rather be light, with voices and three
+meals, than the Dark, with nobody and no food. So I used to set out a
+little offering, and once my Grandmother Beers had caught me paying
+tribute.</p>
+
+<p>“Once something <em>did</em> come and get it,” I defended myself over my
+shoulder, and before she could say a word.</p>
+
+<p>“Likely enough, likely enough, child,” she assented, and did not chide
+me.</p>
+
+<p>Neither did she chide me when once she surprised me into mentioning the
+Little Things, who had the use of my playthings when I was not there.
+It was one dusk when she had come upon me setting my toy cupboard to
+rights, and had commended me. And I had explained that it was so the
+Little Things could find the toys when they came, that night and every
+night, to play with them. I remember that all she did was to squeeze my
+hand; but I felt that I was wholly understood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">239</a></span>
+What child of us—of Us Who Were—will ever forget the joy of having
+an older one enter into our games? I used to sit in church and tell
+off the grown folk by this possibility in them—“She’d play with
+you—she wouldn’t—she would—he would—they wouldn’t”—an ancient
+declension of the human race, perfectly recognized by children, but
+never given its proper due.... I shall never forget the out-door romps
+with my Father, when he stooped, with his hands on his knees, and then
+ran <em>at</em> me; or when he held me while I walked the picket fence; or
+set me in the Eating Apple tree; nor can I forget the delight of the
+play-house that he built for me, <em>with a shelf around</em>.... And always I
+shall remember, too, how my Mother would play “Lost.” We used to curl
+on the sofa, taking with us some small store of fruit and cookies,
+wrap up in blankets and shawls, put up an umbrella—possibly two of
+them—and there we were, lost in the deep woods. We had been crossing
+the forest—night had overtaken us—we had climbed in a thick-leaved
+tree—it was raining—the woods were infested by bears and wolves—we
+had a little food, possibly enough to stave off starvation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">240</a></span> till
+daylight. Then came by the beasts of the forest, wonderful, human
+beasts, who passed at the foot of our tree, and with whom we talked
+long and friendly—and differently for each one—and ended by sharing
+with them our food. We scraped acquaintance with birds in neighbouring
+nests, the stars were only across a street of sky, the Dark did its
+part by hiding us. Sometimes, yet, when I see a fat, idle sofa in, say,
+an hotel corridor, I cannot help thinking as I pass: “What a wonderful
+place to play Lost.” I daresay that some day I shall put up my umbrella
+and sit down and play it.</p>
+
+<p>Well—Grandmother Beers was one who knew how to play with us, and I was
+always half expecting her to propose a new game. But that day, as she
+sat in the swing, her eyes were not twinkling at the corners.</p>
+
+<p>“What does it mean?” she asked us. “What does ‘wicked’ mean?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s what you aren’t to be,” I took the brunt of the reply, because I
+was the relative of the questioner.</p>
+
+<p>“Why not?” asked Grandmother.</p>
+
+<p>Why not? Oh, we all knew that. We<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">241</a></span> responded instantly, and out came
+the results of the training of all the families.</p>
+
+<p>“Because your mother and father say you can’t,” said Betty Rodman.</p>
+
+<p>“Because it makes your mother feel bad,” said Calista.</p>
+
+<p>“Because God don’t want us to,” said I.</p>
+
+<p>“Delia says,” Betty added, “it’s because, if you are, when you grow up
+people won’t think anything of you.”</p>
+
+<p>Grandmother Beers held her sweet-peas to her face.</p>
+
+<p>“If,” she said after a moment, “you wanted to do something wicked more
+than you ever wanted to do anything in the world—as much as you’d want
+a drink to-morrow if you hadn’t had one to-day—and if nobody ever
+knew—would any of those reasons keep you from doing it?”</p>
+
+<p>We consulted one another’s look, and shifted. We knew how thirsty that
+would be. Already we were thirsty, in thinking about it.</p>
+
+<p>“If I were in your places,” Grandmother said, “I’m not sure those
+reasons would keep me. I rather think they wouldn’t,—always.”</p>
+
+<p>We stared at her. It was true that they didn’t<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">242</a></span> always keep us. Were
+not two of us “in our rooms” even now?</p>
+
+<p>Grandmother leaned forward—I know how the shadows of the apple leaves
+fell on her black lace cap and how the pink sweet-peas were reflected
+in her delicate face.</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose,” she said, “that instead of any of those reasons, somebody
+gave you this reason: That the earth is a great flower—a flower that
+has never <em>really</em> blossomed yet. And that when it blossoms, life is
+going to be more beautiful than we have ever dreamed, or than fairy
+stories have ever pretended. And suppose our doing one way, and not
+another, makes the flower come a little nearer to blossoming. But our
+doing the other way puts back the time when it can blossom. <em>Then</em>
+which would you want to do?”</p>
+
+<p>Oh, make it grow, make it grow, we all cried—and I felt a secret
+relief: Grandmother was playing a game with us, after all.</p>
+
+<p>“And suppose that everything made a difference to it,” she went on,
+“every little thing—from telling a lie, on down to going to get a
+drink for somebody and drinking first yourself out in the kitchen.
+Suppose that everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">243</a></span> made a difference, from hurting somebody on
+purpose, down to making up the bed and pulling the bed-spread tight so
+that the wrinkles in the blanket won’t show....”</p>
+
+<p>At this we looked at one another in some consternation. How did
+Grandmother know....</p>
+
+<p>“Until after a while,” she said, “you should find out that
+everything—loving, going to school, playing, working, bathing,
+sleeping, were all just to make this flower grow. Wouldn’t it be fun to
+help?”</p>
+
+<p>Yes. Oh, yes, we were all agreed about that. It would be great fun to
+help.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then suppose,” said Grandmother, “that as you helped, you found
+out something else: That in each of you, say, where your heart is, or
+where your breath is, there was a flower trying to blossom too! And
+that only as you helped the earth flower to blossom could your flower
+blossom. And that your doing one way would make your flower droop its
+head and grow dark and shrivel up. But your doing the other way would
+make it grow, and turn beautiful colours—so that bye and bye every one
+of your bodies would be just a sheath for this flower. Which way <em>then</em>
+would you rather do?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">244</a></span>
+Oh, make it grow, make it grow, we said again.</p>
+
+<p>And Mary Elizabeth added longingly:—</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t it be fun if it was true?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is true,” said Grandmother Beers.</p>
+
+<p>She sat there, softly smiling over her pink sweet-peas. We looked at
+her silently. Then I remembered that her face had always seemed to me
+to be somehow <em>light within</em>. Maybe it was her flower showing through!</p>
+
+<p>“Grandmother!” I cried, “is it true—is it true?”</p>
+
+<p>“It is true,” she repeated. “And whether the earth flower and other
+people’s flowers and your flower are to bloom or not is what living is
+about. And everything makes a difference. Isn’t that a good reason for
+not being ‘wicked’?”</p>
+
+<p>We all looked up in her face, something in us leaping and answering to
+what she said. And I know that we understood.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” Mary Elizabeth whispered presently to Betty, “hurry home and tell
+Margaret Amelia. It’ll make it so much easier when she comes out to her
+supper.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>That night, on the porch alone with Mother<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">245</a></span> and Father, I inquired into
+something that still was not clear.</p>
+
+<p>“But how can you <em>tell</em> which things are wicked? And which ones are
+wrong and which things are right?”</p>
+
+<p>Father put out his hand and touched my hand. He was looking at me with
+a look that I knew—and his smile for me is like no other smile that I
+have ever known.</p>
+
+<p>“Something will tell you,” he said, “always.”</p>
+
+<p>“Always?” I doubted.</p>
+
+<p>“Always,” he said. “There will be other voices. But if you listen,
+something will tell you always. And it is all you need.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked at Mother. And by her nod and her quiet look I perceived that
+all this had been known about for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>“That is why Grandma Bard is coming to live with us,” she said, “not
+just because we wanted her, but because—<em>that</em> said so.”</p>
+
+<p>In us all a flower—and something saying something! And the earth
+flower trying to blossom.... I looked down the street: At Mr. Branchett
+walking in his garden, at the lights shining from windows, at the
+folk sauntering on the sidewalk, and toward town where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">246</a></span> the band
+was playing. We all knew about this together then. <em>This</em> was why
+everything was! And there were years and years to make it come true.</p>
+
+<p>What if I, alone among them all, had never found out?</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">247</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xiv" id="xiv"></a>XIV<br />
+<span>KING</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">There</span> was a certain white sugar bear and a red candy strawberry which
+we had been charged not to eat, because the strawberry was a nameless
+scarlet and the bear, left from Christmas, was a very soiled bear. We
+had all looked at these two things longingly, had even on occasion
+nibbled them a bit. There came a day when I crept under my bed and ate
+them both.</p>
+
+<p>It was a bed with slats. In the slat immediately above my head there
+was a knot-hole. Knot-hole, slat, the pattern of the ticking on the
+mattress, all remain graven on the moment. It was the first time that
+I had actually been conscious of—indeed, had almost <em>heard</em>—the
+fighting going on within me.</p>
+
+<p>Something was saying: “Oh, eat it, eat it. What do you care? It won’t
+kill you. It may not even make you sick. It is good. Eat it.”</p>
+
+<p>And something else, something gentle, insistent, steady, kept saying
+over and over in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">248</a></span> exactly the same tone, and so that I did not know
+whether the warning came from within or without:—</p>
+
+<p>“It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten. It must not be eaten.”</p>
+
+<p>But after a little, as I ate, this voice ceased.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody knew that I had eaten the forbidden bear and strawberry.
+Grandmother Beers squeezed my hand just the same. Mother was as tender
+as always. And Father—his kind eyes and some little jest with me were
+almost more than I could bear. I remember spending the evening near
+them, with something sore about the whole time. From the moment that it
+began to get dark the presence of bear and strawberry came and fastened
+themselves upon me, so that I delayed bed-going even more than usual,
+and interminably prolonged undressing.</p>
+
+<p>Then there came the moment when Mother sat beside me.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t ask God for anything,” she always said to me. “Just shut
+your eyes and think of his lovingness being here, close, close,
+close—breathing with you like your breath. Don’t ask him for anything.”</p>
+
+<p>But that night I scrambled into bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">249</a></span>
+“Not to-night, Mother,” I said.</p>
+
+<p>She never said anything when I said that. She kissed me and went away.</p>
+
+<p><em>Then!</em></p>
+
+<p>There I was, face to face with it at last. What was it that had told me
+to eat the bear and the strawberry? What was it that had told me that
+these must not be eaten? What had made me obey one and not the other?
+Who was it that spoke to me like that?</p>
+
+<p>I shut my eyes and thought of the voice that had told me to eat, and it
+felt like the sore feeling in me and like the lump in my throat, and
+like unhappiness.</p>
+
+<p>I thought of the other gentle voice that had spoken and had kept
+speaking and at last had gone away—and suddenly, with my eyes shut, I
+was thinking of something like lovingness, close, close, breathing with
+me like my breath.</p>
+
+<p>So now I have made a story for that night. It is late, I know. But
+perhaps it is not too late.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Once upon a time a beautiful present was given to a little boy named
+Hazen. It was not a tent or a launch or a tree-top house or a pretend
+aeroplane, but it was a little glass casket. And<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">250</a></span> it was the most
+wonderful little casket of all the kinds of caskets that there are.</p>
+
+<p>For in the casket was a little live thing, somewhat like a fairy and
+somewhat like a spirit, and so beautiful that everyone wanted one too.</p>
+
+<p>Now the little fairy (that was like a spirit) was held fast in the
+casket, which was tightly sealed. And when the casket was given to
+Hazen, the Giver said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Hazen dear, until you get that little spirit free, you cannot be wise
+or really good or loved or beautiful. But after you get her free you
+shall be all four. And nobody can free her but you yourself, though you
+may ask anybody and everybody to tell you how.”</p>
+
+<p>Now Hazen’s father was a king. And it chanced that while Hazen was yet
+a little boy, the king of a neighbour country came and took Hazen’s
+father’s kingdom, and killed all the court—for that was the way
+neighbour countries did in those days, not knowing that neighbours are
+nearly one’s own family. They took little Hazen prisoner and carried
+him to the conquering king’s court, and they did it in such a hurry
+that he had not time to take anything with him. All his belongings—his
+tops, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">251</a></span> football, his books, and his bank, had to be left behind,
+and among the things that were left was Hazen’s little glass casket,
+forgotten on a closet shelf, upstairs in the castle. And the castle
+was shut up and left as it was, because the conquering king thought
+that maybe he might like sometime to give to his little daughter,
+the Princess Vista, this castle, which stood on the very summit of a
+sovereign mountain and commanded a great deal of the world.</p>
+
+<p>In the court of the conquering king poor little Hazen grew up, and he
+was not wise or <em>really</em> good or loved or beautiful, and he forgot
+about the casket or thought of it only as a dream, and he did not know
+that he was a prince. He was a poor little furnace boy and kitchen-fire
+builder in the king’s palace, and he slept in the basement and did
+nothing from morning till night but attend to drafts and dampers. He
+did not see the king at all, and he had never even caught a glimpse of
+the king’s little daughter, the Princess Vista.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One morning before daylight Hazen was awakened by the alarm-in-a-basin
+at the head of his cot—for he was always so tired that just an alarm
+never wakened him at all, but set in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">252</a></span> a brazen basin an alarm would
+waken <em>anybody</em>. He dressed and hurried through the long, dim passages
+that led to the kitchens, and there he kindled the fires and tended the
+drafts and shovelled the coal that should cook the king’s breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a Thought spoke to him. It said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Hazen, you are not wise, or <em>really</em> good, or loved, or beautiful. Why
+don’t you become so?”</p>
+
+<p>“I,” Hazen thought back sadly, “<em>I</em> become these things? Impossible!”
+and he went on shovelling coal.</p>
+
+<p>But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and
+over so many times that at last he was obliged to listen and even to
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>“What would I do to be like that?” he asked almost impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>“First go up in the king’s library,” said the Thought.</p>
+
+<p>So when the fires were roaring and the dampers were right, Hazen went
+softly up the stair and through the quiet lower rooms of the palace,
+for it was very early in the morning, and no one was stirring. Hazen
+had been so seldom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">253</a></span> above stairs that he did not even know where the
+library was and by mistake he opened successively the doors to the
+great banquet room, the state drawing rooms, a morning room, and even
+the king’s audience chamber before at last he chanced on the door of
+the library.</p>
+
+<p>The king’s library was a room as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree,
+and it was filled with books, and the shelves were thrown out to make
+alcoves, so that the books were as thick as leaves on branches, and the
+whole room was pleasant, like something good to do. It was impossible
+for little Hazen, furnace boy though he was, to be in that great place
+of books without taking one down. So he took at random a big leather
+book with a picture on the cover, and he went toward a deep window-seat.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing could have exceeded his surprise and terror when he perceived
+the window-seat to be occupied. And nothing could have exceeded his
+wonder and delight when he saw who occupied it. She was a little girl
+of barely his own age, and her lovely waving hair fell over her soft
+blue gown from which her little blue slippers were peeping. She, too,
+had a great book in her arms, and over the top of this she was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">254</a></span> looking
+straight at Hazen in extreme disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>“Will you have the goodness,” she said—speaking very slowly and most
+<em>freezing</em> cold—“to ’splain what you are doing in my father’s library?”</p>
+
+<p>At these words Hazen’s little knees should have shaken, for he
+understood that this was the Princess Vista herself. But instead, he
+was so possessed by the beauty and charm of the little princess that
+there was no room for fear. Though he had never in his life been taught
+to bow, yet the blood of his father the king, and of <em>his</em> father the
+king, and of <em>his</em> father the king, and so on, over and over, stirred
+in him and he bowed like the prince he was-but-didn’t-know-it.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, princess,” he said, “I want to be wise and <em>really</em> good and loved
+and beautiful, and I have come to the king’s library to find out how to
+do it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you, that want so many ’surd things?” asked the princess,
+curiously.</p>
+
+<p>“I am the furnace boy,” said the poor prince, “and my other name is
+Hazen.”</p>
+
+<p>At this the princess laughed aloud—for when he had bowed she had
+fancied that he might be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">255</a></span> at least the servant to some nobleman at the
+court, too poor to keep his foot-page in livery.</p>
+
+<p>“The furnace boy indeed!” she cried. “And handling my father’s books.
+If you had what you ’serve, you’d be put in pwison.”</p>
+
+<p>At that Hazen bowed again very sadly, and was about to put back his
+book when footsteps sounded in the hall, and nursery governesses and
+chamberlains and foot-pages and lackeys and many whose names are as
+dust came running down the stairs, all looking for the princess. And
+the princess, who was not frightened, was suddenly sorry for little
+Hazen, who was.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” she said, “you bow so nicely that you may hide in that alcove
+and I will not tell them that you are there. But don’t you come here
+to-morrow morning when I come to read my book, or I can’t tell <em>what</em>
+will happen.”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the nursery
+governesses, chamberlains, foot-pages, and those whose names are as
+dust burst in the room.</p>
+
+<p>“I was just coming,” said the princess, haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>But when she was gone, Hazen, in his safe alcove, did not once look at
+his big leather book.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">256</a></span> He did not even open it. Instead he sat staring
+at the floor, and thinking and thinking and thinking of the princess.
+And it was as if his mind were opened, and as if all the princess
+thoughts in the world were running in, one after another.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when it was time for the palace to be awake, he stirred
+and rose and returned the book to its place, and in the midst of his
+princess thoughts he found himself face to face with a great mirror.
+And there he saw that, not only was he not beautiful, but that his
+cheek and his clothes were all blackened from the coal. And then he
+thought that he would die of shame; first, because the princess had
+seen him looking so, and second, because he looked so, whether she had
+seen him or not.</p>
+
+<p>He went back to the palace kitchen, and waited only to turn off the
+biggest drafts and the longest dampers before he began to wash his
+face and give dainty care to his hands. In fact, he did this all day
+long and sat up half the night trying to think how he could be as
+exquisitely neat as the little princess. And at last when daylight came
+and he had put coal in the kitchen ranges and had left the drafts right
+and had taken another bath after, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">257</a></span> dressed himself in his poor best
+which he had most carefully brushed, and he ran straight back up the
+stair and into the king’s library.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess Vista was not there. But it was very, very early this time
+and the sun was still playing about outside, and so he set himself to
+wait, looking up at the window-seat where he had first seen her. As
+soon as the sun began to slant in the latticed windows in earnest, the
+door opened and the princess entered, her waving hair falling on her
+blue gown, and the little blue slippers peeping.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw Hazen, she stood still and spoke most <em>freezing</em> cold.</p>
+
+<p>“Didn’t I tell you on no ’count to come here this morning?” she wished
+to know.</p>
+
+<p>Generations of kings for ages back bowed in a body in little Hazen.</p>
+
+<p>“Did your Highness not know that I would come?” he asked simply.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the princess to that, and sat down on the window-seat. “I
+will punish you,” said she, “but you bow so nicely that I will help you
+first. Why do you wish to be wise?”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought that I had another reason,” said Hazen, “but it is because
+you are wise.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">258</a></span>
+“I’m not so very wise,” said the princess, modestly. “But I could make
+you as wise as I am,” she suggested graciously. “What do you want to
+know?”</p>
+
+<p>There was so much that he wanted to know! Down in the dark furnace room
+he had been forever wondering about the fires that he kindled, about
+the light that he did not have, about everything. He threw out his arms.</p>
+
+<p>“I want to know about the whole world!” he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The princess considered.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps they haven’t teached me everything yet,” she said. “What do
+you want to know about the world?”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen looked out the window and across the palace garden, lying all
+golden-green in the slow opening light, with fountains and flowers and
+parks and goldfish everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>“What makes it get day?” he asked. For since he had been a furnace boy,
+Hazen had been taught nothing at all.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, the sun comes,” answered the princess.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it the same sun every day?” Hazen asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think so,” said the princess. “No—sometimes it is a red sun.
+Sometimes it is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">259</a></span> a hot sun. Sometimes it is big, big, when it goes
+down. Oh, no. I am quite sure a different sun comes up every day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Where do they get ’em all?” Hazen asked wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” the princess said thoughtfully, “suns must be like cwort (she
+never could say “court”) processions. I think they always have them
+ready somewheres. What else do you want to know about?”</p>
+
+<p>“About the Spring,” said Hazen. “Where does that come from? Where do
+they get it?”</p>
+
+<p>“They never teached me that,” said the princess, “but <em>I</em> think Summer
+is the mother, and Winter the father, and Autumn is the noisy little
+boy, and Spring is the little girl, with violets on.”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course,” cried Hazen, joyfully. “I never thought of that. Why can’t
+they talk?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“They ’most can,” said the princess. “Some day maybe I can teach you
+what they say. What else do you want to know?”</p>
+
+<p>“About people,” said Hazen. “Why are some folks good and some folks
+bad? Why is the king kind and the cook cross?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">260</a></span>
+“Oh, they never teached me that!” the princess cried, impatiently.
+“What a lot of things you ask!”</p>
+
+<p>“One more question, your Highness,” said Hazen, instantly. “Why are you
+so beautiful?”</p>
+
+<p>The princess smiled. “Now I’ll teach you my picture-book through,” she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>She opened the picture-book and showed him pictures of castles and
+beasts and lawns and towers and ladies and mountains and bright birds
+and pillars and cataracts and wild white horses and, last, a picture of
+a prince setting forth on a quest. “Prince Living sets out to make his
+fortune,” it said under the picture, and Hazen stared at it.</p>
+
+<p>“Why shouldn’t I set out to make <em>my</em> fortune?” he cried.</p>
+
+<p>The princess laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“You are a furnace boy,” she explained. “<em>They</em> don’t make fortunes.
+Who would mind the furnace if they did?”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>“That can’t be the way the world is!” he cried. “Not when it’s so
+pretty and all stuck full of goldfish and fountains and flowers and
+parks. If I went, I <em>would</em> make my fortune!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">261</a></span>
+The princess crossed her little slippered feet and looked at him. And
+when he met her eyes, he was ashamed of his anger, though not of his
+earnestness, and he bowed again; and all the kings of all the courts of
+his ancestors were in the bow.</p>
+
+<p>“After all,” said the princess, “we don’t have the furnace in Summer.
+And you bow so nicely that I b’lieve I will help you to make your
+fortune. <em>Anyhow</em>, I can help you to set out.”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen was in the greatest joy. The princess bade him wait where he was,
+and she ran away and found somewhere a cast-off page boy’s dress and
+a cap with a plume and a little silver horn and a wallet, with some
+bread. These she brought to Hazen just as footsteps sounded on the
+stairs, and nursery governesses and chamberlains and foot-pages and
+many whose names are as dust came running pell-mell down the stairs,
+all looking for the princess.</p>
+
+<p>“Hide in that alcove,” said the princess, “till I am gone. Then put on
+this dress and go out at the east gate which no one can lock. And as
+you go by the east wing, do not look up at my window or I will wave my
+hand and somebody may see you going. Now good-bye.”</p>
+
+<p>But at that Hazen was suddenly wretched.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">262</a></span>
+“I can’t leave <em>you!</em>” he said. “How can I leave <em>you</em>?”</p>
+
+<p>“People always leave people,” said the princess, with superiority.
+“Play that’s one of the things I teached you.”</p>
+
+<p>At this Hazen suddenly dropped on one knee—the kings, his fathers,
+did that for him too—and kissed the princess’s little hand. And as
+suddenly she wished very much that she had something to give him.</p>
+
+<p>“Here,” she said, “here’s my picture-book. Take it with you and learn
+it through. <em>Now</em> good-bye.”</p>
+
+<p>And Hazen had just time to slip in the alcove when all the n. g.’s,
+c.’s, f. p.’s, and l.’s, whom there wasn’t time to spell out, as well
+as all those whose names are now dust, burst in the room.</p>
+
+<p>“I was just coming,” said the princess, and went.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen dressed himself in the foot-page’s livery and fastened the
+wallet at one side and the little silver horn at the other, and put on
+the cap with a plume; and he stole into the king’s garden, with the
+picture-book of the princess fast in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>He had not been in a garden since he had left<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">263</a></span> his father’s garden,
+which he could just remember, and to be outdoors now seemed as
+wonderful as bathing in the ocean, or standing on a high mountain,
+or seeing the dawn. He hastened along between the flowering shrubs
+and hollyhocks; he heard the fountains plashing and the song-sparrows
+singing and the village bells faintly sounding; he saw the goldfish and
+the water-lilies gleam in the pool and the horses cantering about the
+paddock. And all at once it seemed that the day was his, to do with
+what he would, and he felt as if already that were a kind of fortune in
+his hand. So he hurried round the east wing of the palace and looked
+up eagerly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the Princess
+Vista, watching, with her hair partly brushed.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw him, she leaned far out.</p>
+
+<p>“I told you not to look,” she said. “Somebody will see you going.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t care if anyone does,” cried Hazen. “I <em>had</em> to!”</p>
+
+<p>“How fine you look now,” the princess could not help saying.</p>
+
+<p>“You are beautiful as the whole picture-book!” he could not help saying
+back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">264</a></span>
+“<em>Now</em>, good-bye!” she called softly, and waved her hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye—oh, good-bye!” he cried, and waved his plumed cap.</p>
+
+<p>And then he left her, looking after him with her hair partly brushed,
+and he ran out the east gate which was never locked, and fared as fast
+as he could along the king’s highway, in all haste to grow wise and
+<em>really</em> good and loved and beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen went a day’s journey in the dust of the highway, and toward
+nightfall he came to a deep wood. To him the wood seemed like a great
+hospitable house, with open doors between the trees and many rooms
+through which he might wander at will, the whole fair in the light of
+the setting sun. And he entered the gloom as he might have entered a
+palace, expecting to meet someone.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately he was aware of an old man seated under a plane tree, and
+the old man addressed him with:—</p>
+
+<p>“Good even, little lad. Do you travel far?”</p>
+
+<p>“Not very, sir,” Hazen replied. “I am only going to find my fortune and
+to become wise, <em>really</em> good, beautiful, and loved.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">265</a></span>
+“So!” said the old man. “Rest here a little and let us talk about it.”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen sat beside him and they talked about it. Now, I wish very much
+that I might tell you all that they said, but the old man was so old
+and wise that his thoughts came chiefly as pictures, or in other form
+without words, so that it was not so much what he said that held his
+meaning as what he made Hazen feel by merely being with him. Indeed, I
+do not know whether he talked about the stars or the earth or the ways
+of men, but he made little Hazen somehow know fascinating things about
+them all. And when time had passed and the dusk was nearly upon them,
+the old man lightly touched Hazen’s forehead:—</p>
+
+<p>“Little lad,” he said, “have you ever looked in there?”</p>
+
+<p>“In my own head?” said Hazen, staring.</p>
+
+<p>“Even so,” said the old man. “No? But that might well be a pleasant
+thing to do. Will you not do that, for a little while?”</p>
+
+<p>This was the strangest thing that ever Hazen had heard. But next
+moment, under the old man’s guidance, he found himself, as it were,
+turned about and seeing things that he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">266</a></span> never seen, and looking
+back into his own head as if there were a window that way. And he did
+it with no great surprise, for it seemed quite natural to him, and he
+wondered why he had never done it before.</p>
+
+<p>Of the actual construction of things in there Hazen was not more
+conscious than he would have been of the bricks and mortar of a palace
+filled with wonderful music and voices and with all sorts of surprises.
+Here there were both surprises and voices. For instantly he could see
+a company of little people, <em>every one of whom looked almost like
+himself</em>. And it was as it is when one stands between two mirrors set
+opposite, and the reflections reflect the reflections until one is
+dizzy; only now it was as if all the reflections were suddenly to be
+free of the mirror and be little living selves, ready to say different
+things.</p>
+
+<p>One little Self had just made a small opening in things, and several
+Selves were peering into it. Hazen looked too, and he saw to his
+amazement that it was a kind of picture of his plans for making his
+fortune. There were cities, seas, ships, men, forests, water-falls,
+leaping animals, glittering things, all the adventures that he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">267</a></span>
+been imagining. And the Selves were talking it over.</p>
+
+<p>“Consider the work it will be,” one was distinctly grumbling, “before
+we can get anything. <em>Is</em> it worth it?”</p>
+
+<p>He was a discouraged, discontented-looking Self, and though he had
+Hazen’s mouth, it was drooping, and though he had Hazen’s forehead, it
+was frowning.</p>
+
+<p>A breezy little Self, all merry and fluffy and light as lace,
+answered:—</p>
+
+<p>“O-o-o-o!” it breathed. “I think it will be fun. That’s all I care
+about it—it will be fun and <em>nothing else</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Then a strange, fascinating Self, from whom Hazen could not easily look
+away, spoke, half singing.</p>
+
+<p>“Remember the beauty that we shall see as we go—as we go,” he chanted.
+“We can live for the beauty everywhere and for <em>nothing else</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Think of the things we shall learn!” cried another Self.
+“Knowledge—knowledge all the way—and <em>nothing else</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Then a soft voice spoke, which was sweeter than any voice that Hazen
+had ever heard, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">268</a></span> the Self to whom it belonged looked like Hazen
+when he was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>“Nay,” it said sighing, “there are many dangers. But to meet dangers
+bravely and to overcome them finely is the way to grow strong.”</p>
+
+<p>At this a little voice laughed and cracked as it laughed, so that it
+sounded like something being broken which could never be mended.</p>
+
+<p>“Being strong and wise don’t mean making one’s fortune,” it said. “Just
+one thing means fortune, and that is being rich. To be rich—rich!
+That’s what we want and it is all we want. And I am ready to fight with
+everyone of you to get riches.”</p>
+
+<p>Hazen looked where the voice sounded, and to his horror he saw a little
+Self made in his own image, but hideously bent and distorted, so that
+he knew exactly how he would look if he were a dwarf.</p>
+
+<p>“Not me!” cried the breezy little Fun Self then. “You wouldn’t fight
+me!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I would,” said the dwarf. “I’d fight everybody, and when we were
+rich, you’d thank me for it.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, no,” said the Knowledge Self. “I am the only proper ruler in this
+fortune affair.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">269</a></span> Knowledge is enough for us to have. Knowledge is what
+we want.”</p>
+
+<p>“Beauty is all you need!” cried the fascinating Beauty Self. “I am the
+one who should rule you all.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, rich, rich, rich! Do I not say so? Will not riches bring beauty
+and fun and leisure for knowledge?” said the dwarf. “Riches do it all.
+Do as I say. Take me for your guide.”</p>
+
+<p>“Strength is the thing!” said a great voice, suddenly. “We want to be
+big and strong and <em>nothing else</em>. I am going to rule in this.” And the
+voice of the Strong Self seemed to be everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>“Not without me ... not without me!” said the Wise Self. But it spoke
+faintly, and could hardly be heard in the clamour of all the others who
+now all began talking at once, with the little Fun Self dancing among
+them and crying, “I’m the one—you all want me to rule, <em>really</em>, but
+you don’t know it.”</p>
+
+<p>And suddenly, in the midst of all this, Hazen began to see strange
+little shadows appearing and lurking about, somewhat slyly, and often
+running away, but always coming back. They were tiny and faintly
+outlined—less like reflections<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">270</a></span> in a mirror than like reflections
+which had not yet found a mirror for their home. And they spoke in thin
+little voices which Hazen could hear, and said:—</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll help you, Rich! We’ll help you, Strength! We’ll help you, Fun!
+Only let us be one of you and we’ll help you win, and you shall reign.
+Here are Envy Self and Lying Self and Hate Self and Cruel Self—we’ll
+help, if you’ll let us in!”</p>
+
+<p>And when he heard this, Hazen suddenly called out, with all his might:—</p>
+
+<p>“Stop!” he cried, “I’m the ruler here! I’m Hazen!”</p>
+
+<p>And of course he was the ruler—because it was the inside of his own
+head.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly there was complete silence there, as when a bell is suddenly
+struck in the midst of whisperings. And all the Selves shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>“Hazen!” they said, “we didn’t know you were listening. You be king.
+We’ll help—we’ll help.”</p>
+
+<p>“As long as I live,” said little Hazen then, “not one of you shall rule
+in here without me. I shall want many of you to help me, but only as
+much as I tell you to, and no more. I’m<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">271</a></span> only a furnace boy, but I tell
+you that I am king of the inside of my own head, and I’m going to rule
+here and nobody else!”</p>
+
+<p>Then, nearer than any of the rest—and he could not tell just where it
+came from, but he knew how near it was—another voice spoke to him. And
+somewhat it was like the Thought that had spoken to him in the king’s
+kitchen and bidden him go up to the king’s library—but yet it was
+nearer than that had been.</p>
+
+<p>“Bravely done, Hazen,” it said. “Be king—be king, even as you have
+said!”</p>
+
+<p>With the voice came everywhere sweet music, sounding all about Hazen
+and in him and through him; and everywhere was air of dreams—he
+could hardly tell whether he was watching these or was really among
+them. There were sweet voices, dim figures, gestures of dancing,
+soft colours, lights, wavy, wonderful lines, little stars suddenly
+appearing, flowers, kindly faces, and then one face—the exquisite,
+watching face of the Princess Vista at the window, with her hair partly
+brushed ... and then darkness....</p>
+
+<p>... When he woke, it was early morning. The sun was pricking through
+the leaves of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">272</a></span> the forest, the birds were singing so sweetly and
+swiftly that it was as if their notes overlapped and made one sound on
+which everything was threaded like curious and beautiful beads on a
+silver cord. The old man was gone; and before Hazen, the way, empty and
+green, led on with promise of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>And now as he went forward, eating his bread and gathering berries,
+Hazen had never felt so able to make his future. It was as if he were
+not one boy but many boys in one, and they all ready to do his bidding.
+Surely, he thought, his fortune must lie at the first turn of the path!</p>
+
+<p>But at the first turn of the path he met a little lad no older than
+himself, who was drawing a handcart filled with something covered, and
+he was singing merrily.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello,” said the Merry Lad. “Where are <em>you</em> going?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nowhere in particular,” said Hazen. And though he had readily confided
+to the old man what he was hoping to find, someway Hazen felt that if
+he told the Merry Lad, he would laugh at him. And that no one likes,
+though it is never a thing to fear.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on with me,” said the Merry Lad. “I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">273</a></span> am going in the town to sell
+my images. There will be great sport.”</p>
+
+<p>And, without stopping to think whether his fortune lay that way, Hazen,
+whose blood leapt at the idea of the town and its sports, turned and
+went with him.</p>
+
+<p>The Merry Lad was very merry. He told Hazen more games and riddles
+than ever he had heard. He sang him songs, did little dances for him
+in the open glades, raced with him, and when they reached the dusty
+highway, got him in happy talk with the other wayfarers. And by the
+time they gained the town, they were a gay little company. There the
+Merry Lad took his images to the market-place and spread them under a
+tree—little figures made to represent Mirth, Merriment, Laughter, Fun,
+Fellowship, and Delight—no end there was to the variety and charm of
+the little images, and no end to all that the Merry Lad did to attract
+the people to them. He sang and danced and whistled and even stood on
+his head, and everyone crowded about him and was charmed.</p>
+
+<p>“Pass my cap about,” he said, while he danced, to Hazen. “They will
+give us money.”</p>
+
+<p>So Hazen passed the Merry Lad’s cap, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">274</a></span> the people gave them money.
+They filled the cap, indeed, with clinking coins, and went away
+carrying the images. And by nightfall the Merry Lad and Hazen had more
+money than they knew how to use.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh,” the Merry Lad cried, “we shall have a glorious time. Come!”</p>
+
+<p>Now Hazen had never been in the town at night, and he had never been
+in any town at any time without some of the king’s servants for whom
+he had had to fetch and carry. To him the streets were strange and
+wonderful, blazing with lights, filled with gayly dressed folk, and
+sounding now and again to strains of music. But the Merry Lad seemed
+wholly at home, and he went here and there like a painted moth,
+belonging to the night and a part of it. They feasted and jested and
+joyed, and most of all they spent the money that they had earned, and
+they spent it on themselves. I cannot tell you the things that they
+bought. They bought a wonderful, tropical, talking bird; they bought a
+little pony on which they both could ride, with the bird on the pony’s
+neck; they bought a tiny trick monkey and a suit of Indian clothes with
+fringed leggings and head-feathers; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">275</a></span> a music-box that played like
+a whole band. And when the evening with its lights and pantomimes was
+over, they pitched their tent on the edge of the town, picketed the
+pony outside, brought the other things safely within, and lay down to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Now, since they had no pillows, Hazen took the picture-book which
+the princess had given him and made his pillow of that. And as soon
+as everything was quiet, and the Merry Lad and the talking bird
+were asleep and the pony was dozing at its picket, the princess’s
+picture-book began to talk to Hazen. I do not mean that it said
+words—it is a great mistake to think that everything that is said must
+be said in words—but it talked to him none the less, and better than
+with words. It showed him the princess in her blue gown sitting in the
+window-seat with her little blue slippers crossed. It showed him her
+face as she taught him about the sun and the world, and taught him
+her picture-book through. It reminded him that his page-boy’s dress
+was worn because, in his heart, he was her page. It brought back the
+picture of her standing at the window, with her hair partly brushed,
+to wave him a good-bye—“<em>Now</em>, good-bye,” he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">276</a></span> could hear her little
+voice. He remembered now that he had started out to find his fortune
+and to become wise, <em>really</em> good, loved, and beautiful. And lo, all
+this that he had done all day with the Merry Lad—was it helping him to
+any of these?</p>
+
+<p>As soon as he knew this, he rose softly and, emptying his pockets of
+his share of the money earned that day, he laid it near the Merry Lad’s
+pillow, took the picture-book, and slipped away.</p>
+
+<p>The Merry Lad did not wake, but the talking bird stirred on his perch
+and called after him: “Stay where you are! Stay where you are!” And
+the words seemed to echo in Hazen’s head and were repeated there as if
+another voice had said them, and while he hesitated at the door of the
+tent, he knew what that other voice was: It was within his head indeed,
+and it was the voice of that breezy little Self, all merry and fluffy
+and light as lace—the Fun Self itself!</p>
+
+<p>And then he knew that all day long that was the voice that he had been
+obeying when he went with the Merry Lad, and all day long that Self had
+been guiding him, and had been his ruler. And he himself had not been
+king of the Selves at all!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">277</a></span>
+Hazen slipped out into the night and ran as fast as he could. Nearly
+all that night he travelled without stopping, lest when day came the
+Merry Lad should overtake him. And when day did come, Hazen found
+himself far away, and passing the gate of a garden where, in the dawn,
+a youth was walking, reading a book. Him Hazen asked if he might come
+in the garden and rest for a little.</p>
+
+<p>This Bookman, who was pleasant and gentle and seemed half dreaming,
+welcomed him in, and gave him fruit to eat, and Hazen fell asleep in
+the arbour. When he awoke, the Bookman sat beside him, still reading,
+and seeing that the boy was awake, he began reading to him.</p>
+
+<p>He read a wonderful story about the elements of which everything
+in the world is made. He read that they are a great family of more
+than seventy, and so magically arranged that they make a music, done
+in octaves like the white keys of a piano. So that a man, if he is
+skilful, can play with these octaves as he might with octaves of sound,
+and with a thousand variations can make what he will, and almost play
+for himself a strain of the heavenly harmony in which things began. You
+see what wonderful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">278</a></span> music that would be? Hazen saw, and he could not
+listen enough.</p>
+
+<p>Until dark he was in the garden, eating fruit and listening; and the
+Bookman, seeing how he loved to listen, asked him if he would not stay
+on in the garden, and live there awhile. And without stopping to think
+whether his fortune lay that way, Hazen said that he would stay.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that the Bookman read to him was like magic, and it taught
+Hazen to do wonderful things. For example, he learned marvellous ways
+with sentences and with words. The Bookman showed him how to get inside
+of words, as if they had doors, so that Hazen could look from out the
+words that were spoken almost as if they had been little boxes, and he
+inside. The Bookman showed him how to look behind the words on a page
+and to see how different they seemed that way. He would say a sentence,
+and instantly it would become solid, and he would set it up, and Hazen
+could hang to it, or turn upon it like a turning-bar. It was all great
+sport. For sentences were not the only things with which he could
+juggle. He showed Hazen how to think a thing and have <em>that</em> become
+solid in the air, too. Just as one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">279</a></span> might think, “Now I will plant my
+garden,” and presently there the garden is, solid; or, “Now I will get
+my lesson,” and presently, sure enough, there the lesson <em>is</em>, in one’s
+head, <em>so</em> the Bookman taught Hazen to do with nearly all his thoughts,
+making many and many of them into actions or else into a solid, so that
+it could be handled as a garden can.</p>
+
+<p>And at last, one night, Hazen thought of the Princess Vista, hoping
+that that thought would become solid too, and that the princess would
+be there before him, for he wished very much to see her. But it did not
+do so, and he asked the Bookman the reason.</p>
+
+<p>“Why does not my thought about the Princess Vista become solid, and the
+princess be here beside me?” he asked wistfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Some thoughts take a very long time to become solid,” said the
+Bookman, gently, “and sometimes we have to travel a long way to make
+them so. If you think of the princess long and hard enough, I daresay
+that you will go to her some day—and there she will be, solid.”</p>
+
+<p>But of course as soon as Hazen began thinking of the princess long and
+hard, he wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be doing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">280</a></span>
+something that should hasten the time of seeing her, which could not
+well be until he had made his fortune. So thereupon he told the Bookman
+that he must be leaving the garden.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew that the day must come,” said the Bookman, sadly. “<em>Could</em> you
+not stay?”</p>
+
+<p>And when he said that, Hazen wanted so very much to stay there in the
+enchantment of the place, that it seemed as if a voice in his own
+head were echoing the words. And while he hesitated at the gate of
+the garden, he knew what that other voice was! It was within his head
+indeed, and it was the voice of that strange, fascinating Self from
+which he had found that he could hardly look away—the Knowledge Self
+itself. And then he knew that all this time in this garden, it was
+this voice that he had been obeying and it had been guiding him. He
+himself had not been king of the Selves at all. So when he knew that,
+he hesitated not a moment, for he saw that although the Bookman was
+far finer than the Merry Lad, still neither must be king, but only he
+himself must be king.</p>
+
+<p>“Alas!” he cried, as he left the garden, “I am not nearer to making my
+fortune now than I was at the beginning!”</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">281</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xv" id="xv"></a>XV<br />
+<span>KING (<em>continued</em>)</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">So</span> Hazen left the garden and the gentle Bookman, who was loath to let
+him go, and hurried out into the world again.</p>
+
+<p>He travelled now for many days, hearing often of far countries which
+held what he sought, but never reaching any of them. Always he did
+what tasks came to his hand, for this seemed
+<a name="a" id="a"></a><ins title="Original has duplicate 'a'">a</ins> good way
+toward fortune. But sometimes the Envy Self and the Discontented Self
+spoke loudly in his head so that he thought that it was he himself who
+was speaking, and he obeyed them, and stopped his work, and until the
+chance to finish it was lost, he did not know that it was these Selves
+who had made him cease his task and lose his chance and be that much
+farther from fortune. For that was the way of all the Selves—they had
+a clever fashion of making Hazen think that their voices were his own
+voice, and sometimes he could hardly tell the difference.</p>
+
+<p class="nmb">At last, one night, he came to a hill, sloping<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">282</a></span> gently as if something
+beautiful were overflowing. Its trees looked laid upon the mellow
+west beyond. The turf was like some Titan woman’s embroidery, sheared
+and flowered. Hazen looked at it all, and at the great sky and the
+welcoming distance, and before he knew whether it came as a thought or
+as a song, he had made a little rhyme:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Do you wish you had a world of gold</div>
+<div class="line">With a turquoise roof on high,</div>
+<div class="line">And a coral east and a ruby west</div>
+<div class="line">And diamonds in the sky?</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Do you wish there were little doors of air</div>
+<div class="line">That a child might open wide,</div>
+<div class="line">Where were emerald chairs and a tourmaline rug</div>
+<div class="line">And a moonstone moon beside?</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Do you wish the lakes were silver plates</div>
+<div class="line">And the sea a sapphire dish?</div>
+<div class="line">What a wonderful, wonderful world it is—</div>
+<div class="line">For haven’t you got your wish?</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>He liked to sing this, and he loved the hill and the evening. He lay
+there a long time, making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">283</a></span> little rhymes and loving everything. Next
+day he wandered away in the woods, and asked for food at a hut, and
+offered the bewildered woman a rhyme in payment, and at night he
+returned to his hill, and there he lived for days, playing that he
+was living all alone in the world—that there was not another person
+anywhere on the earth.</p>
+
+<p>But one night when he was lying on the hillside, composing a song to
+the Littlest Leaf in the Wood, suddenly the voice of his song was not
+so loud as a voice within him which seemed to say how much he delighted
+to be singing. And then he knew the voice—that it was the voice of the
+Beauty Self in his own head, that it was that voice that had made him
+linger on the hillside and had commanded him to sing about the beauty
+in the world <em>and to do nothing else</em>. And all this time it had been
+king of the Selves, and not he!</p>
+
+<p>He rose and fled down the hillside, and for days he wandered alone,
+sick at heart because this fair Beauty Self had tricked him into
+following her <em>and no other</em>, even as the Fun Self and the Knowledge
+Self had done. But even while he wandered, grieving, again and again
+the Idle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">284</a></span> Self, the Strong Self, the Discontented Self, deceived him
+for a little while and succeeded in making their own voices heard, and
+now and again the little shadowy Selves—the Malice and Cruel and Envy
+Selves drew very near him and tried to speak for him. And they all
+fought to keep him from being king and to deceive him into thinking
+that they spoke for him.</p>
+
+<p>One brooding noonday, as Hazen was travelling, alone and tired, on the
+highroad, a carriage overtook him, and the gentleman within, looking
+sharply at him, ordered the carriage stopped, and asked him courteously
+if he was not the poet whose songs he had sometimes heard, and of whose
+knowledge and good-fellowship others had told him. It proved that it
+was no other than Hazen whom he meant, and he took him with him in
+his carriage to a great, wonderful house overlooking the valley, and
+commanding a sovereign mountain on whose very summit stood a deserted
+castle. It seemed as if merely looking on that wonderful prospect would
+help one to be wise and <em>really</em> good and beautiful and worthy to be
+loved.</p>
+
+<p>At once Hazen’s host, the Gentleman of the Carriage, began showing
+him his treasures and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">285</a></span> all that made life for him. The house was
+filled with curious and beautiful things, pictures, ivories, marbles,
+and tapestries, and with many friends. In the evenings there were
+always festivities; mirth and laughter were everywhere, and Hazen
+was laden with gifts of these and other things, and delighted in the
+entertainment. But by day, in a high-ceiled library and a cool study,
+the two spent hours pouring over letters and science, finding out
+the secrets of the world, getting on the other side of words, saying
+sentences, and thinking thoughts that became solid; or they would
+wander on the hillsides and carry rare books and dream of the beauty in
+the world and weave little songs. Now they would be idle, now absorbed
+in feats of strength, and now they would descend into the town and
+there delight in its great sport. And in all this Hazen had some part
+and earned his own way, because of his cleverness and willingness to
+enter in the life and belong to it.</p>
+
+<p>One day, standing on a balcony of the beautiful house, looking across
+at the mountain and the deserted castle, Hazen said aloud:—</p>
+
+<p>“This is the true life. This is fortune. For now I hear all the voices
+of all my Selves, and I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">286</a></span> give good things to each, and I am king of
+them all!”</p>
+
+<p>But even as he spoke he heard another voice sounding within his own,
+and it laughed, and cracked as it laughed, so that it sounded like
+something being broken that could never be mended.</p>
+
+<p>“I told you so, Hazen! I told you so!” it cried. “Being loved and
+<em>really</em> good do not mean making our fortune. Just one thing means
+fortune, and that is being rich. To be rich, <em>rich</em>, means good times
+and learning and beauty and idleness. I’ve fought
+<a name="every_one" id="every_one"></a><ins title="Original has 'everyone'">every one</ins>
+of the others, and now you’ve got all that they had to offer, because
+you have let me be king—<em>me and no other</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>To his horror, Hazen recognized the voice of the dwarf, the Riches
+Self, and knew that he was deceived again, that he himself was ruler of
+nothing, and that the dwarf was now king of all his Selves.</p>
+
+<p>When he realized this, it seemed to Hazen that his heart was pierced
+and that he could not live any longer. Suppose—ah, suppose that he did
+get back to the Princess Vista now—what had he to take to her? Could
+he give her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">287</a></span> himself—a Self of which not he but the dwarf was the
+owner?</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, in spite of their protestations and persuadings, Hazen said
+good-bye to them all, to his host and to those who had detained him,
+and he was off down into the valley alone—not knowing where he was
+going or what he was going to do, or what hope now remained that he
+should ever be any nearer the fortune for which he had so hopefully set
+out.</p>
+
+<p>It was bright moonlight when he came to the edge of a fair, green,
+valley meadow. The whiteness was flooding the world, as if it would
+wash away everything that had ever been and would begin it all over
+again. And in the centre of the meadow, all the brightness seemed to
+gather and thicken and glitter, as if something mysterious were there.
+It drew Hazen to itself, as if it were so pure that it must be what
+he was seeking, and he broke through the hedge and stepped among the
+flowers of the lush grass, and he stood before it.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fountain of water, greater than any fountain that Hazen had
+ever seen or conceived. It rose from the green in pure strands of
+exquisite firmness, in almost the slim lines and spirals<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">288</a></span> of a stair;
+and its high, curving spray and its plash and murmur made it rather
+like a gigantic white tree, with music in its boughs—the tree of life
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen could no more have helped leaping in the fountain than he could
+have helped his joy in its beauty. He sprang in the soft waters as
+if he were springing into arms, and it drew him to itself as if he
+belonged to it. The waters flowed over him, and he felt purified, and
+as if a healing light had shone through him, body and mind.</p>
+
+<p>But to his amazement, he did not remain in the fountain’s basin.
+Gently, as if he were upborne by unseen hands, he mounted with the rise
+of the fountain, in its slim lines and spirals, until he found himself
+high above the meadow in a silvery tower that was thrown out from the
+fountain itself. And there, alone in that lofty silence, it was as if
+he were face to face with himself and could see his own heart.</p>
+
+<p>Then the Thought spoke to him which had spoken to him long ago that
+morning in the king’s kitchen, and again on that first night in the
+wood.</p>
+
+<p>“Hazen!” it said, “you are not wise or <em>really</em><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">289</a></span> good or loved or
+beautiful. Why don’t you become so?”</p>
+
+<p>“I!” said Hazen, sadly. “I have lost my chance. I came out to find my
+fortune and I have thrown it away.”</p>
+
+<p>But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and
+over so many times that at last he answered:—</p>
+
+<p>“What, then, must I do?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>And then he listened, there in the night and the stillness, to hear
+what it was that he must do. And this was the first time that ever he
+had listened like this, or questioned carefully his course. Always
+before he had done what seemed to him the thing that he wished to do,
+without questioning whether his fortune lay that way.</p>
+
+<p>“Bravely spoken, Hazen,” said the Thought, then. “Someone near is in
+great need. Find him and help
+<a name="him" id="him"></a><ins title="Original omits closing quotation mark">him.”</ins></p>
+
+<p>Instantly Hazen leaped lightly to the ground, and ran away through
+the moonlit meadow, and he sought as never in his life had he sought
+anything before, for the one near, in great need, whom he was to find
+and help. All through the night he sought, and with the setting of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">290</a></span> moon he was struggling up the mountain, because it seemed to him
+that he must do some hard thing, and this was hard. In the early dawn
+he stood on the mountain’s very summit, and knocked at the gate of the
+deserted castle there. And it was the forsaken castle of his father,
+the king, whom the Princess Vista’s father had conquered; but this
+Hazen did not know.</p>
+
+<p>No sound answered his summons, so he swung the heavy gate on its broken
+hinges and stepped within. The court yard was vacant and echoing and
+grass-grown. Rabbits scuttled away at his approach, and about the
+sightless eyes of the windows, bats were clinging and moving. The clock
+in the tower was still and pointed to an hour long-spent. The whole
+place breathed of things forgotten and of those who, having loved them,
+were forgotten too.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen mounted the broad, mossy steps leading to the portals, and he
+found one door slightly ajar. Wondering greatly, he touched it open,
+and the groined hall appeared like a grim face from behind a mask.
+On the stone floor, not far beyond the threshold, lay an old man,
+motionless. And when, uttering a little cry of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">291</a></span> pity and amazement,
+Hazen stooped over him, he knew him at once to be that old man who had
+greeted him at the entrance to the wood on the evening of the day on
+which he himself had left the king’s palace.</p>
+
+<p>What with bringing him water and bathing his face and chafing his
+hands, Hazen at last enabled the old man to speak, and found that he
+had been nearly all his life-time the keeper of the castle and for
+some years its only occupant. He was not ill, but he had fallen and
+was hurt, and he had lain for several days without food. So Hazen, who
+knew well how to do it, kindled a fire of fagots in the great, echoing
+castle kitchen, and, from the scanty store which he found there,
+prepared broth and eggs, and then helped the old man to his bed in the
+little room which had once been a king’s cabinet.</p>
+
+<p>“Lad, lad!” said the old man, when he had remembered Hazen. “And
+have you found your fortune? And are you by now wise, <em>really</em> good,
+beautiful, and loved?”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas!” said Hazen, only, and could say no more.</p>
+
+<p>The old man nodded. “I know, I know,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">292</a></span> he said sadly. “The little
+Selves have been about, ruling here and ruling there. Is it not so? Sit
+here a little, and let us talk about it.”</p>
+
+<p>Then Hazen told him all that had befallen since that night when they
+sat together in the wood. And though his adventures seemed to Hazen
+very wonderful, the old man merely nodded, as if he were not hearing
+but only remembering.</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” he said, at the last, “I have met them all—the Merry Lad, the
+Bookman, and all the rest, and have dwelt a space with some. And I,
+too, have come to the fountain in the night, and have asked what it was
+that I should do.”</p>
+
+<p>“But tell me, sir,” said Hazen, eagerly, “how was it that I was told at
+the fountain that there was one near in great need. Did the fountain
+know you? Or did my Thought? And how could that be?”</p>
+
+<p>“Nay, lad,” said the old man, “but always, for everyone, there is
+someone near in need—yet. One has only to look.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he talked to Hazen more about his fortune, and again the old man’s
+meaning was in his mere presence, so that whether he talked<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">293</a></span> about the
+stars or the earth or the ways of men, he made Hazen know fascinating
+things about them all. And now Hazen listened far differently from the
+way that he had listened that other time when they had talked, and it
+was as if the words had grown, and as if they meant more than once they
+had meant.</p>
+
+<p>Now, whoever has stood for the first time in a great, empty castle
+knows that there is one thing that he longs to do above all other
+things, and this is to explore. And when the afternoon lay brooding
+upon the air, and slanting sun fell through the dusty lattices, Hazen
+asked the old man eagerly if he might wander through the rooms.</p>
+
+<p>“As freely,” answered the old man, willingly, “as if you were the
+castle’s prince.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus it chanced that, after all the years, Hazen, though he was far
+from dreaming the truth, was once more roaming through the rooms of his
+birthplace and treading the floors that had once echoed the step of his
+father, the king.</p>
+
+<p>It was a wonderful place, the like of which Hazen thought he had never
+seen before, save only in the palace of the father of the princess.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">294</a></span>
+Above stairs the rooms had hardly been disturbed since that old day of
+the hurried flight of all his father’s court. There was a great room
+of books, as rich in precious volumes as the king’s library which he
+already knew, and there, though this he could not guess, his own father
+had been wont to sit late in the night, consulting learned writers and
+dreaming of the future of his little son. There was the chapel, where
+they had brought Hazen himself to be christened, in the presence of all
+the court; there the long banqueting room to which he had once been
+carried so that the nobles might pledge him their fealty, the arched
+roof echoing their shouts. The throne room, the council room, the state
+drawing rooms—through all these, with their dim, dusty hangings and
+rich, faded furnishings, Hazen footed; and at last, up another stair,
+he came to the private apartments of the king and queen themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Breathing the life of another time the rooms lay, as if partly
+remembering and partly expecting. In the king’s room was the hunting
+suit that he had thrown off just before the attack, the book that he
+had been reading, the chart that he had consulted. In the queen’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">295</a></span>
+room were tarnished golden toilet articles and ornaments, and in her
+wardrobe her very robes hung, dusty and mouldering, the gold thread and
+gold fringes showing black and sad.</p>
+
+<p>And then Hazen entered a room which seemed to have been a child’s
+room—and it was his room, of his first babyhood. Something in him
+stirred and kindled, almost as if his body remembered, though his mind
+could not do so. Toys lay scattered about—tops, a football, books, and
+a bank. The pillow of the small white bed was indented as if from the
+pressure of a little head, and a pair of tiny shoes, one upright, one
+overturned, were on the floor. Hazen picked up one little shoe and held
+it for a minute in his hand. He wondered if some of the little garments
+of the child, whoever he was, might not be in the hanging room. And he
+opened the closed door.</p>
+
+<p>The door led to a closet and, as he had guessed, little garments were
+hanging there. But it was not these that caught his eye and held him
+breathless and spellbound on the threshold. On the high shelf of the
+closet stood a small glass casket. And in the casket was a little bit
+of live thing that fluttered piteously, as if begging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">296</a></span> to be released,
+and frantic with joy at the coming of light from without.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen’s heart beat as he took the casket in his hand. It was the most
+wonderful little box that ever he had seen. And the little living thing
+was something like a fairy and something like a spirit and so beautiful
+that it seemed to Hazen that he must have it for his own. Something
+stirred and kindled in his mind so that it was almost a memory, and he
+said to himself:—</p>
+
+<p>“I have seen a casket like this. I have <em>had</em> a casket like this. Nay,
+but the very earliest thing that ever I can remember is a casket like
+this from which no one knew how to release this little living spirit.”</p>
+
+<p>For the little spirit was fast in the crystal prison, and if one broke
+the casket, one would almost certainly harm the spirit—but what other
+way was there to do?</p>
+
+<p>With the casket in his hand and the little spirit fluttering within,
+Hazen ran back below stairs to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“Look!” Hazen cried. “This casket! It is from the closet shelf of some
+child’s room. I remember a casket such as this, and within it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">297</a></span> a little
+living spirit. I have <em>had</em> a casket such as this! What does it mean?”</p>
+
+<p>Then the old man, who had been keeper there when the castle was taken,
+trembled and peered into Hazen’s face.</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you?” the old man cried. “Who are you—and what is your name?”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas,” said Hazen, sadly, “I was but the furnace boy to the king of a
+neighbouring country, and who I am I do not know. But as for my name,
+that is Hazen, and I know not what else.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the old man cried out, and tried to bow himself, and to kiss
+Hazen’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Prince Hazen!” cried he. “You are no other. Ah, God be praised. You
+are the son of my own beloved king.”</p>
+
+<p>As well as he could for his joy and agitation, the old man told Hazen
+everything: how the castle had been taken by that king of a neighbour
+country—who did <em>not</em> know that neighbours are nearly one’s own
+family—how Hazen had been made prisoner, and how he was really heir
+to this kingdom and to all its ample lands. And how the magic casket,
+which after all these years the old man now remembered, was to make
+Hazen, and no other, wise and <em>really</em> good and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">298</a></span> loved and beautiful,
+if only the little spirit could be freed.</p>
+
+<p>“But how am I to do that?” Hazen cried. “For to break the casket would
+be to harm the spirit. And what other way is there to do?”</p>
+
+<p>“Alas,” answered the old man, “that I do not know. I think that this
+you must do alone. As for me, my life is almost spent. And now that I
+have seen you, my prince, the son of my dear sovereign, there is left
+to me but to die in peace.”</p>
+
+<p>At this, Hazen, remembering how much he owed the wonderful old man for
+that enchanted talk in the wood, when he had taught him fascinating
+things about the stars and the earth and the ways of men, and had shown
+him the inside of his own head and all those Selves of his and he their
+king if he would be so—remembering all these things Hazen longed to do
+something for him in return. But what could he do for him, he the heir
+of a conquered kingdom and a desolate palace? Yet the old man had been
+his father’s servant; and it was he whom the Thought at the fountain
+had bidden him to help; but chiefly Hazen’s heart overflowed with
+simple pity and tenderness for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">299</a></span> helpless one. And in that pity the
+Thought spoke again:—</p>
+
+<p>“Give him the casket,” it said.</p>
+
+<p>Hazen hesitated—and in an instant his head was a chaos of voices. It
+was as if all the little Selves, even those which had now long been
+silent, were listening, were suddenly fighting among themselves in open
+combat to see what they could make Hazen do.</p>
+
+<p>“That beautiful thing!” cried the Beauty Self. “Keep it—keep it,
+Hazen!”</p>
+
+<p>“You will never have another chance at a fortune if you give it up!”
+cried the Discontented Self.</p>
+
+<p>“If you throw away your chance at a fortune, your life will be a life
+of hard work—and where will your good time come in?” cried the little
+Fun Self, anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>“You will have only labour and no leisure for learning—” warned the
+Knowledge Self.</p>
+
+<p>“What of the Princess Vista? Do you not owe it to her to keep the
+casket? And is it not <em>right</em> that you should keep the casket and grow
+wise and <em>really</em> good and loved and beautiful?” they all argued in
+turn. And above them all sounded the terrible, cracked voice of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">300</a></span> the
+dwarf, not laughing now, but fighting for his life:—</p>
+
+<p>“Fool! Nothing counts but your chance at fortune. If you part with the
+casket, you part with <em>me!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>But sweet and clear through the clamour sounded the solemn insisting of
+the Thought:—</p>
+
+<p>“Give him the casket—give him the casket, Hazen.”</p>
+
+<p>Quickly Hazen knelt beside the old man, and placed the magic casket in
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“Lo,” said Prince Hazen, “I have nothing to give you, save only this.
+But it may be that we can yet find some way to release the spirit and
+that then you can have the good fortune that this will give. Take the
+casket—it is yours.”</p>
+
+<p>In an instant, and noiselessly, the magic casket fell in pieces in
+Hazen’s hands, and vanished. And with a soft sound of escaping wings
+the little spirit rose joyously and fluttered toward Hazen, and
+alighted on his breast. There were sudden sweetness and light in all
+the place, and a happiness that bewildered Hazen—and when he looked
+again, the little spirit had disappeared—but his own breast was filled
+with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">301</a></span> something new and marvellous, as if strange doors to himself had
+opened, and as if the spirit had found lodging there forever.</p>
+
+<p>In the clear silence following upon the babel of the little voices
+of all the mean and petty Selves, Hazen was aware of a voice echoing
+within him like music; and he knew the Thought now better than he knew
+himself, who had so many Selves, and he knew that when it spoke to him
+softly, softly, he would always hear.</p>
+
+<p>“If you had kept the magic casket for yourself,” it said, “the spirit
+would have drooped and died. <em>It was only by giving the casket away
+that the spirit could ever be free.</em> It was only when the spirit became
+yours that you could hope to be wise and good and beautiful and worthy
+to be loved. And now where is the Princess Vista’s picture-book?”</p>
+
+<p>All this time Hazen had not lost the picture-book of the princess,
+and now it was lying on the floor near where he was that night
+to have slept. He caught it up and turned the pages, and the old
+familiar pictures which the princess had shown him that morning in the
+window-seat made him long, as he had not longed since he had left the
+palace, to see her again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">302</a></span>
+He turned to the old man.</p>
+
+<p>“There is a certain princess—” he began.</p>
+
+<p>“Ay,” said the old man, gently, “so there is always, my prince. Go to
+her.”</p>
+
+<p>The mere exquisite presence of that spirit in the room seemed to have
+healed and invigorated the old man, and he had risen to his feet,
+clothed with a new strength. He set about searching in the king’s
+wardrobe for suitable garments for his young prince, and in a cedar
+chest he found vestments of somewhat ancient pattern, but of so rich
+material and so delicately made that the ancient style did but add to
+their beauty.</p>
+
+<p>When he had made Hazen ready, there was never a fairer prince in the
+world. Then the old man led him below stairs and showed him in a
+forgotten room, of which he himself only had the key, a box containing
+the jewels of the queen, his mother. So, bearing these, save one with
+which he purchased a horse for his needs, Prince Hazen set out for the
+palace of the princess.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that it was early morning when Prince Hazen entered the
+palace grounds which he had left as a furnace boy. And you must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">303</a></span> know
+that, since his leaving, years had elapsed; for though he had believed
+himself to have stayed with the Merry Lad but one day, and with the
+Bookman but a few days, and but a little time on the hills singing
+songs, and in byways listening to the voices of Idleness, Strength, and
+the rest, and lingering in that fair home where the Dwarf had sent him,
+yet in reality with each one he had spent a year and more, so that now
+he was like someone else.</p>
+
+<p>But the princess’s father’s palace garden was just the same, and Hazen
+entered by the east gate, which still no one could lock; and to be back
+within the garden was as wonderful as bathing in the ocean or standing
+on a high mountain or seeing the dawn. His horse bore him along between
+the flowering shrubs and the hollyhocks; he heard the fountains
+plashing and the song-sparrows singing and the village bells faintly
+sounding; he saw the goldfish and the water-lilies gleam in the pool,
+and the horses cantering about the paddock. And all at once it seemed
+to him that the day was his and the world was his, to do with them what
+he would.</p>
+
+<p>So he galloped round the east wing of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">304</a></span> palace, and looked up
+eagerly and longingly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the
+Princess Vista, watching. But when she saw him, she drew far back as if
+she were afraid. And Prince Hazen, as he bowed low in his saddle, could
+think of no word to say to her that seemed a word to be said. He could
+only cry up to her:—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Princess Vista. Come down! Come down! Come down—and teach me
+about the whole world.”</p>
+
+<p>He galloped straight to the great entrance way, and leaped from his
+horse, and no one questioned him, for they all knew by his look that he
+came with great authority. And he went to the king’s library, to that
+room which was as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree, and filled with
+mystery, and waited for her, knowing that she would come.</p>
+
+<p>She entered the room almost timidly, as, once upon a time, the little
+furnace boy had entered. And when she saw him waiting for her before
+the window-seat, nothing could have exceeded her terror and her wonder
+and her delight. And now her eyes were looking down, and she did <em>not</em>
+ask him what he was doing there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">305</a></span>
+“Oh, Princess Vista,” he said softly, “I love you. I want to be loved!”</p>
+
+<p>“Who are you—that want so much?” the princess asked—but her eyes
+knew, and her smile knew.</p>
+
+<p>“Someone who has brought back your picture-book,” said Prince Hazen. “I
+pray you, teach it to me again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Nay,” said the princess, softly, “I have taught you a wrong thing. For
+I have taught you that there are many suns. And instead there is only
+one sun, and it brings only one day—and that day is this day!”</p>
+
+<p>It was so that she welcomed him back.</p>
+
+<p>They went to the king, her father, and told him everything. And when he
+knew that his daughter loved Prince Hazen, he restored his kingdom to
+him, and named him his own successor. And Hazen was crowned king, with
+much magnificence, and his father’s courtiers, who were living, were
+returned to his court, and that wise, wonderful old man, who had shown
+him the inside of his own head, was given a place of honour near the
+king.</p>
+
+<p>But on the day of the coronation, louder than the shouts of the people,
+and nearer even than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">306</a></span> the voice of his queen, sounded that voice of the
+wise and good Self, which was but the Thought, deep within the soul of
+the king:—</p>
+
+<p>“Hail to Hazen—King of All His Selves!”</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">307</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xvi" id="xvi"></a>XVI<br />
+<span>THE WALK</span></h2>
+
+
+<p>“<span class="smcap">What’s</span> the latest you ever stayed up?” Delia demanded of Mary
+Elizabeth and me.</p>
+
+<p>“I sat up till ten o’clock once when my aunt was coming,” I boasted.</p>
+
+<p>“Once I was on a train that got in at twelve o’clock,” said Mary
+Elizabeth, thoughtfully, “but I was asleep till the train got in. Would
+you call that sitting up till twelve o’clock?”</p>
+
+<p>On the whole, Delia and I decided that you could not impartially call
+it so, and Mary Elizabeth conceded the point. Her next best experience
+was dated at only half past nine.</p>
+
+<p>“I was up till eleven o’clock lots of times.” Delia threw out
+carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>We regarded her with awe. Here was another glory for her list. Already
+we knew that she had slept in a sleeping car, patted an elephant, and
+swum four strokes.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the earliest you ever got up?” Delia pursued.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">308</a></span>
+Here, too, we proved to have nothing to compete with the order of
+Delia’s risings. However, this might yet be mended. There seemed never
+to be the same household ban on getting up early that there was on
+staying up late.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s get up some morning before four o’clock and take a walk,” I
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>“My brother got up at half past three once,” Mary Elizabeth announced.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” I said, “let’s get up at half past three. Let’s do it to-morrow
+morning.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth and I had stretched a string from a little bell at
+the head of her bed to a little bell at the head of my bed. This the
+authorities permitted us to ring so long as there was discernible a
+light, or any other fixed signal, at the two windows; and also after
+seven o’clock in the morning. But of course the time when we both
+longed most frantically to pull the cord was when either woke at night
+and lay alone in the darkness. In the night I used to put my hand on
+the string and think how, by a touch, I could waken Mary Elizabeth,
+just as if she were in my room, just as if we were hand in hand. I
+used to think what joy it would be if all little children on the same
+side<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">309</a></span> of the ocean were similarly provided, and if no one interfered.
+A little code of signals arose in my mind, a kind of secret code which
+should be heard by nobody save those for whom they were intended—for
+sick children, for frightened children, for children just having a bad
+dream, for motherless children, for cold or tired or lonely children,
+for all children sleepless for any cause. I used to wish that little
+signals like this could be rung for all unhappy children, night or day.
+Why, with all their inventions, had not grown people invented this? Of
+course they would never make things any harder for us than they could
+help (we thought). But why had they not done this thing to make things
+easier?</p>
+
+<p>The half past three proposal was unanimously vetoed within doors: We
+might rise at five o’clock, no earlier. This somewhat took edge from
+the adventure, but we accepted it as next best. Delia was to be waked
+by an alarm clock. Mary Elizabeth and I felt that, by some mysterious
+means, we could waken ourselves; and we two agreed to call each other,
+so to say, by the bells.</p>
+
+<p>When I did waken, it was still quite dark, and when I had found light
+and a clock, I saw that it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">310</a></span> was only a little after three. As I had
+gone to bed at seven, I was wide awake at three; and it occurred to me
+that I would stay up till time to call Mary Elizabeth. This would be
+at half past four. Besides, stopping up then presented an undoubted
+advantage: It enabled me to skip my bath. Clearly I could not, with
+courtesy, risk rousing the household with many waters.</p>
+
+<p>I dressed in the dark, braided my own hair in the dark—by now I could
+do this save that the plait, when I brought it over my shoulder, still
+would assume a jog—and sat down by the open window. It was one of the
+large nights ... for some nights are undeniably larger than others.
+When I was on the street with my hand in a grown-up hand, the night
+was invariably bounded by trees, fences, houses, lawns, horse-blocks,
+and the like. But when I stepped to the door alone at night, I always
+noticed that it stretched endlessly away. So it was now. I could slip
+out the screen, as I had discovered earlier in the season when I had
+felt the need of feeding a nest of house-wrens in the bird-house below
+my sill—and I took out the screen now, and leaned out in the darkness.
+The stars seemed very near—I am always glad that I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">311</a></span> did not know how
+far away they are, for they looked so friendly near. If only, I used
+to think, the clouds would form <em>behind</em> the stars and leave them all
+shiny and blurry bright in the rain. What were they? How came they to
+be in our world’s sky?</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that I had been ten minutes at the window that morning when
+I saw a light briefly flash in Mary Elizabeth’s window. Instantly, I
+softly pulled my bell. She answered, and then I could see her, dim in
+the window once more dark.</p>
+
+<p>“It isn’t time yet!” she called softly—our houses were very near.</p>
+
+<p>“Not yet,” I answered, “but I’m going to stay up.”</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth briefly considered this.</p>
+
+<p>“What for?” she propounded.</p>
+
+<p>I had not thought what for.</p>
+
+<p>“To—why to be up early,” I answered confidently. “I’m all dressed.”</p>
+
+<p>The defence must have carried conviction.</p>
+
+<p>“I will, too,” Mary Elizabeth concluded.</p>
+
+<p>She disappeared and, after a suitable time, reappeared at the window,
+presumably fully clothed. I detached the bell from my bed and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">312</a></span> sat with
+it in my hand, and I found afterward that she had done the same. From
+time to time we each gave the cord a slight, ecstatic pull. The whole
+mystery of the great night lay in those gentle signals.</p>
+
+<p>It is unfortunate to have to confess that, after a time, the mystery
+palled. But it did. Stars, wide, dark, moonless lawn, empty street,
+all these blurred and merged in a single impression. This was one of
+chilliness. Even calling through the night at intervals, and at the
+imminent risk of being heard, lost its charm, because after a little
+while there was nothing left to call. “How still it is!” and “Nobody
+but us is up in town,” and “Won’t Delia be mad?” lose their edge when
+repeated for about the third time each. Moreover, I was obliged to face
+a new foe: I was getting sleepy.</p>
+
+<p>Without undue disturbance of the cord, I managed to consult the clock
+once more. It was five minutes of four. There remained more than an
+hour to wait! It was I who capitulated.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary Elizabeth,” I said waveringly, “would you care very much if I was
+to lay down just a little to rest my eyes?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I wouldn’t care,” came with significant alacrity. “I will, too.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">313</a></span>
+I lay down on the covers and pulled a comforter about me. As I drifted
+off I remember wondering how the dark ever kept awake all night. For it
+was awake. To know that one had only to listen.</p>
+
+<p>We all had a signal which we called a “trill,” made by tongue and
+teeth, with almost the force of a boy and a blade of grass. This,
+produced furiously beneath my window, was what wakened me. Delia stood
+between the two houses, engaged with such absorption in manufacturing
+this sound that she failed to see me at the window. A moment after
+I had hailed her, Mary Elizabeth appeared at her window, looking
+distinctly distraught.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing us fully dressed, Delia’s indignation increased.</p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t you leave me know you were up?” she demanded shrilly. “It’s
+a quarter past five. I been out here fifteen minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>We were assuring her guiltily that we would be right down when there
+came an interruption.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Delia!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>Delia’s father, in a gray bath-robe, stood at an upper window of their
+house across the street.</p>
+
+<p>“What do you mean by waking up the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">314</a></span> neighbourhood?” he inquired,
+not without reason. “Now I want you to come home.”</p>
+
+<p>“We were going walking,” Delia reminded him.</p>
+
+<p>“You are coming home at once after this proceeding,” Delia’s father
+assured her. “No more words please, Delia.”</p>
+
+<p>He disappeared from the window. Delia moved reluctantly across the
+street. As she went, she threw a resentful glance at Mary Elizabeth and
+me, each.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m sorry, Delia!” we called softly in chorus. She made no reply. Mary
+Elizabeth and I were left staring at each other down our bell-rope,
+no longer taut, but limp, as we had left it earlier.... Even in that
+stress, the unearthly sweetness of the morning smote me—the early sun,
+the early shadows. It all looked so exactly as if it had expected you
+not to be looking. This is the look of outdoors that, <em>now</em>, will most
+quickly take me back.</p>
+
+<p>“It wouldn’t be fair to go walking without Delia,” said Mary Elizabeth,
+abruptly and positively.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” I agreed, with equal decision. Then, “We might as well go back to
+bed,” I pursued the subject further.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s,” said Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">315</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xvii" id="xvii"></a>XVII<br />
+<span>THE GREAT BLACK HUSH</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">On</span> that special night, which somehow I remember with tenderness, I
+sometimes think now—all these years after—that I should like to have
+been with those solitary, sleepy little figures, trying so hard to get
+near to mystery. I should think that a Star Story must have come in
+anybody’s head to tell them. Like this:—</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Once, when it didn’t matter to anybody whether you were late or early,
+or quick or slow, not only because there wasn’t anybody and there
+wasn’t any you, but because it was back in the beginning when there
+were no lates and earlies and quicks and slows, <em>then</em> things began to
+happen in the middle of the Great Black Hush which was all there was to
+everything.</p>
+
+<p>The Great Black Hush reached all the way around the Universe and in
+directions without any names, and it was huge and humble and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">316</a></span> superior
+and helpless and mighty and in other ways it was very much indeed like
+a man. And as there was nothing to do, the Great Black Hush was bored
+past extinction and almost to creation. For there wasn’t anything else
+about save only the Wind, and the Wind would have nothing whatever to
+do with him and always blew right by.</p>
+
+<p>Now, inasmuch as everything that is now was then going to be created,
+it was all waiting somewhere to be created; and nothing is clearer than
+that. Lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and
+Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and paints and planets
+and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all, were
+waiting to be created, and among them waited people. I cannot tell you
+where they waited, because there was no where; but they were waiting,
+as anybody can see, for time to be begun.</p>
+
+<p>Among the people who were waiting about was one special baby, who was
+just big enough to reach out after everything and to try to put it in
+his mouth, and they had an awful time with him. He put his little hands
+on coloured things and on flame things and on air and on water and on
+musics, and he wanted to know what they all were, and he tried to put
+them in his mouth. And his mother was perfectly distracted, and she
+told him so, openly.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter width400">
+<a name="to" id="to"></a>
+<img src="images/i_316fp.jpg" width="400" height="532" alt="" />
+<div class="caption">“<span class="smcap">To see what running away is really like.</span>”</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">317</a></span>
+“Special Baby,” she said to him openly, “I don’t see why every hair
+in my head is not pure white. And if you don’t stop making so much
+trouble, I’ll run away.”</p>
+
+<p>“Run away,” thought the Special Baby. “Now what thing is that?”</p>
+
+<p>And he stretched out his little hand to see, but there wasn’t anything
+there, and he couldn’t put it in his mouth; so without letting anybody
+know, he started off all by himself to see what running away is really
+like.</p>
+
+<p>He ran and he ran, past lines and colours and blocks and flame and
+music and paint and planets, all waiting about to begin, till he began
+to notice the Great Black Hush, where it lay all humble and important,
+and bored past extinction and almost to creation.</p>
+
+<p>“What thing is that?” thought the Special Baby, and put out his little
+hand to get it and put it in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>So he touched the Great Black Hush, and under the little hand the Great
+Black Hush felt as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">318</a></span> never he had felt before. For the Special Baby’s
+hand was soft and wandering and most clinging—any General Baby’s hand
+will give you the idea if you care to try. And it made it seem as if
+there were something to do.</p>
+
+<p>All through his huge, helpless, superior, and mighty being the Great
+Black Hush was stirred, and when the Special Baby was frightened and
+would have gone back, the Great Black Hush did the most astonishing
+things to try to keep him. He plaited the darkness up like a ruffle
+and waved it like a flag and opened it like a flower and shut it like
+a door and poured it about like water, all to keep the Special Baby
+amused. But though the Special Baby tried to put most of these and
+<em>all</em> the dark in his mouth, still on the whole he was badly frightened
+and wanted his mother, and he began to cry to show how much he wanted
+her. And then the Great Black Hush was at his wits’ end.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, who is there to be the mother of this Special Baby?” he cried in
+despair, for there wasn’t anything else anywhere around, save only the
+Wind, and the Wind always blew right by. But the blowing by must have
+been because the Great Black Hush had never spoken before,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">319</a></span> for these
+were the first words that ever he had said; and the Wind, on hearing
+them, stopped still as a stone, and listened.</p>
+
+<p>“Would I do?” the Wind asked, and the Great Black Hush was so
+astonished that he almost dropped the Special Baby.</p>
+
+<p>“Would I do?” asked the Wind again, and made the dark like blown
+garments and like long, blown hair and tender motions, such as women
+make. And she took the Special Baby in her arms and rocked him as
+gently as boughs, so that he laughed with delight and tried to put the
+wind in his mouth and finally went to sleep, with his beads on.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Now</em> what’ll we do?” said the Great Black Hush, hanging about, all
+helpless and mighty.</p>
+
+<p>“We can get along without a cradle,” said the Wind, “because I will
+rock him to sleep in my arms.” (This was before time began and before
+they laid them down to go to sleep alone in a dark room.) “But we
+ought, we <em>ought</em>,” she added, “to have something for him to play with
+when he wakes up.” (This was before time began and before anybody ate.
+But they always played. That came first.)</p>
+
+<p>“If he had something to play with, what would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">320</a></span> that look like?” asked
+the Great Black Hush, all helpless.</p>
+
+<p>“It musn’t have points like scissors, or ends like string, and the
+paint mustn’t come off. I think,” said the Wind, “it ought to look like
+a shining ball.”</p>
+
+<p>“By my distance,” said the Great Black Hush, all mighty, “that’s what
+it shall look like.”</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to make a plaything, and he worked all over him and all
+over everywhere at the fashioning. I don’t know how he did it, because
+I wasn’t there, and I can’t reckon how long it took him, because there
+wasn’t any time, but I know some things about it all, and one is that
+he finally got it done.</p>
+
+<p>“Look!” the Great Black Hush cried to the Wind,—for she paid more
+attention to the Special Baby now than she did to him. And when she
+looked, there hung in the sky, a great, enormous, shining ball.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s big enough so he can’t get it in his mouth,” she said
+approvingly. “It’s really ginginatic.”</p>
+
+<p>“You mean gigantic, dear,” said the Great Black Hush, all superior. But
+the Wind didn’t care because words hadn’t been used long enough<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">321</a></span> to fit
+closely, and besides he had said “dear” and she knew what <em>that</em> meant.
+“Dear” came before “gigantic.”</p>
+
+<p>“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”</p>
+
+<p>But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must
+have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered
+however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself
+making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings
+looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything
+the Wind had told him to make and he didn’t know whether anything
+else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all
+swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.</p>
+
+<p>By-and-by—there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and
+that is why so many people prefer it—when he couldn’t stay any longer,
+he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.</p>
+
+<p>“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby
+woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">322</a></span>
+But he wasn’t cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all
+the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging,
+swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands
+for them, but they were so big he couldn’t put them in his mouth and so
+he might reach out all he pleased.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>Ho</em>,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was
+before.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Wind sighed a little.</p>
+
+<p>“I wish everything were more so,” she said. “I ought to have a place to
+take the Special Baby and make his clothes and mend his socks and tie
+on his shoes and rub his little back. Also, I want to learn a lullaby,
+and this is so public.”</p>
+
+<p>Then the Great Black Hush thought and thought, and remembered that away
+back on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, there
+was a tidy little place that might be just the thing. It was <em>not</em> up
+to date, because there wasn’t any date, but still he thought it might
+be just the thing.</p>
+
+<p>“By the welkin,” he said, “I know a place that is the place. I’ll go
+and sweep it out.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not so fast,” said the Wind, gently. “I go<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">323</a></span> also. I want to be sure
+that there are enough closets—” or whatever would have corresponded to
+that before there was any Modern at all.</p>
+
+<p>So the three went away together and groped about on the Outermost Way
+and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, and there the Wind swept it out
+tidily and there they made their home. And when it was all done,—which
+took a great while because the Wind kept wanting additions put
+on,—they came out and sat at the door of the place, the Great Black
+Hush and the Wind and the Special Baby between.</p>
+
+<p>And as they did that a wonderful thing was true. For now that the
+Great Black Hush had withdrawn to his new home, lo, all the swinging
+plaything balls were shining through space, and there was light. And
+the man and the woman and the child at the door of the first home
+looked in one another’s faces. And the man and the woman were afraid of
+the light and their look clung each to the other’s in that fear; but
+the Special Baby stretched out his little hands and tried to put the
+light in his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t, dear,” said the woman, and her voice sounded quite natural.</p>
+
+<p>“Pay attention to me and not to the Baby,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">324</a></span> said the man, and <em>his</em>
+voice sounded quite natural, and very mighty, so that the woman
+obeyed—until the Special Baby wanted her again.</p>
+
+<p>And that was when she made her lullaby, and it was the first song:—</p>
+
+<p class="center nmb">WIND SONG<a name="FNanchor_B" id="FNanchor_B"></a><a href="#Footnote_B" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Horn of the morning!</div>
+<div class="line">And the little night pipings fail.</div>
+<div class="line">The day is launched like a hollow ship</div>
+<div class="line">With the sun for a sail.</div>
+<div class="line">The way is wide and blue and lone</div>
+<div class="line">With all its miles inviolate</div>
+<div class="line">Save for the swinging stars we’ve sown</div>
+<div class="line">And a thistle of cloud remote and blown.</div>
+<div class="line">Oh, I passion for something nearer than these!</div>
+<div class="line">How shall I know that this live thing is I</div>
+<div class="line">With only the morning for proof and the sky?</div>
+<div class="line">I long for a music more soft to its keys,</div>
+<div class="line">For a touch that shall teach me the new sureties.</div>
+<div class="line">Give me some griefs and some loyalties</div>
+<div class="line">And a child’s mouth on my own!</div>
+</div>
+<div class="verse">
+<div class="line">Lullaby, lullaby,</div>
+<div class="line">Babe of the world, swing high,</div>
+<div class="line">Swing low.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">325</a></span>
+<div class="line">I am a mother you never may know,</div>
+<div class="line">But oh</div>
+<div class="line">And oh, how long the wind will know you,</div>
+<div class="line">With lullabies for the dead night through.</div>
+<div class="line">Babe of the earth, as I blow ...</div>
+<div class="line">Swing high,</div>
+<div class="line">To touch at the sky,</div>
+<div class="line">And at last lie low.</div>
+<div class="line">Lullaby....</div>
+</div>
+<div class="footnote">
+<a name="Footnote_B" id="Footnote_B"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B"><span class="label">[B]</span></a>
+Reproduced by permission of <em>The Craftsman</em>.
+</div>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<p>But meanwhile the Special Baby’s real mother—the one who had told him
+about running away—was hunting and hunting and <em>hunting</em> for him and
+going nearly distracted and expecting every hair in her head to turn
+pure white. She went about among all the rest, asking and calling and
+wanting to know, and finally she made up her mind that she would not
+stay where she was, but that she would run away and hunt for him. And
+she did. And when all the things that were waiting to be born heard
+about it, there was no holding them back either. So out they came,
+lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s
+arks and mechanical toys and mountains and planets and paints and air
+and water and alphabets<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">326</a></span> and jumping-jacks, all, all came out in the
+wake of the lost Special Baby. And some came early and some came late,
+some hurried and some hung back. And among all these came people, and
+many and many of the to-be-born things were hidden in peoples’ hearts
+and did not appear till long after; and this was true of some things
+which I have not mentioned at all, and of some that have not appeared
+even yet. But some people did not bring anything in their hearts, and
+they merely observed that it was a shameful waste, so many shining
+balls swinging about and only the Special Baby to play with them, and
+<em>he</em> evidently eternally lost.</p>
+
+<p>But the Special Baby’s real mother didn’t say a word. She only ran and
+ran on, asking and calling and wanting to know. And at last she came
+to the Outermost Way and near the Wild Wing of Things, and the Special
+Baby heard her coming. And when he heard that, he made his choicest
+coo-noise in his throat and he stretched out his arms to his real
+mother that he was used to.</p>
+
+<p>And when his real mother heard the coo-noise, she brushed aside the
+Wild Wing of Things and took him in her arms—and she never saw the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">327</a></span>
+Wind and the Great Black Hush at all, because they are that kind. So
+she carried the Special Baby off, kicking and crowing and catching at
+the swinging, shining balls—but they were too big to put in his mouth
+so there was no danger—and <em>she</em> hunted up a place where she could
+make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his
+little back. But about them all things were going on, and everybody
+else was doing the same thing, so nobody noticed.</p>
+
+<p>Then, all alone before their home on the Outermost Way and beneath the
+Wild Wing of Things that was all brushed aside, the Great Black Hush
+and the Wind looked at each other. And their look clung, as when they
+had first found light, and they were afraid. For now all space was
+glowing and shining with swinging balls, and all the things were being
+born and making homes, and time was rushing by so fast that it awed
+them who had never seen such a thing before.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>What</em> have we done?” demanded the Great Black Hush.</p>
+
+<p>But the Wind was not so much concerned with that. She only grieved and
+grieved for the Special Baby. And the Great Black Hush<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">328</a></span> comforted her,
+and I think he comforts her unto this day.</p>
+
+<p>Only at night. Then, as you know, the Great Black Hush comes from the
+Outermost Way and fills the air, and with him often and often comes the
+Wind. And together they wander among all the shining balls—you will
+know this, if you listen, on many a night—and together they look for
+the Special Baby. But <em>he</em> has grown up, long and long ago, only he
+still stretches out his hands to everything, for he is the way he was
+made.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">329</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xviii" id="xviii"></a>XVIII<br />
+<span>THE DECORATION OF INDEPENDENCE</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">That</span> year we celebrated Fourth of July in the Wood Yard.</p>
+
+<p>The town had decided not to have a celebration, though we did not know
+who had done the actual deciding, and this we used to talk about.</p>
+
+<p>“How can the <em>town</em> decide anything?” Delia asked sceptically. “When
+does it do it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said Margaret Amelia—to whom, her father being a judge, we
+always turned to explain matters of state, “its principal folks say so.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who are its principal folks?” I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” said Margaret Amelia, “I should think you could tell that. They
+have the stores and offices and live in the residence part.”</p>
+
+<p>I pondered this, for most of the folk in the little town did neither of
+these things.</p>
+
+<p>“Why don’t they have another Fourth of July for the rest, then,” I
+suggested, “and leave them settle on their own celebration?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">330</a></span>
+Margaret Amelia looked shocked.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess you don’t know much about the Decoration of Independence,”
+said she.</p>
+
+<p>The Decoration of Independence—we all called it this—was, then, to go
+by without attention because the Town said so.</p>
+
+<p>“The Town,” said Mary Elizabeth, dreamily, “the Town. It sounds like
+somebody tall, very high, and pointed at the top, with the rest of her
+dark and long and flowy—don’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“City,” she and I were agreed, sounded like somebody light and sitting
+down with her skirts spread out.</p>
+
+<p>“Village” sounded like a little soft hollow, not much of any colour,
+with a steeple to it.</p>
+
+<p>“I like ‘Town’ best,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It sounds more like a
+mother-woman. ‘City’ sounds like a lady-woman. And ‘Village’ sounds
+like a grandma-woman. I like ‘Town’ best.”</p>
+
+<p>“What I want to do,” Margaret Amelia said restlessly, “is to spend
+my Fourth of July dollar. I had a Fourth of July dollar ever since
+Christmas. It’s no fun spending it with no folks and bands and wagons.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got my birthday dollar yet,” I contributed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">331</a></span> “If I spent it for
+Fourth of July, I’d be glad of it, but if I spend it for anything else,
+I’ll want it back.”</p>
+
+<p>“I had a dollar,” said Calista, gloomily, “but I used a quarter of
+it up on the circus. Now I’m glad I did. I wish’t I’d stayed to the
+sideshow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Stitchy Branchitt says,” Betty offered, “that the boys are all going
+to Poynette and spend their money there. Poynette’s got exercises.”</p>
+
+<p>Oh, the boys would get a Fourth. Trust them. But what about us? We
+could not go to Poynette. We could not rise at three <span class="smcap">A.M.</span> and
+fire off fire-crackers. No fascinating itinerant hucksters would come
+the way of a town that held no celebration. We had nowhere to spend our
+substance, and to do that was to us what Fourth of July implied.</p>
+
+<p>The New Boy came wandering by, eating something. Boys were always
+eating something that looked better than anything we saw in the
+candy-shop. Where did they get it? This that he had was soft and pink
+and chewy, and it rapidly disappeared as he approached us.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia Rodman threw back her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">332</a></span> curls and flashed a sudden
+radiant smile at the New Boy. She became quite another person from the
+judicious, somewhat haughty creature whom we knew.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s us get up a Fourth of July celebration,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>We held our breath. It never would have occurred to us. But now that
+she suggested it, why not?</p>
+
+<p>The New Boy leaped up on a gate-post and sat looking down at us,
+chewing.</p>
+
+<p>“How?” he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“Get up a partition,” said Margaret Amelia. “Circulate it like for
+take-a-walk at school or teacher’s present, and all sign.”</p>
+
+<p>“And take it to who?” asked the New Boy.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia considered.</p>
+
+<p>“My father,” she proposed.</p>
+
+<p>The scope of the idea was enormous. Her father was a judge and wore
+very black clothes every day, and never spoke to any of us. Therefore
+he must be a great man. Doubtless he could do anything.</p>
+
+<p>Boys, as we knew them, usually flouted everything that we
+said, but—possibly because of Margaret Amelia’s manner of
+presentation—this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">333</a></span> suggestion seemed to strike the New Boy favourably.
+Afterward we learned that this was probably partly owing to the fact
+that the fare to Poynette was going to eat distressingly into the boys’
+Fourth money, unless they walked the ten miles.</p>
+
+<p>By common consent we had Margaret Amelia and the New Boy draw up the
+“partition.” But we all spent a long time on it, and at length it
+read:—</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>“We the Undersigned want there should be a July 4 this year.
+We the Undersigned would like a big one. But if it can’t be so
+very big account of no money, We the Undersigned would like one
+anyway, and hereby respectfully partition about this in the
+name of the Decoration of Independence.”</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>There was some doubt whether or not to close this document with “Always
+sincerely” but we decided to add only the names, and these we set out
+to secure, the New Boy carrying one copy and Margaret Amelia another. I
+remember that, to honour the occasion, she put on a pale blue crocheted
+shawl of her mother’s and we all trailed in her wake, worshipfully.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">334</a></span>
+The lists grew amazingly. Long before noon we had to get new papers. By
+night we had every child that we knew, save Stitchy Branchitt. He had a
+railroad pass to Poynette, and he favoured the out-of-town celebration.
+But the personal considerations of economic conditions were as usual
+sufficient to swing the event, and the next morning I suppose that
+twenty-five or thirty of us, bearing the names of three or four times
+as many, marched into Judge Rodman’s office.</p>
+
+<p>On the stairs Margaret Amelia had a thought.</p>
+
+<p>“Does your father pay taxes?” she inquired of Mary Elizabeth—who was
+with us, having been sent down town for starch.</p>
+
+<p>“On his watch—he used to,” said Mary Elizabeth, doubtfully. “But he
+hasn’t got that any more.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I don’t know,” said Margaret Amelia, “whether we’d really
+ought to of put down any names that their fathers don’t pay taxes. It
+may make a difference. I guess you’re the only one we got that their
+fathers don’t—that he ain’t—”</p>
+
+<p>I fancy that what Margaret Amelia had in mind was that Mary Elizabeth’s
+father was the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">335</a></span> only one who lived meanly; for many of the others must
+have gone untaxed, but they lived in trim, rented houses, and we knew
+no difference.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth was visibly disturbed.</p>
+
+<p>“I never thought of that,” she said. “Maybe I better scratch me off.”</p>
+
+<p>But there seemed to me to be something indefinably the matter with this.</p>
+
+<p>“The Fourth of July is for everybody, isn’t it?” I said. “Didn’t the
+whole country think of it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I think it’s like a town though,” said Margaret Amelia. “The principal
+folks decided it, I’m sure. And they <em>always</em> pay taxes.”</p>
+
+<p>We appealed to the New Boy, as authority superior even to Margaret
+Amelia. How was this—did the Decoration of Independence mean
+everybody, or not? Could Mary Elizabeth sign the partition since her
+father paid no taxes?</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the New Boy, “it <em>says</em> everybody, don’t it? But nobody
+ever gets to ride in the parade but distinguished citizens—it always
+says them, you know. I s’pose maybe it meant the folks that pays the
+taxes, only it didn’t like to put it in.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">336</a></span>
+“I better take my name off,” said Mary Elizabeth, decidedly. “It might
+hurt.”</p>
+
+<p>So the New Boy produced a stump of pencil, and we found the right
+paper, and held it up against the wall of the stairway, and Mary
+Elizabeth scratched her name off.</p>
+
+<p>“I won’t come up, then,” she whispered to me, and made her way down the
+stairs, her head held very high.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Rodman was in his office—he makes, I find, my eternal picture
+of “judge,” short, thick, frock-coated, bearded, bald, spectacled,
+square-toed, and with his hands full of loose papers and his
+watch-chain shining.</p>
+
+<p>“Bless us,” he said, too, as a judge should.</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia was ahead,—still in the pale blue crocheted
+shawl,—and she and the New Boy laid down the papers, and the judge
+picked them up, and read. His big pink face flushed the more, and
+he took off his spectacles and brushed his eyes, and he cleared his
+throat, and beamed down on us, and stood nodding.... I remember that he
+had an editorial in his paper the next night called “A Lesson to the
+Community,” and another, later, “Out of the Mouths of Babes”—for Judge
+Rodman was a very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">337</a></span> great man, and owned the newspaper and the brewery
+and the principal department store, and had been to the legislature;
+and his newspaper was always thick with editorials about honouring the
+flag and reverencing authority and the beauties of home life—Miss
+Messmore used to cut them out and read them to us at General Exercises.</p>
+
+<p>So Judge Rodman called a Town meeting in the Engine House, and we all
+hung about the door downstairs, because they said that if children
+went to the meeting, they would scrape their feet on the bare floor
+so that nobody could hear a sound; and so we waited outside until we
+heard hands clapped and the Doxology sung, and then we knew that it had
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>We were having a new Court House that year, so the Court House yard
+was not available for exercises: and the school grounds had been sown
+with grass seed in the beginning of vacation, and the market-place was
+nothing but a small vacant lot. So there was only one place to have
+the exercises: the Wood Yard. And as there was very little money to
+do anything with, it was voted to ask the women to take charge of the
+celebration and arrange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">338</a></span> something “tasty, up-to-date, and patriotic,”
+as Judge Rodman put it. They set themselves to do it. And none of
+us who were the children then will ever forget that Fourth of July
+celebration—yet this is not because of what the women planned, nor of
+anything that the committee of which Judge Rodman was chairman thought
+to do for the sake of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Our discussion of their plans was not without pessimism.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course what they get up won’t be any <em>real</em> good,” the New Boy
+advanced. “They’ll stick the school organ up on the platform, and
+that sounds awful skimpy outdoors. And the church choirs’ll sing. And
+somebody’ll stand up and scold and go on about nothing. But it’ll get
+folks here, and balloon men, and stuff to sell, and a band; so I s’pose
+we can stand the other doin’s.”</p>
+
+<p>“And there’s fireworks on the canal bank in the evening,” we reminded
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Fourth of July morning began as usual before it dawned. The New Boy and
+the ten of his tribe assembled at half past three on the lawn between
+our house and that of the New Family, and, at a rough estimate, each
+fired off the cost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">339</a></span> of his fare to Poynette and return. Mary Elizabeth
+and I awoke and listened, giving occasional ecstatic pulls at our bell.
+Then we rose and watched the boys go ramping on toward other fields,
+and, we breathed the dim beauty of the hour, and, I think, wondered if
+it knew that it was Fourth of July, and we went back to bed, conscious
+that we were missing a good sixth of the day, a treasure which, as
+usual, the boys were sharing.</p>
+
+<p>After her work was done, Mary Elizabeth and I took our bags of
+torpedoes and popped them off on the front bricks. Delia was allowed
+to have fire-crackers if she did not shoot them off by herself, and
+she was ardently absorbed in them on their horse-block, with her
+father. Calista had brothers, and had put her seventy-five cents in
+with their money on condition that she be allowed to stay with them
+through the day. Margaret Amelia and Betty always stopped at home until
+annual giant crackers were fired from before their piazza, with Judge
+Rodman officiating in his shirt-sleeves, and Mrs. Rodman watching in
+a starched white “wrapper” on the veranda and uttering little cries,
+all under the largest flag that there was in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">340</a></span> town, floating from
+the highest flagpole. Mary Elizabeth and I had glimpses of them all in
+a general survey which we made, resulting in satisfactory proof that
+the expected merry-go-round, the pop-corn wagon, a chocolate cart, an
+ice-cream cone man, and a balloon man and woman were already posted
+expectantly about.</p>
+
+<p>“If it wasn’t for them, though,” observed Mary Elizabeth to me, “the
+town wouldn’t be really acting like Fourth of July, do you think so? It
+just kind of lazes along, like a holiday.”</p>
+
+<p>We looked critically at the sunswept street. The general aspect of the
+time was that people had seized upon it to do a little extra watering,
+or some postponed weeding, or to tinker at the screens.</p>
+
+<p>“How could it act, though?” I inquired.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said Mary Elizabeth, “a river flows, don’t it? And I s’pose a
+mountain towers. And the sea keeps a-coming in ... and they all act
+like themselves. Only just a Town don’t take any notice of itself—even
+on the Fourth.”</p>
+
+<p>That afternoon we were all dressed in our white dresses—“Mine used
+to have a sprig in it,” said Mary Elizabeth, “but it’s so faded out
+anybody’d ’most say it was white, don’t you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">341</a></span> think so?”—and we
+children met at the Rodmans’—where Margaret Amelia and Betty appeared
+in white embroidered dresses and blue ribbons and blue stockings, and
+we marched down the hill, behind the band, to the Wood Yard. The Wood
+Yard had great flags and poles set at intervals, with bunting festooned
+between, and the platform was covered with bunting, and the great
+open space of the yard was laid with board benches. Place in front
+was reserved for us, and already the rest of the town packed the Yard
+and hung about the fences. Stitchy Branchitt had given up his journey
+to Poynette after all, and had established a lemonade stand at the
+Wood Yard gate—“a fool thing to do,” the New Boy observed plainly.
+“He knows we’ve spent all we had, and the big folks never think
+your stuff’s clean.” But Stitchy was enormously enjoying himself by
+deafeningly shouting:—</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s what you get—here’s what you get—here’s what you get.
+Cheap—cheap—<em>cheap!</em>”</p>
+
+<p>“Quit cheepin’ like some kind o’ bir-r-rd,” said the New Boy, out of
+one corner of his mouth, as he passed him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">342</a></span>
+Just inside the Wood Yard gate I saw, with something of a shock, Mary
+Elizabeth’s father standing. He was leaning against the fence, with
+his arms folded, and as he caught the look of Mary Elizabeth, who was
+walking with me, he smiled, and I was further surprised to see how
+kind his eyes were. They were almost like my own father’s eyes. This
+seemed to me somehow a very curious thing, and I turned and looked at
+Mary Elizabeth, and thought: “Why, it’s her <em>father</em>—just the same as
+mine.” It surprised me, too, to see him there. When I came to think of
+it, I had never before seen him where folk were. Always, unless Mary
+Elizabeth were with him, he had been walking alone, or sitting down
+where other people never sat.</p>
+
+<p>Judge Rodman was on the platform, and as soon as the band and the
+choirs would let him—he made several false starts at rhetorical pauses
+in the music—he introduced a clergyman who had always lived in the
+town and who prayed for the continuance of peace and the safe conquest
+of all our enemies. Then Judge Rodman himself made the address, having
+generously consented to do so when it was proposed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">343</a></span> to keep the money
+in the town by hiring a local speaker. He began with the Norsemen and
+descended through Queen Isabella and Columbus and the Colonies, making
+a détour of Sir Walter Raleigh and his cloak, Benedict Arnold, Israel
+Putnam and Pocahontas, and so by way of Valley Forge and the Delaware
+to Faneuil Hall and the spirit of 1776. It was a grand flight, filled
+with what were afterward freely referred to as magnificent passages
+about the storm, the glory of war, and the love of our fellow-men.</p>
+
+<p>(“Supposing you happen to love the enemy,” said Mary Elizabeth,
+afterward.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, a pretty thing that would be to do,” said the New Boy, shocked.</p>
+
+<p>“We had it in the Sunday school lesson,” Mary Elizabeth maintained.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well,” said the New Boy. “I don’t mean about such things. I mean
+about what you <em>do</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>But I remember that Mary Elizabeth still looked puzzled.)</p>
+
+<p>Especially was Judge Rodman’s final sentence generally repeated for
+days afterward:—</p>
+
+<p>“At Faneuil Hall,” said the judge, “the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">344</a></span> hour at last had struck. The
+hands on the face of the clock stood still. ‘The force of Nature could
+no further go.’ The supreme thing had been accomplished. Henceforth
+we were embalmed in the everlasting and unchangeable essence of
+freedom—freedom—<em>freedom</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, he held our attention from the first, both because he did not
+read what he said, and because the ice in the pitcher at his elbow had
+melted before he began and did not require watching.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the moment when, having completed his address, he took up
+the Decoration of Independence, to read it; and began the hunt for his
+spectacles. We watched him go through his pockets, but we did so with
+an interest which somewhat abated when he began the second round.</p>
+
+<p>“What <em>is</em> the Decoration of Independence, anyhow?” I whispered to Mary
+Elizabeth, our acquaintance with it having been limited to learning it
+“by heart” in school.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, don’t you know?” Mary Elizabeth returned. “It’s that thing Miss
+Messmore can say so fast. It’s when we was the British.”</p>
+
+<p>“Who decorated it?” I wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">345</a></span>
+“George Washington,” replied Mary Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>“How?” I pressed it. “How’d he do it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know—but I think that’s what he wanted of the cherry
+blossoms,” said she.</p>
+
+<p>At this point Judge Rodman gave up the search.</p>
+
+<p>“I deeply regret,” said he, “that I shall be obliged to forego my
+reading of our national document which, next to the Constitution
+itself, best embodies our unchanging principles.”</p>
+
+<p>And then he added something which smote the front rows suddenly
+breathless:—</p>
+
+<p>“However, it occurs to me, since this is preeminently the children’s
+celebration and since I am given to understand that our public schools
+now bestow due and proper attention upon the teaching of civil
+government, that it will be a fitting thing, a moving thing even, to
+hear these words of our great foundation spoken in childish tones. Miss
+Messmore, can you, as teacher of the city schools, in the grades where
+the idea of our celebration so fittingly originated, among the tender
+young, can you recommend, madam, perhaps, one of your bright pupils
+to repeat for us these undying utterances whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">346</a></span> commitment has now
+become, as I understand it, a part of our public school curriculum?”</p>
+
+<p>There was an instant’s pause, and then I heard Margaret Amelia Rodman’s
+name spoken. Miss Messmore had uttered it. Judge Rodman was repeating
+it, smiling blandly down with a pleased diffidence.</p>
+
+<p>“There can be no one more fitted to do this, Judge Rodman,” Miss
+Messmore had promptly said, “than your daughter, Margaret Amelia, at
+whose suggestion this celebration, indeed, has come about.”</p>
+
+<p>Poor Margaret Amelia. In spite of her embroidered gown, her blue
+ribbons, and her blue stockings, I have seldom seen anyone look so
+wretched as did she when they made her mount that platform. To give her
+courage her father met her, and took her hand. And then, in his pride
+and confidence, something else occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Tell us, Margaret Amelia,” he said with a gesture infinitely paternal,
+“how came the children to think of demanding of us wise-heads that we
+give observance to this day which we had already voted to let slip past
+unattended? What spirit moved the children to this act?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">347</a></span>
+At first Margaret Amelia merely twisted, and fingered her sash at
+the side. Margaret Amelia was always called on for visitors’ days,
+and the like. She could usually command her faculties and give a
+straightforward answer, not so much because of what she knew as because
+of her unfailing self-confidence. Of this her father was serenely
+aware; but, aware also that the situation made unusual demands, he
+concluded to help her somewhat.</p>
+
+<p>“How came the children,” he encouragingly put it, “to think of making
+this fine effort to save our National holiday this year?”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia straightened slightly. She faced her audience with
+something of her native confidence, and told them:—</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” she said, “we all had some Fourth of July money, and there
+wasn’t going to be any way to spend it.”</p>
+
+<p>A ripple of laughter ran round, and Judge Rodman’s placid pink turned
+to purple.</p>
+
+<p>“I fear,” he observed gravely, “that the immediate nature of the event
+has somewhat obscured the real significance of the children’s most
+superior movement. Now, my child! Miss Messmore thinks that you should
+recite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">348</a></span> for us at least a portion of the Declaration of Independence.
+Will you do so?”</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia looked at him, down at us, away toward the waiting Wood
+Yard, and then at Miss Messmore.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it that about ‘The shades of night were falling fast’?” she
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>In the roar of laughter that followed, Margaret Amelia ran down, poor
+child, and sobbed on Miss Messmore’s shoulder. I never think of that
+moment without something of a return of my swelling sympathy for her
+who suffered this species of martyrdom, and so needlessly. I have seen,
+out of schools and out of certain of our superstitions, many martyrdoms
+result, but never one that has touched me more.</p>
+
+<p>I do not know whether something of this feeling was in the voice that
+we next heard speaking, or whether that which animated it was only its
+own bitterness. That voice sounded, clear and low-pitched, through the
+time’s confusion.</p>
+
+<p>“I will read the Declaration of Independence,” it said.</p>
+
+<p>And making his way through the crowd, and mounting the platform steps,
+we saw Mary Elizabeth’s father.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">349</a></span>
+Instinctively I put out my hand to her. But he was wholly himself,
+and this I think that she knew from the first. He was neatly dressed,
+and he laid his shabby hat on the table and picked up the book with a
+tranquil air of command. I remember how frail he looked as he buttoned
+his worn coat, and began to read.</p>
+
+<p>“‘We, the people of the United States—’”</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time that I had ever thought of Mary Elizabeth’s
+father as to be classed with anybody. He had never had employment, he
+belonged to no business, to no church, to no class of any sort. He
+merely lived over across the tracks, and he went and came alone. And
+here he was saying “<em>We</em>, the people of the United States,” just as if
+he belonged.</p>
+
+<p>When my vague fear had subsided lest they might stop his reading
+because he was not a taxpayer, I listened for the first time in my life
+to what he read. To be sure, I had—more or less—learned it. Now I
+listened.</p>
+
+<p>“Free and equal,” I heard him say, and I wondered what this meant.
+“Free and equal.” But there were Mary Elizabeth and I, were we equal?
+Perhaps, though, it didn’t mean little girls—only grown-ups. But there
+were Mary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">350</a></span> Elizabeth’s father and mother, and all the other fathers
+and mothers, they were grown up, and were they equal? And what were
+they free from, I wondered. Perhaps, though, I didn’t know what these
+words meant. “Free and equal” sounded like fairies, but folks I was
+accustomed to think of as burdened, and as different from one another,
+as Judge Rodman was different from Mary Elizabeth’s father. This,
+however, was the first time that ever I had caught the word right: Not
+Decoration, but Declaration of Independence, it seemed!</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth’s father finished, and closed the book, and stood for
+a moment looking over the Wood Yard. He was very tall and pale, and
+seeing him with something of dignity in his carriage I realized with
+astonishment that, if he were “dressed up,” he would look just like
+the men in the choir, just like the minister himself. Then suddenly
+he smiled round at us all, and even broke into a moment of soft and
+pleasant laughter.</p>
+
+<p>“It has been a long time,” he said, “since I have had occasion to
+remember the Declaration of Independence. I am glad to have had it
+called to my attention. We are in danger of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">351</a></span> forgetting about it—some
+of us. May I venture to suggest that, when it is taught in the schools,
+it be made quite clear to whom this document refers. And for the rest,
+my friends, God bless us all—some day.”</p>
+
+<p>“Bless us,” was what Judge Rodman had said. I remember wondering if
+they meant the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>He turned and went down the steps, and at the foot he staggered a
+little, and I saw with something of pride that it was my father who
+went to him and led him away.</p>
+
+<p>At once the band struck gayly into a patriotic air, and the people on
+all the benches got to their feet, and the men took off their hats. And
+above the music I heard Stitchy Branchitt beginning to shout again:—</p>
+
+<p>“Here’s what you get—here’s what you get—here’s what you get!
+Something cheap—cheap—<em>cheap!</em>”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When I came home from the fireworks with Delia’s family and Mary
+Elizabeth, my father and mother were sitting on the veranda.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s we who are to blame,” I heard my father saying, “though we’re
+fine at glossing it over.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">352</a></span>
+I wondered what had happened, and I sat down on the top step and began
+to untie my last torpedo from the corner of my handkerchief. Mary
+Elizabeth had one left, too, and we had agreed to throw them on the
+stone window-sills of our rooms as a final salute.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s ask her now,” said father.</p>
+
+<p>Mother leaned toward me.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear,” she said, “father has been having a talk with Mary Elizabeth’s
+father and mother. And—when her father isn’t here any more—which may
+not be long now, we think ... would you like us to have Mary Elizabeth
+come and live here?”</p>
+
+<p>“With us?” I cried. “<em>With us?</em>”</p>
+
+<p>Yes, they meant with us.</p>
+
+<p>“To work?” I demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“To be,” mother said.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, <em>yes!</em>” I welcomed it. “But her father—where will he be?”</p>
+
+<p>“In a little while now,” father said, “he will be free—and perhaps
+even equal.”</p>
+
+<p>I did not understand this wholly. Besides, there was far too much to
+think about. I turned toward the house of the New Family. A light
+glowed in Mary Elizabeth’s room. I<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">353</a></span> brought down my torpedo on the
+brick walk, and it exploded merrily, and from Mary Elizabeth’s window
+came an answering pop.</p>
+
+<p>“Then Mary Elizabeth will get free and equal too!” I cried joyously.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">354</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xix" id="xix"></a>XIX<br />
+<span>EARTH-MOTHER</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">And</span> for that day and that night, and for all the days and all the
+nights, I should like to tell a story about the Earth, and about some
+of the things that it keeps expecting.</p>
+
+<p>And if it were Sometime Far Away—say 1950—or 2050—or 3050—I should
+like to meet some Children of Then, and tell them this story about Now,
+and hear them all talk of what a curious place the earth must have been
+long ago, and of how many things it did not yet do.</p>
+
+<p>And their Long Ago is our Now!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>For ages and ages (I should say to the Children of Then) the Earth was
+a great round place of land and water, with trees, fields, cities,
+mountains, and the like dotted about on it in a pattern; and it spun
+and spun, out in space, like an enormous engraved ball tossed up in the
+air from somewhere. And many people thought that this was all there was
+to know about it,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">355</a></span> and after school they shut up their geographies and
+went about engraving new trees, fields, cities, and such things on the
+outside of the earth. And they truly thought that this was All, and
+they kept on doing it, rather tired but very independent.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Earth had a friend and companion whom nobody thought much
+about. It was Earth’s Shadow, cast by the sun in the way that any other
+shadow is cast, but it was such a big shadow that of course it fell
+far, far out in space. And as Earth went round, naturally its Shadow
+went round, and if one could have looked down, one would have seen the
+Shadow sticking out and out, so that the Earth and its Shadow-handle
+would have seemed almost like a huge saucepan filled with cities and
+people, all being held out over the sun, to get them done.</p>
+
+<p>Among the cities was one very beautiful City. She wore robes of
+green or of white, delicately embroidered with streets in a free and
+exquisite pattern, and her hair was like a flowing river, and at night
+she put on many glorious jewels. And she had the power to change
+herself at will into a woman. This was a power, however, which she had
+never yet used,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">356</a></span> and indeed she did not yet know wholly that she had
+this power, but she used to dream about it, and sometimes she used to
+sing about the dream, softly, to herself. Men thought that this song
+was the roar of the City’s traffic, but it was not so.</p>
+
+<p>Now the Earth was most anxious for this City to become a woman because,
+although the Earth whirled like an enormous engraved ball and seemed
+like a saucepan held over the sun, still all the time it was really
+just the Earth, and it was very human and tired and discouraged, and
+it needed a woman to rest it and to sing to it and to work with it, in
+her way. But there were none, because all the ordinary women were busy
+with <em>their</em> children. So the only way seemed to be for the City to be
+a woman, as she knew how to be; and the Earth was most anxious to have
+this happen. And it tried to see how it could bring this about.</p>
+
+<p>I think that the Earth may have asked the Moon, because she is a woman
+and might be expected to know something about it. But the Moon, as
+usual, was asleep on the sky, with a fine mosquito-netting of mist all
+about her, and she said not a word. (If you look at the Moon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">357</a></span> you
+can see how like a beautiful, sleeping face she seems.) I think that
+the Earth may have asked Mars, too, because he is so very near that
+it would be only polite to consult him. But he said: “I’m only a few
+million years old yet. Don’t expect me to understand either cities or
+people.” And finally the Earth asked its Shadow.</p>
+
+<p>“Shadow, dear,” it said, “you are pretty deep. Can’t you tell me how to
+make this City turn into a woman? For I want her to work with me, in
+<em>her</em> way.”</p>
+
+<p>The Shadow, who did nothing but run to keep up with the Earth, let a
+few thousand miles sweep by, and then it said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Really, I wouldn’t know. I’m not up on much but travel.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the Earth, “then please just ask the Uttermost Spaces. You
+continually pass by that way and somebody ought to know something.”</p>
+
+<p>So the Shadow swept along the Uttermost Spaces and made an
+abyss-to-abyss canvass.</p>
+
+<p>“The Uttermost Spaces want to know,” the Shadow reported next day,
+“whether in all that City there is a child. They said if there is, it
+could probably do what you want.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">358</a></span>
+“A child,” said the Earth. “Well, sea caves and firmaments. Of course
+there is. What do the Uttermost Spaces think I’m in the Earth business
+for if it isn’t for the Children?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know,” said its Shadow, rather sulkily. “I’m only telling you
+what I heard. If you’re cross with me, I won’t keep up with you. I’m
+about tired of it anyway.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I beg your pardon,” said the Earth, “You mustn’t mind me. I’m
+always a little sunstruck. A thousand thanks. Come along, do.”</p>
+
+<p>“A child,” thought the Earth, “a child. How could a child change a City
+into a woman? And <em>what</em> child?”</p>
+
+<p>But it was a very wise old Earth, and to its mind all children are
+valuable. So after a time it concluded that one child in that City
+would be as good as another, and perhaps any child could work the
+miracle. So it said: “I choose to work the miracle that child who is
+thinking about the most beautiful thing in the world.”</p>
+
+<p>Then it listened.</p>
+
+<p>Now, since the feet of people are pressed all day long to earth, it
+is true that the Earth can talk with everyone and, by listening, can<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">359</a></span>
+know what is in each heart. When it listened this time, it chanced that
+it was the middle of the night, when nearly every little child was
+sleeping and dreaming. But there was one little girl lying wide awake
+and staring out her bedroom window up at the stars, and as soon as the
+Earth listened to her thoughts, it knew that she was the one.</p>
+
+<p>Of what do you suppose she was thinking? She was thinking of her
+mother, who had died before she could remember her, and wondering
+where she was; and she was picturing what her mother had looked like,
+and what her mother would have said to her, and how her mother’s
+arms would have felt about her, and her mother’s good-night kiss;
+and she was wondering how it would be to wake in the night, a little
+frightened, and turn and stretch out her arms and find her mother
+breathing there beside her, ready to wake her and give her an
+in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss and send her back to sleep again. And
+she thought about it all so longingly that her little heart was like
+nothing in the world so much as the one word “Mother.”</p>
+
+<p>“It will be you,” said the Earth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">360</a></span>
+So the Earth spoke to its Shadow who was, of course, just then fastened
+to that same side, it being night.</p>
+
+<p>“Shadow, dear,” Earth said, like a prescription, “fold closely about
+her and drop out a dream or two. But do not let her forget.”</p>
+
+<p>So Shadow folded about her and dropped out a dream or two. And all
+night Earth lapped her in its silences, but they did not let her
+forget. And Shadow left word with Morning, telling Morning what to do,
+and she kissed the little girl’s eyelids so that the first thing she
+thought when she waked was how wonderful it would be to be kissed awake
+by her mother. And her little heart beat <em>Mother</em> in her breast.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she was dressed (“Muvvers wouldn’t pinch your feet with the
+button-hook, or tie your ribbon too tight, or get your laxtixs short
+so’s they pull,” she thought), as soon as she was dressed, and had
+pressed her feet to Earth, Earth began to talk to her.</p>
+
+<p>“Go out and find a mother,” it said to her.</p>
+
+<p>“My muvver is dead,” thought the little girl.</p>
+
+<p>Earth said: “I am covered with mothers and with those who ought to be
+mothers. Go to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">361</a></span> them. Tell them you haven’t any mother. Wouldn’t one of
+those be next best?”</p>
+
+<p>And the Earth said so much, and the little girl’s heart so strongly
+beat <em>Mother</em>, that she could not help going to see.</p>
+
+<p>On the street she looked very little and she felt—oh, <em>much</em> littler
+than in the house with furniture. For the street seemed to be merely a
+world of Skirts—skirts everywhere and also the bottoms of men’s coats
+with impersonal Legs below. And these said nothing. Away up above were
+Voices, talking very fast, and to one another, and entirely leaving
+her out. She was out of the conversations and out of account, and it
+felt far more lonely than it did with just furniture. Now and then
+another child would pass who would look at her as if she really were
+there; but everyone was hanging on its mother’s hand or her Skirt, or
+else, if the child were alone, a Voice from ahead or behind was saying:
+“Hurry, dear. Mother won’t wait. Come and see what’s in <em>this</em> window.”
+Littlegirl thought how wonderful that would be, to have somebody ahead
+looking back for her, and she waited on purpose, by a hydrant, and
+pretended that she was going to hear somebody saying: “<em>Do</em> come<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">362</a></span> on,
+dear. Mother’ll be late for her fitting.” But nobody said anything.
+Only an automobile stood close by the hydrant and in it was a little
+yellow-haired girl, and just at that moment a lady came from a shop and
+got in the automobile and handed the little girl a white tissue-paper
+parcel and said: “Sit farther over—there’s a dear. Now, that’s for
+you, but don’t open it till we get home.” <em>What</em> was in the parcel,
+Littlegirl wondered, and stood looking after the automobile until it
+was lost. One little boy passed her, holding tightly to his mother’s
+hand, and she stooping over him and he <em>crying</em>. Littlegirl tried to
+think what could be bad enough to cry about when you had hold of your
+mother’s hand and she was bending over you. A stone in your shoe? Or
+a pin in your neck? Or because you’d lost your locket? But would any
+of those things matter enough to cry when your mother had hold of your
+hand? She looked up at the place beside her where her own mother would
+be walking and tried to see where her face would be.</p>
+
+<p>And as she looked up, she saw the tops of the high buildings across
+the street, and below them the windows hung thick as pictures on a
+wall,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">363</a></span> and thicker. The shop doors were open like doors to wonderful,
+mysterious palaces where you went in with your mother and she picked
+out your dresses and said: “Wouldn’t you like this one, dear? Mother
+used to have one like this when <em>she</em> was a little girl.” And
+Littlegirl saw, too, one of the side streets, and how it was all lined
+with homes, whose doors were shut, like closed lips with nothing to say
+to anybody save those who lived there—the children who were promised
+Christmas trees—and <em>got</em> them, too. And between shops and homes was
+the world of Skirts and Voices, mothers whose little girls were at
+home, daddys who would run up the front steps at night and cry: “Come
+here, Puss. Did you grow any since morning?” Or, “<em>Where’s my son?</em>”
+(Littlegirl knew how it went—she had heard them.) Shops and homes and
+crowds—a City! A City for everybody but her.</p>
+
+<p>When the Earth—who all this time was listening—heard her think that,
+it made to flow up into her little heart the longing to belong to
+somebody. And Littlegirl ran straight up to a lady in blue linen, who
+was passing.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you somebody’s muvver?” she asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">364</a></span>
+The lady looked down in the little face and stood still.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” she said soberly.</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl slipped her hand in her white glove.</p>
+
+<p>“I aren’t anybody’s little girl,” she said. “Let’s trade each other.”</p>
+
+<p>And the Earth, who was listening, made to flow in the lady’s heart an
+old longing.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s go in here, at any rate,” said the Lady, “and talk it over.”</p>
+
+<p>So they went in a wonderful place, all made of mirrors, and jars of
+bonbons, and long trays, as big as doll cradles, and filled with
+bonbons too. And they sat at a cool table, under a whirry fan, and had
+before them thick, foamy, frozen chocolate. And the Blue Linen Lady
+said:—</p>
+
+<p>“But whose little girl are you, really?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m <em>my</em> little girl, I think,” said Littlegirl. “I don’t know who
+else’s.”</p>
+
+<p>“With whom do you live?” asked the Lady.</p>
+
+<p>“Some peoples,” said Littlegirl, “that’s other people’s muvvers. Don’t
+let’s say about them.”</p>
+
+<p>“What shall we say about?” asked the Lady, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s pretend you was my muvver,” said Littlegirl.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">365</a></span>
+The lady looked startled, but she nodded slowly.</p>
+
+<p>“Very well,” she said. “I’ll play that. How do you play it?”</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl hesitated and looked down in her chocolate.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know berry well,” she said soberly. “<em>You</em> say how.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” said the Lady, “if you were my little girl, I should probably
+be saying to you, ‘Do you like this, dear? Don’t eat it fast. And take
+little bits of bites.’ And you would say, ‘Yes, mother.’ And then what?”</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl looked deep down her chocolate. She was making a cave in one
+side of it, with the foamy part on top for snow. And while she looked
+the snow suddenly seemed to melt and brim over, and she looked at the
+lady mutely.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know how,” she said; “I don’t know how!”</p>
+
+<p>“Never mind!” said the Lady, very quickly and a little unsteadily,
+“I’ll tell you a story instead—shall I?”</p>
+
+<p>So the Blue Linen Lady told her a really wonderful story. It was about
+a dwarf who was made of gold, all but his heart, and about what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">366</a></span> a
+terrible time he had trying to pretend that he was a truly, flesh and
+blood person. It made him so unhappy to have to pretend all the time
+that he got <em>scandalous</em> cross to everybody, and nothing could please
+him. His gold kept getting harder and harder till he could move only
+with the greatest difficulty, and it looked as if his heart were going
+golden too. And if it did, of course he would die. But one night, just
+as the soft outside edges of his heart began to take on a shining
+tinge, a little boy ran out in the road where the dwarf was passing,
+and in the dark mistook him for his father, and jumped up and threw
+his arms about the dwarf’s neck and hugged him. And of a sudden the
+dwarf’s heart began to beat, and when he got in the house, he saw that
+he wasn’t gold any more, and he wasn’t a dwarf—but he was straight
+and strong and real. “And so,” the Lady ended it, “you must love every
+grown-up you can, because maybe their hearts are turning into gold and
+you can stop it that way.”</p>
+
+<p>“An’ must <em>you</em> love every children?” asked Littlegirl, very low.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the Lady, “I must.”</p>
+
+<p>“An’ will you love me an’ be my muvver?” asked Littlegirl.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">367</a></span>
+The Blue Linen Lady sighed.</p>
+
+<p>“You dear little thing,” she said, “I’d love it—I’d love it. But I
+truly haven’t any place for you to live—or any time to give you.
+Come now—I’m going to get you some candy and take you back where you
+belong—<em>in an automobile</em>. Won’t that be fun?”</p>
+
+<p>But when she turned for the candy, Littlegirl slipped out the door and
+ran and ran as fast as she could. (She had thanked the lady, first
+thing, for the thick, frozen, foamy chocolate, so <em>that</em> part was
+all right.) And Littlegirl went round a corner and lost herself in a
+crowd—in which it is far easier to lose yourself than in the woods.
+And there she was again, worse off than before, because she had felt
+how it would feel to feel that she had a mother.</p>
+
+<p>The Earth—who would have shaken its head if it could without
+disarranging everything on it—said things instead to its Shadow—who
+was by now on the other side of the world from the City.</p>
+
+<p>“Shadow, dear,” said the Earth, “what <em>do</em> you think of that?”</p>
+
+<p>“The very Uttermost Spaces are ashamed for her,” said the Shadow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">368</a></span>
+But of course the Blue Linen Lady had no idea that the Earth and its
+Shadow and the Uttermost Spaces had been watching to see what she did.</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl ran on, many a weary block, and though she met
+mother-looking women she dared speak to none of them for fear they
+would offer to take her back in an automobile, with some candy, to the
+people with whom she lived-without-belonging. And of late, these people
+had said things in her presence about the many mouths to feed, and she
+had heard, and had understood, and it had made her heart beat <em>Mother</em>,
+as it had when she wakened that day.</p>
+
+<p>At last, when she was most particularly tired, she came to the park
+where it was large and cool and woodsy and wonderful. But in the park
+the un-motherness of things was worse than ever. To be sure, there
+were no mothers there, only nurse-maids. But the nurse-maids and the
+children and the covers-to-baby-carriages were all so ruffly or lacy
+or embroidery or starchy and so white that <em>mother</em> was written all
+over them. Nobody else could have cared to have them like that. How
+wonderful it would be, Littlegirl thought, to be paid attention to as
+if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">369</a></span> you were a really person and not just hanging on the edges. Even
+the squirrels were coaxed and beckoned. She sat down on the edge of
+a bench on which an old gentleman was feeding peanuts to a squirrel
+perched on his knee, and she thought it would be next best to having
+a Christmas tree to be a squirrel and have somebody taking pains like
+that to keep her near by.</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s your nurse, my dear?” the old gentleman asked her finally, and
+she ran away so that he should not guess that she was her own little
+girl and nobody else’s.</p>
+
+<p>Wherever she saw a policeman, she lingered beside a group of children
+so that he would think that she belonged to them. And once, for a long
+way, she trotted behind two nurses and five children, pretending that
+she belonged. Once a thin, stooped youth in spectacles called her and
+gave her an orange. He was sitting alone on a bench with his chin in
+his chest, and he looked ill and unhappy. Littlegirl wondered if this
+was because he didn’t have any mother either, and she longed to ask
+him; but she was afraid he would not want to own to not having any, in
+a world where nearly everyone seemed to have one. So she played through
+the long hours<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">370</a></span> of the morning. So, having lunched on the orange, she
+played through the long hours of the afternoon. And then Dusk began to
+come—and Dusk meant that Earth’s Shadow had run round again, and was
+coming on the side where the City lay.</p>
+
+<p>And when the Shadow reached the park, there, on a knoll beside a
+barberry bush, he found Littlegirl lying fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In a great flutter he questioned the Earth.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen,” said Shadow, “what <em>are</em> you thinking of? Here is the child
+who was to work the miracle and make the City turn into a woman. And
+she is lying alone in the park. And I’m coming on and I’ll have to make
+it all dark and frighten her. What does this mean?”</p>
+
+<p>But the Earth, who is closer to people than is its Shadow, merely
+said:—</p>
+
+<p>“Wait, Shadow. I am listening. I can hear the speeding of many feet.
+And I think that the miracle has begun.”</p>
+
+<p>It was true that all through the City there was the speeding of many
+feet, and on one errand. Wires and messengers were busy, automobiles
+were busy, blue-coated men were busy, and all of them were doing the
+same thing: Looking for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">371</a></span> Littlegirl. Busiest of all was the Blue Linen
+Lady, who felt herself and nobody else responsible for Littlegirl’s
+loss.</p>
+
+<p>“It is too dreadful,” she kept saying over and over, “I had her with
+me. She gave me my chance, and I didn’t take it. If anything has
+happened to her, I shall never forgive myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s the way people always talk <em>afterward</em>,” said the Earth’s
+Shadow. “Why don’t they ever talk that way before? I’d ask the
+Uttermost Spaces, but I know they don’t know.”</p>
+
+<p>But the wise Earth only listened and made to flow to the Blue Linen
+Lady’s heart an old longing. And when they had traced Littlegirl as far
+as the park—for it seemed that many of the busy Skirts and Coats and
+Voices had noticed her, only they were so very busy—the Blue Linen
+Lady herself went into the park, and it was the light of her automobile
+that flashed white on the glimmering frock of Littlegirl.</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl was wakened, as never before within her memory she had been
+wakened, by tender arms about her, lifting her, and soft lips kissing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">372</a></span>
+her, many and many a time. And waking so, in the strange, great Dark,
+with the new shapes of trees above her and tenderness wrapping her
+round, and an in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss on her lips, Littlegirl
+could think of but one thing that had happened:—</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I’m <em>glad</em> I died—I’m <em>glad</em> I died!” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“You haven’t died, you little thing!” cried the Blue Linen Lady.
+“You’re alive—and if they’ll let you stay, you’re never going to leave
+me. I’ve made up my mind to <em>that</em>. Come—come, dear.”</p>
+
+<p>Littlegirl lay quite still, too happy to speak or think. For somebody
+had said “dear,” had even said “Come, dear.” And it didn’t mean a
+little girl away ahead, or away back, or in an automobile. <em>It meant
+her.</em></p>
+
+<p>The Earth’s Shadow brooded over the two and helped them to be very near.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s worth keeping up with you all this time,” Shadow said to the
+Earth, “to see things like this. Even the Uttermost Spaces are touched.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Earth was silent, listening. For the City, the beautiful,
+green-robed City lying in her glorious night jewels, knew what was
+happening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">373</a></span> too. And when the Lady lifted Littlegirl, to carry her
+away, it was as if something had happened which had touched the life
+of the City herself. She listened, as the Earth was listening, and the
+soft crooning which men thought was the roar of her traffic was really
+her song about what she heard. For the story of Littlegirl spread and
+echoed, and other children’s stories like hers were in the song, and it
+was one of the times when the heart of the City was stirred to a great,
+new measure. At last the City understood the homelessness of children,
+and their labour, and their suffering, and the waste of them; and she
+brooded above them like a mother.... And suddenly she knew herself,
+that she <em>was</em> the mother of all little children, and that she must
+care for them like a mother <em>if she was to keep herself alive</em>. And if
+they were to grow up to be her Family, and not just her pretend family,
+with nobody looking out for anybody else—as no true family would do.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it well?” asked the Shadow, softly, of the Earth.</p>
+
+<p>“It is well,” said the Earth, in deep content. “Don’t you hear the
+human voices beginning<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">374</a></span> to sing with her? Don’t you see the other
+Cities watching? Oh, it is well indeed.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll go and mention it to the Uttermost Spaces,” said the Shadow.</p>
+
+<p>And, in time, so he did.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">375</a></span>
+</div>
+
+<h2><a name="xx" id="xx"></a>XX<br />
+<span>THREE TO MAKE READY</span></h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Red</span> mosquito-netting, preferably from peach baskets, was best for
+bottles of pink water. You soaked the netting for a time depending in
+length on the shade of pink you desired—light, deep, or plain. A very
+little red ink produced a beautiful red water, likewise of a superior
+tint. Violet ink, diluted, remained true to type. Cold coffee gave the
+browns and yellows. Green tissue paper dissolved into somewhat dull
+emerald. Pure blue and orange, however, had been almost impossible to
+obtain save by recourse to our paint boxes, too choice to be used in
+this fashion, or to a chance artificial flower on an accessible hat—of
+which we were not at all too choice, but whose utilization might be
+followed, not to say attended, by consequences.</p>
+
+<p>That August afternoon we were at work on a grand scale. At the Rodmans,
+who lived on the top of the hill overlooking the town and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">376</a></span> peaceful
+westward-lying valley of the river, we had chosen to set up a great
+Soda Fountain, the like of which had never been.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s the kind of a fountain,” Margaret Amelia Rodman explained, “that
+knights used to drink at. That kind.”</p>
+
+<p>We classified it instantly.</p>
+
+<p>“Now,” she went on, “us damsels are getting this thing up for the
+knights that are tourmeying. If the king knew it, he wouldn’t leave
+us do it, because he’d think it’s beneath our dignity. But he don’t
+know it. He’s off. He’s to the chase. But all the king’s household is
+inside the palace, and us damsels have to be secret, getting up our
+preparations. Now we must divide up the—er—responsibility.”</p>
+
+<p>I listened, spellbound.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you and Betty didn’t like to play Pretend,” I was surprised
+into saying.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, we’ll pretend if there’s anything to pretend <em>about</em> that’s
+real,” said Margaret Amelia, haughtily.</p>
+
+<p>They told us where in the palace the various ingredients were likely to
+be found. Red mosquito-netting, perhaps, in the cellar—at this time
+of day fairly safe. Red and violet ink<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">377</a></span> in the library—very dangerous
+indeed at this hour. Cold coffee—almost unobtainable. Green tissue
+paper, to be taken from the flower-pots in the dining-room—exceedingly
+dangerous. Blue and orange, if discoverable at all, then in the
+Christmas tree box in the trunk room—attended by few perils as to
+meetings en route, but in respect to appropriating what was desired, by
+the greatest perils of all.</p>
+
+<p>This last adventure the Rodmans themselves heroically undertook. It was
+also conceded that, on their return from their quest—provided they
+ever did return alive—it would be theirs to procure the necessary
+cold coffee. The other adventures were distributed, and Mary Elizabeth
+and I were told off together to penetrate the cellar in search of red
+mosquito-netting. The bottles had already been collected, and these
+little Harold Rodman was left to guard and luxuriously to fill with
+water and luxuriously to empty.</p>
+
+<p>There was an outside cellar door, and it was closed. This invited
+Mary Elizabeth and me to an expedition or two before we even entered.
+We slid from the top to the bottom, sitting, standing, and backward.
+Then, since Harold was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">378</a></span> beginning to observe us with some attention, we
+lifted the ring—<em>the ring</em>—in the door and descended.</p>
+
+<p>“Aladdin immediately beheld bags of inexhaustible riches,” said Mary
+Elizabeth, almost reverently.</p>
+
+<p>First, there was a long, narrow passage lined with ash barrels, a
+derelict coal scuttle, starch boxes, mummies of brooms, and the like.
+But at this point if we had chanced on the red mosquito-netting, we
+should have felt distinctly cheated of some right. A little farther on,
+however, the passage branched, and we stood in delighted uncertainty.
+If the giant lived one way and the gorgon the other, which was our way?</p>
+
+<p>The way that we did choose led into a small round cellar, lighted
+by a narrow, dusty window, now closed. Formless things stood
+everywhere—crates, tubs, shelves whose ghostly contents were shrouded
+by newspapers. It occurred to me that I had never yet told Mary
+Elizabeth about our cellar. I decided to do so then and there. She
+backed up against the wall to listen, manifestly so that there should
+be nothing over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">379</a></span>
+Our cellar was a round, bricked-in place under the dining-room.
+Sometimes I had been down there while they had been selecting preserves
+by candle-light. And I had long ago settled that the curved walls
+were set with little sealed doors behind each of which <em>He</em> sat.
+These <em>He’s</em> were not in the least unfriendly—they merely sat there
+close to the wall, square shouldered and very still, looking neither
+to right nor left, waiting. Probably, I thought, it might happen
+some day—whatever they waited for; and then they would all go away.
+Meanwhile, there they were; and they evidently knew that I knew they
+were there, but they evidently did not expect me to mention it; for
+once, when I did so, they all stopped doing nothing and looked at me,
+all together, as if something used their eyes for them at a signal.
+It was to Mary Gilbraith that I had spoken, while she was at our
+house-cleaning, and the moment I had chosen was when she was down in
+the cellar without a candle and I was lying flat on the floor above
+her, peering down the trap doorway.</p>
+
+<p>“Mary,” I said, “they’s a big row of <em>He’s</em> sitting close together
+inside the wall. They’ve got big foreheads. Bang on the wall and see
+if<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">380</a></span> they’ll answer—” for I had always longed to bang and had never
+quite dared.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my great Scotland!” said Mary Gilbraith, and was up the ladder
+in a second. That was when they looked at me, and then I knew that I
+should not have spoken to her about them, and I began to see that there
+are some things that must not be said. And I felt a kind of shame, too,
+when Mary turned on me. “You little Miss,” she said wrathfully, “with
+your big eyes. An’ myself bitin’ on my own nerves for fear of picking
+up a lizard for a potato. Go play.”</p>
+
+<p>“I <em>was</em> playing,” I tried to explain.</p>
+
+<p>“Play playthings, then, and not ha’nts,” said Mary.</p>
+
+<p>So I never said anything more to her, save about plates and fritters
+and such things.</p>
+
+<p>To this recital Mary Elizabeth listened sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s just one great big one lives down in our cellar,” she confided
+in turn. “Not in the wall—but out loose. When the apples and stuff go
+down there, I always think how glad he is.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you afraid of him?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">381</a></span>
+“Afraid!” Mary Elizabeth repeated. “Why, no. Once, when I was down
+there, I tried to pretend there wasn’t anything lived there—and <em>then</em>
+it was frightening and I was scared.”</p>
+
+<p>I understood. It would indeed be a great, lonely, terrifying world if
+these little friendly folk did not live in cellars, walls, attics,
+stair-closets and the like. Of course they were friendly. Why should
+they be otherwise?</p>
+
+<p>“R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-t,” something went, close by Mary Elizabeth’s head.</p>
+
+<p>We looked up. The dimness of the ceiling was miles deep. We could not
+see a ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>“St-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t,” it went again. And this time it did not stop, and
+it began to be accompanied by a rumbling sound as from the very cave
+inside the world.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth and I took hold of hands and ran. We scrambled up the
+steps and escaped to the sultry welcome of bright day. Out there
+everything was as before. Little Harold was crossing the lawn carrying
+a flower-pot of water which was running steadily from the hole in the
+bottom. With the maternal importance of little girls, we got the jar
+from him and undertook to bring him more water. And when he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">382</a></span> led us to
+the source of supply, this was a faucet in the side of the house just
+beyond a narrow, dusty, cellar window. When he turned the faucet, we
+were, so to speak, face to face with that R-s-t-t-t-t-t.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth and I looked at each other and looked away. Then we
+looked back and braved it through.</p>
+
+<p>“Anyway,” she said, “we were afraid of a truly thing, and not of a
+pretend thing.”</p>
+
+<p>There seemed to us, I recall, a certain loyalty in this as to a creed.</p>
+
+<p>Already Delia had returned from the library. The authorities refused
+the ink. One might come in there and write with it, but one must
+not take it from the table. Calista arrived from the dining-room. A
+waiting-woman to the queen, she reported, was engaged in dusting the
+sideboard and she herself had advanced no farther than the pantry door.
+It remained only for Margaret Amelia and Betty to come from their
+farther quest bearing a green handbill which they thought might take
+the place of Calista’s quarry if she returned empty-handed; but we were
+no nearer than before to blue and orange materials, or to any other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_383" id="Page_383">383</a></span>
+We took counsel and came to a certain ancient conclusion that in union
+there is strength. We must, we thought we saw, act the aggressor. We
+moved on the stronghold together. Armed with a spoon and two bottles,
+we found a keeper of properties within who spooned us out the necessary
+ink; tea was promised to take the place of coffee if we would keep out
+of the house and not bother anybody any more, indefinitely; shoe-polish
+was conceded in a limited quantity, briefly, and under inspection; and
+we all descended into Aladdin’s cave and easily found baskets to which
+red mosquito-netting was clinging in sufficient measure. Then we sat in
+the shade of the side lawn and proceeded to colour many waters.</p>
+
+<p>It was a delicate task to cloud the clear liquid to this tint and that,
+to watch it change expression under our hands, pale, deepen, vary to
+our touch; in its heart to set jewels and to light fires. We worked
+with deep deliberation, testing by old standards of taste set up by
+at least two or three previous experiences, consulting one another’s
+soberest judgment, occasionally inventing a new liquid. I remember that
+it was on that day that we first thought of bluing.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_384" id="Page_384">384</a></span> Common washing
+bluing, the one substance really intended for colouring water, had so
+far escaped our notice.</p>
+
+<p>“Somebody,” observed Margaret Amelia, as we worked, “ought to keep
+keeping a look-out to see if they’re coming back.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia, who was our man of action, ran to the clothes-reel, which stood
+on the highest land of the castle grounds, and looked away over the
+valley.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s a cloud of dust on the horizon,” she reported, “but I think
+it’s Mr. Wells getting home from Caledonia.”</p>
+
+<p>“Wouldn’t they blare their horns before they got here?” Mary Elizabeth
+wanted to know.</p>
+
+<p>“What was a knight <em>for</em>, anyway?” Delia demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“<em>For?</em>” Margaret Amelia repeated, in a kind of personal indignation.
+“Why, to—to—to right wrongs, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>Delia surveyed the surrounding scene through the diluted red ink in a
+glass-stoppered bottle.</p>
+
+<p>“I guess I know that,” she said. “But I mean, what was his job?”</p>
+
+<p>We had never thought of that. Did one, then, have to have a job other
+than righting wrongs?</p>
+
+<p>Margaret Amelia undertook to explain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">385</a></span>
+“Why,” she said, “it was this way: Knights liberated damsels and razed
+down strongholds and took robber chieftains and got into adventures.
+And they lived off the king and off hermits.”</p>
+
+<p>“But what was the end of ’em?” Delia wanted to know. “They never
+married and lived happily ever after. They married and just kept right
+on going.”</p>
+
+<p>“That was on account of the Holy Grail,” said Mary Elizabeth. It
+was wonderful, as I look back, to remember how her face would light
+sometimes; as just then, and as when somebody came to school with the
+first violets.</p>
+
+<p>“The what?” said Delia.</p>
+
+<p>“They woke up in the night sometimes,” Mary Elizabeth recited softly,
+“and they saw it, in light, right there inside their dark cell. And
+they looked and looked, and it was all shiny and near-to. And when
+they saw it, they knew about all the principal things. And those that
+never woke up and saw it, always kept trying to, because they knew they
+weren’t <em>really</em> ones till they saw. Most everybody wasn’t really,
+because only a few saw it. Most of them died and never saw it at all.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">386</a></span>
+“What did it look like?” demanded Delia.</p>
+
+<p>“Hush!” said Calista, with a shocked glance, having somewhere picked up
+the impression that very sacred things, like very wicked things, must
+never be mentioned. But Mary Elizabeth did not heed her.</p>
+
+<p>“It was all shining and near to,” she repeated. “It was in a great,
+dark sky, with great, bright worlds falling all around it, but it was
+in the centre and it didn’t fall. It was all still, and brighter than
+anything; and when you saw it, you never forgot.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment’s pause, which Delia broke.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you know?” she demanded.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Elizabeth was clouding red mosquito-netting water by shaking soap
+in it, an effect much to be desired. She went on shaking the corked
+bottle, and looking away toward the sun slanting to late afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know how I know,” she said in manifest surprise. “But I know.”</p>
+
+<p>We sat silent for a minute.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’m going back to see if they’re coming home from the hunt
+<em>now</em>,” said Delia, scrambling up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">387</a></span>
+“From the <em>chase</em>,” Margaret Amelia corrected her loftily, “and from
+the tourmey. I b’lieve,” she corrected herself conscientiously, “that
+had ought to be tourmament.”</p>
+
+<p>This time Delia thought that she saw them coming, the king and his
+knights, with pennons and plumes, just entering Conant Street down by
+the Brices. As we must be ready by the time the party dismounted, there
+was need for the greatest haste. But we found that the clothes-reel,
+which was to be the fountain, must have a rug and should have flowing
+curtains if it were to grace a castle courtyard; so, matters having
+been further delayed by the discovery of Harold about to drink the
+vanilla water, we concluded that we had been mistaken about the
+approach of the knights; and that they were by now only on the bridge.</p>
+
+<p>A journey to the attic for the rug and curtains resulted in delays,
+the sight of some cast-off garments imperatively suggesting the
+fitness of our dressing for the rôle we were to assume. This took some
+time and was accompanied by the selection of new names all around.
+At last, however, we were back in the yard with the rugs and the
+muslin curtains in place, and the array<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">388</a></span> of coloured bottles set up
+in rows at the top of the carpeted steps. Then we arranged ourselves
+behind these delicacies, in our bravery of old veils and scarves and
+tattered sequins. Harold was below, as a page, in a red sash. “A little
+foot-page,” Margaret Amelia had wanted him called, but this he himself
+vetoed.</p>
+
+<p>“Mine feet <em>big</em> feet,” he defended himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then we waited.</p>
+
+<p>We waited, chatted amiably, as court ladies will. Occasionally we rose
+and scanned the street, and reported that they were almost here. Then
+we resumed our seats and waited. This business had distinctly palled on
+us all when Delia faced it.</p>
+
+<p>“Let’s have them get here if they’re going to,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>So we sat and told each other that they were entering the yard, that
+they were approaching the dais, that they were kneeling at our feet.
+But it was unconvincing. None of us really wanted them to kneel or
+knew what to do with them when they did kneel. The whole pretence was
+lacking in action, and very pale.</p>
+
+<p>“It was lots more fun getting ready than this is,” said Calista,
+somewhat brutally.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_389" id="Page_389">389</a></span>
+We stared in one another’s faces, feeling guilty of a kind of
+disloyalty, yet compelled to acknowledge this great truth. In our
+hearts we remembered to have noticed this thing before: That getting
+ready for a thing was more fun than doing that thing.</p>
+
+<p>“Why couldn’t we get a quest?” inquired Margaret Amelia. “Then it
+wouldn’t have to stop. It’d last every day.”</p>
+
+<p>That was the obvious solution: We would get a quest.</p>
+
+<p>“Girls can’t quest, can they?” Betty suggested doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>We looked in one another’s faces. Could it be true? Did the damsels sit
+at home? Was it only the knights who quested?</p>
+
+<p>Delia was a free soul. Forthwith she made a precedent.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” she said, “I don’t know whether they did quest. But they can
+quest. So let’s do it.”</p>
+
+<p>The reason in this appealed to us all. Immediately we confronted the
+problem: What should we quest for?</p>
+
+<p>We stared off over the valley through which the little river ran
+shining and slipped beyond our horizon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_390" id="Page_390">390</a></span>
+“I wonder,” said Mary Elizabeth, “if it would be wrong to quest for the
+Holy Grail <em>now</em>.”</p>
+
+<p>We stood there against the west, where bright doors seemed opening in
+the pouring gold of the sun, thick with shining dust. The glory seemed
+very near. Why not do something beautiful? Why not—why not....</p>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+
+<div class="box">
+<p class="noi"><span class="dropcap">T</span>HE following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the
+same author, and new fiction</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<div class="books">
+<p class="noi p120"><i>By the Same Author</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="center p140">Christmas</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> ZONA GALE</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p class="noi">Author of “Mothers to Men,” “The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre.”
+Illustrated in colors by <span class="smcap">Leon Solon</span>.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.30 net; postpaid, $1.42</i></p>
+
+<p>A town in the Middle West, pinched with poverty, decides that it will
+have no Christmas, as no one can afford to buy gifts. They perhaps
+foolishly reckon that the heart-burnings and the disappointments of
+the children will be obviated by passing the holiday season over with
+no observance. How this was found to be simply and wholly impossible,
+how the Christmas joys and Christmas spirit crept into the little town
+and into the hearts of its most positive objectors, and how Christmas
+cannot be arbitrated about, make up the basis of a more than ordinarily
+appealing novel. Incidentally it is a little boy who really makes
+possible a delightful outcome. A thread of romance runs through it all
+with something of the meaning of Christmas for the individual human
+being and for the race.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>“A fine story of Yuletide impulses in Miss Gale’s best
+style.”—<cite>N. Y. World.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“No living writer more thoroughly understands the true spirit
+of Christmas than does Zona Gale.”—<cite>Chicago Record-Herald.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“‘Christmas’ is that rare thing, a Yuletide tale, with a touch
+of originality about it.”—<cite>N. Y. Press.</cite></p>
+
+<p>“The book is just the thing for a gift.”—<cite>Chicago Tribune.</cite></p>
+</blockquote>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider2" />
+<div class="books">
+
+<p class="center p120"><i>The Other Books of Miss Gale</i></p>
+
+
+<p class="noi p140">Mothers to Men</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net; by mail, $1.62 net</i></p>
+
+<p>The author is singularly successful in detaching herself from all
+the wear and tear of modern life and has produced a book filled with
+sweetness, beautiful in ideas, charming in characterizations, highly
+contemplative, and evidencing a philosophy of life all her own.</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>“One of the most widely read of our writers of short fiction.”—<cite>The
+Bookman.</cite></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="noi p140">Friendship Village</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net</i></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>“As charming as an April day, all showers and sunshine, and sometimes
+both together, so that the delighted reader hardly knows whether
+laughter or tears are fittest.”—<cite>The New York Times.</cite></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center p140">The Loves of Pelleas and Etarre</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Cloth, 12mo, $1.50 net</i></p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><i>Macmillan Fiction Library</i></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>12mo, $.50 net</i></p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>“It contains the sort of message that seems to set the world right for
+even the most depressed, and can be depended upon to sweeten every
+moment spent over it.”—<cite>San Francisco Chronicle.</cite></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center p140">Friendship Village Love Stories</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, gilt top, 12mo, $1.50 net</i></p>
+
+<p>Miss Gale’s pleasant and highly individual outlook upon life has never
+been revealed to better advantage than in these charming stories of the
+heart affairs of the young people of Friendship Village.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider2" />
+<div class="books">
+
+<p class="noi p120"><i>New Macmillan Fiction</i></p>
+
+<p class="center">MRS. WATTS’S NEW NOVEL</p>
+
+<p class="center p140">Van Cleve</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> MARY S. WATTS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of “Nathan Burke,” “The Legacy,” etc.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Cloth, 12mo.</i></p>
+
+<p>Never has the author of “Nathan Burke” and “The Legacy” written more
+convincingly or appealingly than in this story of modern life. Those
+who have enjoyed the intense realism of Mrs. Watts’s earlier work, the
+settings of which have largely been of the past, will welcome this
+book of the present in which she demonstrates that her skill is no
+less in handling scenes and types of people with which we are familiar
+than in the so-called “historical” novel. “Van Cleve” is about a young
+man who, while still in his early twenties, is obliged to support a
+family of foolish, good-hearted, ill-balanced women, and one shiftless,
+pompous old man, his grandmother, aunt, cousin, and uncle. Van Cleve
+proves himself equal to the obligation—and equal, too, to many other
+severe tests that are put upon him by his friends. Besides him there
+is one character which it is doubtful whether the reader will ever
+forget—Bob. His life not only shapes Van Cleve’s to a large extent,
+but that of several other people, notably his sister, the girl whom Van
+Cleve loves in his patient way.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<div class="books">
+<p class="center p140">The Valley of the Moon</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> JACK LONDON</p>
+
+<p class="center">With Frontispiece in Colors by <span class="smcap">George Harper</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo, $1.35 net</i></p>
+
+<p>A love story in Mr. London’s most powerful style, strikingly
+contrasted against a background of present-day economic problems—that
+is what “The Valley of the Moon” is. The hero, teamster,
+prize-fighter, adventurer, man of affairs, is one of Mr. London’s
+<a name="unforgettable" id="unforgettable"></a><ins title="Original has 'unforgetable'">unforgettable</ins>
+big men. The romance which develops out
+of his meeting with a charming girl and which does not end with their
+marriage is absorbingly told. The action of the plot is most rapid, one
+event following another in a fashion which does not allow the reader to
+lose interest even temporarily. “The Valley of the Moon” is, in other
+words, an old-fashioned London novel, with all of the entertainment
+that such a description implies.</p>
+
+<p class="center p140">Robin Hood’s Barn</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> ALICE BROWN</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of “Vanishing Points,” “The Secret of the Clan,” “The Country
+Road,” etc.</p>
+
+<p class="center">With Illustrations in Colors and in Black and White by <span class="smcap">H. M.
+Carpenter</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo,</i>
+<a name="price" id="price"></a><ins title="Original price of 0 dollars has been retained"><i>$0.00</i></ins><i> net</i></p>
+
+<p>Miss Brown’s previous books have given her a distinguished reputation
+as an interpreter of New England life. The idealism, the quaint humor,
+the skill in character drawing, and the dramatic force which have
+always marked her work are evident in this charming story of a dream
+that came true. The illustrations, the frontispiece being in colors,
+the others in black and white, are by Mr. Horace Carpenter, whose
+sympathetic craftsmanship is widely known and appreciated.</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<div class="books">
+<p class="center p140">Deering at Princeton</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> LATTA GRISWOLD</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of “Deering of Deal”</p>
+
+<p class="center">With Illustrations by <span class="smcap">E. C. Caswell</span></p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo; preparing</i></p>
+
+<p>This is a college story that reads as a college story should. Here Mr.
+Griswold tells of Deering’s Princeton years from his freshman days
+to his graduation. A hazing adventure of far-reaching importance, a
+football game or two in which Deering has a hand, a reform in the
+eating club system, the fraternity régime of Princeton, initiated by
+Deering and carried through at the sacrifice of much that he values,
+a touch of sentiment centering around a pretty girl who later marries
+Deering’s roommate, besides many lively college happenings which only
+one familiar with the life could have chronicled, go to the making of
+an intensely interesting tale.</p>
+
+<p class="center p140">Tide Marks</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> MARGARET WESTRUP</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Decorated cloth, 12mo; preparing</i></p>
+
+<p>A novel of unusual interest and power told in a style both convincing
+and distinctive. Margaret Westrup promises to be one of the literary
+finds of the season.</p>
+
+<p class="center p140">The Will to Live</p>
+
+<p class="center p120"><span class="smcap">By</span> M. P. WILLCOCKS</p>
+
+<p class="center">Author of “The Wingless Victory,” etc.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><i>Cloth, 12mo; preparing</i></p>
+
+<p>In description, in vividness of character depiction, in cleverness of
+dialogue, and in skill of plot construction, Miss Willcocks’ previous
+books have displayed her rare ability. “The Will to Live” is perhaps
+her most mature work; it is a story with which one is sure to be
+satisfied when the last page is turned.</p>
+
+<hr class="divider2" />
+
+<p class="center p130">THE MACMILLAN COMPANY</p>
+<p class="center">
+<span class="float-left">Publishers</span>
+64–66 Fifth Avenue
+<span class="float-right">New York</span>
+</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<div class="section">
+<hr class="divider" />
+<div class="tn">
+<p class="center">Transcriber’s Note:</p>
+
+<p class="noi">In the advertisements at the end of the book, the price of
+<a href="#price">$0.00</a> is as published.</p>
+
+<p class="noi">Variations in spelling, hyphenation and punctuation have been retained
+as they appear in the original publication except as follows:</p>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Page 145<br />
+“<em>We are all alike, all of us who live!</em> <i>changed to</i><br />
+<em><a href="#quote">We</a> are all alike, all of us who live!</em></li>
+
+<li>Page 229<br />
+resentfully “And now she’s in her <i>changed to</i><br />
+<a href="#resentfully">resentfully.</a> “And now she’s in her</li>
+
+<li>Page 281<br />
+for this seemed a a good way <i>changed to</i><br />
+for this seemed <a href="#a">a</a> good way</li>
+
+<li>Page 286<br />
+I’ve fought everyone of <i>changed to</i><br />
+I’ve fought <a href="#every_one">every one</a> of</li>
+
+<li>Page 289<br />
+him and help him. <i>changed to</i><br />
+him and help <a href="#him">him.”</a></li>
+
+<li>Page 396<br />
+London’s unforgetable big men <i>changed to</i><br />
+London’s <a href="#unforgettable">unforgettable</a> big men</li>
+</ul>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of When I Was a Little Girl, by Zona Gale
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