The Little House in the Fairy Wood Part 14

They had left the forest roof and were sailing over open country,--a short cut, Tree Mother explained.

"Oh, look," cried Ivra excitedly, almost tumbling over the edge in her endeavor to see better, "isn't that the gray wall off there?"

Yes, it was the gray wall, the gray wall that had prisoned their mother all winter. The boat went slower and slower as they neared it and then almost hung still over the garden. The garden was full of people, having some kind of a party, for many little tables were set there with silver and gla.s.s that shone brilliantly in the sun. Servants were hurrying back and forth carrying trays and their gilt b.u.t.tons sparkled almost as much as the silver.

But how strange were the people! Eric and Ivra and the littlest Forest Child laughed aloud. They were standing about so straight and stiff, holding their cups and saucers, and their voices rising up to the air-boat in confusion sounded like a hundred parrots.

"Why don't they sit down on the gra.s.s to eat?" wondered the littlest Forest Child. "And why don't they wash their feet in the fountain? They look so very hot and walk as though it hurt!"

"Sitting on the gra.s.s and washing their feet in the fountain is against the law there," Helma said.

But neither Ivra nor the littlest Forest Child knew what "against the law" meant. Eric knew, however, for he had lived nine years, remember, where most everything a little boy wanted _was_ against the law.

"But why do they stay?" Eric asked.

Helma looked a little grave. "Why did you stay, dear, for nine long years?"

He thought a minute. "I hadn't seen the magic beckoning," he answered then.

"Neither have they," she said, "and perhaps never will, for their eyes are getting dimmer all the time."

"But how can they _help_ seeing it?" cried the littlest Forest Child.

"See, all around the garden!"

It was true. All around the garden the tall trees stood and beckoned with their high fingers, beckoned away and away with promise of magic beyond magic. But the people in the garden never lifted their eyes to see it. They were looking intently into their tea cups as though it might be there magic was waiting.

"They are prisoners," said Tree Mother, "just as you were, Helma, with this one difference. You were locked in, but they have locked themselves in and carry their keys like precious things next their hearts."

Helma sighed and laughed at once. Then she leaned far out and tossed a daffodil she was carrying down on the heads in the garden, shaking her short, flower petal hair as she did it--she had cut it before starting on the adventure--in a free, glad way.

No one looked up to see where the flower had dropped from. The people down there were not interested in offerings from the heavens. So the boat sailed on. Away and away over the canning factory they drifted, where the little girl looked out from her window and up, and waved her hands. "What are you waving at like that?" a man asked who was working near. "Oh, just a white summer cloud," she said. For she knew very well he did not want the truth. And I might as well tell you here that that pale little girl was a prisoner who had not turned the lock herself, and did not carry the key next her heart. Others had done that before she was born. And she had seen the beckoning in spite of the lock and now was only waiting a little while to answer it.

The children were glad to find the forest roof beneath them again. It was noon when they sank down in the garden at their own white door stone. Tree Mother left them there and flew away with the littlest Forest Child, the one who liked to wander alone by himself.

Nora was in the house when they ran in. She had cleaned it with a different cleaning from what it had had for Helma's first return. There were no little foot prints on the floor now, and the window panes shone like clear pools in sunlight. Three dishes of early strawberries and three deep bowls of cream were standing on the table before the open door. And then besides there was a big loaf of golden-brown bread.

"I thought you would be hungry," said Nora, pointing to the feast.

They were hungry indeed, for they had had nothing at all to eat since yesterday's lunch of chocolate. They very soon finished the strawberries and cream, and a jug of milk besides.

"You are a good neighbor, Nora," Helma said gratefully.

All Nora wanted in return for her labor and kindness was the story of their adventure. She listened eagerly to every word. "I shall tell this to my grandchildren," she said when the story was done, "and they will think it just a fairy tale. They'll never believe it's fairy truth! Oh, if they would only stop pretending to be so wise they themselves might some time get the chance of a ride over the tree tops with Tree Mother.

But they never will. Come play with them again sometime, Eric. They often talk about you."

"I'll come to-day and bring Ivra if they'll play with her, too!"

But Nora shook her head as she went away. "They don't believe in Ivra.

How could they play with her? Their grandmother can teach them nothing.

But they'll like the story of this adventure none the less for not believing it."

When she was gone the three took the dishes into the house and washed them. Then they went out and worked in the garden until dusk.

CHAPTER XVII

THE JUNE MOON

Now every day Eric was becoming acquainted with strange Forest People: those who had hidden away from winter in trees, and those who were wandering up from the south along with the birds, and Blue Water People, of course, all along the Forest streams. The Forest teemed with new playmates for him and Ivra.

Hide-and-go-seek was still the favorite game. And now it was more fun to be "It" than to be hiding almost, for one was likely to come upon strangers peeping out of tree hollows, swimming under water, or swinging in the tree tops, any minute. When the person who was "It" came across one of these strangers he would simply say, "I spy, and you're It." Then he would draw the stranger away to the goal, where he usually joined the game and was as much at home as though he had been playing in it from the very first.

The day that Eric found Wild Thyme so was the best of all,--or rather she was the best of all. And that was strange, for when he first spied her he did not like her at all. Her dress was a purple slip just to her knees, with a big rent in the skirt. Her hair was short and bushy and dark. And her face was soberer than most Forest People's faces. She was sitting out at the edge of the Forest on a flat rock, her chin in her hands, and she did not look eager to make friends with any one.

But he cried, "I spy! You're It!" just the same. She did not lift her eyes. She only said, "You must catch me first. I am Wild Thyme, and that will be hard!"

Eric laughed, for she was not a yard away from him. And he sprang forward as he laughed. But she was quicker than he. She had been at perfect rest on the rock, her chin in her hands, and not looking at him, but the instant he jumped she was off like a flash, a purple streak across the field.

But Eric did not let his surprise delay him. He ran after her just as fast as he could, and that was very, very fast, for running with Ivra had taught him to run faster than most Earth Children ever dream of running. Soon, Wild Thyme slowed down a little, and faced him, running backward, her bushy hair raised from her head in the wind of her running, her little brown face and great purple eyes gleaming mischievously. Eric sprang for her. She dodged. He sprang again. She dodged again. He cried out in vexation and sprang again, straight and sure. He caught her by her bushy hair as she turned to fly.

And a strange thing happened to him in that second, the second he caught her hair. Instead of Wild Thyme and the sunny field, he was looking at the sea. He was standing on the sh.o.r.e, looking away and away, almost to foreign lands. Now ever since that spring night on the sh.o.r.e he had been thinking of the sea and longing with all his might to cross it and see foreign lands for himself. Only that had seemed impossible, and something he must surely wait till he was grown up to do. But now, in a flash, as his fingers closed on Wild Thyme's hair, he knew that he could indeed do that, and anything else he really set his heart on.

No girl, even a fairy, likes to have her hair pulled. So Wild Thyme was angry. She pinched Eric's arm with all her strength. Then _he_ was angry. And so they stood holding each other, he her by the hair, and she him by the arm, staring hotly into each other's faces. But slowly they relaxed, and becoming their own natural selves again, broke into laughter.

"You'll play with us, won't you?" Eric asked.

"Of course," she said, "and I _am_ It!" And away they ran to find the others, Ivra, the Tree Girl, the Forest Children, and Dan and Nan. When those saw who it was Eric had captured they ran to meet her, shouting gayly, "Wild Thyme! Goody! Goody! h.e.l.lo, Wild Thyme!" They seemed to have known her always. She and Ivra threw their arms about each other's shoulders and danced away to the goal.

Wild Thyme was a wonderful playfellow. She was so wild, so free, so strong, so mischievous. And when the game was ended she invited them to a dance that very night. "It's to be around the Tree Man's Tree," she said. "And all come--come when the moon rises."

. . . Perhaps Eric's good times in the Forest reached their very height that June night of the dance. He had never been to a dance before, and just at first he did not think there would be much fun in it. But Ivra wanted him to go, and offered to show him about the dances. So they ran away from the others to the edge of the field where Eric had discovered Wild Thyme, and there on the even, gra.s.sy ground Ivra showed him how to dance. It was very easy,--not at all like the dances Earth Children dance. It was much more fun, and much livelier. The dances were just whirling and skipping and jumping, each dancer by himself, but all in a circle. Eric liked it as well as though it had been a new game.

Late that afternoon Helma and Ivra and Eric gathered ferns and flowers to deck themselves for the evening. They put them on over the stream, which was the only mirror in the Forest.

Helma made a girdle of brakes for herself, and a dandelion wreath for her hair. She wove a dear little cap of star flowers for Ivra, and a chain of them for her neck. Eric crowned himself with bloodroot and contrived gra.s.s sandals for his feet. But the sandals, of course, wore through before the end of the first dance and fell off.

They had a splendid supper of raspberries and cream, which they sat on the door stone to eat, and then told stories to each other, while they waited for the moon to rise. It came early, big and round and yellow, shining through the trees, flooding the aisles of the Forest with silver light until they looked like still streams, and the trees like masts of great ships standing in them.

Then the three hurried away to the Tree Man's. They ran hand in hand through the forest aisles, their faces as bright to each other as in daylight. But before they even came in sight of the tree they heard music.

"Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmm, thrummmmmmmmmmmm." Very soft, very insistent, very simple and strangely thrilling. When they came to the tree, there were the Forest Children, who had come early, whirling around in a circle, and the Tree Girl in the center of the circle making music with a tiny instrument she held in one hand and touched with the fingers of the other.

Soon Forest People began arriving from every direction. There were the Blue Water Children, bright pebbles around their necks, and white sea sh.e.l.ls in their blue hair. The Forest Children were crowned with maidenhair fern. The Tree Girl was the most beautiful of all in her silver cobweb frock and her cloudy hair. The Tree Man stood still in the shadow, but his long white beard gleamed out, and his deep eyes. Wild Thyme wore a rope of the flower that is named for her around her neck, but there was a new rent in her purple frock and her legs were scratched as though she had remembered her dance only the last minute and come plunging the shortest way through bushes, which was true.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.