The Little House in the Fairy Wood Part 2

"I bring them milk every day. It's a long way here from my farm, but not too far when it's for them. Helma's gone into the village, hasn't she?

When I came to Little Pine Hill this morning the snow stopped whirling for a minute, and I caught a glimpse of her a-striding across the fields. It's a fine way of walking she has--like the bravest of Forest People! When I reached the Tree Man's the wind didn't stop for me, but I spied that child, Ivra, just where I knew she'd be,--racing and chasing and dancing with the Snow Witches out at the edge of the wood. 'It's a pity she can't go with her mother,' I said to myself when I saw her, 'and not be wasting her time like that. The Snow Witches are no good to any one. But--'"

Eric interrupted there, having finished his mush and p.r.i.c.king up his cars at the mention of witches.

"Are they really witches?" he cried. "And have you seen them yourself?"

"What else would they be?" asked the old woman. "They're the creatures that come out in windy, snowy weather, to dance in the open fields and run along country roads. Ordinary people are afraid of them and stay indoors when they're about. Their streaming white hair has a way of lashing your face as they rush by, and then they never look where they're going. They care nothing about running into you and knocking the breath out of you. Then, they're so cruel to children!"

"But Ivra isn't afraid of them!" wondered Eric.

"Not she," said the old woman. "She runs _with_ them instead of away from them. When I saw them back there they had all taken hands and were leaping in a circle around her. She was jumping and dancing in the center as wild and lawless as they, and just as high, too. . . . But it's a pity she isn't with her mother all the same, going on decent errands in the village. Only of course it's not her fault, poor child! She daren't go into the village."

"Why _daren't_ she?" asked Eric.

"_How_ dare she?" cried the old woman. "She'd be seen, for she's only part fairy, of course. But hush, hush!"

She clapped her hands over her mouth. "What am I telling you,--one of the secrets of the forest, and you a stranger here? You must forget it all. Ivra's a good child. Now don't ask me any more questions, or I might tell you more."

But Eric had begun to wonder. What did it mean, that Ivra was part fairy? And why wasn't it safe for her to be seen in the village? And were there really witches, and was she playing with them out there in the wild day?

The old woman was talking on, but he heard no more.

Then the door blew open in a snowy gust of wind, and there stood Helma, the mother, her arms full of bundles, her cheeks ruddy from the wind, and her short hair crisp and blown.

CHAPTER V

WORLD STORIES

Now Eric learned that the old woman's name was Nora, for that was what Helma called her, and seemed glad to find her there. She stayed on only long enough to see what Helma had brought in her bundles, and then started out for the farm, drawing her red cape closely about her this time, and not blowing much as she walked briskly to the gap in the hedge. Once through she disappeared quickly in the high drifting snow.

Hardly had she gone her way when Ivra came from another, jumping the hedge and reaching the door in three bounds.

Helma had bought a good deal of thick brown cloth in the village and a strip of brown leather. It was all for Eric. She had noticed his lack of shoes and stockings last night, and that his worn clothes were much too poor and thin for winter in the forest. To-day, while she sewed for him, he would have to stay in. That was a pity, for it is such fun out in a storm. By night, though, all would be finished.

"And that is good!" exclaimed Ivra. "For to-night the Tree Man has asked us to a party. We're going to roast chestnuts and play games, and there's to be a surprise, too. The Tree Girl called it all out to me as I pa.s.sed just now. She put only her head through the door, for the snow came so suddenly it caught her without a single white frock,--only a bonnet. But that was pretty. It has five points like a star, mother."

"The Tree Girl," said Eric. "What a queer name! But how did she know about me to ask me too? Did she ask me?"

"I told her about you. And of course she asked you. You are my playmate!"

Helma pulled a table to the settle and sat down with all the brown cloth before her, a work-basket, and shears. But first she measured Eric for his new clothes.

"You may make the leggins, if you want to," she said to Ivra, "and when you come to a hard place tell me and I will help. You may even measure them yourself.... We're the only Forest People, Eric, who wear anything but white in the winter. Most Forest People like to be the color of their world. They often laugh at us. But I like brown. Ivra makes me think of a brown, blown leaf, and now here will be two of them! You can blow together all over the forest."

Eric's eyes swam in sudden, happy tears, but he only said, "_Nora_ wore red."

"Oh, she's not one of us," laughed Helma. "But she's lived close to us so long, she is able to see us. We aren't afraid of her. She's a good neighbor."

But why might they be afraid of such a nice old woman, Eric wondered. He was to learn sometime, and much beside, for this was the beginning of new things for him, and his mother, Helma, and Ivra were strange people.

But how he loved them!

"Now that we are settled at our work, and nothing to interrupt, what shall it be?" asked Helma. She and Ivra were sewing briskly, one in each corner of the settle. Eric was stretched on the floor, looking now into the blaze, and now up at the windows where the snow tapped and swirled; for to-day,--Helma had said,--was to be a rest day for him. It was the first rest day he could remember, and how _good_ it was! To know he could lie there with no cans to sort or label for hours, and no Mrs.

Freg to boss him about when work was over! There were to be no more cans for him forever, and no more Mrs. Freg. Helma had said that quite firmly. He believed her and was so happy that he trembled. And so, it being true that never again should he go back to that unchildlike life that had frightened him so, and tired him so, all the breaths he drew felt like sighs of relief, and he turned his s.h.a.ggy little head on his arm, crooked under it, and watched Helma's flying brown fingers with glad eyes.

"What shall it be?" asked Helma.

"Oh, World Stories, please," said Ivra, drawing her feet up under her as she bent over her sewing.

"Eric probably knows very few of the World Stories," said Helma. "So sometime I shall have to go back to the beginning and tell them all over for him."

"And I'll stay and hear them over again too!" cried Ivra, dropping her work to clasp her hands. "I love to hear stories over."

"Why, better than that, you might tell them yourself. Would you like that?"

"Oh, yes--if I can. Do you suppose I can, mother Helma? I shall begin at the very beginning, way back before men were in the world at all, or fairies even. He'd like to hear about the big animals. And you will listen, mother, to see that I get it all right?"

Now these World Stories of Helma's were wonderful stories, but all true.

They began way back when the Earth was young. There were stories about the Earth itself, how it hung in s.p.a.ce and turned, making day and night.

When the strange, great animals that by-and-by appeared on the Earth and have since gone from it first came into the stories, and then, later, the floods and glaciers, and at last the first man,--any child might have listened with delight and wonder. Ivra had listened so ever since she was a tiny girl, old enough to understand at all. And with man, and the wonderful happenings that came along with him, Ivra had begged for the stories day and night, and never could have enough of them. For then in a great procession came the stories of cities and nations, of great men and women, of explorations and adventures. They led in turn to stories of languages and writing, of painting and geometry, of music and of life. The names of these things may not promise good stories to you, but that is only because you do not know them as stories. If you could listen to Helma telling them, by the fire, or out in the starlight, deep in the wood, or swinging in a tree-top,--then no other stories you might ever hear would satisfy you quite. So perhaps it is as well you do not know now just where Helma's little house is standing deep in the wood under the snow.

Ivra always said that the nicest thing about the stories was the interruptions. Helma never minded them, and she answered all the questions Ivra asked. She answered them by making things that Ivra could see with her own eyes, by drawing pictures on the ground or in the ashes, building with earth or snow, playing with wind and water, and in a hundred other ways. Sometimes the answer to a question would take up the playtime of a whole day.

But now Eric was to hear his first story, World Story or any other kind.

Can you imagine how it would feel if to-day you were to hear the first story of your life?

"All ready?" asked Helma.

The silence in the room said plainer than words that all was ready for the World Story. This time it was a story about a man named Saint Francis, and a story after Eric's own heart.

Almost as fast as the story went the work of Helma's fingers. But Ivra was neither so swift nor so skilled, and the leggins were dropped many times from forgetful hands because all her thoughts were gone away following the story.

Yet somehow the leggins got done, and the jacket and trousers got done, and even a little round cap, and all before dusk. For a finishing touch Helma sewed two soft little brown feathers she had picked up in the snow one on either side of the cap,--which gave Eric, small as they were and soft as they were, a look of flying.

Then nothing remained but the sandals, and because Eric was well rested by then, he was allowed to help at them. They were cut from the strip of brown leather, and Helma showed Eric how to shape them and sew them himself. So after supper he stood attired, all in brown, a pale, happy child, ready for his first party.

Ivra and Eric were to go to the Tree Man's party alone, for Helma was going far away from the wood to spend the evening with a comrade. It was to be a very long walk for her, for she put on her heaviest sandals and pulled the hood of her cloak up over her hair.

She walked with the children as far as Little Pine Hill. It was a low hill, bare of trees, except for a dwarfed pine on the top. In summer the slope was slippery with the needles of the little pine, but now it was several inches deep in snow. It was bright starlight, and far away down an avenue of trees, Eric saw shining open fields, and beyond them the lights of the town.

There Helma said good-by. Eric looking up at her in the starlight saw her hair like pale firelight under her dark hood and her eyes so calm and friendly. He clung to her hand for a minute.

"Have a good time," she told them. Ivra leapt away and Eric after her.

Helma stood watching until their little forms had flickered out of sight among tree-shadows. Then she sped down the starlit avenue towards the open fields and the town.