PLAY-GROUND, AND AFTER.
IT was the prettiest spot in that grim forest; it appeared so peaceful
and bright. Blackberry and wild-raspberry bushes, on which the fruit
shone glossy and ripe, grew all around; a spring gurgled up from a bed
of moss. The grass, patterned over with wild-flowers, was more lovely
than any carpet woven by man. Some one had spread upon it a little
feast: there was a jug of milk, bread and butter, and honey and cakes.
Kitty wondered who was coming to feast on these simple dainties, for
though she peered through the bushes she saw nobody. Yet somebody had
found a delightful place for a picnic.
“Eat,” said the guardian child.
“But why may I eat here, when I could not eat there?” asked Kitty.
“You want food, and the star has stayed to let you rest. You will not be
greedy if you eat now. You will be innocent and good; so long as the
star watches there is no danger of evil.”
Kitty sat down, and the guardian child came down and became her little
host. He offered her fruit and honey; he gathered blackberries for her.
Perhaps the naughty sprite was sulking; perhaps it was sleeping; it did
not move, but lay curled up in a little ball.
Kitty ate and drank. The birds hopped about her; the squirrels peeped at
her from the branches; a field-mouse eyed her with its bright and
furtive glance; a crowd of lovely wild things watched her. The shy
creatures drew around the guardian child; they seemed to know he was
Love’s messenger. He sang, and the birds sang in answer. A little
callow, yellow-beaked nestling had fallen out of its nest, and was
crying piteously. Had it lost its mother? The guardian child fed it and
gently put it back into its mossy cradle. It was the friendliest scene.
All around the coral-eyed pimpernels were wide open.
“It will be fine weather,” said the guardian child. “They are
play-ground’s weather-clock. The sun whispers to them what it means to
do during the day. Tick, tick; these are play-ground’s clock,” he went
on, pointing to bell-like blossoms, some tight-closed, others
half-unclosed, others wide open. “They tell the hour. The wind winds
them up. Hush! listen to the tick-tick of the leaves.”
When Kitty had rested awhile, she and her guardian child began to play
together. They blew bubbles through long reeds, and rainbow-tinted
pictures seemed to form on the bubbles. Kitty looked to see what these
pictures were, but they faded away and broke before she was quite sure
that she had made them out. They ran races together. Kitty thought she
never had so merry and gentle a play-fellow as her guardian child; and
as they played together he seemed to grow more and more like Johnnie.
The wild woodland animals frisked and gamboled about them; butterflies
and dragon-flies darted around. Kitty thought it was just like the story
of the blue rose come true, and that Play-ground Land was the mysterious
garden she had imagined.
When the games seemed merriest the Love spirit suddenly stopped playing,
and perched once more upon Kitty’s shoulder.
“Look!” he said, pointing upward. “The star is moving.”
Yes, the fiery heart of the star had begun to beat, and already it was
beginning to glide over the tree-tops.
“Oh!” Kitty exclaimed in dismay, “cannot we play a little longer?”
Just at that moment the loveliest butterfly twinkled past. It looked
like a flower on wings. Because the dance had not got out of Kitty’s
toes she began to dance after it.
A little girl now dashed out of the wood. She had the liveliest face,
the whitest teeth, the merriest eyes Kitty had ever seen. Golden bells
tinkled on her pointed cap and on her dress. Tinkle, tinkle went those
golden bells as she ran. She seized Kitty by the hand, and before Kitty
could say yes or no, she found herself running with her hand clasped in
that of the strange child.
Kitty had never run so fast; the breeze seemed to run with her; the
carpet of soft moss seemed to speed them along; the birds seemed to say,
“Quick, quick; who’ll go faster, our wings or your feet?”
The sprite sniffed the woodland air with immense satisfaction; it was as
wide awake now as it had been fast asleep before.
The guardian child whispered in Kitty’s ear, “Enough, enough; you have
played enough.”
The star glided in the sky over the narrow path that stretched away like
a straight white ribbon under the forest trees.
At last Kitty stopped, out of breath, at the foot of a branching tree. A
little bird caroled above a merry song.
“I wonder if it has a musical box or a whistle in its throat. Would you
not like to open it to find out?” said Kitty’s new play-fellow, shaking
the golden bells in her cap.
“Yes—no—I don’t know,” panted Kitty, who was so much out of breath she
had not a notion what she was saying, or if she was standing on her head
or her heels.
Again the beautiful butterfly she had seen twinkled past on its wings
like flowers.
“Catch it!” cried the little girl, seizing Kitty’s hand once more, and,
willy-nilly, away she was speeding again. Run—run—through the alleys and
glades of the deep forest; run—run—across a park-like clearance, and
still the butterfly fluttered before. Like a will-o’-the-wisp it went,
up and down, now here, now there, always before them. Settling down a
moment—then off again just as they neared it. To the right—to the
left—Kitty was beginning to feel angry at the dance that butterfly was
leading them. The oftener it escaped the more determined she grew to
catch it. She was so eager that she did not hear the warning sigh of her
guardian child, “It is so happy; it is so happy. Don’t hurt it!” She
heard only the shrill cry of the naughty sprite standing on her left
shoulder and shrieking, “At it now! Up with it! Now’s your time! Now
you’ve got it! Tally ho! tally ho!”
“Tinkle, tinkle,” went her playmate’s golden bells, quicker, quicker
rushed these four racing little feet. At last the naughty sprite
whispered, “Hush! Down upon it?”
They stopped running; they drew in their breath; they crept on tiptoe,
softly—softly. Yes, there on a gray stone stretched the butterfly—a
lovely flamy thing; all blue and pink and delicate golden markings.
Softly it balanced itself, backward and forward, giving an occasional
shake and quiver to its wings.
Kitty’s spirit was roused; she was in a manner angry with that winged
creature that had escaped her so long. Now, with one blow of her little
hand the swift tiny thing might lie there still forever.
The naughty sprite whispered, “Down upon it!”
Up flashed Kitty’s hand.
“I was so merry, merry,” whispered a voice in her ear.
“It is only a butterfly,” urged the sprite.
Kitty looked up. Her guardian child was pale as a dying child, he who
had been so rosy such a little while ago; and in that upward glance
Kitty perceived that all around, the woodland creatures were gazing at
her. The birds, the field-mice, the rabbits with flapping ears, the
hares had stopped running to look, the squirrels chatting and cracking
their nuts, the dragon-flies hung suspended about like animated jewels,
green frogs, and toads with wonderful eyes, all were looking at her, but
not as they had looked in Play-ground Land. In all their eyes, that had
been so friendly and trustful, there was now a fear and a reproach.
“Are you the same Kitty whom we trusted?” they seemed to be saying.
“Will you take one of our innocent, joyous lives, just for play?”
“No, I will not,” cried Kitty; and she let a tear drop upon the
butterfly. And a low cry of joy burst from God’s lovely, helpless, wild
creatures, and the forest trees stirred as if drawing a sigh of relief.
“Silly!” hissed the naughty sprite; and away scampered the strange
little girl in a pout, and tinkling her golden bells.
But the guardian child, all rosy with gladness, laughed, and its laugh
had the velvety note of the blackbird’s whistle; and again there sounded
on Kitty’s ear that airy peal of Christmas bells.
But Kitty’s little heart was still sore with the reproach of the wild
animals’ questioning eyes.
“They trusted me!” she sobbed, “and I would have killed one of them for
play.”
“Who was that little girl who ran so fast?” she asked her guardian child
when she once more found herself standing upon the narrow path following
the star.
“Thoughtlessness,” he replied; “and I can answer for it, nothing runs so
fast as that empty-headed creature can race along.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------