HER FIRST IDEAL
One June day a man came riding swiftly up the lanes, in a buggy with a
gilded box. As he passed the school-house he flung a handful of
fluttering yellow and red bills into the air.
"A circus! a circus!" was the cry as the boys rushed for the blowing
sheets of paper. It was a circus, the annual "monstrous aggregation of
Gregorian games and colossal cataracts of gilded chariots," and it was
coming to Tyre.
The children read every word of those high sounding posters, standing in
knots by the roadside. It was the mightiest event of their lives. Most
of them had never been to a circus. Many had never been so far as Tyre.
Some had, however, and they straightway became fountains of wisdom, and
declaimed upon the splendors of other aggregations.
Rose looked at the lines of knights and ladies winding down the yellow
broadside of the sheet, and wondered if she would ever see them.
The courier rode on. He flung a handful of the bills over into the
corn-field where Carl was plowing corn with the hired man, and Carl
straightway began to plan.
He flung a handful of the alluring yellow leaves into the bed of the
wagon which poor old John Rapp was driving, and he sighed and wondered
how he would raise the money to take the children down, and also he
longed to see it himself. The whole county awoke to the significance of
the event and began preparation and plans, though it was nearly three
weeks away. An enormous distance it seemed to the boys and girls.
At school and at church it was talked of. The boys selected their girls,
and parties of four or six were made up to go to Tyre, ten miles away,
in the larger valley below. In some way, without words, Rose agreed to
go with Carl. John Nixon and Ella Pierce made up the other couple. They
were to go in a "bowery wagon."
The whole population awoke to pathetic, absorbing interest in the
quality of the posters and the probable truth of the fore-word. The
circus was the mightiest contrast to their slow and lonely lives that
could be imagined. It came in trailing clouds of glorified dust and
grouped itself under vast tents whose lift and fall had more majesty
than summer clouds, and its streamers had more significance than the
lightning.
It brought the throb of drum and scream of fife, and roar of wild beast.
For one day each humdrum town was filled with romance like the Arabian
Nights; with helmeted horsemen, glittering war maidens on weirdly
spotted horses; elephants with howdahs and head-plates of armor, with
lions dreadful, sorrowful, sedate and savage; with tigers and hyenas in
unmanageable ferocity pacing up and down their gilded dens while their
impassive keepers dressed in red, sat in awful silence amidst them.
There was something remote and splendid in the ladies who rode haughtily
through the streets on prancing horses, covered with red and gold
trappings. There was something heroic, something of splendid art in the
pose of the athletes in the ring.
From the dust and drudgery of their farms the farm boys dreamed and
dreamed of the power and splendor of the pageantry. They talked it each
Sunday night as they sat up with their sweethearts. The girls planned
their dresses and hats, and the lunch they were to take. Everything was
arranged weeks ahead. Carl was to furnish one team, John the other; Ella
was to bring cake and jelly and biscuit; Rose to take a chicken and a
shortcake.
They were to start early and drive a certain route and arrive at the
ground at a certain hour to see the parade. After the parade they were
to take dinner at the hotel, and then the circus! No court ball ever
thrilled a young girl's heart like this event.
It was trebly important to Rose. It was her first really long dress. It
was her first going out into the world with an escort, and it was her
first circus. She trembled with excitement whenever she thought of it,
and sometimes burst into tears at the uncertainty of it. It might rain,
she might be sick, or something might happen!
She worked away with feverish haste, trimming her hat and helping on her
dress, which was to be white, trimmed with real lace from the store.
Some dim perception of what it all meant to his girl, penetrated John
Dutcher's head, and he gave Rose a dollar to buy some extra ribbon with,
and told Mrs. Diehl to give the child a good outfit.
On the night before the circus Carl could not work in the corn. He drove
furiously about the neighborhood on inconsequential errands. He called
twice on Rose, and they looked into each other's face with transports of
fear and joy.
"O, if it should rain!"
"It won't. I just know it's going to be fine. Don't you worry. I am the
son of a prophet. I know it can't rain."
There was no real sleep for Rose that night. Twice she woke from an
uneasy doze, thinking she heard the patter of rain, but listening close
she knew it was only the rustle of the cottonwood trees about the house.
Her room was a little rough-plastered garret room, with an eastern
window, and at last she saw the yellow light inter-filtrate the
dark-blue of the eastern sky, and she rose and pattered about in her
bare feet, while she put up her hair like a woman and slipped on her
underskirt, stiff with starch, and then her dress, with its open-work
sleeves and ruche of lace, threaded with blue ribbon. She moved about on
her bare feet, rejoicing in the crisp rustle of her new clothing, and
put on her wide hat with its hectic rose-buds and paris-green thick
leaves. Her undistorted feet were the most beautiful of all, but she did
not know that.
She sat on the bed completely dressed, but hardly daring to move for
fear of waking her aunt. She watched the yellow glow deepen to a saffron
dome of ever-spreading light. She knew the weather signs herself, and
she was sure the day was to be hot but clear. She did not fear the heat.
As she sat so, a feeling of joy, of realization of the abounding
goodness and sweetness of living, made her want to thank something--to
give praise. She moved her lips in a little prayer of thanks to the sun,
as his first glittering rim of light came above the low hills.
"Rosie!" called Mrs. Diehl.
"I'm up," she replied, and hastily drew on her shoes and stockings. She
took her hat in her hands and went down the stairs and through the
little sitting room out to the door-step. She heard someone whistling.
Then a shout of laughter--they were coming!
She had packed her basket the night before, and she stood ready at the
gate when Carl and his companions drove up. They had four horses hitched
to a large wagon, which was set about with branches of oak and willow.
Carl was driving and Rose mounted to the front seat with him. He cracked
his whip and they whirled away, leaving the old folks calling warnings
after them.
The sun was just rising, the dew was still globed on the wild roses. The
wagon rumbled, the bower over their heads shook with the jar of the
wheels. The horses were fresh and strong and the day was before them.
Rose felt something vague and sweet, something that laved the whole
world like sunlight. She was too happy to sing. She only sat and
dreamed. She felt her clothes, but she was no longer acutely conscious
of them.
Carl was moved too, but his emotion vented itself in shouts and cheery
calls to the horses, and to the pistol-like cracking of his whip.
He looked at her with clear-eyed admiration. She abashed him a little by
her silence. She seemed so strangely womanly in that pose, and the glow
of her firm arms through her sleeve was alien, somehow.
The road led around hill sides, under young oak trees, across dappled
sands, and over little streams where the horses stopped to drink. It was
like some world-old idyl, this ride in a heavy rumbling wagon; it led to
glory and light, this road among the hills.
Rounding a long low line of bluffs they caught the flutter of flags in
Tyre, and saw the valley spotted with other teams, crawling like beetles
down the sandy river roads. The whole land seemed to be moving in gala
dress toward Tyre. Everywhere appeared the same expectancy, the same
exultation between lovers.
Carl pulled up with a flourish at the wooden porch of the Farmers'
Hotel, and the girls alighted and went into the parlor, while the boys
took the horses into a back alley and gave them their oats and hay in
the end of the box.
As Rose walked into the parlor, filled with other girls and young men,
the proud consciousness of her clothes came back to her, and she carried
herself with a lift of the head, which made her dark gipsy-like face
look haughty as a young queen's. She knew her dress was as good as any
other there, and she had no need to be ashamed, and besides it was her
first long dress, and she wore low shoes.
The boys came bustling back and hurried the girls out on the sidewalk.
"They're coming!" they cried breathlessly, as a far-off burst of music
came in on a warm puff of wind.
On they came, a band leading the way. Just behind, with glitter of lance
and shine of helmet, came a dozen knights and fair ladies riding
spirited chargers. They all looked strange and haughty and sneeringly
indifferent to the cheers of the people. The women seemed small and firm
and scornful, and the men rode with lances uplifted looking down at the
crowd with a haughty droop in their eyelids.
Rose shuddered with a new emotion as they swept past. She had never
looked into eyes like those. They had wearied of all splendor and
triumph, those eyes. They cared nothing for flaunt of flag or blast of
bugle. They rode straight out of the wonder and mystery of the morning
to her. They came from the unknown spaces of song and story beyond the
hills.
The chariots rumbled by almost unheeded by Rose. She did not laugh at
the clown jiggling by in a pony-cart for there was a face between her
and all that followed. The face of a bare-armed knight, with brown hair
and a curling mustache, whose proud neck had a curve in it as he bent
his head to speak to his rearing horse. He turned his face toward where
Rose stood, and her soul fluttered, and her flesh shrank as if from
fire, but he rode on. His face was fine, like pictures she had seen. It
was a pleasant face, too proud, but not coarse and stern like the
others.
The calliope, (a musical monster, hideous as the hippopotamus) and the
dens of beasts went past without arousing her interest; then the open
cage of lions rolled by with a trainer carelessly seated on a camp stool
amid his dun-colored monsters. His gaudy red-and-gold continental coat
and his impassive face made a deep impression on her. At last the
procession passed, carrying with it swarms of detached boys and girls,
whose parents fearfully called after them and unavailingly plead with
them to come back as they broke away.
"O, I wish it would all come by again!" sighed Ella.
"So do I," said Carl.
Rose remained silent. Somehow those knights and ladies dwarfed all else.
She did not look forward to eating a hotel dinner with the same pleasure
now, but was eager to get to the tent, whose pennants streamed above the
roofs of the houses.
The hotel swarmed with farmer folks, whose loud voices uttered shouts of
satisfaction over the promise of the parade. It was the best ever seen
in the town.
"Right this way, ladies and gentlemen," said the landlord, as he ushered
Carl's party down to a table at the end of the dining-room.
Rose felt a thrill of delight; she was a grown-up person at last. This
landlord recognized her assumption and it made the dinner almost
enjoyable. She saw no one better dressed than herself, and she had a
feeling that she was good to look at. She was really more beautiful than
she knew. A city drummer sitting at another table eyed her all through
the meal with breathless admiration. Her health and color, and the firm
lines of her nose and chin were especially attractive.
They all ate with unusual formality, using their forks instead of knives
for their pie, and otherwise trying to seem citified. Ella laughed at
the antics John cut up over his fork, and the sly digs that he gave
Carl, who chased the crust of his pie around his plate with a fork and
at last gave it up and seized it with his fingers.
No one noticed these pranks, because everyone else was carrying on in
much the same way. At length they rose and returned to the parlor, where
they sat about on the cheap red plush chairs and waited for 1 o'clock.
"Well, it's about time to go," said Carl, on one of his re-entries from
the street. "Gee-Whittaker! but it's hot out there!"
"It'll be cool under the tent."
"Well, come on."
Out on the street they joined the stream of lovers like themselves,
moving hand in hand down the walk, assaulted by cries of lemonade, candy
and fruit hucksters.
The sun beat upon their heads; a dust arose from the feet of the passing
teams and settled upon the white dresses of the girls, and sank through
the meshes of their sleeves and gathered in the moist folds of their
ruches. They moved on rapidly toward the clanging band, the flutter of
the pennants and the brazen outcries of the ticket-takers.
On to the square before the tents, thronged with innumerable people, an
avenue of side-shows faced them like a gauntlet to be run. Before each
flapping sign of fat woman, or snake charmer, stood a man who cried in
strange, clanging, monotonous and rhythmical voice:
"You still have a half an hour, ladies and gentlemen, before the great
show opens. Come in and see the wonders of the world."
Before the ticket wagon a straggling, excited crowd wrestled,
suspicious, determined, hurried. Leaving their girls in the more open
space, the boys drew deep breaths of resolution and plunged into the
press with set, determined faces.
They returned soon, hot, disarranged but triumphant. "Come on, girls."
They moved upon the main entrance, where a man stood snatching at the
tickets which were handed to him. He was humorous, and talked as he
pushed the people in.
"Hurry up, old man; trot close after your mother. Have your tickets
ready, everybody. Yes, right this way, uncle. Bless your dear little
face--right ahead. H'y'ere, bub, this ticket's no good!--Oh, so it is, I
didn't see the right side--get on quick."
As Rose passed him he said, "You go in free, my dear," and resumed his
bawling cry, "Have your tickets ready."
Under the tent! Rose looked up at the lifting, tremulous, translucent
canvas with such awe as the traveler feels in St. Peter's dome. Her feet
stumbled on, while she clung to Carl's hand without knowing it. O, the
enormous crowds of people, the glitter and change of it all!
They followed in the stream which flowed around the circle of animal
dens, and Rose silently looked at all she saw. The others laughed and
exclaimed, but she did not. Everything seemed inexplicable and
mysterious, and roused confusing trains of thought.
She saw the great tigers, and caught the yellow-green sheen of their
eyes. She saw the lions rise like clouds of dust in their corners,
silent as mist and terrible as lightning. She looked at the elephant and
wondered how he could live and be so like the toy elephants she had at
home. On past shrieking tropical birds and grunting, wallowing beasts,
and chattering crowds of people she moved, without a word, till they
came around to the circus entrance, and then she lifted her eyes again
around the great amphitheater.
"_Peanuts, peanuts here, five a bag!_"
"Here's your lemonade, cool and fresh."
On all sides brazen-voiced young men were selling, at appalling prices,
sticks of candy, glasses of lemonade, palm-leaf fans and popcorn balls.
There was something about them that frightened her, and she walked a
little closer to Carl.
They heard familiar voices call and saw some young people from their
coule, and so clambered up where they sat. The boards were narrow and
the seats low, but nobody minded that, for that was part of the circus.
They were settled at last and ready to enjoy all that came. Two or three
volunteered to say: "This is great! the best place to see 'em come in."
Then they passed the peanut bag in reckless liberality.
Rose sat in a dream of delight as the band began to play. It was an
ambitious band and played operatic selections with modulations, and it
seemed to Rose to be the most splendid music in the world. All other
bands she had heard played right along tum-tummy tum-tummy tummy,
tummy-tum. This band sang and talked and whispered and dreamed. It shook
her like a stallion's neigh, and soothed her like the coo of a dove on
the barn roof.
She heard nothing that was said about her, and she did not know she sat
squeezing Carl's arm.
People streamed by in enormous crowds. Ladies in elegant dresses, and
hats such as she had never seen before. Handsome young men went by, and
yet she gave them no second look. They were like figures in a dream.
At last the band blared an announcing note, and the uniformed attendants
filed into the ring and took positions at set points like sentries. Then
the music struck into a splendid galop, and out from the curtained
mysteries beyond, the knights and ladies darted, two and two, in glory
of crimson and gold, and green and silver. At their head rode the man
with the brown mustache.
They came around into position, and then began a series of bewildering
changes, directed by her knight, whose shout dominated the noise of the
horses and the blare of the band, with hollow wild sound.
They vanished as they came, and then came the clowns, and tricks and
feats of strength. The iron-jawed woman lifted incredible weights; the
Japanese jugglers tossed cannon-balls, knives and feathers; the baby
elephant stood on his head--and then suddenly six men dressed in tights
of blue and white and orange ran into the ring, and her hero led them.
He wore blue and silver, and on his breast was a rosette. He looked a
god to her. His naked limbs, his proud neck, the lofty carriage of his
head, made her shiver with emotion. They all came to her lit by the
white radiance; they were not naked, they were beautiful, but _he_ was
something more.
She had seen naked boys, and her own companions occasionally showed
themselves naked and cowering before her, but these men stood there
proud and splendid. They invested their nakedness with something which
exalted them. They became objects of luminous beauty to her, though she
knew nothing of art.
As she grew clearer-eyed, she saw that one was a little too short,
another too lean, but he of the rosette was perfect. The others leaped,
with him, doing the same feats, but as distances were increased, and the
number of camels and horses grew, the others stood by to see him make
his renowned double somersault over a herd of animals. When the applause
broke out she joined it, while her temples throbbed with emotion. To see
him bow and kiss his fingers to the audience was a revelation of manly
grace and courtesy. He moved under the curtain, bowing still to the
cheering crowd.
Once more he came back later on, leading a woman by the hand. She too
was in tights throughout, and like him she walked with a calm and
powerful movement, but she seemed petty beside him.
Something new seized upon Rose's heart, a cold contraction that she had
never felt, and her teeth pressed together. She wondered if the woman
were his wife.
The woman seized a rope with her right arm and was drawn to the tent
roof. He took a strap in his mouth and was drawn to his trapeze also.
There, in mid-air, they performed their dangerous evolutions. It was all
marvelous and incredible to the country girl.
She heard him clap his hands, then his glorious voice rang above the
music, and the lithe figure of his companion launched itself through the
air, was caught by the shoulders in his great hands, thence with a twist
he tossed her, and hooked her by the hands.
Each time, the blood surged into Rose's throat as if to suffocate her. A
horrible fear that was a pleasure, some way, rose and fell in her. She
could not turn away her head. She must look.
She was a powerful girl, and the idea of fainting had never come to her,
but when at the conclusion, he dropped in a revolving ball into the net
far beneath, she turned sick and her eyes seemed to whirl in their
sockets. Then as he leaped to the ground, bowing and smiling, the blood
rushed back to her face, and the perspiration stood like rain on her
face.
Thereafter riders came, and the clowns capered, and the ring-master
cracked his whip and she enjoyed it, but it was an after-climax. She saw
it, but saw it dimly. Nothing but the lions and their trainers aroused
her to applause. Her brain was full. It was a feast of glories and her
very hunger made her lay hold upon the first that came, to the neglect
of what came after.
At last the brazen, resounding voice of the ring-master announced the
last of the show, and the audience arose and moved out in a curious sort
of a hush, as if in sorrow to think it was all over, and the humdrum
world was rushing back upon them.
Rose moved along in perfect silence, clinging to Carl's hand. Around her
was the buzz of low speech, the wailing of tired and hungry babies and
the clamor of attendants selling tickets for the minstrel show to
follow.
Suddenly she perceived that her dress was wet with perspiration and
grimy with dust. She saw all about her women with flushed faces and
grimy hands, their hats awry and their brows wrinkled with trouble over
fretful children. The men walked along with their coats over their arms,
and their hats pushed back. The dust arose under their feet with a
strange smell. Out in the animal tent the odor was stifling and Rose
hurried Carl out into the open air.
Somehow it seemed strange to see the same blue sky arching the earth;
things seemed exactly the same and yet Rose had grown older. She had
developed immeasurably in those few hours. It took her some time to
fully recover the use of her feet, and it took longer to get back a full
realization of where she was.
The grass, crushed and trampled and littered with paper, and orange
peel, gave out a fresh farm-like odor, that helped her to recover
herself. She would not talk, she could not talk yet. She only urged them
to go home. She wanted to get home to think.
* * * * *
As they climbed the slope on the other side of the river, they looked
back at the tents with their wilted streamers, at the swarming bug-like
teams and the ant-like human beings, and it seemed to Rose as if she
should weep, so poignant was her sense of personal loss.
She knew something sweet and splendid and mystical was passing out of
her life after a few hours' stay there. Her feeling of loss was none the
less real because it was indefinable to her.
The others chattered about each part of the show, and shouted admiration
about this and that feat, but Rose was silent. When they stopped at
sunset beside a spring to eat their lunch she merely said:
"I don't feel hungry."
The others fell silent after a time, and they rode dreamily forward,
with the roll of wheels making them sleepy and the trample of the
horses' feet telling them how rapidly they were leaving their great
day's pleasure behind them.
When Rose huddled into her little attic bed, her eyes were wide open,
and her brain active as at noonday. There was no sleep for her then.
Lying there in the darkness she lived it all over again; the flutter of
flags, the wild voices, the blare of music, the chariots, the wild
beasts, the knights and ladies, the surging crowds; but the crowning
glory, the pictures which lingered longest in her mind were the splendid
and beautiful men, whose naked majesty appealed to her pure wholesome
awakening womanhood, with the power of beauty and strength combined,
with sex and art both included.
These glorious, glittering graceful beings with their marvelous strength
and bravery filled her with a deep sad hunger, which she could not
understand. They came out of the unknown, led by her chosen one, like
knights in Ivanhoe.
She fell asleep thinking of the one in blue and silver, and in her sleep
she grew braver and went closer to him, and he turned and spoke to her,
and his voice was like waters running, and his eyes shone some way into
her eyes like a light.
* * * * *
When she rose the next day she was changed. She moved about the house
dull and languid. Never before had she failed to sleep when her head
touched the pillow. She managed to be alone most of the time, and at
last her mind cleared. She began to live for him, her ideal. She set him
on high as a being to be worshiped, as a man fit to be her judge.
In the days and weeks which followed she asked herself, "Would he like
me to do this?" or she thought, "I must not do that. What would he think
of me if he saw me now?" And every night when she went to sleep it was
with the radiant figure in blue and silver before her eyes.
When the sunset was very beautiful, she thought of him. When the stars
seemed larger in the blue sky, she could see the star upon his grand
breast. She knew his name; she had the bill in her little box of
trinkets, and she could take it out and read, "William De Lisle, the
world-famous leader in ground and lofty tumbling, in his stupendous leap
over two elephants, six camels and two horses."
In all the talk of the circus which followed among her companions, she
took no part because she feared she might be obliged to mention his
name. When others spoke his name she could feel a hot flush surge up all
over her body and she trembled for fear some one might discover her
adoration of him.
She went about with Carl and Rob as before, only she no longer longed
for them; they seemed good, familiar comrades, but nothing more. To them
she seemed stranger every day. Her eyes had lost their clear, brave
look; they were dreamy black, and her lids drooped.
Vast ambitions began in her. She determined to be a great scholar. She
would be something great for his sake. She could not determine what, but
she, too, would be great. At first she thought of being a circus woman,
and then she determined that was impossible.
She dreamed often of being his companion and coming on hand in hand with
him, bowing to the multitude, but when she was drawn to the tent-roof,
she awoke in a cold sweat of fear, and so she determined to be a writer.
She would write books like Ivanhoe. Those were great days! Her mind
expanded like the wings of a young eagle. She read everything; the
_Ledger_, the _Weekly_, and all the dog-eared novels of impassioned and
unreal type in the neighborhood.
In short, she consecrated herself to him as to a king, and seized upon
every chance to educate herself to be worthy of him. Every effort was
deeply pathetic, no matter how absurd to others. She took no counsel,
allowed no confidants. She lived alone among her playmates.
This ideal came in her romantic and perfervid period, and it did her
immeasurable good. It lifted her and developed her. It enabled her to
escape the clutch of mere brute passion which seizes so many boys and
girls at that age, and leads to destructive early marriages. It kept her
out of reach of the young men of the neighborhood.
She did not refuse the pleasures of the autumn and the winter, only she
did not seem so hearty in her enjoyment of the rides and parties. She
rode with the young fellows on moonlit nights, lying side by side with
them on the straw-filled bottom of the sleigh, and her heart leaped with
the songs they sang, but it all went out towards her ideal; he filled
the circle of her mind. The thought of him made the night magical with
meaning. As she danced with Carl it was her hero's arm she felt. At
night, when Carl left her on the door-step, she looked up at the stars
and the sinking moon, and lifted her face in a wild vow,
inarticulate--"I will be worthy of him!" That was the passionate
resolution, but it did not reach to the definiteness of words.
As she worked about the house she took graceful attitudes, and wished he
might see her; he would be pleased with her. The grace and power of her
arm acquired new meaning to her. Her body, she recognized, had something
the same statuesque pose of his. In the secrecy of her room she walked
up and down, feeling the splendid action of her nude limbs muscled
almost like his. And all this was fine and pure physical joy. Her idea
remained indefinite, wordless.
These were days of formless imaginings and ambitions. "I will do! I will
do!" was her ceaseless cry to herself, but what could she do? What
should she do?
She could be wise; that she would be. So she read. She got little out of
her reading that she could make a showing of, but still it developed
her. It made her dream great things, impossible things, but she had
moments when she tried to live these things.
Meanwhile her manners changed. She became absent-minded, and seemed
sullen and haughty to her companions at times. She never giggled like
the rest of the girls. She had fine teeth, and yet her smile was
infrequent. She laughed when occasion demanded, and laughed heartily,
but she was not easily stirred to laughter.
Just in proportion as she ignored the young beaux, so they thronged
about her. One or two of them eyed her with a look which made her angry.
She took refuge in Carl's company, and so escaped much persecution, for
Carl was growing to be a powerful young man, with fists like mauls, and
was respected among the athletes of the neighborhood.
She did not realize that she would need at some time to settle with
Carl. She accepted his company as a matter of course. He filled social
requirements for the time being.
Her teacher that winter was a plaintive sort of a little middle-aged
man, a man of considerable refinement, but with little force. Rose liked
him, but did not respect him as she had two or three of the men who had
filled the teacher's chair. She could not go to him for advice.
As the winter wore on the figure of "William De Lisle" grew dimmer, but
not less beautiful. Her love for him lost its under-current of
inarticulate expectancy; it was raised into a sentiment so ethereal it
would seem a breath of present passion would scatter it like vapor, and
yet it was immovable as granite. Time alone could change it. He still
dominated her thought at quiet times, at dark when the stars began to
shine, but in the daytime he was faint as a figure in a dream.