WILL O'DREAMS MAKES A DISCOVERY
For a moment the giant remained silent, his heart so torn by doubt and
fear that he could not speak. But at length he said: "I have heard how
you would restore the children to their parents . . ."
"I hope to do so," replied Truth.
He cried out in sorrow, "Yet none may restore me to my mother, whom I
have lost."
"Be not so sure of that!" she said.
Whereupon hope was kindled in his heart. He pondered, feeling that he
was in the presence of one who was very wise and kind. And then he
said:
"And I have heard Everychild say that you are beautiful."
She did not reply to this. She waited for him to continue.
"You will forgive me for speaking what is in my heart," he said at
length, "But my own mother, from whom I was driven by cruel, stupid
persons long ago, was very beautiful. And I have always dreamed that
some day I should encounter a beautiful lady and that she should prove
to be the mother I lost."
She replied to him in a low voice: "And by what sign or token should
you recognize her, if you were to encounter her again after all these
years?"
"Alas, what hope is there for me, now that I am blind? While I could
yet see I hoped to know her by her calm glance, by the serenity that
never was troubled by any evil chance . . . I cannot say; but I never
would believe that I should not be helped to recognize her."
She meditated a little. And presently she said, as she leaned closer
to him, "And did you never give her anything--a token, perhaps--that
she might have treasured and kept, by which you might recognize her?"
"_I_ give _her_ anything?" he exclaimed incredulously. "It was she who
gave, not I. What was there I could have given her? And yet . . . I
remember once when I was a child I brought her a pretty trifle, and her
eyes grew bright and she drew me to her and laid her cheek against my
hair. And there were other things--but they were only trifles, after
all."
"Trifles?" she echoed passionately, "trifles?"
He began, "There was----" And then he broke off. "I am ashamed to
say," he said. "It was nothing."
She reflected earnestly. And at length she said, with new eagerness in
her voice, "But if you ever find your mother, and fail to know her, and
she shall tell you what those trifles were--you shall know that it is
she. Is it not so?"
"It is true," he said.
A rapturous smile began to illumine her face. "Trifles, dear child!"
she cried. "Should you call them trifles?--One was the first song ever
sung; and one was the first tale ever told----"
She paused, because he had clasped his hands together in ecstacy and
seemed almost to cease to breathe.
"And one," she continued, "was the first picture; and one----" Her
voice became all but inaudible, "--one was the first prayer."
His voice arose in a great shout of triumph. "You are she!" he cried
"You are indeed she!"
And he reached forth and clasped her in his arms. At last they were
united again.