The child’s boot had fallen upon the Sun Chaser where he had dropped in
a last effort at shaking away out to further sun-chasing. The child’s
boot had dropped with a thud on the side of his face and tumbled off
onto the floor and then stood quite still and upright beside the Sun
Chaser’s mouth. It was a most ragged little shoe. Long ago had its toe
been stubbed through, then the buttons had fallen off one by one until
only two were left. These had jerked off when Pearl fell and now lay on
the floor as bright as a pair of rat’s eyes. There was not much of the
boot left, but it still weighed something and was heavier because of the
snow, which had drifted through the bars and was settling down into its
open top.
When the shoe struck the Sun Chaser it roused him from one stupefied
state and precipitated him into one less stupefied. His hands twitched.
His feet moved convulsively as he drew leather-shod up under him and sat
leaning forward with his hand on wooden-shod. According to expectation
and dreams, the work of years, what had fallen upon him being heavy, and
striking strange wavering lights from his eyes, might be an analogue to
the sun, corresponding to it in all things except warmth. In that
mercurial, snow-reflected light, his hand fumbled beside him and his
fingers spread out, net-like, for the catch. He felt and caught what was
there and drew it towards him and held it up in the quicksilver of
snow-light and discovered the shoe.
“Oho!” laughed Ambrose Clark, hope having returned, “little Sun Chasers
at work!”
For a few seconds he sat still, playing like a child with the shoe and
repeating, “Little Sun Chasers at work!”
Then he stared up at the bars, each bar straight and black in the silver
light. Nodules now were on those bars and Ambrose Clark, wooden-shod
gathered on the knee of leather-shod, the little shoe in his hand, his
eyes large and amazed, stared on.
“Something there and there and there,” he laughed, pointing with the
little boot. “Something sun-sent!”
He clutched the shoe and rose swayingly on leather-shod and swung
wooden-shod to its mate in a circle like the leg of a compass. There was
always wooden-shod to be dragged after him.
“Lots of little Sun Chasers!” he laughed triumphantly, as he drew
himself up towards the bars.
Something there--rows of something all snow-flecked and white in the
quicksilvern storm-light. With the shoe he touched the pieces of bread.
“You and you and you,” he said. “Change! Sun-rays, wings, birds! Change
quick! Change now! Fly in! Fly in!”
Then he touched a piece of the snow-covered bread and said, “Ouch!” in
the voice of a child and laughed helplessly.
“Little shoe flew in to me!” he chanted. “Fly in, wings! See, little
shoe! See wings! sun wings, storm wings, bird wings, all wings, all
white and light. See!”
Gravely then did he match the shoe with each piece of snow-covered
bread, laughing wildly like a child delighted with a new game. He dug
the pieces of bread from between the bars with the toe of the shoe he
held in his hand, repeating, “Fly in, wings!” as each one fell to the
floor.
He came to the other shoe and paused, shaking his tawny hair. Two, where
there should be only one! This had happened to him before.
“Go ’way, go ’way!” he begged. “Can’t fool me. I’m Sun-Chaser!”
But the other shoe wedged in between the bars remained with the
obstinacy of inanimate objects.
“Why don’t you go ’way?” asked Ambrose.
The sturdy shoe remained where it was, the snow flakes on its copper toe
melting under the hot breath of the Sun Chaser who was leaning nearer
and nearer.
“Are you,” he muttered, “are you, little shoe,--are you there?”
With the shoe in his hand he made a few passes around his head and
laughed loudly, and shook his tawny hair in delight over the comicality
of the scene. In those orbits common in sun-chasing--in dreams, too, for
that matter--the shoe in his hand glided past the side of his head and
struck the other shoe, knocking the snow from it and laying bare the
copper toe which shone like an eye in the snow light.
“Oho!” laughed the Sun Chaser. “Give it to me, Pearl.”
Then the little channel of recollection which had cleared a bit of the
confusion of the Sun Chaser’s thoughts away, even as the rill bears
along the skeleton leaf, became clogged, and the Sun Chaser stopped and
stared stupidly. He put out a hand and touched the copper tip. He
exclaimed and looked down at the shoe in his hand, then out through the
bars. He pressed up closer to the bars, his feet crunching on the bread,
and on the snow which was drifting in, and long and curiously he looked
out into the quicksilver light of the whirling, howling storm. Again he
touched the copper tip and said, “Pearl!” He looked about the dark,
unlighted room and out into the storm. He dropped the shoe that was in
his hand and took hold of the bars and pressed his face against them
just above where the copper toe was wedged in fast.
For an instant again his mind, like a rift in tempestuous clouds, was
very clear.
“Pearl,” he called, “Pearl, come in out of the storm!”
For the moment he knew where he was and what had happened. Some
convergence of thoughts had bored through the wreckage of his mind, and
he was himself and Pearl was--God only knew where!
“Pearl!” he shouted louder, grasping the bars and rattling them until
the whole lock-up shook.
But he did not call again to her to come, for he knew that she could
not. She was out there somewhere in that world of white rage and
shrieking winds. The shoe in his hand he put between his teeth, and
grasping the bars, shook them till the whole building cracked under the
ice and snow. But the shoe wedged in between the bars remained where it
was and the door continued fast. He shouted, he cried, he pleaded in
tones that were whipped away on the gale. For answer came the wolfish
howl of the tempest and the leap of the storm upon the lock-up. And with
a yell he flung himself bodily against the door.