Once in about every so often, it seems, little boys just _have_
to get sick. Sometimes it is their own fault; sometimes the fault of
the weather; and sometimes there doesn't seem to be any reason at
all--except maybe germs. And who ever saw a real live germ walking
around, except, perhaps, doctors looking through microscopes? And,
besides, germs are too tiny to make a real big boy with pockets in his
trousers, and a reader, and a geography, go to bed.
But that is just what had happened to Marmaduke.
He hadn't felt so sick in the daytime--just sort of dreamy, and not
like playing at all. He only wanted to lie where he could watch the
fingers of the sun-beams stray over the rag rug and pick out the
pretty colors in it, and where he could see Mother and call to her
when he wanted her. That was always important--to have her near.
At supper all Mother would give him was a cup of warm milk. She said
he couldn't have anything solid, not even bread. But after all,
perhaps it was better, for his appetite wasn't so very big. He had
only asked because he thought he ought to have things Jehosophat had,
and didn't want to be deprived of any of his privileges.
Those two round things--like cherries--stuck in his throat so. What
was it the doctor called them? Tonsils, that was it. And they felt as
big as footballs now, and, oh, so sore!
The doctor decided he had "tonsil-eatus"--a funny name. He called out
to Mother to inquire if they would really "eat us"--and how they could
"eat us" when they were in your throat already. He felt rather proud
of that joke and better for having made it--for a little while,
anyway.
There was one "'speshully fine" thing about being sick. Mother would
always send Jehosophat and Hepzebiah into the spare room to sleep, and
she would come herself and lie down in Jehosophat's bed, right next to
the little sick boy, right where he could reach out his hand and place
it in hers. That was "most worth" all the aches and the pains.
It was all right to have Father near, but somehow Marmaduke felt
better if it was Mother that lay by his side. Her hands and her voice
were sort of cool and they drove the bad things that came in his
dreams far away.
There was one other fine thing about being sick the Fairy Lamp!
At least that was what the children had named it. It was really a
little blue bowl, not light blue like his oatmeal bowl, but almost as
blue as periwinkles, or the sky some nights. It had little creases on
the outside, "flutings," Mother said, like the pleats in her dress.
Inside the bowl was a thick white candle, and it had a curly black
wick like a kewpie's topknot.
Now Mother wanted to make sponge for the bread, but Marmaduke
pleaded,--
"I want you to stay with me, I feel so sick."
"Wouldn't my little boy let me go--just for five minutes?"
He thought that over for a little while. Then, "Yes," he said slowly,
"if you light the Fairy Lamp."
So she struck the match and touched it to the wick. The wick always
seemed lazy about being lit. It acted as if the match were waking it
up.
But all of a sudden it would burst into flame, and the dark blue of
the bowl would turn into light blue--oh, such a pretty color, not like
the bluing Hannah put in the water to make the clothes white, nor
would it match Sophy Soapstone's electric blue dress. It was more like
a blue mist, just such a shade as the fairies would wear.
Marmaduke watched it a long time. Sometimes the little flame
sputtered, sometimes it waved in the air, or dipped and bowed in his
direction, and once it _actually_ winked at him.
From where he lay he could see a bright star shining through the
window. He tried to look with one eye at the light and with the other
eye at the star, both at the same time. The star seemed sort of blue,
too.
"I wonder if the little light is the baby of the star," he said to
himself.
And when he looked at the star again, he saw a ray travel down from it
into the window, right towards his eyes.
He blinked, and the light grew brighter. It made a pathway reaching
from the sky to his bed. Something seemed to be traveling down the
bright pathway, singing a song as it came.
First he thought it must be an angel, then a fairy with wings like a
moth.
He shut his eyes a minute, to see what would happen, and he heard the
voice singing a funny sort of song--no, not funny, but pretty.
And this was the song:
"Light, light
By day or night;
Stars in the skies,
Stars in the eyes."
He opened his. And there before him, in front of the window, stood a
little lady. He thought she was dressed in white, then he decided it
was yellow, then gold and white.
She walked, yet she seemed to be pasted on a big, shiny star. The top
point rose just above her head, making the peak of a crown. The two
middle points stuck out beyond her shoulders like bright moth wings,
and the two bottom points extended below her waist, and away from her,
like the ends of a sash.
At first Marmaduke thought she must be a painted doll, such as you see
in the magazines about Christmas time, made for little children to cut
out. But her golden hair was not still like that, but was always in
motion like crinkly water that flows over the stones in the brook when
the sun shines on it. And there on the rag rug, his own rag rug, were
her little feet--very white, with little toes, and she could sing,
too. My, how she could sing! No, she was not any painted doll.
She was going on with that song now:
"Far and near,
Bright and clear,
On sky and sea,
And the Christmas tree."
"'Llo!" said Marmaduke--then he stopped, ashamed. That was the way he
talked to the fellows at school. He mustn't speak to such a beautiful
lady that way. So--"How do you do?" he corrected himself.
But she only smiled and said--what do you think?
"'Llo! little boy"--just like himself. That seemed to set her singing
again:--
"Low and high,
In the lake or the sky;
High and low,
In the crystal snow."
Then she stopped.
"Is there any more to it?" asked Marmaduke. "Oh, yes, one could go on
forever"
"On the church spire,
Or in the fire;
On the wavelet's tip,
Or the mast of a ship;
In the shining gem
Over Bethlehem;
In the little cradle,
With the ox in the stable,
A baby fair
It was brightest there!"
"Now is _that_ all of it?" Marmaduke asked her.
"Oh, there's lots more, but I'll sing just the last part for
tonight"--and she told him the end:
"And in Mother's eyes,
Just as bright as the skies."
Marmaduke thought she was right in the last part of the song, anyway.
Of course, he didn't understand exactly what it was all about, but it
was a very pretty song, and he would think it over in the morning. But
then his curiosity got the better of him.
"What did you come down here for?"
"Oh, I saw the light in your window," she explained, "and I thought
maybe it was a little lost star. You see, we have to look out for
them. When we do find a star that has lost its way we take it back--"
"Do you stick it up there with a pin?"
This question seemed to strike her as very amusing, and she laughed.
And when she laughed it sounded like church bells far, far off, or the
voice of the Brook.
"Oh, no," she said as soon as she could speak. "Do I look as if I
could be stuck up there by a pin?"
"No-o-o, but what do you do? Just float around--or swim?"
"Well, that's the way you Earth people would put it--but we have
another word for it."
"What is the word?"
She shook her head.
"That I can't tell you, for you'd never understand it, but it's a very
pretty word."
Marmaduke sighed.
"I'd like to know it," he said, "but I suppose I can't."