THE BRIGHT HOUSE
Eric knew nothing of the little girl and her thoughts. He was walking in
a golden mist, but he could see quite perfectly, and even far ahead down
long tree aisles. At first the trees did not grow very close together,
and there was little underbrush. Several narrow paths started off in
different directions,--straight little paths made by people who knew
where they were going. But Eric did not know where he was going, so he
struck off in a place where there was no sign of a path. Soon the trees
drew closer and closer together, until their branches locked fingers
overhead and shook the yellow leaves down for each other. The leaves
showered softly and steadily. Eric's feet rustled loudly in them.
Soon he stopped and took off his worn shoes and stockings. He left them
where he took them off and went on, barefoot. Now that he was only in
his shirt and trousers he began to run and leap. He leapt for the
drifting leaves, and he ran farther and farther into the happy
stillness.
The trees crowded and crowded, and the mist of leaves grew brighter and
brighter. No birds sang, for they had all flown away for the winter, and
there were no flowers. But the drifting leaves hid the bareness, and
magic covered everything.
After Eric had run and leapt and waded in the crackling pools of leaves
for a long time, he grew hungry. "But there is no food here," he
thought; "and anyway it doesn't matter. It's much better to be hungry
here than in the dirty streets."
He decided to go to sleep and forget about it. So he lay down in the
leaves. They fell over him, a steady, gentle shower, and he slept long,
and without dreaming anything.
But when he woke he was cold. And worse than that, the golden mist had
faded. It was almost twilight. The light was cold and still and gray.
While he slept Indian Summer had vanished and its magic with it.
Now no matter how fast Eric ran, or how high he jumped, he was chilly
through and through. But he did not think of trying to find the way out
of the wood. The streets would be as cold as the forest, and never,
never, never, if he starved and froze, was he going back to that house
in the village where he had lived but never belonged. So he went on
until the gray light faded, and the soft rustle of falling leaves
changed to the noise of wind scraping in bare branches. When he was very
cold, and ready to lie down and sleep again to forget, he came quite
suddenly on an opening in the trees. In the dim light he saw a little
garden closed in with a hedge of baby evergreens. The wind was rustling
through the stalks of dead flowers in the garden. But in the middle of
it was a little low house, and the windows and doors were glowing like
new, warm flowers.
Yes, it was a house and a garden away there in the wood, but no path led
to it through the forest, and there was a strangeness about it as about
no house or garden Eric had ever seen.
Although no path led through the wood to the house, a path did run
through the garden to the low door stone. Eric went up it and stood
looking in at the door, which was open.
The glow of the house came from a leaping, jolly fire in a big stone
fire-place, and from half a dozen squat candles set in brackets around
the walls. It was the one lovely room that Eric had ever seen. It was so
large that he knew it must occupy the whole of the little house. But in
spite of all the brightness, the comers were dim and far.
There were two strange people there, or they were strange to Eric
because they were so different from any people he had ever known. One
was a young woman who sat sewing cross-legged on a settle at the side of
the fire-place. About her the strangest thing was her hair. It was not
like most women's,--long and twisted up on her head. It was short, and
curled back above her ears and across her forehead like flower-petals.
It was the color of the candle-flames. But her face was brown, and her
neck and long hands were brown, as though she had lived a long time in
the sun. Her eyes that were lifted and scarcely watching the work in her
hands, were very quiet and gray.
She was watching and talking to a little girl who was skipping back and
forth between a rough tea-table set near the fire and an open
cupboard-door in the wall. She was carrying dishes to the table, and now
and then stopping to stir something good-smelling which hung over the
fire in a pewter pot, with a strong bent twig for a handle.
The child was strange in a very different way from her mother. The
mother, one could see, was merry in spite of her quiet eyes. But the
child was pale. Her face was pale and little and round. Her hair was
pale, too, the color of ashes, and braided in two smooth little braids
hanging half way down her back. She moved with almost as much swiftness
as the fire-shadows, and as softly too.
Both mother and daughter were dressed in rough brown smocks, with narrow
green belts falling loosely,--strange garments to Eric. And their feet
were bare.
But stranger than the house, stranger than the people in it, was the
fact that the mother was talking to the little girl just as people of
the same age talk to each other; and though Eric was shaking with cold
and aching with hunger, he could still wonder deeply at that.
"It's a long way 'round by the big pine," she was saying; "but you see I
am home in time for supper. Suppose I had not come until after dark.
What would you have done, Ivra?"
The little girl stopped in her busy-ness to stand on one foot and think
a second. "Why, I'd have put the supper over the fire, lighted the
candles, and run out to meet you."
"Oh, but you wouldn't know which way to run. I might come from any
direction."
"I'd follow the wind," cried Ivra, lifting her serious face and rising
to her tiptoes, one arm outstretched, as though she were going to follow
the wind right then and there.
It was at that minute they noticed the door had blown open, and that a
little boy was standing in it, looking at them.
But they neither stared nor exclaimed. Ivra ran to him, her arms still
outstretched in the flying gesture, and drew him in. His dirty face was
streaked with tears, and his legs and feet were blue with the cold. They
knew it was not question-time, but comfort-time, so the mother folded an
arm about him, and Ivra skipped more rapidly than ever between the
cupboard and the table. Almost at once supper was ready, and the table
set for three. As the last thing, Ivra brought all the candles and set
them in the middle of the table. They sat down,--Eric with his back to
the fire. It warmed him through and through, but their friendly faces
warmed him more.
Very little was said, but when the meal was nearly over Ivra asked him
how long he was going to stay with them. Immediately he stopped eating
and dropped his spoon. His eyes filled with tears. He had utterly
forgotten about his plight until then,--how he was homeless, workless
and bound to starve and freeze sooner or later. Ivra's mother saw the
misery in his face and quietly spoke, "We hope for a long time. As long
as you want to, anyway. Three in a wood will be merrier than two in a
wood. . . . If you like me I will be your mother."
Ivra clapped her hands. "Stay always," she cried. "I will be your
playmate. There will be many playmates besides, too, and I will help you
find them."
Eric glowed. The hatred that had been flaring in his head suddenly
faded, and the heavy thing that had been his heart for as long as he
could remember, became light as thistledown. He looked at the mother and
the kindness in her eyes made him tremble. "I will stay and be your
child," he said.