THE WIND HUNT
After all, Mother Helma was not there the next morning,--nor the next,
nor the next. She did not come back for days and days and days. Much
happened before she returned, and much happened after. I will tell you.
During the days the children roamed the forest looking for their mother.
They asked every one they could find whether he had seen her. The Tree
Man, his daughter, the Bird Fairies, and the Forest Children, not one of
them had seen or heard of her since she went away. But they all said
with one accord that she would surely come back in her own time. It was
not wise to go seeking her so. She loved them. She would return.
"Wait and be patient," they said. "Time will bring Helma."
But they were Forest People, who live long, long lives, and see far.
Eric was an Earth Child, and Ivra was not all a Forest Child. So they
found it hard to be wise and wait and do nothing but trust Helma and
know she would return.
So they went wandering all the day. They did not go home for meals,
even, after a while, but ate with the Tree Man and his daughter or the
Forest Children. Sometimes as they walked through the forest, looking
all about, even up into the trees for their mother, they would suddenly
burst into play. "Tag," Ivra would cry, tapping Eric on the shoulder,
and away she would fly, he after her, in a race that grew merrier and
merrier as it ran on. Ivra darted and twisted away when Eric thought he
had her, rolling down little hills on the snow crust, climbing trees,
jumping brooks until he was lucky enough to catch her by one of her
pigtails at last, or snatch her flying skirt. "Tag!" Then away he sped,
and the game would go on for a happy while.
But sooner or later they always stopped running, stopped laughing, and
remembered why they were wandering the wood alone. Then they would call
for Helma. Ivra's voice was shrill and sweet, and rang through the bare
woods like a birdsong. Eric's wavered a little uncertainly, as though he
doubted whether Helma knew it well enough to answer. "Helma, Helma,
Helma! Ohh Helma! Helmaa-a!"
No Helma answered. Sometimes a Forest Child came running to say, "We
haven't seen her yet, Ivra. But we are watching." The Bird Fairies
fluttered at the call and nodded their little heads uneasily. Children's
voices calling for their mother was a sad sound, and made the kindly
little creatures restless. One or two of them would fly to nestle in
Ivra's neck and whisper, "Give her time. Do not hurry her so. She will
come back."
But the children were losing faith. They went calling, seeking and
playing through the woods all the hours of daylight. At night Ivra told
Eric World Stories, World Story after World Story until sleep made them
forget.
The fifth morning of their search dawned blue and clear and windy.
"The Wind Creatures will be happy to-day," said Ivra when she opened her
eyes and heard the wind pushing at all the windows of the house and saw
the blue morning sky. "Wild Star will be circling the world."
"Why, then he will see Helma somewhere!" cried Eric.
Ivra sprang from her bed. "Eric, how splendid! We must go with him! Why
didn't I think of it at the very first!"
They did not stop for breakfast, but were into their coats and ready for
the day's search in a twinkling. Neither of them had bothered to undress
the night before. Ivra's hair had gone unbrushed for two days. Things
like that are apt to slip when one's mother is away. So her little
pigtails were no longer smooth and glossy, but frowsy and loose, and the
rest of her hair was ruffled until it looked something like the Bird
Fairies' soft plumage. Eric's head, too, was shaggier than ever, and a
smudge from firebuilding had darkened one of his cheeks since the
morning before. They had not bathed in the "bird bath" since Helma had
gone away. They never seemed to have time, or else they were too sleepy.
Now they no more thought of baths than they thought of breakfast. Eric
followed Ivra, who knew all the ways in the forest, to the spot where
Wild Star was most likely to be, if he was to be found at all on such a
windy, perfect day. They ran earnestly, never slackening to skip or
play. And soon they came in sight of some giant cedar trees near the
edge of the forest. There were several Wind Creatures standing there,
laughing in shrill, glad voices, pointing with their arms, and flapping
their purple wings. Wind Creatures are growing-up boys and girls with
fairy-hearts and strong, never-tiring purple wings, remember. Wild Star
was among them.
But before the children had come up to them, the Wind Creatures suddenly
joined hands,--as they do just before flying,--and started running down
the sloping hill that ended the forest.
For a minute Ivra was in despair. "Now they are gone for the day to
circle the world, and I shall never find mother," she thought. But she
did not waste any more breath running. She stopped short and lifted her
voice, clear and insistent, "Wild Star! Wild Star! I need you! Don't run
away. Wild Star!"
The Wind Creatures had reached the foot of the hill, running swiftly
hand in hand, and their wings were already lifted for flying. But Wild
Star, at the sound of Ivra's voice, leaned back suddenly on the hands he
was holding, almost throwing his comrades on their faces, and breaking
the line. He turned right about, swinging the others with him, and came
leaping and running back.
"What is the matter, little comrade?" he asked. "What is the matter?"
"In all your flying 'round the world, Wild Star, you must have seen my
mother Helma. She is lost. Oh, can't you tell us where she is?"
"Yes, of course. But I didn't know she was lost. I thought she was
visiting Earth-friends."
"Truly, truly?" Ivra's eyes shone with joy, and Eric grabbed his cap
from his head and threw it up in the air shouting, "Hurrah!"
"Oh, will you bring her to us right away?" Ivra begged.
Wild Star looked doubtful. "Perhaps she wouldn't want to come."
Ivra laughed merrily at that. "Then take us to her," she said, "and you
will see how she wants to come when we ask her."
"Give us your hands, then!"
They held out their hands. Ivra's was grasped by Wild Star's and Eric's
by another Wind Creature. With their free hands they clasped each
other's. So the four started running down the hill, while the rest of
the Wind Creatures flew off over their heads.
Wild Star and his comrade ran faster and faster, until Eric wondered how
it was that he and Ivra were ever keeping up with them. Soon he realized
that his feet were scarcely touching the ground. At the foot of the hill
stood a little group of birches, and they were running right upon it. He
did not see how they could either turn out or stop themselves at that
speed. Almost as soon as he had seen the birches, though, they were
beyond them. They had not turned out, they had jumped right over the
birches, and they were much higher than Eric's head! They were running
so swiftly now that only their toes ever touched the ground,--if _they_
did.
What fun it was to run like that, the wind at their backs, and the Wind
Creatures drawing them strongly forward faster and faster and faster
until they were really flying just above the snow.
Across white fields they skimmed,--over fences and frozen streams,
bushes and banks, through orchards and meadows, on, on, on, until they
came to the town.
There Ivra pulled back for a minute, and the Wind Creatures slowed down.
Eric knew why Ivra was afraid of the town. She had told him all about it
while they played in the wood. Helma, her mother, was a human, but she
hated the town and loved the fairies and their ways. That was why she
had run away to live by herself in the wood. But Ivra was neither fairy
nor human; she was both.
Now the fairies are afraid of humans because humans look right through
them and do not see them. That upsets the fairies and makes them
uncomfortable. Of course Helma and Eric were exceptions, for because
they had no shadows in their eyes they could see them and play with
them. So the fairies accepted those two as one of themselves. Ivra was
different. Because she was only half fairy, any human could see her
whether his eyes were shadowed or not if he would only look hard enough.
The dreadful part was that when a human did see her, he was likely not
to believe in her. He would just think he was day-dreaming, and that the
little girl with the soft eyes, the ash-colored pigtails, and the quick
feet was just a piece of his day-dream. Not to be seen is bad enough.
But it is much worse to be seen and not believed in. That was why Ivra
was afraid of the town. People saw her there and either rubbed their
eyes and looked another way, or laughed.
But now she was going for her mother, and she could bear anything, even
that. She did not hold back long. They ran past the canning factory, and
Eric did not give a glance to it. A little girl looking out over a pile
of cans saw him, however, and wondered at his warm suit of brown cloth,
his leggins, sandals and the cap with wings. She remembered him in rags.
She saw Ivra too, and did not rub her eyes and think her a dream. But
she did not call to any one in the factory or point, for she knew _they_
would think it a dream.
Through the crooked narrow streets, past the crooked narrow houses,--one
of them Mrs. Freg's,--they sped faster than the wind! On, on, on,--up
the wide avenue through the "residential section" where big houses eyed
them from proud terraces,--out into the country again they raced.
There they came to a high gray stone wall, blocking their way, and stood
still.
"You must climb," said Wild Star. "She is in there."