THE JUNE MOON
Now every day Eric was becoming acquainted with strange Forest People:
those who had hidden away from winter in trees, and those who were
wandering up from the south along with the birds, and Blue Water People,
of course, all along the Forest streams. The Forest teemed with new
playmates for him and Ivra.
Hide-and-go-seek was still the favorite game. And now it was more fun to
be "It" than to be hiding almost, for one was likely to come upon
strangers peeping out of tree hollows, swimming under water, or swinging
in the tree tops, any minute. When the person who was "It" came across
one of these strangers he would simply say, "I spy, and you're It." Then
he would draw the stranger away to the goal, where he usually joined the
game and was as much at home as though he had been playing in it from
the very first.
The day that Eric found Wild Thyme so was the best of all,--or rather
she was the best of all. And that was strange, for when he first spied
her he did not like her at all. Her dress was a purple slip just to her
knees, with a big rent in the skirt. Her hair was short and bushy and
dark. And her face was soberer than most Forest People's faces. She was
sitting out at the edge of the Forest on a flat rock, her chin in her
hands, and she did not look eager to make friends with any one.
But he cried, "I spy! You're It!" just the same. She did not lift her
eyes. She only said, "You must catch me first. I am Wild Thyme, and that
will be hard!"
Eric laughed, for she was not a yard away from him. And he sprang
forward as he laughed. But she was quicker than he. She had been at
perfect rest on the rock, her chin in her hands, and not looking at him,
but the instant he jumped she was off like a flash, a purple streak
across the field.
But Eric did not let his surprise delay him. He ran after her just as
fast as he could, and that was very, very fast, for running with Ivra
had taught him to run faster than most Earth Children ever dream of
running. Soon, Wild Thyme slowed down a little, and faced him, running
backward, her bushy hair raised from her head in the wind of her
running, her little brown face and great purple eyes gleaming
mischievously. Eric sprang for her. She dodged. He sprang again. She
dodged again. He cried out in vexation and sprang again, straight and
sure. He caught her by her bushy hair as she turned to fly.
And a strange thing happened to him in that second, the second he caught
her hair. Instead of Wild Thyme and the sunny field, he was looking at
the sea. He was standing on the shore, looking away and away, almost to
foreign lands. Now ever since that spring night on the shore he had been
thinking of the sea and longing with all his might to cross it and see
foreign lands for himself. Only that had seemed impossible, and
something he must surely wait till he was grown up to do. But now, in a
flash, as his fingers closed on Wild Thyme's hair, he knew that he could
indeed do that, and anything else he really set his heart on.
No girl, even a fairy, likes to have her hair pulled. So Wild Thyme was
angry. She pinched Eric's arm with all her strength. Then _he_ was
angry. And so they stood holding each other, he her by the hair, and she
him by the arm, staring hotly into each other's faces. But slowly they
relaxed, and becoming their own natural selves again, broke into
laughter.
"You'll play with us, won't you?" Eric asked.
"Of course," she said, "and I _am_ It!" And away they ran to find the
others, Ivra, the Tree Girl, the Forest Children, and Dan and Nan. When
those saw who it was Eric had captured they ran to meet her, shouting
gayly, "Wild Thyme! Goody! Goody! Hello, Wild Thyme!" They seemed to
have known her always. She and Ivra threw their arms about each other's
shoulders and danced away to the goal.
Wild Thyme was a wonderful playfellow. She was so wild, so free, so
strong, so mischievous. And when the game was ended she invited them to
a dance that very night. "It's to be around the Tree Man's Tree," she
said. "And all come--come when the moon rises."
. . . Perhaps Eric's good times in the Forest reached their very height
that June night of the dance. He had never been to a dance before, and
just at first he did not think there would be much fun in it. But Ivra
wanted him to go, and offered to show him about the dances. So they ran
away from the others to the edge of the field where Eric had discovered
Wild Thyme, and there on the even, grassy ground Ivra showed him how to
dance. It was very easy,--not at all like the dances Earth Children
dance. It was much more fun, and much livelier. The dances were just
whirling and skipping and jumping, each dancer by himself, but all in a
circle. Eric liked it as well as though it had been a new game.
Late that afternoon Helma and Ivra and Eric gathered ferns and flowers
to deck themselves for the evening. They put them on over the stream,
which was the only mirror in the Forest.
Helma made a girdle of brakes for herself, and a dandelion wreath for
her hair. She wove a dear little cap of star flowers for Ivra, and a
chain of them for her neck. Eric crowned himself with bloodroot and
contrived grass sandals for his feet. But the sandals, of course, wore
through before the end of the first dance and fell off.
They had a splendid supper of raspberries and cream, which they sat on
the door stone to eat, and then told stories to each other, while they
waited for the moon to rise. It came early, big and round and yellow,
shining through the trees, flooding the aisles of the Forest with silver
light until they looked like still streams, and the trees like masts of
great ships standing in them.
Then the three hurried away to the Tree Man's. They ran hand in hand
through the forest aisles, their faces as bright to each other as in
daylight. But before they even came in sight of the tree they heard
music.
"Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmm, thrummmmmmmmmmmm." Very soft, very
insistent, very simple and strangely thrilling. When they came to the
tree, there were the Forest Children, who had come early, whirling
around in a circle, and the Tree Girl in the center of the circle making
music with a tiny instrument she held in one hand and touched with the
fingers of the other.
Soon Forest People began arriving from every direction. There were the
Blue Water Children, bright pebbles around their necks, and white sea
shells in their blue hair. The Forest Children were crowned with
maidenhair fern. The Tree Girl was the most beautiful of all in her
silver cobweb frock and her cloudy hair. The Tree Man stood still in the
shadow, but his long white beard gleamed out, and his deep eyes. Wild
Thyme wore a rope of the flower that is named for her around her neck,
but there was a new rent in her purple frock and her legs were scratched
as though she had remembered her dance only the last minute and come
plunging the shortest way through bushes, which was true.
Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.
Every one except the Tree Man was dancing, bewitched in the moonlight,
all over the grassy space around the great tree. The grass was cool and
refreshing under Eric's bare feet, and he often dug his bare toes into
the soft earth at its roots as he leapt or ran just to make sure he was
on earth at all. For he felt as though he were swimming in moonlight, or
at least treading it.
Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.
When the Tree Girl's music stopped between dances, then it would go on
in Eric's head. It was just the sound of the night after all. Once Eric
noticed that the Beautiful Wicked Witch was dancing next to him in the
circle but he was not afraid of her there with the others, and in bright
moonlight. And she was plotting no ill. Her face was sparkling with
delight and she had utterly forgotten herself in the dance.
When the great moon hung just above them, and shadows were few and far
between, the Tree Mother came walking through the Forest, quieter and
more beautiful than the moon. Wild Thyme ran to her and laid her bushy
head against her breast. For Wild Thyme only of all the Forest People
loved her without awe. The Tree Mother put her hand on Wild Thyme's head
and stood to watch the dancing. Her robe gleamed like frost, and her
hair was a pool of light above her head.
Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmm.
Wild Thyme jumped back into the dance and the Tree Mother stood alone.
But although she stood as still as a moonbeam under the tree, she made
Eric think of dancing more than all the others put together. It was her
eyes. The thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm was in them, and the rest
of that night Eric felt as though the music-instrument the Tree Girl was
swinging was silent, and that all the music flowed from Tree Mother.
But Eric, after all, was only an Earth Child, and his legs got very
tired in spite of the music and the moonlight. So at last he slipped out
of the circle, and stumbling with weariness and sleepiness went to Tree
Mother. She picked him up in her arms, and the minute his head touched
her shoulder he was sound asleep, the music at last hushed in his head.
When he woke it was summer dawn. The birds were flitting above in the
tree-boughs and making high singing. He was alone, lying beneath a
silver birch, his head among the star flowers.
He knew that Helma and Ivra had not wanted to wake him, but had gone
home when the moon set, and were waiting breakfast for him there now. So
he jumped up and ran home through the dew.