THE DEEPEST PLACE IN THE WOOD
It was on the hottest day of all the hot days of summer that Eric found
the deepest place in the Forest. He wandered into it while he was
looking for Wild Thyme. Ivra had been no good to him that day. She was
usually ready to play in any weather; but on this, the hottest day of
the year, she stayed indoors, where it was a little cooler, and lying on
the settle she drew paper dolls on birch bark, and afterwards cut them
out. Yes, even fairy children love paper dolls and Ivra loved them more
than most. Eric wanted her to go swimming in the stream, but he teased
her to in vain, for she was entranced with the dolls and would hardly
lift her eyes from them.
Helma was swinging in a vine swing she had made for herself high in a
tree above the garden. One of the Little People was perched on a leaf
just over her head, and they were chattering together like equals. Their
eager voices floated down to Eric standing disconsolate near the door
stone. But Helma usually knew when her children were in trouble, no
matter how tiny the trouble, and so before Eric had stood there long or
dug up more than a bushel of earth with his bare toes, she leaned over
the nest and called to him.
"Why don't you go and play with Wild Thyme? She doesn't mind the heat.
Every one else is staying quiet till sundown."
Wild Thyme was a happy thought, and Eric walked away in search of her.
But she was in the very last place he would have thought to look on such
a scorching day, and that is how he missed her. She was lying full
length on the hot burnt grass in the field at the Forest's edge, loving
the heat and sunshine, which covered her like a mantle. If Eric had seen
her it is probable he would not have known her or stopped to look twice.
He would have thought her just a little patch of the flower that is
named for her.
So he wandered on and on, looking high and low and all about for her,
and he went deeper and deeper into the Forest. The deeper he went the
cooler it became, for the forest roof kept out the sunshine. The light
grew dimmer and dimmer too. Eric had never been so far in before and
everything was strange to him.
He saw no Forest People except a little brown goblin who peered at him
from some underbrush and then scuttled away into the darkness of denser
brush. Eric had never seen a goblin before, but he had no fear of
goblins, and so this one did not bother him at all. He heard others
scuttling and squeaking, and one threw a chunk of gray moss at him. He
stopped and picked it up and threw it back with a laugh in the direction
it had come from.
"Come out and play, why don't you?" he called. "I know where there's a
fine swimming pool." But there was no answer to his invitation. Instead
there was sudden and utter silence. He was disappointed, for he did want
a playmate, and he had almost given up looking for Wild Thyme.
After walking for a long while he came at last to one of the windings of
the Forest stream, and gratefully stepped into the shallow, clear water,
dark with shadows. His feet were burning, and his head was hot. So he
drank a long drink of the cold, delicious water, ducked his head, and
finally washed his face. Then he waded on with no purpose in mind now
but just to keep his feet in the water.
It was so he came to the deepest place; where not even Ivra had ever
been. It was almost cool there, and more like twilight than early
afternoon. And right in the deepest place, in a nest of smooth leaves,
with his feet in the water, lay Wild Star. When Eric first caught sight
of him he thought he was asleep, for his wings were lying on the leaves
half folded and dropped, and his knees were higher than his head. But
when Eric went close enough to see his eyes he knew that he was very
wide awake, for they were wide open, watchful and intent,--and purple
like the early morning. Such wide-awake eyes were startling in such a
sleepy, still place. Eric expected him to spread his wings in a flash
and dart away. But the wings stayed half open, purple shadows on the
leaves, and Wild Star did not even raise his head. Only his eyes greeted
Eric.
But Eric knew without words that Wild Star was glad to see him. So he
stepped up out of the water and stretched himself on a mound of silvery
moss near by. With his chin resting in his palms and his elbows
supporting, he faced the Wind Creature, his clear blue eyes open to the
intent purple ones.
It was Wild Star who spoke first.
"I thought, little Eric, you would have crossed the sea before this, and
be out of the Forest. I expected to find you next fall on the other side
of the world."
Eric was amazed, for he had not said one word of his dream about that to
any one. "How did you know I wanted to go?" he cried.
"Oh, you are an Earth Child, after all, and I knew you would want to be
going on, as soon as you saw the sea."
"But _why_ do I want to go on?" asked Eric, his face clouding with the
puzzle of it. "I am so happy here, and Helma is my mother now. There
can't be another mother across the sea for me. And if there were I
wouldn't want her,--not after Helma! No, Helma is my only mother, and
Ivra is my comrade. And still I want to leave them,--and go on and away
over there. It is very funny."
"No," said Wild Star. "It isn't funny. You are a growing Earth Child,
not a fairy. It is your own kind calling you. It is the music of your
human life."
"I don't know what you mean," said Eric.
"It is like this: you know when you begin to sing a song, you go on and
on to the end without thinking about it at all. It is the theme that
carries you. Well, a human life is made like a song,--it carries itself
along. You do not stop to think why. It can't stop in the middle, on one
chord, for long. Yours now is resting, on a chord of happiness. But soon
it will go on again. You want it to. Life in the Forest, though, isn't
like that. Here it is music without any theme, like the music we dance
to. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmm. But there is more than that to an
Earth Child's life. It runs on like this stream. The stream is happy
here in the Forest, too, but it goes on seeking the sea just the same."
There was a long stillness while Eric looked down into the green depths
of the water. At last he asked, "But how could I ever get across the
sea? And when I got there how could I get back?"
"Time enough to think about getting back when you are there," laughed
Wild Star. "But as to getting there, Helma is the one to tell you that.
She has been an Earth Child, too, you know. She felt just as you did,
that spring night on the shore. She has felt it many times. It is only
Ivra that keeps her in the Forest. Ivra docs not belong out in the world
of humans, and Helma will never leave her. But she will understand
your longing. All you have to do is tell her."
Eric clapped his hands, a habit he had caught from Ivra. "Oh, I shall
cross in a ship," he cried, "and see all the foreign lands. And when I
come back, think of the World Stories I shall have to tell Helma and
Ivra!"
He sprang up in his joy, and felt as though he had wings on his
shoulders like Wild Star, and had only to spread them out to go beating
around the world. For a second the Wind Creature and the Earth Child
looked very much alike. And indeed, the only difference was that Wild
Star had to wait for the wind, and Eric need wait for no wind or no
season. His wings were _inside of his head_, but they were as strong as
Wild Star's. And he had only to spread them and lift them to go anywhere
he wanted.
Now he wanted to get back to Helma and tell her all about it. Wild Star
pointed him the shortest way, and off he ran, jumping the stream and the
moss beds beyond, and disappearing into the underbrush.
"I'll look for you next time the other side of the world!" Wild Star
shouted after him.
It was twilight when he reached home. Helma and Ivra were sitting on the
door stone, hand in hand. They made room for Eric. But he did not
snuggle up. He stayed erect, his face lifted towards the first dim
stars, and told Helma all about his wanting to go away from them out
through the Forest and across the sea, and all that Wild Star had said
about music and Earth People's lives. And he told her, too, of the
vision of success he had had when he caught Wild Thyme that first day by
her bushy hair.
Helma listened quietly, and said nothing for many minutes after he was
through. But at last she spoke, putting a hushing hand on Eric's
dreamful head.
"I understand," she said. "I knew you would want to go on sometime. And
I have a friend across there who will help us. He has a school for boys
and I got to know him very well behind the gray stone wall. He asked me
about the Forest and you children. And he said that Eric sometime would
surely want to go back to humans, and when he did he would help him. He
understands boys. It is to him you had better go, Eric, and when you are
really ready I will tell you how, and start you on your way."
Eric sighed with contentment, and leaned his head against Helma's
shoulder.
But Ivra stayed at her mother's other side, as still and silent as a
shadow. Soon the fireflies began their nightly dance in the garden. But
Ivra did not go darting after them as usual to make their dance the
swifter. And Eric's head was too full of dreams and his eyes too full of
visions of the sea to notice them at all.