"She'll get queer going on like this," I said. "Thin veils and light
shining through and creatures that feel about us like we do about fishes
are all right for old folks who've lived their lives. She's got to live
hers and live it the way ordinary folks do."
"Ain't she happy?" asked Mis' MacFarland. "Don't she like rolling a hoop
and playing with the other children? Didn't you say only yesterday her
mischief would drive you out of your senses?"
I couldn't deny this. Unless you'd seen her as I had, she was just like
any other happy little girl, only happier maybe. Like, I said, you could
see her heart shine some days, she was so happy. About that time I
found out more how she felt. One still night, for no reason, I got out
of my bed and went into Moira's room and there she was sitting up in her
bed, her eyes like starlight.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Why--I--don't know--I'm waiting for something!"
"Waiting! At this time of the night! How you talk! You lie right down,
Moira Anderson, and go to sleep," says I, sharp.
"I can't yet," she says, turning to me. "I haven't been able to find it
for two days now. I've not been good inside and I drove it away."
"For mercy's sake, speak plain! What did you drive away?"
"Why, don't you know?" says she. "You lose your good when you're unkind
or anything."
"Your _good_!" I says. "Where do you get it from?" For she spoke as
though she were talking of something that was outside herself and that
came and went.
"It comes from out there," she says, surprised that I didn't know.
"From out there?"
"Oh, out there where all the things are you can _feel_ but can't see.
There's lots of things out there."
I sat quiet, for all of a sudden I knew plain as day that she thought
she was feeling what everybody else in the world felt. She hadn't any
idea she was different.
"You know," she said, "how it is when you sit quiet, you know it's
there--something good, it floods all over you. It's like people you love
make you feel, only more. Just like something beautiful that can get
right inside your heart!"
Now this may seem queer to you, for Moira was only a little girl of
twelve, but there was a look on her face of just sheer, wonderful love,
the way you see a girl look sometimes, or a young mother. It was so
beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. That was the last time I
worried about Moira for a long time, for, think I, anything as beautiful
as that is holy even if it ain't regular.