SPRING WANDERING

SPRING WANDERING

"There goes another," said Helma as she stood in the door the very next morning after her return. "The littlest Forest Child that was, and all by himself. He seems rather small to go spring-wandering alone."

"He likes to go alone," Ivra answered. She was setting the table for breakfast, and Eric was helping her. "'Most always he's playing or wandering off by himself somewhere."

Helma stood watching the little fellow until he had vanished amid the delicate green of the forest morning. Then she tossed back her hair with a shake of her head and cried gayly, "Let's go wandering ourselves, pets. It's good to be home, but we have all our lives for that now. Let's adventure!"

The children were overjoyed. They did not want to wait for breakfast. But Helma thought they had better, for no one knew where, when or how their next meal would be. Of course, though, it was hard to eat. You know yourself how you feel about food when you are going on an adventure. However the bowls of cereal were swallowed somehow. Then the stoutest sandals were strapped on, and the three were ready to set out.

First they went to Nora's farm and before they had waited many minutes in the shadow of the trees on the edge of the field Nora came from the door carrying their jug of milk. They ran to meet her and tell her not to leave any more milk until they should come back. How glad the old woman was to see Helma. "I thought spring would bring you," she said. "Spring frees everything."

Then Helma, Ivra and Eric were off for their spring wandering. It seemed as though every one else was wandering, too, for they could hardly walk a mile without meeting some friend or stranger Forest Person. All gave them greeting, whether stranger or friend, and all looked very glad that Helma was in the forest again, for good news travels fast there, and even the strangers knew of her home-coming.

In a secret wooded valley, walking softly to hear the birds and the thousand little other songs of earth, they suddenly came upon a strange and thrilling sight. A party of little girls and boys all in bright colored frocks, purple, orange, green, blue, yellow, were putting the finishing touches on an air-boat they were making. It was built of delicate leaved branches and decorated with wild flowers. A great anchor of dog-tooth violets hung over the sides and kept it on the ground.

When they saw Helma and the children coming so silently toward them they jumped into the boat and crowded there looking like a bunch of larger spring flowers. Then they drew in the anchor rapidly. But the little girl sitting high in the back, the one in the torn yellow dress and with blowing cloud-dark hair, cried, "Oh, no fear, it's Ivra and her mother and the clear-eyed Earth Child. Want to come, Ivra? We're off spring wandering among the white clouds."

Ivra shook her head and called, "Not unless three of us can come."

"Too full for that," called down the yellow-frocked one, for now the boat had lifted softly almost to the tree tops. "Your Earth Child would weigh us down. So hail and farewell. Good wandering!"

So the three on the ground stood looking up and waving and calling back, "Good wandering!" until the green boat had drifted away and away and was lost in the spring sky. But for a long time after, there floated down to them in the valley far laughter and glad cries.

The spring nights were cold, and so at twilight they made themselves a shelter of boughs. They slept as soon as it was night and woke and were off at the break of dawn. Helma carried sweet chocolate in her pockets, and forest friends and strangers offered them from their store all along the way. Sometimes when they were tired or warm with walking they would climb into the top of some tall tree, and there swinging among the cool new leaves, Helma began telling them her World Stories again, while the children looked off over the trembling forest roof and watched for homing birds.

But when the hemlock and fir trees began to crowd out the maples and oaks, Helma said quietly one day, "We are nearing the sea." "The sea," cried Eric almost wild with sudden delight. "Shall we see it? Shall we swim in it? Oh, I have never seen it!"

"Oh, I saw it from Spring's shoulder," Ivra cried—she really thought she had—"But mother, mother, what a wonderful surprise you had for us!"

They began to run in their eagerness. But Helma held them back. "It's a day's journey yet," she said. And so they walked as patiently as they could down a long, long slope through dark firs and hemlocks.

It was noon of the following day when they finally came to the sea. They had struggled through a thick undergrowth of thorned bushes where the great arms of the firs shut out everything ahead. Then suddenly they were out of it, in the open, on the shore with the waves almost lapping their toes. It was high tide. The blue sea stretched away to the blue sky.

Eric's legs gave way under him, and he knelt on the white sand, just looking and looking at the bigness of it, the splendor of it, the color of it, and listening to the music of it. Ivra ran right out into the foam brought in by the breakers, up to her waist, where she splashed the water with her palms until her hair and face were drenched with salt spray. Helma stood looking away to foreign countries which she could almost see.

But they were not left long to themselves. The heads of a little girl and boy and a young woman appeared over the crest of a great wave, and the three were swept up to the shore. They grabbed Ivra and drew her along with them as they passed, laughing musically. Ivra did not like it at first, and sprang away from them the minute she could shake herself free. But when she saw their merry faces and heard them laugh, she returned shyly.

The children were about Eric's and Ivra's ages, and the young woman was their mother. The children's names were Nan and Dan, and the woman's name was Sally. But though they had Earth names they were of the fairy-kind,—called in the Forest "Blue Water People."

Just peer into a clear pool or stream, almost any bright day, and you will be pretty sure to see one of them looking up at you. They are the sauciest and most mischievous of all fairies. Only stare at them a little, and they will mock you to your face with smiles and pouts, and will not go away as long as you stay. For they have no fear of you or any Earth People. They follow their streams right into towns and cities, under bridges and over dams. You are as likely to find one in your city park as in the Forest.

Helma spoke to Sally, while the children eyed each other curiously. She said, "How happy you Blue Water People must be now Spring has freed you at last!"

Sally dropped down on the beach, her dark hair flung like a shadow on the sand. Her laughing face looked straight up into the sky. She stretched her arms above her head.

"He came just in time. Another day—and we would have had to break through the ice ourselves. Truly. We've never had such a long winter. Why, a month ago we began to look for Spring. We lay with our faces pressed against the cold ice for hours at a time, watching. We could just see light through, and shadows now and then."

"And then I saw him first," cried Dan, who was listening to his mother.

"No, I!" cried Nan.

"No, no," Sallv laughed. "I heard him, singing, a long way off. And I called you children away from your game of shells. When his foot touched the ice we danced in circles of joy, and tapped messages through to him with our fingers. The ice vanished under his feet, and our stream rushed hither away to the sea. We came with it, and waved him hail and farewell as we poured down. Who can stop at home in spring-time? And we had been ice-bound so long!"

"And now we're here," boasted Dan, "I'm going to swim across the sea to-morrow,—or the next day!"

"You're too little for that. Calm water is best, or little rushing streams," warned Sally.

"What is it like across the sea?" asked Eric. "Another world?"

"I'll tell you about it in the next story," promised Helma. "And then when I have told you, Eric, you may want to go across yourself and see the wonders."

Eric drew a deep breath. "Yes, you and Ivra and I. In a boat." He pointed to a white sail far out stuck up like a feather slantwise in the water.

Ivra clapped her hands.

But Helma shook her head. "When you go, it must be alone, Ivra and I belong to the Forest."

"Why, then I don't want to go, ever." Eric shook the thought from him like water.

"Well, let's swim across now," Dan shouted, and ran into the waves, falling flat as soon as he was deep enough and swimming fast away. The other children followed him, ready for a frolic. You or I would have found that water very cold, but these were hardy children; and one of them all winter had made comrades of the Snow Witches, remember.

They waded out to the surf and plunged through it, head first. They took hands and floated in a circle beyond, rising and falling in the even motion of the rollers. Nan was very mischievous, and soon succeeded in pushing Eric out, under where the waves broke. When he looked up suddenly and saw the great watery roof hanging over him, he was terrified but he did not scream. People who comraded with Ivra could not do that. He shut his eyes tight, and then thundering down came the water-roof, and a second after, up bobbed Eric like a cork, choking and sputtering. They were laughing at him, even Ivra. The minute the salt water was out of his eyes he laughed, too, and tried to push Nan into the surf. But she was too quick for him, and slipped away, farther out to sea.

Then began a game of water tag. Eric, because he was not such a good swimmer as the others, was It most of the time. But Ivra had to take a few turns as well. It was impossible to catch the other two. They moved in the water as reflected light moves along a wall, not really swimming at all, but flashing from spot to spot.

Helma and Sally lay on the sand in the spring sunshine and talked about their children.

"Nan and Dan tear their clothes so," sighed Sally, "I could spend all my time mending."

"I must make little Eric some new clothes," said Helma. "I hope I have cloth enough at home."

"Nan is naughty, but she is a darling," laughed Sally as Eric was pushed under the surf.

Helma waited to see that he came up smiling and then said, "Ivra and Eric never quarrel. They play together from morn till night like two squirrels."

... They all had lunch together on the shore. The Blue Water Children instead of eating smelled some spring flowers which Sally had found. That is the way they always take their nourishment. Helma turned some little cakes of chocolate out of her pockets, and though at first it seemed like a small luncheon, when it was all eaten they felt satisfied.

All the afternoon the children played up and down the beach. They found a smooth round pink sea-shell which they used for a ball. Eric was the best at throwing. It made him happy and proud to excel in something at last. He taught them how to play base ball, which he had once watched Mrs. Freg's boys playing on Sundays in the back yard. They used a piece of drift wood for a bat, and when the shell got accidentally batted into the sea the Blue Water Children fielded it like fishes.

When they were tired of ball, the Blue Water Children drew lines on the sand for "hop scotch,"—a game they had sometimes watched city children playing in a park,—and taught Ivra and Eric about that.

Then they built a castle of sand, and walled it in with sea shells. Helma showed them how to make the moat and the bridge, and Sally and she took turns and made up a story about the castle and told it to them.

Towards evening some Earth People came by, near to the shore, in a little steam launch. There were men and women and several children in it. They crowded into the side of the boat towards the shore to stare curiously at Helma and Eric. They could not see the others, of course. Helma with her free, bright hair and bare feet looked very strange to them. And they could not understand what Eric was doing with his arms held straight out at each side. He was between Dan and Nan, holding their hands, and standing to watch. But the Earth People looked right through the Blue Water Children, or thought they were shadows perhaps.

One of the men put his hands to his mouth like a megaphone and called to Helma, asking her if she did not want to be picked up. They thought her being there in that wild place with a little boy, alone, and barefooted, very singular. They thought she might have been shipwrecked. But Helma shook her head, and so they had to take their wonder away with them. The boat swept by.

Ivra ran out into the waves waist deep to watch the strange thing. She had never seen a steam launch before, or anything like it. A baby, held in his nurse's arms, caught sight of her and waved tiny dimpled hands, calling and cooing. She saw his sparkling eyes, his light fuzzy hair, his little white dress and socks. She ran farther into the water, waving back to him and throwing him dozens of kisses. But no one else in the boat saw her, and after a minute the baby's attention turned to a sea gull flying overhead.

Ivra returned to shore, her face shining. There had been no doubt of it—the baby had seen her at once, and had had no doubts. He had laughed and reached his hands to her. The little Fairy Child almost hugged herself with delight....

They built themselves shelters of drift wood when night fell. Eric's was just large enough for him to crawl into and lie still. One whole side of it was open to the sea. Soft fir boughs made his bed, and Helma had left a kiss with him. But he did not sleep for a long while. He lay on his side looking out over the star-sprinkled water and up at the star-flowering sky. And he could not have told how or from where the command had come, but he knew as he looked that he must cross that sea and go into the new world beyond it and see all things for himself. World Stories were good. But they were not enough.

How he was to go, or how live when he got there—he did not once think of that. Just that he was to go filled his whole mind. He forgot that he had said he would not go without Helma and Ivra. He did not think of them at all. He just lay still listening to the sea's command to go beyond and beyond.