ON THE GRAY WALL

It was a very high wall that hid their mother, and at first glance it seemed impossible that they could ever climb it. But Ivra did not stop to wonder. She ran up and down, hunting for a foothold. At last she reached the end of the wall and disappeared around the corner. Eric and the Wind Creatures followed. When they came up to her she had already found a place where the stones were laid a bit unevenly, one on the other, and was half way to the top, clinging with toes and fingers.

“Bravo!” cried the Wind Creatures. Eric went up after her, often slipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees, but as resolute as his playmate. At last they gained the top. The Wind Creatures had flown up and were waiting for them there, sitting cross-legged with their purple wings folded down their backs.

The wall enclosed the garden of a very rich family. It was a formal garden with straight walks, trellises, fountains, benches and neat flower beds laid out in squares and circles, now piled high with blossoming snow.

Just as the children reached the top of the wall, the door into the garden from the stern gray mansion behind it opened and through it came three people. First was a very tall lady all wrapped up in furs, tails and heads of the poor animals that had been slain to make them hanging from her shoulders and down her back. Even the children could see that her face was sour in spite of all its smiling. Then came a young man in a stiff, funny hat, carrying a cane, beating up the snow flowers with it as he passed the flower beds. And behind them walked Helma, with her gaze on the ground. That is why they did not know her at first, that and her very strange clothes. She was dressed all in velvet and fur, and her arms up to her elbows were hidden in a huge white muff. She swayed as she walked on weird little high heels and the toes of her boots drew out to long points, almost like a goblin’s. Her hat was a velvet affair, so awkward and heavy it seemed to weigh down her head, and her candleflame hair was smothered under it. Is it any wonder that they did not know her like that!

But when she walked close under the wall and they heard her voice they knew her, and the Wind Creatures had to hold Ivra from jumping down and throwing herself into her arms. “Wait,” they whispered.

From their high place on the wall they could look down on the heads of the three people, and hear all they were saying. They had never learned that it is not fair to listen that way.

From all Helma said they could plainly see she was a prisoner. She was pleading with the old woman. She was saying, “No, never, never, never, in a thousand days and years will I ever be happy here. My place is in the forest. Oh, how these heels bother!”

“Silly girl!” cried the old woman, smiling more than ever, and looking more disagreeable than ever at the same time. “Your place is where you were born-in a fine house and wearing clothes like other people. Heels indeed! Did you expect them to do any thing else but bother? Mine have bothered for sixty years, but you haven’t heard me complain.”

“Neither would I,” Helma said, “if I didn’t know about other kinds of shoes that don’t hurt. Those sandals I wore when you caught me didn’t hurt. Why can’t I wear those, at least when I walk in the garden?”

“Well, you might,” began the old woman, a little more kindly, and smiling less, “if you promise always to put on the high heels before coming into the drawing room ”

“No,” said the young man sharply. “Let her once into the garden in her sandals and she’ll climb the wall and be off. I say that we give her no chance to escape. After she has been to a hundred or so balls and worn these beautiful and appropriate clothes long enough she’ll be glad of her luck, and nothing could drag her into the forest. Believe me!”

Now Helma stopped pleading, and laughed at the young man. “Do you think high heels, or even a hat that weighs down my head like this horrid one can keep me much longer from my little daughter, and that dear new little boy? What they are doing without me all this time I wonder!” She stopped laughing to sigh.

The old woman took her hand not unkindly. “My poor, dear girl,” she said, “how many times must I tell you it is only a dream, that house in the woods and the little girl and boy? They aren’t really there at all, you know. You have dreamed them. Come, cheer up. Be a brave girl. We have parties and good times enough here, if you will only get into the spirit of them, to make up for all your forest foolishness.”

Helma answered in a low even voice, that showed well enough how sure she was of the truth of what she was saying “No, they are realer than you. Ivra is realer than all the people in that mansion put together, cousins, uncles, aunts, guests, servants and all. She is my little fairy daughter.”

“No,” said the young man.

The wings of the Wind Creatures on the top of the wall rustled just then in a gust of cold north wind. Helma threw up her head as at a familiar sound, and her eyes slowly lifted to the faces of the children looking down. For a minute she looked steadily at them without believing, and then it was as though her pale face suddenly burst into song. But the old woman and the young man were not looking at her and so they noticed nothing. The young man said, “The neighbors have talked about us enough already for all your queer ideas and doings. So you’ll wear no sandals, no, nor sleep with your skylight open, as you’re always asking, nor go one step outside the wall until you have come to your senses and are more like other people. So there!”

But Helma laughed, her head thrown back, so that the children could look into her happy eyes and see the glow of her short hair under her grotesque hat.

“Keep your keys, cousin,” she said, “and your old skylight keep shut tight as tight. I shall find a way out. But my children must be patient, and Ivra must teach Eric to keep his face and body clean. They must not forget meal-times, and when anything goes wrong, or they think it is going wrong, they must ask the Tree Man’s advice. I will find a way to them soon. They must keep happy and wait.”

She said all that slowly and distinctly, her eyes smiling into theirs.

“What silly talk,” laughed the sour old lady. “Just as though you were making a speech. Well, it must be luncheon time now, and high time we were changing our frocks. Wear your gray velvet, Helma, and don’t forget to put on stockings to match. There’s to be strawberry ice to-day, and goose to begin with of course. Cook says she has never seen a tenderer ”

The old lady went on talking about the wonderful luncheon they were to have until they were out of hearing. But the children on the gray wall could see that Helma was going in differently from the way she had come out. Her head was high, and she stepped out in her funny high heeled boots as though she were walking in sandals. At the little door into the mansion she turned and waved her queer great muff to the children and the Wind Creatures, and they heard her laugh.

But when she was gone, and the door was shut and locked they heard the great key scrape Eric turned joyfully to Ivra. She was staring intently at the closed door, her face very pale. Suddenly she buried her head in her arms and burst into sobs, hoarse, jerky sobs, the first and the last time Eric was ever to hear her cry. Eric and the Wind Children sat cross-legged and waited. Soon she stopped and wiped her face on her sleeve.

“She is locked in, but she will find a way home,” she said, almost laughing. “How glad and how surprised she was to see us! It was almost as though she had begun to believe all their talk about dreams, until she heard the Wind Creatures’ wings!”

The Wind Creatures took them back to the forest. Under the giant cedars they said good-by and left them. The children went straight to the Tree Man’s to tell him the news. He gave them deep bowls of warm milk to drink, and took off their sandals so that their toes might spread and warm in front of the fire.

Then the Tree Girl begged for a story, and Ivra told a World Story about the rivers, how they go in search of their mother, the ocean, day and night, around mountains and through mountains, and across whole continents, and never stop until they find her, and of the myriad presents they carry to her, of the things they see and the things they do, as they flow searching.

It was a long story. And almost before the end the little story teller had fallen asleep with her head tipped back against the Tree Man’s chest.

They spent that night in the tree, and that was good, for a storm had risen outside, and it was bitter cold in the forest.