CHAPTER X
ON THE GRAY WALL
It was a very high wall that hid their mother, and at first glance itseemed impossible that they could ever climb it. But Ivra did not stopto wonder. She ran up and down, hunting for a foothold. At last shereached the end of the wall and disappeared around the corner. Eric andthe Wind Creatures followed. When they came up to her she had alreadyfound a place where the stones were laid a bit unevenly, one on theother, and was half way to the top, clinging with toes and fingers.
"Bravo!" cried the Wind Creatures. Eric went up after her, oftenslipping back and bruising and scratching his hands and knees, but asresolute as his playmate. At last they gained the top. The WindCreatures had flown up and were waiting for them there, sittingcross-legged with their purple wings folded down their backs.
The wall enclosed the garden of a very rich family. It was a formalgarden with straight walks, trellises, fountains, benches and neatflower beds laid out in squares and circles, now piled high withblossoming snow.
Just as the children reached the top of the wall, the door into thegarden from the stern gray mansion behind it opened and through it camethree people. First was a very tall lady all wrapped up in furs,--tailsand heads of the poor animals that had been slain to make them hangingfrom her shoulders and down her back. Even the children could see thather face was sour in spite of all its smiling. Then came a young man ina stiff, funny hat, carrying a cane, beating up the snow flowers with itas he passed the flower beds. And behind them walked--Helma, with hergaze on the ground. That is why they did not know her at first, that andher very strange clothes. She was dressed all in velvet and fur, and herarms up to her elbows were hidden in a huge white muff. She swayed asshe walked on weird little high heels and the toes of her boots drew outto long points, almost like a goblin's. Her hat was a velvet affair, soawkward and heavy it seemed to weigh down her head, and her candleflamehair was smothered under it. Is it any wonder that they did not know herlike that!
But when she walked close under the wall and they heard her voice theyknew her, and the Wind Creatures had to hold Ivra from jumping down andthrowing herself into her arms. "Wait," they whispered.
From their high place on the wall they could look down on the heads ofthe three people, and hear all they were saying. They had never learnedthat it is not fair to listen that way.
From all Helma said they could plainly see she was a prisoner. She waspleading 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 inthe forest. Oh, how these heels bother!"
"Silly girl!" cried the old woman, smiling more than ever, and lookingmore disagreeable than ever at the same time. "Your place is where youwere born-in a fine house and wearing clothes like other people. Heelsindeed! Did you expect them to do any thing else but bother? Mine havebothered for sixty years, but you haven't heard _me_ complain."
"Neither would I," Helma said, "if I didn't know about other kinds ofshoes that don't hurt. Those sandals I wore when you caught me didn'thurt. 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, andsmiling less, "if you promise always to put on the high heels beforecoming into the drawing room--"
"No," said the young man sharply. "Let her once into the garden in hersandals and she'll climb the wall and be off. I say that we give her nochance to escape. After she has been to a hundred or so balls and wornthese beautiful and appropriate clothes long enough she'll be glad ofher luck, and nothing could drag her into the forest. Believe me!"
Now Helma stopped pleading, and laughed at the young man. "Do you thinkhigh heels, or even a hat that weighs down my head like this horrid onecan keep me much longer from my little daughter, and that dear newlittle boy? What they are doing without me all this time--I wonder!" Shestopped laughing to sigh.
The old woman took her hand not unkindly. "My poor, dear girl," shesaid, "how many times must I tell you it is only a dream, that house inthe 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. Wehave parties and good times enough here, if you will only get into thespirit of them, to make up for all your forest foolishness."
Helma answered in a low even voice, that showed well enough how sure shewas 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 fairydaughter."
"No," said the young man.
The wings of the Wind Creatures on the top of the wall rustled just thenin a gust of cold north wind. Helma threw up her head as at a familiarsound, and her eyes slowly lifted to the faces of the children lookingdown. For a minute she looked steadily at them without believing, andthen it was as though her pale face suddenly burst into song. But theold woman and the young man were not looking at her and so they noticednothing. The young man said, "The neighbors have talked about us enoughalready 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 goone step outside the wall until you have come to your senses and aremore like other people. So there!"
But Helma laughed, her head thrown back, so that the children could lookinto her happy eyes and see the glow of her short hair under hergrotesque hat.
"Keep your keys, cousin," she said, "and your old skylight keep shuttight 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 notforget meal-times, and when anything goes wrong, or they think it isgoing wrong, they must ask the Tree Man's advice. I will find a way tothem 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 weremaking a speech. Well, it must be luncheon time now, and high time wewere changing our frocks. Wear your gray velvet, Helma, and don't forgetto put on stockings to match. There's to be strawberry ice to-day,--andgoose to begin with of course. Cook says she has never seen atenderer--"
The old lady went on talking about the wonderful luncheon they were tohave until they were out of hearing. But the children on the gray wallcould see that Helma was going in differently from the way she had comeout. Her head was high, and she stepped out in her funny high heeledboots as though she were walking in sandals. At the little door into themansion she turned and waved her queer great muff to the children andthe Wind Creatures, and they heard her laugh.
But when she was gone, and the door was shut and locked--they heard thegreat key scrape--Eric turned joyfully to Ivra. She was staring intentlyat the closed door, her face very pale. Suddenly she buried her head inher arms and burst into sobs, hoarse, jerky sobs, the first and the lasttime Eric was ever to hear her cry. Eric and the Wind Children satcross-legged and waited. Soon she stopped and wiped her face on hersleeve.
"She is locked in, but she _will_ find a way home," she said, almostlaughing. "How glad and how surprised she was to see us! It was almostas though she had begun to believe all their talk about dreams, untilshe heard the Wind Creatures' wings!"
The Wind Creatures took them back to the forest. Under the giant cedarsthey said good-by and left them. The children went straight to the TreeMan's to tell him the news. He gave them deep bowls of warm milk todrink, and took off their sandals so that their toes might spread andwarm in front of the fire.
Then the Tree Girl begged for a story, and Ivra told a World Story aboutthe rivers,--how they go in search of their mother, the ocean, day andnight, around mountains and through mountains, and across wholecontinents, and never stop until they find her,--and of the myriadpresents they carry to her,--of the things they see and the things theydo, as they flow searching.
It was a long story. And almost before the end the little story tellerhad fallen asleep with her head tipped back a
gainst the Tree Man'schest.
They spent that night in the tree, and that was good, for a storm hadrisen outside, and it was bitter cold in the forest.