Chapter VII: Part 7

This Bookman, who was pleasant and gentle and seemed half dreaming, welcomed him in, and gave him fruit to eat, and Hazen fell asleep in the arbour. When he awoke, the Bookman sat beside him, still reading, and seeing that the boy was awake, he began reading to him.

He read a wonderful story about the elements of which everything in the world is made. He read that they are a great family of more than seventy, and so magically arranged that they make a music, done in octaves like the white keys of a piano. So that a man, if he is skilful, can play with these octaves as he might with octaves of sound, and with a thousand variations can make what he will, and almost play for himself a strain of the heavenly harmony in which things began. You see what wonderful music that would be? Hazen saw, and he could not listen enough.

Until dark he was in the garden, eating fruit and listening; and the Bookman, seeing how he loved to listen, asked him if he would not stay on in the garden, and live there awhile. And without stopping to think whether his fortune lay that way, Hazen said that he would stay.

Everything that the Bookman read to him was like magic, and it taught Hazen to do wonderful things. For example, he learned marvellous ways with sentences and with words. The Bookman showed him how to get inside of words, as if they had doors, so that Hazen could look from out the words that were spoken almost as if they had been little boxes, and he inside. The Bookman showed him how to look behind the words on a page and to see how different they seemed that way. He would say a sentence, and instantly it would become solid, and he would set it up, and Hazen could hang to it, or turn upon it like a turning-bar. It was all great sport. For sentences were not the only things with which he could juggle. He showed Hazen how to think a thing and have _that_ become solid in the air, too. Just as one might think, “Now I will plant my garden,” and presently there the garden is, solid; or, “Now I will get my lesson,” and presently, sure enough, there the lesson _is_, in one’s head, _so_ the Bookman taught Hazen to do with nearly all his thoughts, making many and many of them into actions or else into a solid, so that it could be handled as a garden can.

And at last, one night, Hazen thought of the Princess Vista, hoping that that thought would become solid too, and that the princess would be there before him, for he wished very much to see her. But it did not do so, and he asked the Bookman the reason.

“Why does not my thought about the Princess Vista become solid, and the princess be here beside me?” he asked wistfully.

“Some thoughts take a very long time to become solid,” said the Bookman, gently, “and sometimes we have to travel a long way to make them so. If you think of the princess long and hard enough, I daresay that you will go to her some day--and there she will be, solid.”

But of course as soon as Hazen began thinking of the princess long and hard, he wanted, more than anything else in the world, to be doing something that should hasten the time of seeing her, which could not well be until he had made his fortune. So thereupon he told the Bookman that he must be leaving the garden.

“I knew that the day must come,” said the Bookman, sadly. “_Could_ you not stay?”

And when he said that, Hazen wanted so very much to stay there in the enchantment of the place, that it seemed as if a voice in his own head were echoing the words. And while he hesitated at the gate of the garden, he knew what that other voice was! It was within his head indeed, and it was the voice of that strange, fascinating Self from which he had found that he could hardly look away--the Knowledge Self itself. And then he knew that all this time in this garden, it was this voice that he had been obeying and it had been guiding him. He himself had not been king of the Selves at all. So when he knew that, he hesitated not a moment, for he saw that although the Bookman was far finer than the Merry Lad, still neither must be king, but only he himself must be king.

“Alas!” he cried, as he left the garden, “I am not nearer to making my fortune now than I was at the beginning!”

XV

KING (_continued_)

So Hazen left the garden and the gentle Bookman, who was loath to let him go, and hurried out into the world again.

He travelled now for many days, hearing often of far countries which held what he sought, but never reaching any of them. Always he did what tasks came to his hand, for this seemed a good way toward fortune. But sometimes the Envy Self and the Discontented Self spoke loudly in his head so that he thought that it was he himself who was speaking, and he obeyed them, and stopped his work, and until the chance to finish it was lost, he did not know that it was these Selves who had made him cease his task and lose his chance and be that much farther from fortune. For that was the way of all the Selves--they had a clever fashion of making Hazen think that their voices were his own voice, and sometimes he could hardly tell the difference.

At last, one night, he came to a hill, sloping gently as if something beautiful were overflowing. Its trees looked laid upon the mellow west beyond. The turf was like some Titan woman’s embroidery, sheared and flowered. Hazen looked at it all, and at the great sky and the welcoming distance, and before he knew whether it came as a thought or as a song, he had made a little rhyme:--

Do you wish you had a world of gold
With a turquoise roof on high,
And a coral east and a ruby west
And diamonds in the sky?

Do you wish there were little doors of air
That a child might open wide,
Where were emerald chairs and a tourmaline rug
And a moonstone moon beside?

Do you wish the lakes were silver plates
And the sea a sapphire dish?
What a wonderful, wonderful world it is--
For haven’t you got your wish?

He liked to sing this, and he loved the hill and the evening. He lay there a long time, making little rhymes and loving everything. Next day he wandered away in the woods, and asked for food at a hut, and offered the bewildered woman a rhyme in payment, and at night he returned to his hill, and there he lived for days, playing that he was living all alone in the world--that there was not another person anywhere on the earth.

But one night when he was lying on the hillside, composing a song to the Littlest Leaf in the Wood, suddenly the voice of his song was not so loud as a voice within him which seemed to say how much he delighted to be singing. And then he knew the voice--that it was the voice of the Beauty Self in his own head, that it was that voice that had made him linger on the hillside and had commanded him to sing about the beauty in the world _and to do nothing else_. And all this time it had been king of the Selves, and not he!

He rose and fled down the hillside, and for days he wandered alone, sick at heart because this fair Beauty Self had tricked him into following her _and no other_, even as the Fun Self and the Knowledge Self had done. But even while he wandered, grieving, again and again the Idle Self, the Strong Self, the Discontented Self, deceived him for a little while and succeeded in making their own voices heard, and now and again the little shadowy Selves--the Malice and Cruel and Envy Selves drew very near him and tried to speak for him. And they all fought to keep him from being king and to deceive him into thinking that they spoke for him.

One brooding noonday, as Hazen was travelling, alone and tired, on the highroad, a carriage overtook him, and the gentleman within, looking sharply at him, ordered the carriage stopped, and asked him courteously if he was not the poet whose songs he had sometimes heard, and of whose knowledge and good-fellowship others had told him. It proved that it was no other than Hazen whom he meant, and he took him with him in his carriage to a great, wonderful house overlooking the valley, and commanding a sovereign mountain on whose very summit stood a deserted castle. It seemed as if merely looking on that wonderful prospect would help one to be wise and _really_ good and beautiful and worthy to be loved.

At once Hazen’s host, the Gentleman of the Carriage, began showing him his treasures and all that made life for him. The house was filled with curious and beautiful things, pictures, ivories, marbles, and tapestries, and with many friends. In the evenings there were always festivities; mirth and laughter were everywhere, and Hazen was laden with gifts of these and other things, and delighted in the entertainment. But by day, in a high-ceiled library and a cool study, the two spent hours pouring over letters and science, finding out the secrets of the world, getting on the other side of words, saying sentences, and thinking thoughts that became solid; or they would wander on the hillsides and carry rare books and dream of the beauty in the world and weave little songs. Now they would be idle, now absorbed in feats of strength, and now they would descend into the town and there delight in its great sport. And in all this Hazen had some part and earned his own way, because of his cleverness and willingness to enter in the life and belong to it.

One day, standing on a balcony of the beautiful house, looking across at the mountain and the deserted castle, Hazen said aloud:--

“This is the true life. This is fortune. For now I hear all the voices of all my Selves, and I give good things to each, and I am king of them all!”

But even as he spoke he heard another voice sounding within his own, and it laughed, and cracked as it laughed, so that it sounded like something being broken that could never be mended.

“I told you so, Hazen! I told you so!” it cried. “Being loved and _really_ good do not mean making our fortune. Just one thing means fortune, and that is being rich. To be rich, _rich_, means good times and learning and beauty and idleness. I’ve fought every one of the others, and now you’ve got all that they had to offer, because you have let me be king--_me and no other_.”

To his horror, Hazen recognized the voice of the dwarf, the Riches Self, and knew that he was deceived again, that he himself was ruler of nothing, and that the dwarf was now king of all his Selves.

When he realized this, it seemed to Hazen that his heart was pierced and that he could not live any longer. Suppose--ah, suppose that he did get back to the Princess Vista now--what had he to take to her? Could he give her himself--a Self of which not he but the dwarf was the owner?

Somehow, in spite of their protestations and persuadings, Hazen said good-bye to them all, to his host and to those who had detained him, and he was off down into the valley alone--not knowing where he was going or what he was going to do, or what hope now remained that he should ever be any nearer the fortune for which he had so hopefully set out.

It was bright moonlight when he came to the edge of a fair, green, valley meadow. The whiteness was flooding the world, as if it would wash away everything that had ever been and would begin it all over again. And in the centre of the meadow, all the brightness seemed to gather and thicken and glitter, as if something mysterious were there. It drew Hazen to itself, as if it were so pure that it must be what he was seeking, and he broke through the hedge and stepped among the flowers of the lush grass, and he stood before it.

It was a fountain of water, greater than any fountain that Hazen had ever seen or conceived. It rose from the green in pure strands of exquisite firmness, in almost the slim lines and spirals of a stair; and its high, curving spray and its plash and murmur made it rather like a gigantic white tree, with music in its boughs--the tree of life itself.

Hazen could no more have helped leaping in the fountain than he could have helped his joy in its beauty. He sprang in the soft waters as if he were springing into arms, and it drew him to itself as if he belonged to it. The waters flowed over him, and he felt purified, and as if a healing light had shone through him, body and mind.

But to his amazement, he did not remain in the fountain’s basin. Gently, as if he were upborne by unseen hands, he mounted with the rise of the fountain, in its slim lines and spirals, until he found himself high above the meadow in a silvery tower that was thrown out from the fountain itself. And there, alone in that lofty silence, it was as if he were face to face with himself and could see his own heart.

Then the Thought spoke to him which had spoken to him long ago that morning in the king’s kitchen, and again on that first night in the wood.

“Hazen!” it said, “you are not wise or _really_ good or loved or beautiful. Why don’t you become so?”

“I!” said Hazen, sadly. “I have lost my chance. I came out to find my fortune and I have thrown it away.”

But still the Thought spoke to him, and said the same thing over and over so many times that at last he answered:--

“What, then, must I do?” he asked.

And then he listened, there in the night and the stillness, to hear what it was that he must do. And this was the first time that ever he had listened like this, or questioned carefully his course. Always before he had done what seemed to him the thing that he wished to do, without questioning whether his fortune lay that way.

“Bravely spoken, Hazen,” said the Thought, then. “Someone near is in great need. Find him and help him.”

Instantly Hazen leaped lightly to the ground, and ran away through the moonlit meadow, and he sought as never in his life had he sought anything before, for the one near, in great need, whom he was to find and help. All through the night he sought, and with the setting of the moon he was struggling up the mountain, because it seemed to him that he must do some hard thing, and this was hard. In the early dawn he stood on the mountain’s very summit, and knocked at the gate of the deserted castle there. And it was the forsaken castle of his father, the king, whom the Princess Vista’s father had conquered; but this Hazen did not know.

No sound answered his summons, so he swung the heavy gate on its broken hinges and stepped within. The court yard was vacant and echoing and grass-grown. Rabbits scuttled away at his approach, and about the sightless eyes of the windows, bats were clinging and moving. The clock in the tower was still and pointed to an hour long-spent. The whole place breathed of things forgotten and of those who, having loved them, were forgotten too.

Hazen mounted the broad, mossy steps leading to the portals, and he found one door slightly ajar. Wondering greatly, he touched it open, and the groined hall appeared like a grim face from behind a mask. On the stone floor, not far beyond the threshold, lay an old man, motionless. And when, uttering a little cry of pity and amazement, Hazen stooped over him, he knew him at once to be that old man who had greeted him at the entrance to the wood on the evening of the day on which he himself had left the king’s palace.

What with bringing him water and bathing his face and chafing his hands, Hazen at last enabled the old man to speak, and found that he had been nearly all his life-time the keeper of the castle and for some years its only occupant. He was not ill, but he had fallen and was hurt, and he had lain for several days without food. So Hazen, who knew well how to do it, kindled a fire of fagots in the great, echoing castle kitchen, and, from the scanty store which he found there, prepared broth and eggs, and then helped the old man to his bed in the little room which had once been a king’s cabinet.

“Lad, lad!” said the old man, when he had remembered Hazen. “And have you found your fortune? And are you by now wise, _really_ good, beautiful, and loved?”

“Alas!” said Hazen, only, and could say no more.

The old man nodded. “I know, I know,” he said sadly. “The little Selves have been about, ruling here and ruling there. Is it not so? Sit here a little, and let us talk about it.”

Then Hazen told him all that had befallen since that night when they sat together in the wood. And though his adventures seemed to Hazen very wonderful, the old man merely nodded, as if he were not hearing but only remembering.

“Ay,” he said, at the last, “I have met them all--the Merry Lad, the Bookman, and all the rest, and have dwelt a space with some. And I, too, have come to the fountain in the night, and have asked what it was that I should do.”

“But tell me, sir,” said Hazen, eagerly, “how was it that I was told at the fountain that there was one near in great need. Did the fountain know you? Or did my Thought? And how could that be?”

“Nay, lad,” said the old man, “but always, for everyone, there is someone near in need--yet. One has only to look.”

Then he talked to Hazen more about his fortune, and again the old man’s meaning was in his mere presence, so that whether he talked about the stars or the earth or the ways of men, he made Hazen know fascinating things about them all. And now Hazen listened far differently from the way that he had listened that other time when they had talked, and it was as if the words had grown, and as if they meant more than once they had meant.

Now, whoever has stood for the first time in a great, empty castle knows that there is one thing that he longs to do above all other things, and this is to explore. And when the afternoon lay brooding upon the air, and slanting sun fell through the dusty lattices, Hazen asked the old man eagerly if he might wander through the rooms.

“As freely,” answered the old man, willingly, “as if you were the castle’s prince.”

Thus it chanced that, after all the years, Hazen, though he was far from dreaming the truth, was once more roaming through the rooms of his birthplace and treading the floors that had once echoed the step of his father, the king.

It was a wonderful place, the like of which Hazen thought he had never seen before, save only in the palace of the father of the princess. Above stairs the rooms had hardly been disturbed since that old day of the hurried flight of all his father’s court. There was a great room of books, as rich in precious volumes as the king’s library which he already knew, and there, though this he could not guess, his own father had been wont to sit late in the night, consulting learned writers and dreaming of the future of his little son. There was the chapel, where they had brought Hazen himself to be christened, in the presence of all the court; there the long banqueting room to which he had once been carried so that the nobles might pledge him their fealty, the arched roof echoing their shouts. The throne room, the council room, the state drawing rooms--through all these, with their dim, dusty hangings and rich, faded furnishings, Hazen footed; and at last, up another stair, he came to the private apartments of the king and queen themselves.

Breathing the life of another time the rooms lay, as if partly remembering and partly expecting. In the king’s room was the hunting suit that he had thrown off just before the attack, the book that he had been reading, the chart that he had consulted. In the queen’s room were tarnished golden toilet articles and ornaments, and in her wardrobe her very robes hung, dusty and mouldering, the gold thread and gold fringes showing black and sad.

And then Hazen entered a room which seemed to have been a child’s room--and it was his room, of his first babyhood. Something in him stirred and kindled, almost as if his body remembered, though his mind could not do so. Toys lay scattered about--tops, a football, books, and a bank. The pillow of the small white bed was indented as if from the pressure of a little head, and a pair of tiny shoes, one upright, one overturned, were on the floor. Hazen picked up one little shoe and held it for a minute in his hand. He wondered if some of the little garments of the child, whoever he was, might not be in the hanging room. And he opened the closed door.

The door led to a closet and, as he had guessed, little garments were hanging there. But it was not these that caught his eye and held him breathless and spellbound on the threshold. On the high shelf of the closet stood a small glass casket. And in the casket was a little bit of live thing that fluttered piteously, as if begging to be released, and frantic with joy at the coming of light from without.

Hazen’s heart beat as he took the casket in his hand. It was the most wonderful little box that ever he had seen. And the little living thing was something like a fairy and something like a spirit and so beautiful that it seemed to Hazen that he must have it for his own. Something stirred and kindled in his mind so that it was almost a memory, and he said to himself:--

“I have seen a casket like this. I have _had_ a casket like this. Nay, but the very earliest thing that ever I can remember is a casket like this from which no one knew how to release this little living spirit.”

For the little spirit was fast in the crystal prison, and if one broke the casket, one would almost certainly harm the spirit--but what other way was there to do?

With the casket in his hand and the little spirit fluttering within, Hazen ran back below stairs to the old man.

“Look!” Hazen cried. “This casket! It is from the closet shelf of some child’s room. I remember a casket such as this, and within it a little living spirit. I have _had_ a casket such as this! What does it mean?”

Then the old man, who had been keeper there when the castle was taken, trembled and peered into Hazen’s face.

“Who are you?” the old man cried. “Who are you--and what is your name?”

“Alas,” said Hazen, sadly, “I was but the furnace boy to the king of a neighbouring country, and who I am I do not know. But as for my name, that is Hazen, and I know not what else.”

Then the old man cried out, and tried to bow himself, and to kiss Hazen’s hand.

“Prince Hazen!” cried he. “You are no other. Ah, God be praised. You are the son of my own beloved king.”

As well as he could for his joy and agitation, the old man told Hazen everything: how the castle had been taken by that king of a neighbour country--who did _not_ know that neighbours are nearly one’s own family--how Hazen had been made prisoner, and how he was really heir to this kingdom and to all its ample lands. And how the magic casket, which after all these years the old man now remembered, was to make Hazen, and no other, wise and _really_ good and loved and beautiful, if only the little spirit could be freed.

“But how am I to do that?” Hazen cried. “For to break the casket would be to harm the spirit. And what other way is there to do?”

“Alas,” answered the old man, “that I do not know. I think that this you must do alone. As for me, my life is almost spent. And now that I have seen you, my prince, the son of my dear sovereign, there is left to me but to die in peace.”

At this, Hazen, remembering how much he owed the wonderful old man for that enchanted talk in the wood, when he had taught him fascinating things about the stars and the earth and the ways of men, and had shown him the inside of his own head and all those Selves of his and he their king if he would be so--remembering all these things Hazen longed to do something for him in return. But what could he do for him, he the heir of a conquered kingdom and a desolate palace? Yet the old man had been his father’s servant; and it was he whom the Thought at the fountain had bidden him to help; but chiefly Hazen’s heart overflowed with simple pity and tenderness for the helpless one. And in that pity the Thought spoke again:--

“Give him the casket,” it said.

Hazen hesitated--and in an instant his head was a chaos of voices. It was as if all the little Selves, even those which had now long been silent, were listening, were suddenly fighting among themselves in open combat to see what they could make Hazen do.

“That beautiful thing!” cried the Beauty Self. “Keep it--keep it, Hazen!”

“You will never have another chance at a fortune if you give it up!” cried the Discontented Self.

“If you throw away your chance at a fortune, your life will be a life of hard work--and where will your good time come in?” cried the little Fun Self, anxiously.

“You will have only labour and no leisure for learning--” warned the Knowledge Self.

“What of the Princess Vista? Do you not owe it to her to keep the casket? And is it not _right_ that you should keep the casket and grow wise and _really_ good and loved and beautiful?” they all argued in turn. And above them all sounded the terrible, cracked voice of the dwarf, not laughing now, but fighting for his life:--

“Fool! Nothing counts but your chance at fortune. If you part with the casket, you part with _me!_”

But sweet and clear through the clamour sounded the solemn insisting of the Thought:--

“Give him the casket--give him the casket, Hazen.”

Quickly Hazen knelt beside the old man, and placed the magic casket in his hands.

“Lo,” said Prince Hazen, “I have nothing to give you, save only this. But it may be that we can yet find some way to release the spirit and that then you can have the good fortune that this will give. Take the casket--it is yours.”

In an instant, and noiselessly, the magic casket fell in pieces in Hazen’s hands, and vanished. And with a soft sound of escaping wings the little spirit rose joyously and fluttered toward Hazen, and alighted on his breast. There were sudden sweetness and light in all the place, and a happiness that bewildered Hazen--and when he looked again, the little spirit had disappeared--but his own breast was filled with something new and marvellous, as if strange doors to himself had opened, and as if the spirit had found lodging there forever.

In the clear silence following upon the babel of the little voices of all the mean and petty Selves, Hazen was aware of a voice echoing within him like music; and he knew the Thought now better than he knew himself, who had so many Selves, and he knew that when it spoke to him softly, softly, he would always hear.

“If you had kept the magic casket for yourself,” it said, “the spirit would have drooped and died. _It was only by giving the casket away that the spirit could ever be free._ It was only when the spirit became yours that you could hope to be wise and good and beautiful and worthy to be loved. And now where is the Princess Vista’s picture-book?”

All this time Hazen had not lost the picture-book of the princess, and now it was lying on the floor near where he was that night to have slept. He caught it up and turned the pages, and the old familiar pictures which the princess had shown him that morning in the window-seat made him long, as he had not longed since he had left the palace, to see her again.

He turned to the old man.

“There is a certain princess--” he began.

“Ay,” said the old man, gently, “so there is always, my prince. Go to her.”

The mere exquisite presence of that spirit in the room seemed to have healed and invigorated the old man, and he had risen to his feet, clothed with a new strength. He set about searching in the king’s wardrobe for suitable garments for his young prince, and in a cedar chest he found vestments of somewhat ancient pattern, but of so rich material and so delicately made that the ancient style did but add to their beauty.

When he had made Hazen ready, there was never a fairer prince in the world. Then the old man led him below stairs and showed him in a forgotten room, of which he himself only had the key, a box containing the jewels of the queen, his mother. So, bearing these, save one with which he purchased a horse for his needs, Prince Hazen set out for the palace of the princess.

It chanced that it was early morning when Prince Hazen entered the palace grounds which he had left as a furnace boy. And you must know that, since his leaving, years had elapsed; for though he had believed himself to have stayed with the Merry Lad but one day, and with the Bookman but a few days, and but a little time on the hills singing songs, and in byways listening to the voices of Idleness, Strength, and the rest, and lingering in that fair home where the Dwarf had sent him, yet in reality with each one he had spent a year and more, so that now he was like someone else.

But the princess’s father’s palace garden was just the same, and Hazen entered by the east gate, which still no one could lock; and to be back within the garden was as wonderful as bathing in the ocean or standing on a high mountain or seeing the dawn. His horse bore him along between the flowering shrubs and the hollyhocks; he heard the fountains plashing and the song-sparrows singing and the village bells faintly sounding; he saw the goldfish and the water-lilies gleam in the pool, and the horses cantering about the paddock. And all at once it seemed to him that the day was his and the world was his, to do with them what he would.

So he galloped round the east wing of the palace, and looked up eagerly and longingly toward the princess’s window. And there stood the Princess Vista, watching. But when she saw him, she drew far back as if she were afraid. And Prince Hazen, as he bowed low in his saddle, could think of no word to say to her that seemed a word to be said. He could only cry up to her:--

“Oh, Princess Vista. Come down! Come down! Come down--and teach me about the whole world.”

He galloped straight to the great entrance way, and leaped from his horse, and no one questioned him, for they all knew by his look that he came with great authority. And he went to the king’s library, to that room which was as wide as a lawn and as high as a tree, and filled with mystery, and waited for her, knowing that she would come.

She entered the room almost timidly, as, once upon a time, the little furnace boy had entered. And when she saw him waiting for her before the window-seat, nothing could have exceeded her terror and her wonder and her delight. And now her eyes were looking down, and she did _not_ ask him what he was doing there.

“Oh, Princess Vista,” he said softly, “I love you. I want to be loved!”

“Who are you--that want so much?” the princess asked--but her eyes knew, and her smile knew.

“Someone who has brought back your picture-book,” said Prince Hazen. “I pray you, teach it to me again.”

“Nay,” said the princess, softly, “I have taught you a wrong thing. For I have taught you that there are many suns. And instead there is only one sun, and it brings only one day--and that day is this day!”

It was so that she welcomed him back.

They went to the king, her father, and told him everything. And when he knew that his daughter loved Prince Hazen, he restored his kingdom to him, and named him his own successor. And Hazen was crowned king, with much magnificence, and his father’s courtiers, who were living, were returned to his court, and that wise, wonderful old man, who had shown him the inside of his own head, was given a place of honour near the king.

But on the day of the coronation, louder than the shouts of the people, and nearer even than the voice of his queen, sounded that voice of the wise and good Self, which was but the Thought, deep within the soul of the king:--

“Hail to Hazen--King of All His Selves!”

XVI

THE WALK

“What’s the latest you ever stayed up?” Delia demanded of Mary Elizabeth and me.

“I sat up till ten o’clock once when my aunt was coming,” I boasted.

“Once I was on a train that got in at twelve o’clock,” said Mary Elizabeth, thoughtfully, “but I was asleep till the train got in. Would you call that sitting up till twelve o’clock?”

On the whole, Delia and I decided that you could not impartially call it so, and Mary Elizabeth conceded the point. Her next best experience was dated at only half past nine.

“I was up till eleven o’clock lots of times.” Delia threw out carelessly.

We regarded her with awe. Here was another glory for her list. Already we knew that she had slept in a sleeping car, patted an elephant, and swum four strokes.

“What’s the earliest you ever got up?” Delia pursued.

Here, too, we proved to have nothing to compete with the order of Delia’s risings. However, this might yet be mended. There seemed never to be the same household ban on getting up early that there was on staying up late.

“Let’s get up some morning before four o’clock and take a walk,” I suggested.

“My brother got up at half past three once,” Mary Elizabeth announced.

“Well,” I said, “let’s get up at half past three. Let’s do it to-morrow morning.”

Mary Elizabeth and I had stretched a string from a little bell at the head of her bed to a little bell at the head of my bed. This the authorities permitted us to ring so long as there was discernible a light, or any other fixed signal, at the two windows; and also after seven o’clock in the morning. But of course the time when we both longed most frantically to pull the cord was when either woke at night and lay alone in the darkness. In the night I used to put my hand on the string and think how, by a touch, I could waken Mary Elizabeth, just as if she were in my room, just as if we were hand in hand. I used to think what joy it would be if all little children on the same side of the ocean were similarly provided, and if no one interfered. A little code of signals arose in my mind, a kind of secret code which should be heard by nobody save those for whom they were intended--for sick children, for frightened children, for children just having a bad dream, for motherless children, for cold or tired or lonely children, for all children sleepless for any cause. I used to wish that little signals like this could be rung for all unhappy children, night or day. Why, with all their inventions, had not grown people invented this? Of course they would never make things any harder for us than they could help (we thought). But why had they not done this thing to make things easier?

The half past three proposal was unanimously vetoed within doors: We might rise at five o’clock, no earlier. This somewhat took edge from the adventure, but we accepted it as next best. Delia was to be waked by an alarm clock. Mary Elizabeth and I felt that, by some mysterious means, we could waken ourselves; and we two agreed to call each other, so to say, by the bells.

When I did waken, it was still quite dark, and when I had found light and a clock, I saw that it was only a little after three. As I had gone to bed at seven, I was wide awake at three; and it occurred to me that I would stay up till time to call Mary Elizabeth. This would be at half past four. Besides, stopping up then presented an undoubted advantage: It enabled me to skip my bath. Clearly I could not, with courtesy, risk rousing the household with many waters.

I dressed in the dark, braided my own hair in the dark--by now I could do this save that the plait, when I brought it over my shoulder, still would assume a jog--and sat down by the open window. It was one of the large nights ... for some nights are undeniably larger than others. When I was on the street with my hand in a grown-up hand, the night was invariably bounded by trees, fences, houses, lawns, horse-blocks, and the like. But when I stepped to the door alone at night, I always noticed that it stretched endlessly away. So it was now. I could slip out the screen, as I had discovered earlier in the season when I had felt the need of feeding a nest of house-wrens in the bird-house below my sill--and I took out the screen now, and leaned out in the darkness. The stars seemed very near--I am always glad that I did not know how far away they are, for they looked so friendly near. If only, I used to think, the clouds would form _behind_ the stars and leave them all shiny and blurry bright in the rain. What were they? How came they to be in our world’s sky?

I suppose that I had been ten minutes at the window that morning when I saw a light briefly flash in Mary Elizabeth’s window. Instantly, I softly pulled my bell. She answered, and then I could see her, dim in the window once more dark.

“It isn’t time yet!” she called softly--our houses were very near.

“Not yet,” I answered, “but I’m going to stay up.”

Mary Elizabeth briefly considered this.

“What for?” she propounded.

I had not thought what for.

“To--why to be up early,” I answered confidently. “I’m all dressed.”

The defence must have carried conviction.

“I will, too,” Mary Elizabeth concluded.

She disappeared and, after a suitable time, reappeared at the window, presumably fully clothed. I detached the bell from my bed and sat with it in my hand, and I found afterward that she had done the same. From time to time we each gave the cord a slight, ecstatic pull. The whole mystery of the great night lay in those gentle signals.

It is unfortunate to have to confess that, after a time, the mystery palled. But it did. Stars, wide, dark, moonless lawn, empty street, all these blurred and merged in a single impression. This was one of chilliness. Even calling through the night at intervals, and at the imminent risk of being heard, lost its charm, because after a little while there was nothing left to call. “How still it is!” and “Nobody but us is up in town,” and “Won’t Delia be mad?” lose their edge when repeated for about the third time each. Moreover, I was obliged to face a new foe: I was getting sleepy.

Without undue disturbance of the cord, I managed to consult the clock once more. It was five minutes of four. There remained more than an hour to wait! It was I who capitulated.

“Mary Elizabeth,” I said waveringly, “would you care very much if I was to lay down just a little to rest my eyes?”

“No, I wouldn’t care,” came with significant alacrity. “I will, too.”

I lay down on the covers and pulled a comforter about me. As I drifted off I remember wondering how the dark ever kept awake all night. For it was awake. To know that one had only to listen.

We all had a signal which we called a “trill,” made by tongue and teeth, with almost the force of a boy and a blade of grass. This, produced furiously beneath my window, was what wakened me. Delia stood between the two houses, engaged with such absorption in manufacturing this sound that she failed to see me at the window. A moment after I had hailed her, Mary Elizabeth appeared at her window, looking distinctly distraught.

Seeing us fully dressed, Delia’s indignation increased.

“Why didn’t you leave me know you were up?” she demanded shrilly. “It’s a quarter past five. I been out here fifteen minutes.”

We were assuring her guiltily that we would be right down when there came an interruption.

“_Delia!_”

Delia’s father, in a gray bath-robe, stood at an upper window of their house across the street.

“What do you mean by waking up the whole neighbourhood?” he inquired, not without reason. “Now I want you to come home.”

“We were going walking,” Delia reminded him.

“You are coming home at once after this proceeding,” Delia’s father assured her. “No more words please, Delia.”

He disappeared from the window. Delia moved reluctantly across the street. As she went, she threw a resentful glance at Mary Elizabeth and me, each.

“I’m sorry, Delia!” we called softly in chorus. She made no reply. Mary Elizabeth and I were left staring at each other down our bell-rope, no longer taut, but limp, as we had left it earlier.... Even in that stress, the unearthly sweetness of the morning smote me--the early sun, the early shadows. It all looked so exactly as if it had expected you not to be looking. This is the look of outdoors that, _now_, will most quickly take me back.

“It wouldn’t be fair to go walking without Delia,” said Mary Elizabeth, abruptly and positively.

“No,” I agreed, with equal decision. Then, “We might as well go back to bed,” I pursued the subject further.

“Let’s,” said Mary Elizabeth.

XVII

THE GREAT BLACK HUSH

On that special night, which somehow I remember with tenderness, I sometimes think now--all these years after--that I should like to have been with those solitary, sleepy little figures, trying so hard to get near to mystery. I should think that a Star Story must have come in anybody’s head to tell them. Like this:--

* * * * *

Once, when it didn’t matter to anybody whether you were late or early, or quick or slow, not only because there wasn’t anybody and there wasn’t any you, but because it was back in the beginning when there were no lates and earlies and quicks and slows, _then_ things began to happen in the middle of the Great Black Hush which was all there was to everything.

The Great Black Hush reached all the way around the Universe and in directions without any names, and it was huge and humble and superior and helpless and mighty and in other ways it was very much indeed like a man. And as there was nothing to do, the Great Black Hush was bored past extinction and almost to creation. For there wasn’t anything else about save only the Wind, and the Wind would have nothing whatever to do with him and always blew right by.

Now, inasmuch as everything that is now was then going to be created, it was all waiting somewhere to be created; and nothing is clearer than that. Lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and paints and planets and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all, were waiting to be created, and among them waited people. I cannot tell you where they waited, because there was no where; but they were waiting, as anybody can see, for time to be begun.

Among the people who were waiting about was one special baby, who was just big enough to reach out after everything and to try to put it in his mouth, and they had an awful time with him. He put his little hands on coloured things and on flame things and on air and on water and on musics, and he wanted to know what they all were, and he tried to put them in his mouth. And his mother was perfectly distracted, and she told him so, openly.

“Special Baby,” she said to him openly, “I don’t see why every hair in my head is not pure white. And if you don’t stop making so much trouble, I’ll run away.”

“Run away,” thought the Special Baby. “Now what thing is that?”

And he stretched out his little hand to see, but there wasn’t anything there, and he couldn’t put it in his mouth; so without letting anybody know, he started off all by himself to see what running away is really like.

He ran and he ran, past lines and colours and blocks and flame and music and paint and planets, all waiting about to begin, till he began to notice the Great Black Hush, where it lay all humble and important, and bored past extinction and almost to creation.

“What thing is that?” thought the Special Baby, and put out his little hand to get it and put it in his mouth.

So he touched the Great Black Hush, and under the little hand the Great Black Hush felt as never he had felt before. For the Special Baby’s hand was soft and wandering and most clinging--any General Baby’s hand will give you the idea if you care to try. And it made it seem as if there were something to do.

All through his huge, helpless, superior, and mighty being the Great Black Hush was stirred, and when the Special Baby was frightened and would have gone back, the Great Black Hush did the most astonishing things to try to keep him. He plaited the darkness up like a ruffle and waved it like a flag and opened it like a flower and shut it like a door and poured it about like water, all to keep the Special Baby amused. But though the Special Baby tried to put most of these and _all_ the dark in his mouth, still on the whole he was badly frightened and wanted his mother, and he began to cry to show how much he wanted her. And then the Great Black Hush was at his wits’ end.

“Now, who is there to be the mother of this Special Baby?” he cried in despair, for there wasn’t anything else anywhere around, save only the Wind, and the Wind always blew right by. But the blowing by must have been because the Great Black Hush had never spoken before, for these were the first words that ever he had said; and the Wind, on hearing them, stopped still as a stone, and listened.

“Would I do?” the Wind asked, and the Great Black Hush was so astonished that he almost dropped the Special Baby.

“Would I do?” asked the Wind again, and made the dark like blown garments and like long, blown hair and tender motions, such as women make. And she took the Special Baby in her arms and rocked him as gently as boughs, so that he laughed with delight and tried to put the wind in his mouth and finally went to sleep, with his beads on.

“_Now_ what’ll we do?” said the Great Black Hush, hanging about, all helpless and mighty.

“We can get along without a cradle,” said the Wind, “because I will rock him to sleep in my arms.” (This was before time began and before they laid them down to go to sleep alone in a dark room.) “But we ought, we _ought_,” she added, “to have something for him to play with when he wakes up.” (This was before time began and before anybody ate. But they always played. That came first.)

“If he had something to play with, what would that look like?” asked the Great Black Hush, all helpless.

“It musn’t have points like scissors, or ends like string, and the paint mustn’t come off. I think,” said the Wind, “it ought to look like a shining ball.”

“By my distance,” said the Great Black Hush, all mighty, “that’s what it shall look like.”

Then he began to make a plaything, and he worked all over him and all over everywhere at the fashioning. I don’t know how he did it, because I wasn’t there, and I can’t reckon how long it took him, because there wasn’t any time, but I know some things about it all, and one is that he finally got it done.

“Look!” the Great Black Hush cried to the Wind,--for she paid more attention to the Special Baby now than she did to him. And when she looked, there hung in the sky, a great, enormous, shining ball.

“That’s big enough so he can’t get it in his mouth,” she said approvingly. “It’s really ginginatic.”

“You mean gigantic, dear,” said the Great Black Hush, all superior. But the Wind didn’t care because words hadn’t been used long enough to fit closely, and besides he had said “dear” and she knew what _that_ meant. “Dear” came before “gigantic.”

“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”

But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything the Wind had told him to make and he didn’t know whether anything else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.

By-and-by--there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and that is why so many people prefer it--when he couldn’t stay any longer, he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.

“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.

But he wasn’t cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging, swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands for them, but they were so big he couldn’t put them in his mouth and so he might reach out all he pleased.

“_Ho_,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was before.”

But the Wind sighed a little.