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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75304 ***
+
+The
+House Without Windows
+&
+Eepersip's Life there
+
+by
+
+Barbara
+Newhall
+Follett
+
+Alfred A. Knopf
+
+New York MCMXXVII London
+
+FOR
+MY TWO PLAYMATES
+J. H.
+AND
+S. W. F.
+
+I - The Meadow
+II - The Sea
+III - The mountains
+Historical Note
+
+
+
+I
+THE MEADOW
+
+Flowers have faded,
+Butterfly wings are weary,
+And far off is the charting of the
+eternal sea.
+
+In a little brown shingled cottage
+on one of the foothills of Mount Varcrobis, there lived with her
+father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Eigleen, a little girl named Eepersip.
+She was rather lonely. She kept advising Mr. and Mrs. Eigleen to
+make a beautiful garden, where flowers would bloom year after year,
+and to which birds and butterflies would come back again and again.
+Accordingly all three set to work with a will, and in a few years they
+had made the most beautiful garden that was ever seen. Around its
+borders bloomed apple-trees, pear-trees, and peach-trees, and inside
+them bloomed azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, lilacs, honeysuckle,
+and fire-blossoms. Next came the ground flowers. There were seven kinds
+of roses, and there was a whole corner devoted to early spring flowers:
+crocuses, daffodils, squills, and narcissi. Another corner was carpeted
+with tender anemones, all snow-white. In the centre of the garden there
+was a circular bed filled with iris of all kinds and colours. Clematis
+and morning-glory vines climbed over the wooden benches, and near the
+centre was a tall arch with ramblers climbing all over it. Another bed
+was thickly clustered with great purple violets. The paths through the
+garden had gracefully bending ferns on each side.
+
+For the first few months Eepersip was delighted with her flowers, and the
+butterflies and birds pleased her even more. But she was not a child who could
+be contented easily, and pretty soon she began to feel lonely again. One
+July day a fresh idea came into her head. She packed some sandwiches
+and some crackers in a small lunch-basket. Without telling a soul,
+the next morning before dawn she slipped out of bed, dressed, and
+picked up her basket; then she stole out of the cottage and away. She
+went east from her home on a shady path through beautiful woodlands,
+with here and there a grove of great massive pines. And as she walked
+she sang merrily.
+
+After quite a while she stepped out of the
+woodlands on to a large lawn. Close to the path there was a pool with
+some tiny goldfishes swimming about in it. Then she knew that she was
+nearing a house, and instead of pacing slowly along the path she began
+to run; for she was afraid that someone would see her and send her
+back home. But after a few minutes she grew tired and settled down to
+a reasonable pace. And as she slowed down she came into an enormous
+field of rhododendrons, lavender, white, and brilliant red. Oh, what
+a gorgeous place that was! As Eepersip walked along, an oriole sang
+from a bush; she peeped into a humming-bird's nest with two tiny white
+eggs in it; she startled a vireo from its nest in a low clump of grass,
+and, peeping into it, found three baby birds. The farther she went the
+more her heart began to leap within her for joy of the life she was
+finding for herself. Her loneliness decreased, and she was as free and
+happy as the birds or butterflies.
+
+Soon the red and lavender
+rhododendrons dropped out, leaving only the white; then the white ones
+too lessened in thickness until there were none left. All this while
+she had been slowly climbing Mount Varcrobis itself. At last she came
+into a small open glade, still walking east from the cottage--which
+she was not thinking about just then, so happy was she at thought of
+the new, interesting life she had found. This glade was near the top
+of the mountain, only one high peak towering above it. Across it ran
+a little brook, tinkling through the ferns and bracken.
+
+She paused on the path suddenly, then drew back; for a doe and her daisied
+fawn were grazing close by. Eepersip took from her basket a lump of
+sugar, and held it out to the beautiful creatures. Very hesitatingly
+the doe moved forward, followed by her fawn, and at last took the lump
+of sugar from Eepersip's fingers.
+
+Eepersip had not expected
+this. On the contrary, she had thought that they would be startled
+and would bound away out of sight in the woods. She gazed silently at
+the doe, who had begun to graze again without a sign of fear. Could
+it be a dream? she thought. Eepersip had experienced the delightful
+sensation of the doe's slightly rough tongue around her fingers; and
+suddenly, she felt as if she could never leave them--as if she must
+stay always and play with the woods. Already she had become acquainted
+with a doe and a fawn, and they were not afraid of her! She sat down
+on the grass, and the fawn lay beside her. She cuddled it close in
+her arms.
+
+Then it grew dark. The sun was sinking, and at last
+it went behind a thin, filmy cloud, producing wonderful colours, red,
+gold, silver, and purple. Like fire it glowed and quivered, and through
+it all could be seen the ball of the sun, growing clearer as it sank,
+and growing larger too. And as Eepersip sprang to her feet and watched
+it glow and quiver, she saw, away off, an enormous range of mountains;
+and where the mountains left off there was the edge of the ocean, with
+the light of the dying day reflected in it, in purples, reds, and
+yellows.
+
+And then, being very tired, she lay down on the grass
+beside the two deer; and in a few seconds she was sound asleep.
+
+The next morning Eepersip was surprised to find herself lying
+there on the grass between the doe and her fawn; she had forgotten
+about running away. The first thing she thought of was her breakfast;
+for, not having anything to eat the day before except a few handfuls
+of delicious red berries which she had found growing on a thick vine,
+she was very hungry. Not a sandwich in her basket had she touched; she
+had been so fascinated with her adventure that she had not thought of
+them. But now she ate three whole ones, ever and again breaking off
+bits and feeding them to the deer.
+
+When she had finished, she
+set off in a great hurry to explore her surroundings. First she walked
+in the direction of the beautiful sunset she had seen, a little off
+the direction of the path by which she had ascended, and came to a
+great rocky precipice, the side of the mountain. She looked down; and
+far off she saw a shining river, winding about in the valley below,
+sometimes twisting back upon itself, then straightening out again. But
+it made her giddy to look too long, and she turned and started back to
+where she had slept. The doe and her fawn were grazing quietly when
+Eepersip returned. She threw herself on her back and gazed at the clear
+blue sky. In it swallows with their snowy breasts were circling, and
+when the sun shone full on them their white wings glimmered like the
+ice on a winter's day. A great desire came over Eepersip. She wanted
+to fly and swoop through the air like the swallows. She thought to
+herself that they had always been her favourite birds. She had always
+marvelled at their flight, as now they twisted in giant corkscrews and
+now swerved so as to turn almost completely over.
+
+A butterfly
+flew over her head--a little yellow butterfly who danced and glimmered
+before her. Her brown eyes sparkled with delight. A cricket hopped
+and twittered; a bird burst into song. Almost without knowing what
+she did, Eepersip leaped into the air and began to dance, with the
+swallows circling above her head and the leaves fluttering about her.
+Then suddenly she sat down, breathless. She began stripping off her
+shoes and stockings. Her feet were tender, and every stick she stepped
+on hurt; but she was determined to get her feet toughened so as to go
+barefoot all the time.
+
+Now, directly east of this fairy glade
+there was steep slope which ascended to the very summit of Mount
+Varcrobis, called Eiki-ennern Peak. Eepersip had a fascinated eye for
+this slope and longed to see what was at the top of it, but she would
+not leave the deer just yet, and also she was determined not to put
+on her shoes and stockings again. So she decided to stay in the soft
+grass until her feet were toughened; and she thought that then she
+could go up that wonderful peak over which the sun rose in clouds of
+glory every morning.
+
+Before Eepersip had danced long she walked
+down toward the great precipice again, with her shoes and stockings
+under her arms. The instant the got there a madness came upon her,
+and _whizz!_ two shoes and two stockings were flying through the
+air at a tremendous rate. They landed in the trees far below, while
+Eepersip, glad to get rid of them, coolly returned to the glade,
+thinking that her feet were already tougher than before because of that
+bold act. When she got back she decided to rest a while, then walk in
+the opposite direction and see what was at the northern end of the
+glade. So when she got rested she started off that way, with the doe
+and the fawn trotting beside her. At last she came to the slope of the
+mountain on that side. But this, instead of being a sheer precipice,
+was a gradually falling grassy bank, down which they went. The doe
+and the fawn followed some distance; then they turned back, letting
+Eepersip go on alone. But when she got part way to the bottom she began
+to see houses; and so, deciding that that wasn't the side for her,
+she ran back as fast as she could.
+
+Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs.
+Eigleen were wondering in vain where their poor child had gone. At
+first they hadn't thought much about her, for she had been lost in the
+woods several times before and had always found her way home safely.
+But when it came to being gone two or three whole days, why, they were
+not sure that they were awake! The child must be starving, and who
+knew what a tender morsel to some prowling animal she might be by this
+time? So they began to grieve greatly over their loss, for they dearly
+loved Eepersip.
+
+Before they has missed her very long, a poor old
+woman and her husband had climbed that part of Mount Varcrobis. Nobody
+in the village down below cared much for Mr. and Mrs. Ikkisfield, as
+they were called; and they had decided to go elsewhere and see if
+they could find some friends. The Eigleens took pity on them, and at
+last persuaded them to live in the brown cottage in the woods, and
+to let the Eigleens themselves go to the house of friends of theirs,
+the Wraspanes. It was the Wraspanes' rhododendron field that Eepersip
+had thought so beautiful.
+
+The Eigleens, being exceedingly kind
+people, gladly gave up their cottage and their beautiful garden to Mr.
+and Mrs. Ikkisfield. Indeed, these things were no joy to them, now
+that they had lost Eepersip, for whose sake they had made the garden.
+The old couple were delighted, and, thanking the Eigleens very kindly,
+they moved in that same evening, the Eigleens leaving some of their
+belongings with them.
+
+Eepersip stayed for many days with the
+doe and her fawn, and then, her feet having become tough, she crossed
+the brooklet and went on up Eiki-ennern Peak. Near the top, in a small
+sheltered place, she found a dear little pool surrounded with moss and
+ferns, amongst which some iris bloomed. It had a sandy bottom, over
+which swam tiny silver minnows. When they turned over and the sun shone
+on their bellies Eepersip saw a streak of silver. At last, when she got
+to the top, she saw that on one side it was a vast daisied slope, down,
+down; and on another it was wooded to the foot. From where she stood,
+range after range spread out before her, lake after lake beneath her,
+with the crimson of the now setting sun gloriously reflected in them.
+It was like fairyland. And when Eepersip turned southward, she beheld
+the almighty ocean with the exquisite sunset colours reflected in it as
+in the lakes. That night she slept on a soft bed of moss in a hollow
+down near the pool.
+
+The next morning, after she had made a good
+breakfast on the juicy root of a plant which she found, she lay down by
+the pool and gazed at the sky, the way she had done on the second day
+of her wildness. And as she lay there it grew so quiet that a chipmunk
+stole out of a tiny hole that he had dug between the roots of a tree.
+He came to her, sniffed at a cracker she was munching, and tickled her
+cheek with his nose; whereupon she cautiously put out her hand with a
+piece of the cracker on it. The chipmunk was frightened and ran away.
+But the piece of cracker looked very tempting, and before long he
+lost his fear and ventured close again. Step by step he crept along,
+until, with a frightened squeal, he seized the piece and disappeared.
+Eepersip waited, laughing. In a few minutes he came back again, and
+this time he took the piece that she held out to him, running only a
+few steps. The third time he took it calmly and deliberately and ate
+it without running at all, evidently convinced that Eepersip was a
+friend. And the fourth time he was even more bold, going so far as
+to sit on her stomach while he ate. But by that time, between them,
+they had licked the platter clean--the cracker was gone.
+
+"Just
+like the doe and her fawn," Eepersip thought. How fearless he was,
+the fuzzy brown little creature! It seemed to happy Eepersip that all
+the wild was ready to make friends, as if nothing were afraid of her.
+She felt more than ever that she could never leave these entrancing
+forests. She could never, never go back, she mused. How wonderful it
+was to lie there watching the things that were happening, and actually
+to have one of the inhabitants of these woods--a timid one that was
+usually afraid--come up to her and eat from her hand! This adventure
+had certainly tightened in her heart the desire to stay always and
+become acquainted with more and more creatures--with the swallows she
+loved so well, and with the little fairy butterflies.
+
+Whenever
+she went down to the sheltered spot by the pool, she saw so many
+beautiful things here and there that she never knew what to do in her
+delight. Iris blossomed in gold and blue; butterflies danced overhead
+like yellow rose-petals flying in the breeze. Once, running over to
+the pool, she found a tiny beach, about fifteen inches long and half
+a foot wide--no more than a handful of sand completely hidden in a
+forest of ferns. Across it ran the chipmunk's footprints, and the marks
+of his wee claws could be plainly seen in the damp sand. That little
+beach was the earth's dear treasure, so it seemed to Eepersip, alone
+in that wild place. In the fields all around, thousands of buttercups
+blossomed, and great beds of daisies whitened the earth's brown
+surface.
+
+In one place, among dark ferns, grew columbine, gay
+little gypsies curtseying in the breeze. Their colours spoke to her of
+dawn, gold sunset and white clouds, snow-banks fringed with icicles,
+night sky entwined with moonbeams, black clouds and radiant sun, or
+orange, yellow, and scarlet leaves--autumn leaves. She gathered some,
+and made a rainbow wreath of blossoms; and curling about her hair,
+they danced again.
+
+Beneath the branches of a white pine grew
+blushing lady-slippers, which Eepersip had never seen before. "Dawn
+comes to earth sometimes," she thought, "bringing her flower-clouds and
+clasping them with pearl seeds."
+
+Eepersip was anxious to know
+what was on the southern slope of this highest peak of Mt. Varcrobis.
+So one day along she went, happily singing, until she came to it. Then
+she was surprised to find that this slope, instead of being a rocky
+precipice as the one had been at the foot of Eiki-ennern Peak, went
+down steeply for a little way and then broadened out into an enormous
+field, on the farther side of which was a herd of deer. Away, away,
+Eepersip could just see to the edge of this plain-like field. With a
+shout, down she dashed; and, dancing as she had never danced before,
+she sang like a nightingale for joy of her discovery. And yet, she
+thought to herself, what if it should be a dream? She was quite sure
+that it was not, though, for she had felt decidedly awake when she
+started off. But, because she had started before anyone else was up or
+even awake, she thought that she might be asleep herself. Anyhow, if
+it was a dream, it was a lovely one, and she need not worry
+
+But now let us return to the grieving parents of Eepersip, who were
+consulting the Wraspanes about a plan to search for her. At last
+Mrs. Eigleen said: "Something very queer has happened to our child.
+She must have seen something or other that has made her want to go
+off. But I will tell you what we can do. We'll take the Wraspanes' big
+tent, and, fetching the Ikkisfields, we can camp near where one of us
+sees Eepersip; for I'm sure that she wouldn't leave Mount Varcrobis
+unless absolutely compelled to. We can learn what habits Eepersip has
+got into, and perhaps we can catch her by some plan. My husband and
+you, Mr. Wraspane, are the spry ones, and perhaps you can hide behind
+trees and catch her when she goes past."
+
+"What a grand idea!" cried
+everybody else in one voice; and without further ado they decided to
+carry it out.
+
+So the very next day Mr. Eigleen and Mr. Wraspane
+set off to explore, on the chance of finding Eepersip or discovering
+where she was living. They reasoned out that Eepersip must have gone
+through the Wraspanes' land when running off; because on the western
+side of the Eigleens' little cottage there was a dense wood, of which
+Eepersip had always been rather afraid, it was so dark and mysterious.
+They went through the field of rhododendrons, on the selfsame path, and
+at last came out in the same small glade in which Eepersip had seen
+the deer, with the same brooklet running across it. They hunted all
+over it, but no trace of Eepersip could they find. They began to feel
+foolish. They decided to go back and tell the waiting folks that they
+had not seen a glimpse of her, when a glorious burst of singing reached
+their ears. Immediately they turned and ran in the direction of the
+voice. But still they didn't see her, for they never dreamed that she
+had gone up the steep slope of Eiki-ennern Peak. And they began to feel
+still more foolish.
+
+At last, after a lot of aimless wandering
+through forests, glades, and fields, they decided to give it up for
+just then and tell the folks that they had heard her, but couldn't
+find her. So back they went, feeling very foolish indeed.
+
+"We
+were looking for her everywhere," said Mr. Eigleen, "and after we had
+searched for a long time we heard this excellent singing, better than
+I thought she could utter, and we went in its direction, but couldn't
+find her. So I am beginning to think that 'twasn't she at all--either
+she or a fairy."
+
+"Fairy!" exclaimed Mrs. Eigleen, indignantly
+--"fairy! There is no such thing as 'fairy'--stupid!"
+
+Mr. Eigleen cast a wink at his partner hunter, Mr. Wraspane. "Anyhow," said
+he, "fairy or none, we heard the singing."
+
+Again Mrs. Eigleen burst out with: "But why didn't you go right _to_ the sound?"
+
+"Dear wife," said Mr. Eigleen, "we couldn't, because directly in
+front of that sound there was a very steep rocky slope--you know
+very well the slope of Eiki-ennern Peak."
+
+"Well," said Mrs.
+Eigleen, "if the voice came from behind that slope, Eepersip must have
+got to the top of Eiki-ennern Peak somehow, and if _she_ did,
+_you_ can. Wait with us a while and have lunch, and then go and
+try to find her again, and I will come with you."
+
+"All right," said Mr. Eigleen.
+
+Accordingly, after lunch all three started
+off on a fresh quest. They searched the little glade high and low
+once more, but with the same ill luck. Really Eepersip saw them all
+the time, but while they were here she was there, and while they were
+there she was here, all the time keeping out of sight behind bushes
+and trees: And when she rustled the leaves and they heard her, they
+thought that it was just the breezes making commotion in the leaves
+and grass.
+
+Before they had hunted very long Mrs. Eigleen had
+to admit that the new game was harder than it looked; yet she didn't
+give it up, for her greatest hope was to have Eepersip back again. At
+length Eepersip lost sight of them and, thinking that they had gone,
+she began to sing. They all started, and began to run in the direction
+of the voice. This time they didn't hesitate to go right up the steep
+slope of Eiki-ennern Peak. Mrs. Eigleen leading, they all three dashed
+up, with not a thought of the brambles that they were getting into.
+
+When they got to the top, what a sight met their puzzled eyes! There
+was Eepersip dancing to her own singing, and ever and again she looked
+up at a little butterfly which fluttered over her head, and curtseyed
+before it. Great waves of happiness were flowing through her all the
+time. They made no effort to call her, but only stood enchanted until
+she danced off to the field. Then they quickly walked away. First
+they went back to their own little cottage and collected some of the
+important belongings which they had left there. Next they went on to
+the Wraspanes' house and got the tent and other necessary things. Then,
+with the Ikkisfields and the Wraspanes, they started off for the top
+of Eiki-ennern Peak.
+
+They pitched the tent rather far from the
+pool, but very near where they had seen Eepersip, on top of the hill.
+Now the next problem was to make the plans; and as soon as the tent
+was up they gathered together and began to think up ways and means.
+But Mr. Eigleen said: "Let us go on an exploration and discover some
+of Eepersip's habits. Let us all wander around a while, and when we
+discover what sort of habits Eepersip has got into, we can make our
+plans accordingly; for we can't make plans until we _do_ know
+some of her habits."
+
+All approved of what he had said, and
+everybody prepared himself for a long walk, interrupted at times by
+hiding and lurking, peeping and sneaking. So each person had a bite
+to eat and set off to explore the surroundings. They hunted high and
+low, but never saw a sign of Eepersip--never had a chance to peep and
+sneak. That evening however, while they were talking things over, they
+heard another burst of singing. They leaped to their feet and, taking
+a big lantern, all started out of the tent. In the direction of the
+singing they went on, trying to walk rather fast, but also trying not
+to step on many leaves or dry twigs so as to make a noise; and when
+they talked it was in the softest whisper. The singing sounded nearer
+and nearer; but they could not see very well without the lantern (which
+they didn't light yet for fear of frightening Eepersip away); it was
+darkening rapidly, and things were very dim. At last the singing grew
+so loud and so near that they felt almost as if they were about to run
+into it. And so they actually did; for Eepersip, who had all the time
+been approaching them as they approached her, went right between the
+Ikkisfields, startling them so that they didn't know what to do! Mr.
+Ikkisfield managed to put out his hand and grab her dress, calling
+for someone to come and help him hold her. But by this time Eepersip
+had discarded her real dress and had woven one of ferns for herself;
+and, the ferns being interlaced rather loosely, the one Mr. Ikkisfield
+caught hold of tore away. Quick as a flash Eepersip bounded away into
+the night. Thus their first chance of catching her slipped between
+their fingers. They went back to the tent rather discouraged.
+
+Now the deer in the great field knew Eepersip, and they all loved
+her, because she was so kind to them. Even the little fawns loved
+her and made no attempt to run away when she appeared. Twilight and
+dawn, when the deer were all lying down, were her favourite times in
+the field. Then she would dance about in her fern dress, singing so
+sweetly that all the birds watched her. She began to love the birds
+and butterflies even more than in the first days of her wildness,
+and almost worshipped them.
+
+The morning after this curious
+face-to-face meeting with Eepersip, Mr. Eigleen spoke about another
+plan. "Eepersip every morning comes up from wherever she sleeps to
+get a drink of water from the little pool. Now do you know that big
+pine-tree that stands beside the pool?"
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Eigleen.
+
+"Well, I will go and hide behind that tree tomorrow
+morning, and when she comes up to the pool I will try to catch her
+by jumping out at her when she comes by."
+
+"Why do you not do it this morning?" inquired Mrs. Ikkisfield.
+
+"Well, you see," replied Mr. Eigleen, "she has
+had her morning drink, for I saw her as I was getting out of bed."
+
+"I see," said Mrs. Ikkisfield.
+"But be sure that you get up in time next morning."
+
+"I will," said Mr. Eigleen. "But if you're up and awake before I am, be sure
+to pull me by my left ear."
+
+Eepersip was becoming more wary, now
+she had discovered that they were trying to catch her. But still she
+took it as a sort of joke. In the first place, she thought she could
+easily escape again if they did catch her. But she very much doubted if
+they could do it. For hours every day she practised running, leaping,
+dancing, and prowling, until she was as fleet as a deer and as soft
+on her feet as a lynx. She had practised leaping over high objects,
+and if someone were chasing her she could now escape being cornered by
+jumping a fence. She had trained herself until, even without a running
+start, she could clear the back of a standing fawn, or, with a start,
+a large buck standing full height. All these exercises made her light
+as a feather and graceful as a fern.
+
+The next morning when Mr.
+Eigleen woke up, there was hardly a ray of light, but dawn was breaking
+out here and there. Mr. Eigleen got all ready for an exciting morning.
+Without waking anybody, he seated himself out in front of the tent, on
+the side next the field, in such a position that he could see Eepersip
+when she came up, and where he could pull-to the front flap immediately
+and bolt out the back way to the tree by the pool without her seeing
+him. He waited a few minutes, and then he saw her head bobbing up the
+bank. Hurriedly he closed the front flap before she saw him. Slipping
+out the other end and round in a long curve, he ran at full speed to
+the pool and hid behind the big pine. Now it was at the foot of the
+pine that Eepersip usually stooped over to drink, because there the
+water was deeper and clearer. When Eepersip came up the bank, she
+stared curiously at the ten, thinking: "What! are my parents still
+here?" Then on she went to the pool. She approached it in a roundabout
+direction, her face drawn with suspicion; but, as usual, her route
+ended at the gnarled roots of the big pine--no instinct could draw
+her away from it.
+
+Mr. Eigleen stirred the leaves gently as she
+bent over. She lay down flat by the tree, cupped her hands, and began
+to drink. Very quietly Mr. Eigleen put his hands on her, one on either
+shoulder, knowing that her dress of ferns would tear. She started,
+and struggled so violently that his hands relaxed their grip on her
+shoulders, sliding down her arms, so that they were now hand in hand.
+That was all Eepersip needed. With a tremendous sweep she took her
+feet off the ground, dragging down on his arms with all her weight and
+strength. Mr. Eigleen couldn't relax either of his hands, for she now
+held them fast. With another sweep she put her feet up on his shoulders
+and over his head; then, wrenching her own hands free, she slid down
+his back and slipped before he could seize her.
+
+When Mr. Eigleen
+went home everyone was surprised at this acrobatic adventure.
+
+Mrs. Eigleen made a plan now. "Sometime at midnight," she said,
+"we could take a covered lantern and go down on the meadow to try to
+find out where Eepersip sleeps. I know the meadow is very large, but
+common sense tells me that she would sleep near the woods; so to-morrow
+night let's go and try to find her."
+
+"Er--er--I don't know,"
+replied Mr. Eigleen. "I'm a little bit afraid of that meadow, such
+curious things are happening there all the time."
+
+"What has
+happened yet?" snapped Mrs. Eigleen. "You're an old coward, you are.
+I'd go in a minute, to save Eepersip."
+
+"So'd I, so'd I," said
+Mr. Eigleen, hurriedly. "I only think that there is some curious magic
+about that field."
+
+"I agree with you there," said Mrs. Eigleen.
+"But, as I said before, when it comes to saving Eepersip I'd go into
+thicker magic than there is in the field."
+
+So they planned to
+get up a little after midnight and circle the field near the edge of
+the woods; and as there were six of them, Eepersip wouldn't have much
+chance of escaping if they once got their hands on her. That evening
+they ate a light supper and went to bed early, and about one o'clock
+they got up and went out into the great field with a hooded lantern.
+They circled around it; and at last they found Eepersip hidden in the
+bushes on the farther edge. Very gently all six laid hands upon her
+at once.
+
+"Ah, we've captured her!" they cried triumphantly.
+"Our labours have been rewarded!"
+
+But Eepersip, finding herself
+caught, became angry, and cried in a loud, commanding voice: "Put me
+down! Drop me immediately!" She added quietly to herself: "Now it's all
+over."
+
+Then she began to struggle very violently indeed. They
+had hold of her securely, and so her struggles were in vain. But just
+as they carried her past a sleeping doe which had no fawn, she uttered
+a shrill, wild cry; and this so startled the six that they almost
+dropped her. The doe woke up; and though she was afraid for herself,
+she was more afraid for Eepersip. She came galloping after them.
+
+To see the doe galloping swiftly toward them naturally startled old
+Mrs. Ikkisfield, who supposed that all wild animals would flee at the
+sight of a human being. That was so generally--but not when Eepersip
+was in danger! Now, Mrs. Ikkisfield had hold of the most important part
+of Eepersip's anatomy, though no one suspected it at the time--namely,
+her feet. Mrs. Ikkisfield dropped them, and for the fraction of an
+instant which Eepersip needed they were allowed to touch the ground.
+Eepersip wrenched herself free and leaped to the back of the trembling,
+excited creature, and they bounded away quick as a flash. The others,
+agitated, turned to chase the doe; but she, with Eepersip on her
+back, had vanished.
+
+"Whew, that was a narrow escape!" Eepersip
+whispered in one of the doe's long ears, as they lay down together.
+
+The next day it rained hard. Eepersip's parents and their friends
+spent much time making plans for a day when they could go out. Mrs.
+Ikkisfield now made a suggestion
+
+"It is," she said, "very like
+the plan that we tried last night--namely, to find Eepersip while she
+is sleeping. But we must have more people, more people! If we can get
+some friends from the village at the foot of the mountain, they can
+drive the deer that we meet away from the people that are carrying
+Eepersip. In that way she cannot be saved by deer."
+
+"That is
+true," said Mrs. Eigleen; "but, you know, often an angry herd of deer
+is a terrible thing to drive back."
+
+"I know that," said Mrs.
+Ikkisfield. "But we might be able to keep them cool--keep them from
+getting angry. However, let's make some other plans now. That is not
+a very good one."
+
+"I was thinking," said Mrs. Wraspane, "if we
+could only get Eepersip into a small fenced-in area where we could
+catch her. But I have it: let us find Eepersip in her sleep again, and
+carry her to the tent in a roundabout route through the woods, chopping
+the bushes as we go, where there aren't so many deer, and where it will
+be harder for them to rescue her."
+
+"Great idea!" cried Mrs.
+Ikkisfield.
+
+So that is what they all planned to do, the next
+sunny day.
+
+While they had been conversing in this manner,
+Eepersip had been sitting in the woods, with a little fawn and its
+mother for company; and she had been feeding the fawn handfuls of grass
+and gazing into its gentle eyes. Late in the evening it cleared off
+and there were promises of a beautiful day to-morrow. And so it was.
+The sun began to rise slowly, producing wonderful colours--first the
+most delicate shades of apple-blossom pink; darker on the horizon, and
+shading off into a pale buttercup yellow. And Eepersip, as she awoke,
+saw that the meadow was dotted with dark forms which could just be
+distinguished --the deer were all lying down.
+
+Eepersip skipped
+up to the pool to get her morning drink, first spying all around and
+especially behind every tree. No one was to be seen, for no one was
+up yet. Eepersip drank her fill; then she breakfasted on the sweet
+root of the little three-leaved plant with a white blossom, her usual
+food. After that she went down to the meadow, beginning to dance and
+sing as soon as she got there. The deer were now beginning to rise,
+and as she danced she kissed each one.
+
+When the sun had dried
+the raindrops and the dew, the families started out to the great field
+to see what they could discover. The first thing they saw when they
+got to the edge of the slope was Eepersip skipping around. Then they
+saw her dance off to the woods and gather some long green branches and
+blossoms. Very soon she came back to the field, went over to a sleeping
+doe, and crowned her with the branches; upon which the doe got up and
+licked Eepersip's cheek. She danced about in her delight. She was so
+beautiful, so graceful, that when her parents saw her they were amazed
+at the way in which her dancing and leaping had improved.
+
+Now,
+during the days in which Eepersip had been growing wild she had made
+friends with another chipmunk, who was even more fond of her than the
+one by the pool had been. The Eigleens and their friends now saw him
+scutter out of the woods and frolic around Eepersip. Last of all they
+saw Eepersip lie down on the grass to gaze at the sky.
+
+"This
+would be a splendid opportunity for catching her," muttered Mr.
+Ikkisfield to Mr. Eigleen, as they looked at her.
+
+"Hm! that's
+just what I was thinking," whispered Mr. Eigleen in reply. "Suppose we
+go out in the field and try."
+
+They all tiptoed down the slope
+and out into the field, where they immediately laid hands on Eepersip
+once more. She started violently and cried out to the doe who was near.
+The doe dashed up, but did not succeed in rescuing Eepersip, for Mrs.
+Ikkisfield ran to hold her back.
+
+"Never mind Eepersip--Mr.
+Eigleen and Mr. Wraspane can do that. Hold back the deer!" thundered
+Mrs. Eigleen, a slow red rising to her face. They all flew at the poor
+creature, except the two who were holding the struggling Eepersip.
+Off fled the doe; and then the others could help with Eepersip. The
+doe ran on to get help from her mate. Back they came in no time, for
+a deer is one of the swiftest runners in the world. The buck flew at
+Eepersip's captors--just too late, for the others had succeeded in
+getting Eepersip safely into the tent.
+
+But what could they do
+with her? How could they keep her securely? And, even so, if she was
+going to continue acting wildly, how much better off were they with
+her? This was a new question, which no one had thought of. But they
+decided that, if they could keep her safely, she would become tamed
+and civilized again. The question of security was the most important
+just then. Better go home immediately and take Eepersip with them,
+later returning for their tent and their belongings. This they did,
+locking Eepersip in the house while they were getting their things;
+and as they went they rejoiced.
+
+But now all the deer of the
+field, knowing that Eepersip, their beloved queen, had been taken from
+them, put their heads together. They intended to rescue her while her
+father and mother were sleeping, if they could only find where she had
+been taken. While they were lying down and thinking about it, a fawn
+came running up and poked its mother. It had followed softly, and knew
+just where Eepersip was kept. They all lay down to wait for the coming
+of night. At last evening came, and the deer fell asleep, leaving a
+night-watchman to arouse them later when the full moon was at its
+zenith. When the watchman signalled they arose and, with the little
+fawn leading, went down toward the Wraspanes' house. Eepersip was
+allowed to sleep out on the porch, but all its glass doors were closed
+and locked against her. The fawn led them straight to this place.
+
+Eepersip could not go to sleep; she sat on the floor, whining softly
+in her misery. One of the bucks knocked gently on the glass door with
+his antler. Eepersip turned; a smile crept over her face at the sight
+of her beloved comrades. The buck, as softly as he could, broke one
+of the glass doors, wood and all. Then the deer, all except the fawn,
+bounded off to the field again.
+
+The sound of breaking glass
+reached the ears of Mr. Ikkisfield, who was awake, all too late; for
+by the time he had wakened the others--which he did by shouting "Get
+up! get up! Sounds like high doings out there!"--Eepersip, on the
+little fawn's back, had vanished toward the field. The families, when
+they got to the porch, found only the broken door. Though they heard
+trampling hoofs, they knew that it would be of no use to follow.
+
+The families, after that adventure, were desperate; and they decided
+not to make any more plans just then, for winter was coming on rapidly,
+but to stay at the house until the next summer.
+
+As for
+Eepersip, well, she was mighty glad to have got away unhurt. Happy
+again, she was soon sound asleep in the woods on the edge of the field,
+cuddled up underneath the doe which had saved her before. She wasn't
+sure how to get along through the winter safely, but she had had such a
+splendid summer that she knew it would be foolish to give up her wild
+life now. She could manage somehow.
+
+And so she did. She found
+that her parents had left her own heavy winter coat in the place where
+they had once found her sleeping; and this would be very helpful to
+her, she thought. She was also glad to realize that her parents, much
+though they wanted to get her back, didn't wish her to perish in the
+cold of winter. "They _are_ nice people, after all!" she thought
+to herself.
+
+With the coat and the prospect of warmth, there
+came a delightful idea into her head. On the edge of the meadow there
+was an old dilapidated fox-hole. It was very large already; and after
+about ten days of hard work Eepersip found that the passages could be
+made exactly large enough for her to crawl into. The earth was so loose
+and mouldy that it came away without difficulty. She crept down the
+tunnel a long way, digging as she went. Presently she came to a snug
+bedroom about five feet square and four and a half high, which was a
+little less than her own height. But she did not mind stooping, as long
+as she had this cunning room; besides, she could dig away the ceiling
+if she wanted to. The room was old and dirty, but Eepersip lined it
+entirely with grass. Digging around, in one corner she came upon a
+little packet made of leaves. Inside it were a few cordary-berries
+seeds![1] She wondered who had made this packet--who had lived in this
+burrow before her. A person, of that she was sure. These seeds had not by any
+means rotted; they were still as moist and sweet as ever, and Eepersip rejoiced
+to them. Digging around some more, she discovered a small square block of
+wood. Lifting it up, she found great heaps of milkweed pods, kept from
+springing open by the pressure of the earth against them. She rejoiced
+in this too. There was enough of the milkweed to make a bed for
+herself. She covered the bed with her old dress, which she had kept all
+this time in case she should need it. Never was such a soft bed seen.
+In the burrow she also built several shelves of boards, and on these
+she heaped up more cordary berries and their seeds, which were just
+beginning to come.
+
+[1] The cordary berry grows during
+the winter and is at its best at New Year. The seeds have sweet meats.
+The berries are bright red, and the seeds dark purple, running over
+inside with sweet juice which keeps the kernel moist.
+
+The next day was the last of November. In the
+morning Eepersip, after a long sleep in the burrow, woke up to find the
+world white with the first snow. The entrance of the tunnel was placed
+at such an angle that never a flake found its way down in. Eepersip
+was delighted; she danced and skipped about, with the chipmunk at her
+heels.
+
+The next day it stopped snowing, and the sun came out,
+shining dimly. Every snow-crystal sparkled like a diamond. Eepersip and
+the chipmunk dashed across the meadow and looked far, far down. Though
+ordinary eyes could not have seen to the end of this mass of glittering
+whiteness, Eepersip's could, and beyond all the icicles and snowflakes
+she saw the river calmly shining, blue as the sky. In its rippling
+surface Eepersip could see the very reflection of the sun breaking out
+through a cloud. The meadow was beautiful even when the sun was dim,
+but nothing to what it was now!
+
+Eepersip could see every colour
+of the rainbow reflected in each crystal--orange, purple, green, blue,
+red, and many, many iridescent tints. Full of joy, she looked down upon
+the river once more, through the glittering iridescence. The longer she
+looked, the better she could see the river. But at last the sun went
+in again; it had been out hardly long enough to melt one snowflake.
+Everywhere round Eepersip went the chipmunk's little footprints, for
+he had shared her delight. At last, when Eepersip wanted to go back
+to her subterranean shelter, the chipmunk hung back and whimpered.
+Eepersip saw that he wanted to stay; and knowing that he could find
+his way, she left him behind and went back to the burrow herself.
+
+But he didn't come back. She waited and waited and often called,
+but he did not appear. "What can have happened to my little friend?"
+she thought. At last she set out to look for him, calling as she went.
+She looked in every crevice, to see whether something had frightened
+him and he had plunged into some hiding-place. But she did not find
+him. At last, whistling and calling, she came near to where she had
+left him, on the edge of the meadow. Then what did she see in the snow
+but footprints--human footprints! Chippy's little tracks had started
+back in the direction of the burrow, but the strange footprints came
+towards his and overtook them--and at that point his suddenly left
+off. Then she discovered the others going down the hill again. It was
+only too clear--Chippy had been captured!
+
+Eepersip sat down
+in the snow and wept. But suddenly she straightened up and became
+herself again. Why not follow those footprints down the hill and get
+her Chippy back? With a hopeful heart she dashed down, following the
+tracks. But she came into a small village, where she was afraid of
+being caught. She could not go on; so she went back.
+
+Another
+idea! Why not follow the footprints some night, when there were not
+so many people around, and when, even if there were, she would not be
+seen so easily? But there was the question of being able to see the
+footprints in the dark. No, that would be impossible: the only thing to
+do would be to wait. For what, Eepersip had not the slightest idea.
+
+The name of the people who had captured the chipmunk was Brunio.
+Mr. Brunio and his little twin daughters, Flitterveen and Caireen, had
+come up to the meadow with sleds and skis to slide. They had seen the
+chipmunk frolicking about, and had watched him impatiently.
+
+"How
+I would like that little animal for my own!" said Flitterveen.
+
+"He looks cold and hungry, Father," said Caireen. "Here, I have
+some crackers in my pocket. Let us throw them to him and see if he
+will eat them."
+
+This they had done, and the chipmunk had been
+tempted. He had come up cautiously and nibbled at them. He loved
+Eepersip dearly. He had never received harm from one of those queer
+two-legged creatures. He trusted them. But, while he had been nibbling,
+Mr. Brunio had sneaked up quietly and taken him. Thus he had been
+captured.
+
+Eepersip was not able to free her little friend
+until the next spring. She had lived a rather lonely life without him
+through the winter, and one morning very early she decided to make a
+desperate attempt to rescue him. She went down the slope of the hill
+to the river, through grass wet with pearly dew-drops. She stole along
+the bank of the river. behind bushes as much as possible, so as not to
+be seen. Finally she came to a little wooden bridge, and across this
+she went. But from there she had no idea how to proceed. She looked
+all about her, bewildered, afraid among so many houses.
+
+It was
+a heavenly morning. The sun rose and cast a sweet golden light over
+the earth. The grass sparkled as if with diamonds. A fresh spring
+breeze was blowing gently. Flowers grew here in the deep grass, and
+myriads of butterflies came flocking. But Eepersip stood forlorn and
+discouraged.
+
+Suddenly a faint squeaking came to her. She darted
+toward the sound. O Eepersip, beware--not too fast! The squeaking came
+from one side of a dark brown house. Eepersip saw a small wire cage,
+and in it her little brown Chippy. Mr. Brunio had opened the squeaky
+door of the house and was coming out with Chippy's food. Eepersip saw
+him, and swerved aside into the shelter of a gigantic rose-bush before
+he saw her--just in the nick of time. It seemed like a long wait, but
+after a while Mr. Brunio went into the house again.
+
+Looking
+cautiously about her, Eepersip tiptoed out, opened the door of the
+cage, seized Chippy, id sped off. Thus he was rescued; and Eepersip
+was happy indeed!
+
+As for the Brunios, they were very much
+distressed when they found out that the chipmunk was gone. By spying,
+they discovered some of Eepersip's strange habits. Then, early one
+morning, they took their little kitten--the twins had rather stupidly
+named her "White," for her colour--up to the field where Eepersip had
+her home, let her go very near Eepersip's burrow, and then ran away
+quickly before the kitten could find them. Well, White didn't care much
+about being left in the dewy grass, bewilderedly shaking first one
+paw, then another. But presently Eepersip came out of her burrow with
+Chippy. Seeing the patch of white, Eepersip thought the kitten was an
+exceptionally late bit of snow left on the grass. But no, it certainly
+had not been there the last time she had looked. And then she realized
+that it was altogether too late for any snow. Darting up to it, she
+found the little kitten, so snow-white, with the blue-grey eyes like
+little moonstones, gazing pitifully up at her. Because she thought the
+kitten had been a patch of snow, Eepersip named her Snow-flake.
+
+She took her, shivering with the wetness of the dew, into her
+burrow, and found, much to her surprise, that Chippy recognized her
+and sprang at her in great delight. The truth of the matter was that
+Chippy had often seen the kitten during his captivity, and had played
+many a happy game with her in his cage.
+
+Caireen and Flitterveen
+had thought when they let the kitten go that Eepersip, seeing a new
+animal, would give them back Chippy. Not so! Eepersip would rather have
+two animals than one. Besides, she saw how dearly the two loved each
+other, and would not have parted them for anything now. The Brunios had
+been disappointed enough at losing Chippy--and now they had lost the
+kitten too!
+
+It was now summer, and the Brunios--Mr. Brunio,
+Caireen, and Flitterveen--decided to climb Eiki-ennern Peak and try to
+get back their kitten. They wandered around a little while and at last
+came to a sunny place on the edge of the woods. It was a very grassy
+spot, all surrounded with blackberry-bushes just blossoming. Near its
+edge was Chippy asleep, and in the middle was Snowflake washing herself
+and playing with the dry oak-leaves that swirled about in the breeze.
+Snowflake started back a little at the sound of whispering voices,
+and then looked up. Eepersip was not there, for she had gone off to
+find some sweet bulbs and roots
+
+"Come on, White, dear!" called
+Caireen.
+
+But Snowflake did not know her old name since Eepersip
+had changed it.
+
+"Here, Sugar-bowl!" said Mr. Brunio. (He had
+got rather used to calling her that, because she loved sugar and had
+a habit of pawing into the sugar-bowl to get it). This was a trifle
+more familiar, and she took a step forward.
+
+"That's the way!"
+said Flitterveen, encouraging her. "Come on!"
+
+Snowflake took
+back the step.
+
+They grew impatient; yet some of their calls were
+encouraging that Snowflake could hardly resist creeping through the
+briers to their feet. Pretty soon she touched Chippy with her nose. He
+awoke, yawned two or three times, and, when he saw the people there,
+instantly pattered off into the woods. Now Snowflake sat very still,
+in spite of all their coaxings, for she knew that help was coming. And
+she didn't have long to wait, for in a moment Eepersip came running up
+with Chippy in her arms. With a beautiful leap she cleared the briers
+and, taking up Snowflake, cleared them again and vanished into the
+woods.
+
+Life for Chippy and Snowflake was great fun during the
+time when Mr. Brunio, sometimes with the twins, was coming up to the
+brier-patch and trying to entice Snowflake away. In the afternoons,
+though the two little animals were glad to stay in the brier-patch,
+Eepersip generally took them along with her when she went anywhere, for
+she thought that possibly Mr. Brunio might come up with an ax to chop
+down the briers. In this Eepersip proved wise, for, about the third day
+that Mr. Brunio and the children had been coming up Eiki-ennern Peak to
+rescue Snowflake, Mr. Brunio did bring an ax. But this time Eepersip
+had taken the two little animals out with her; they had gone exploring,
+finding sweet roots and brilliant berries.
+
+Eepersip spent that
+summer in continual fits of dancing, laughing, and merriment. She had
+never before been so happy. Every day she felt as though she loved
+the animals, birds, and butterflies--everything of Nature--more
+than the day before. She loved to see the same birds coming back this
+year. Above all she loved the delicate butterflies with wings of all
+colours. She would lie in the meadow for hours and watch what was
+happening. She could imagine miniature cities in the air, and saw
+little butterflies and birds constantly going and coming from them.
+There were cities on the ground too, where orchestras of grasshoppers
+and crickets played in the grass.
+
+She sometimes made up words
+for her melodies--little songs of Nature. She would sing them over
+and over, sometimes ringingly, sometimes in a murmur.
+
+Buttercups are smiling
+To see the butterflies
+Feathering
+so softly,
+Rainbowing the skies.... 
+
+The wind is snowing butterflies,
+Fairy golden showers;
+Misty the air with dancing wings;
+The sun is raining flowers.
+
+She told the deer that _she_ felt like a butterfly, and that the wind was
+snowing _her_ when she danced. And then she gave them handfuls of lush grass.
+
+At the end of that first winter Mrs. Eigleen
+began to feel ill. No one knew what was the matter with her. She spent
+the spring in continual weeping and hysterics. Towards the summer she
+began to feel seriously ill. They had had several different doctors in
+to see her, but none of them could find out exactly what the matter
+was, for she refused to tell anyone anything, even though she said she
+herself knew. One afternoon she called her friends round her and bade
+them take her over to the meadow, where they would surely see Eepersip.
+They took her out, but never a trace of Eepersip did they see. And Mrs.
+Eigleen kept on having her fits of weeping all through the summer, even
+more frequently than before.
+
+Now, by this time Mrs. Eigleen, her
+husband, and all her neighbours had found out that Eepersip had taken
+White away from the Brunios; for once they had been out in the field
+and seen Eepersip. She was crowned with a wreath on which butterflies
+were clustering in bunches, like grapes; and Chippy and Snowflake were
+frolicking about her. The Eigleens, the Ikkisfields, and the Wraspanes
+went down the meadow and to Mr. Brunio's house (for some of them knew
+the Brunios and recognized the kitten), and he related his adventures.
+That very afternoon they went back to the meadow and chased Eepersip,
+but they couldn't catch her, for she took up Snowflake and Chippy and
+mounted a doe, who bore them off like the wind.
+
+The next day
+they tried again: It was dawn, and Eepersip was lying in the centre
+of the meadow with Snowflake and Chippy by her side. She had had her
+breakfast, but she lay on the grass watching the sun rise and send away
+the shadows to right and left, flushing the sky with delicate pink
+and yellow. The deer were still laying down. Eepersip heard a sound
+of voices talking, followed by a roar of laughter; and instantly, of
+course, she grew suspicious. She heard: "Mr. Wraspane, will you come
+with me?" "Certainly, Mr. Eigleen." "Mrs. Ikkisfield, you come with
+me. We are the ones that are not so skilled in slyness. We will go up
+on the hill and guard there." "All right, Mrs. Eigleen."
+
+As Eepersip lay there in the field, two men broke out of the woods right
+near where she was lying. She sprang to her feet, caught Chippy and
+Snowflake in her arms, and ran. Before she could snatch up the two
+little animals, Mr. Eigleen was just able to seize her dress as she
+darted by him. But, of course, the fern that he caught hold of came
+out in his hand, and she ran along toward the hill--a foolish thing
+to do, for she had just heard that there were two people guarding it.
+Still, that was just about the only thing that she could do, for the
+other two, Mr. Ikkisfield and Mrs. Wraspane, had also come out of the
+woods and blocked her path.
+
+Eepersip fled up on the hill and
+nearly ran into Mrs. Eigleen and Mrs. Ikkisfield. Mrs. Eigleen caught
+hold of Snowflake's tail, and Mrs. Ikkisfield stepped in front of
+Eepersip, who dodged desperately to one side, releasing her hold on
+the kitten to prevent its being injured.
+
+But Eepersip was not
+going to give up her pet just yet. She sped down the hill, knowing
+that the others would soon be going to give the kitten back to the
+Brunios. Through the big field she ran, with Chippy clinging to her
+hair--down the other side of the slope to the river, along its banks,
+across the small bridge 'way down, and back to Mr. Brunio's house on
+the other side.
+
+Eepersip looked all about her for some place of
+concealment. No one was in sight. Along the side of the house there
+was a forest of blackberry-bushes, which extended several yards and
+was unusually dense and towering. The luscious black-and-purple fruit
+was ripening, making it look even more sheltering and mysterious.
+This patch was in such a position that it had to be passed to the
+front door, which was really on the side of the house. Eepersip was
+pleased to find such a convenient place. She sampled the berries with
+satisfaction, always taking pains to see that no one was coming. Then
+she wriggled inside and waited.
+
+Presently they all came along,
+Mrs. Ikkisfield holding Snowflake. Eepersip had ready in her hand a
+little sharp-pointed stick. She pushed it through a tiny hole in Mrs.
+Ikkisfield's stocking. It hurt! Mrs. Ikkisfield gave a little shriek
+of pain and dropped Snowflake, who instantly put her paw on a small
+fern which she saw--she couldn't see Eepersip, but the fern was very
+familiar!--and was pulled by Eepersip into the bush. When the people
+saw that, they knew, of course, who was near.
+
+Eepersip started to crawl through the bush and out the other side; but
+she heard Mr. Eigleen whispering to the others to go around and stop her. While
+they were watching, Mr. Brunio, who had joined them, went back into the
+house and fetched a net. It was woven of coarse, thick ropes, but the
+meshes were quite small enough to hold the kitten, and almost Chippy
+himself. (Mr. Brunio had once been a fisherman; he had retired, but
+he still had many nets with meshes of various sizes.) They put this
+net over the bush and pegged it down firmly, driving the pegs with the
+head of an ax which Mr. Brunio brought out. Then they retreated to a
+distance and watched.
+
+Eepersip began working at the pegs; and
+the chipmunk and the kitten to dig at the base of each so that she
+might be able to pull them up more easily. The pegs were really too
+big for Eepersip's little hands to manage comfortably, but she didn't
+think of comfort in such danger as this, and she worked boldly at the
+pegs with her nimble fingers. After she had got two or three up, the
+Eigleens and their friends came forward, took those pegs, and put
+them down more firmly than before, so that Eepersip had to begin all
+over.
+
+Although the people who were trying to capture Eepersip
+and the kitten were naturally becoming very hungry, they didn't like
+to leave the bush unguarded. But Mr. Brunio (who was exceptionally
+hungry) said that he had many more such nets, and that they could
+spread them all over the bush and hurriedly get luncheon. If they
+put them down very firmly, and ate rather fast, there wouldn't be
+much chance of Eepersip's escaping before they could get out again.
+So they spread four more nets over the bush and went in.
+
+Now
+was Eepersip's chance, and she worked harder than ever. At last, with
+the aid of Chippy and Snowflake, who helped a lot by digging around
+the pegs, Eepersip got out of the first net and began tugging at the
+second. She didn't try to dig up the pegs of this one: instead, all
+three tried to dig under it, and at last they had made a hole large
+enough for Eepersip to crawl through. The fibres of the third net
+were rather rotten, so that Eepersip tore it easily. Each peg of the
+fourth and fifth nets came up at one mighty yank; Mr. Brunio and his
+helpers had put the last nets down in a great hurry, in order to get
+their luncheon. Then Eepersip, with the two little animals, fled from
+that dread place, across the bridge and back to the meadow, where
+she found a sheltered spot and slept.
+
+The three families
+were much disgusted with themselves for not catching Eepersip and the
+kitten; but they promised Mr. Brunio that they would try again. There
+followed a week of rainy weather, during which they made no attempts,
+but laid plans. As soon as the weather cleared, they tried one of
+these plans; and Snowflake had a narrow escape.
+
+It was in the
+middle of the night. The families found Eepersip, with the two little
+animals, asleep on the meadow. They took the kitten from her arms.
+But as they did so, Eepersip herself woke up, screamed loudly, and
+rushed after them. Then they turned and came after her; and Eepersip
+was bold enough and angry enough not to run until she had rescued
+Snowflake. She came right up to her parents and seized Snowflake from
+the arms of the horrified Mrs. Eigleen. Then Eepersip ran--and fast,
+too!
+
+When she came to the edge of the woods she made straight
+for a great pine. This tree she had climbed about in often, and she
+knew its every limb. In pitch dark she could find all its branches,
+and sometimes she trusted to her memory rather recklessly. She was as
+sure of this tree as of the ground, even at night. She loved it--she
+called it _her_ tree. A tree was, perhaps, not the easiest place
+of concealment, but Eepersip thought that in this way she would not
+have to run all over the meadow in the dark--and she was very tired
+after her usual all-day playing.
+
+There were no branches lower
+than seven feet up. Eepersip made one leap, caught hold of a branch,
+and swung herself up on to it. From that branch she mounted higher and
+higher until she reached the very top. It swayed gloriously, even under
+her light weight, but it didn't creak as if about to break. She sat up
+in the high crotch and looked at the people so far below, through a
+mass of black needles and a mighty thickness of strong limbs. It was
+a wonderful night. The sky was spangled with stars of vivid silver.
+Not a cloud was to be seen except on the western horizon, where a bank
+was piling up rapidly, silhouetted against the deep ultramarine of the
+sky, across which the Milky Way made a path of radiance. Eepersip,
+looking down among the powerful limbs, felt as if she were part of
+the familiar tree.
+
+Poor Chippy and Snowflake were tired and
+sleepy after what they had just been through. Eepersip murmured kind
+words to them, while she thought of all that she had been through
+herself. She was not in the least dizzy, but she was tired, and she
+knew that she must not go to sleep up there.
+
+Then she saw
+that Mr. Eigleen had started to climb the great tree. He got about
+half-way up and then stopped. She remembered the place: it had been
+difficult for her, too. There was not a limb where he could put out a
+foot and step on it; the next one was at the level of his neck. The
+question was, how could he get on to this limb? He didn't have the
+strength to pull himself up to it the way Eepersip had done. He tried
+for a long time; but his caution proved too much for him. At last,
+in despair, he descended; and the people went away, leaving Eepersip
+in peace.
+
+As soon as they were well out of sight and hearing,
+Eepersip came down in a series of leaps from limb to limb. At length
+she got to the bottom, where the last limb was seven feet from the
+ground. She braced herself as firmly as she could on this, and then
+she jumped. It was a marvellous jump in the dark, and she landed on
+the ground unhurt, though very tired and covered with bits of bark.
+"My, that was a dreary adventure!" she said sleepily, as she crawled
+off to find a place to sleep
+
+Eepersip saw no more of the
+Brunios or her parents, and she decided that they had given up chasing
+her and Snowflake for the winter--a winter which she and her two
+friends spent undisturbed, playing with the leaves and shadows.
+
+It was spring--spring before the third summer that Eepersip was
+to spend wild--and the golden sun melted away the last patches of
+snow from off the bare rocks and from round the pool, where it had
+lodged between them. It was warm, although a wind was blowing--the
+delicious wind of spring. This marvellous spring air made her blood
+course quickly. She felt extremely happy and dancy. Her body seemed
+to her lighter than ever, in spite of its strength. Her spirit was so
+joyous that she could not express it in action; she had to let part
+of it out in song. But song, however light and happy, could not quite
+express Eepersip's feeling. She danced, and she sang, and she leaped
+aloft for joy.
+
+As the season advanced, she crowned herself with
+sweet-smelling flowers, and the butterflies came and lit on them. She
+went up the pool wearing her fluttering crown, and there she saw the
+flowers that had come to bloom. There was iris, purple and gold--huge
+blossoms which reminded Eepersip of the ocean as she had seen it, so
+far away, on the first day of her wandering. In a soft bed of green
+moss she found a little pink-and-white flower that she didn't know,
+bell-shaped and very fragrant. There were wild-rose-buds there, too,
+and never had Eepersip seen so many butterflies as were on those roses.
+They bordered the tiny beach, mingled with the tenderly uncurling
+green ferns. The delicate red leaf-buds on the maple-trees were now
+developing into tiny emerald leaves. And there were ever so many
+other treasures of Nature there.
+
+Eepersip played little happy
+games with all the creatures of the field. One game she played with
+the crickets. A cricket would be hiding in a certain place, and when
+Eepersip danced by he would buzz out of the grass into her face; she
+would pretend to be startled and would run from the spot. She played
+another game with the grasshoppers. One would be hiding, and Eepersip
+would come dancing by with her eyes shut. Then the grasshopper would
+whirr out of the grass and alight on her hand. When she opened her eyes
+she would shake her hand and try to get rid of him, all in fun, of
+course. Then sh e played two lovely games with the happy butterflies.
+She would let a butterfly alight on her hand, to which she would then
+give a violent jerk, so that the butterfly was sent sailing into the
+air; then, without a motion of the wings, he would come sailing back to
+Eepersip's hand. This they would do again and again. When she tired of
+this game, Eepersip would crown herself with the sweetest flowers she
+could find, and then flocks of butterflies would try to alight on her
+wreath as she danced. There were never enough flowers for all of them;
+some were always fluttering around Eepersip's head, trying to find a
+nestling-place, and others were safely folded in the blossoms.
+
+One of the thrilling hours of Eepersip's happy life that summer
+was when she lay in the meadow watching the sky and all the swallows
+circling. Snowflake and Chippy were frolicking gayly in the short, dry
+grass, chasing leaves. Now Chippy snuggled up to Eepersip. Snowflake
+kept on playing; she was crouched on her little white belly, playing
+with a dry brown leaf, and when it drifted beyond her reach she would
+spring after it. Eepersip watched her in a dreamy way. Now Snowflake
+cast the dead leaf away, having torn it to shreds, and played with
+other things. Sometimes she would rear herself up into the air; at
+other times she would run with little tripping steps over to Eepersip,
+as if something had frightened her; again she would rush round and
+round Eepersip in a wide circle, and finally she would settle down to
+play with another dead leaf. It made Eepersip glad to hear the kitten's
+little pattering feet on the grass; she knew how madly Snowflake was
+frolicking, but she did not share in the play--instead, with a dreamy
+happiness, she watched the sky.
+
+Another day in this summer
+was even happier. It was in July, and Eepersip was lying in a part
+of the meadow where there weren't many deer, so that the grass was
+long, soft, and green instead of stiff and short. Snowflake and Chippy
+were frolicking around in it, but again Eepersip was not thinking of
+them. She wast thinking the swallows that flew over her, and the way
+the sun shone on their breasts, making them glitter like silver. The
+crickets were chirping, and the grasshoppers were accompanying them,
+and they were both very happy. The frogs croaked bass songs from the
+pool--the cool, green frogs! The birds were singing merrily, and the
+butterflies passed over Eepersip's head in flocks--butterflies of
+white and purple and blue and yellow, little ones of copper-green, and
+big ones of orange and red. Some of them flew with short, quick flirts
+of the wings, others with long strokes which swept them through the
+air. The gauzy dragonflies, too, flew over her. Everything thrilled
+Eepersip's happy, tireless eyes.
+
+The bees hummed their way low
+over the long green grass, and Chippy and Snowflake leaped high in the
+air when they passed. Eepersip had taught the two little animals not
+to catch the creatures of the field, and before long all the birds
+loved Snowflake--something that few kittens have yet attained. But
+Snowflake and Chippy liked to pretend to catch the bees, and sometimes
+they went so far as to hold them: on the ground with their paws, very
+gently, not hurting them at all. Snowflake and Chippy lay in the
+grass, reaching and touching anything that took their fancy. When the
+wind blew they would leap up at the clover-blossoms that nodded. They
+played hide-and-seek, leaping over the grasses and chasing each other
+in and out of their hiding-places. The long grass offered a splendid
+place of concealment. Chippy would scurry behind a big sheltering tuft,
+seeming to Snowflake to have vanished in mid-air. Snowflake would poke
+about and run in such bewildering circles that it tired them looking
+at each other. Soon they would get so mixed up that they wouldn't know
+which of them was supposed to be hiding, and it often happened that
+they were both hiding at the same time, or both searching.
+
+This
+was for Eepersip the happiest of that summer's hours in the field.
+Something fresh and fragrant in the air made breathing a delight; it
+almost lifted her off the ground, and she let forth a glorious burst of
+song.
+
+It was a cold, frisky day in October, and Eepersip,
+even in her warm coat, had to keep moving. Snowflake and Chippy were
+frolicking and playing games with each other. Eepersip had taught them
+how to shake hands, and this they were practising. A leaf had settled
+on Snowflake's head like a brown crown, and she was trying vigorously
+to get it off. But no, the leaf was curled firmly around her small,
+dainty ears. She got wilder and wilder in her amusing efforts. She
+dashed round and round. She reached after it with her forepaws. All in
+vain! She could not get rid of that persistent leaf. But there! a gust
+of cold wind sent it flying from her head, to be instantly lost in a
+whirl of others which the wind had started up. Snowflake dashed among
+them madly, and played with them, trying to catch them all at the same
+time. But at last she stopped her foolish efforts and came quietly back
+to rest.
+
+In November the first snow of the winter fell. The
+flakes came thick and fast, like white and silver butterflies dancing,
+flying. Eepersip took them in her hands and noticed how each flake had
+its own shape, which was never found again. During that day in October
+Snowflake had worn a brown crown of a dead leaf, but now she wore a
+white one. The snow didn't show much on the white fur of the kitten,
+but Chippy's autumn brown was soon covered with a mossy blanket of
+it. The flakes whirled down thicker and faster than ever, and Chippy
+tried to jump at them all. The playmates could hide in the snow now,
+for if they got far enough apart they couldn't see each other. They
+tried to capture the snowflakes, but they found that this made their
+paws even wetter.
+
+In spite of all this merriment, Eepersip had
+a slightly sad feeling in her heart. The night before, she had seen
+the sea; and it had looked _so_ glorious that she felt as if--as
+if she would like to go to it. She loved the meadow so much that this
+would be almost impossible for her. Yet she knew that, in spite of
+her love for the meadow. her longing for the sea would grow, and that
+one day she must leave her present home. All this made her rather
+sad. But she tried to be happy--to share the joy of her two little
+friends, and the joy of having the little fairy things come whirling
+down upon her. She played all day in the meadow with her friends, and
+when the evening fell they went back to the burrow and slept in peace
+till morning.
+
+In this way the winter passed. Every evening at
+sunset Eepersip would go over to the edge of the meadow and gaze long
+upon the sea, with the brilliant sunset colours reflected in it. And
+each time she looked it seemed so beautiful, so beautiful! and each
+time she tried to go to it, it seemed as if the ground of the meadow
+was a great magnet to her feet.
+
+The spring came, and with it
+the flowers and leaves.
+
+One night Eepersip woke up to find the
+full moon as if hanging in the sky. A few faint stars could be seen.
+She tried to go to sleep, but could not. At last she got up from her
+bed of moss. The dew lay thick on the grass, which slushed deliciously
+against her bare feet. All entranced with the beauty of the night,
+she ran lightly over to the spot where she often had a view of the
+sea. And she beheld it with the full moon reflected in it--a globe
+of soft silver, shimmering and quivering in the unstill waters. This
+time it was too much for Eepersip. She could stand it no longer--her
+heart gave way. She decided that the next morning she would satisfy
+her longing.
+
+And so, just after dawn, she left her beautiful
+home in the field and journeyed toward the ocean. She went to the edge
+of the meadow with a herd of deer daintily tripping after her. She
+turned and cried: "Good-bye, O deer! for probably I shall never see you
+again." She kissed the ground of the meadow, and she wept to think that
+she was leaving it; but she knew that her love for the sea had become
+greater than her love for the meadow. And then she went away--sadly,
+yet happy at the prospect of a new and beautiful life by the foaming,
+churning rocks and the white-capped waves.
+
+
+
+II
+THE SEA
+
+Your flashing waves hold out their arms to me-- I
+entangle myself in their silver hair,
+And ride with them to catch the wind.
+The sun trails bright jewels in the water,
+And laughs because I cannot touch them.
+
+As Eepersip journeyed on, the meadow grew dimmer in her mind, and the memory
+of how the sea had looked grew brighter. She couldn't see it now, for she was
+in a valley; but she knew that she was going in the right direction.
+The spring breeze was blowing; it was not cold, and the breeze stirred
+the air gently, so that it wasn't hot. Occasional whiffs from the
+meadow came to Eepersip with that breeze; but when the had gone about
+two miles this fragrance ceased.
+
+That afternoon she came into a
+great forest where strange, mysterious shadows passed back and forth in
+a frightening way. She hurried on as fast as she could, but she had to
+spend a night in it--one alarming, terrible night. The next day she
+came out, torn and bedraggled with fighting her way through the dense
+thickets. Several times she had to cross rivers--some of them without
+a bridge, though luckily none of these was over her depth. Another day
+had passed. Nightfall found her wearily climbing a very high hill.
+The reflection of the moon showed her where the ocean was. It seemed
+hardly any nearer than before! The third morning she descended into a
+rich and fertile valley. A small brook was winding down it, and where
+the weeping willows dipped into the current it bubbled and sang. This
+valley was the broadest that Eepersip had yet gone through. But after
+a long time she came out of it against a high, precipitous cliff. Up
+the side of this she climbed, digging her toes into the cracks between
+the rocks, At last she got to the top; and a long, weary climb it had
+been. She was now on a grassy hill where bloomed daisies shining like
+stars, and little butter-cups of gold. There were butterflies, too,
+with brilliant wings, and they hovered and fluttered over the flowers.
+And lo! there was the ocean, nearer now, with the sun shining on it;
+and Eepersip could see the surf rolling and foaming. Shrill cries
+pierced the air--the cries of birds, of seagulls swooping inland in
+wide circles. And as went on through the waving grass she could smell
+the delicious salt air of the sea.
+
+But, alas, she met with a
+hindrance. Between, her and the coast there was a valley extending
+for miles, and poor Eepersip would have to clamber down a precipitous
+cliff, through the valley, and up another cliff. Down she went, rather
+unwillingly but knowing that she would get there sometime. At last she
+came to the bottom. It wasn't so bad down there--there was a lovely
+lakelet at which she refreshed herself with a drink; it was grassy,
+and there were flowers. But it was stiflingly hot. There was a patch
+of pine woods here and there, but it was hot even in the shade of
+the great trees.
+
+She stumbled on in the almost blinding heat,
+clambering up the other great precipice--the wall of the valley. From
+the top she looked down, and, seeing again that ponderous cliff, she
+wondered how she could ever have got up it. Then she lay down on the
+grass, and in a moment was asleep.
+
+When she awoke, the strong
+wind was blowing again. It made her almost fly through the cold, salty
+air. Before her was the long-sought ocean, with the waves rolling
+and the gulls swooping, diving and screaming. She flew; her feet
+could not stay still. She was tired no longer--she didn't feel the
+smallest effects of her wearisome journey.
+
+Suddenly she heard a
+sound--the magical sound of the waves as they crashed on the rocks.
+In they would come, pounding, roaring, breaking upon the shore. The
+foam and spume would fly back and leap up into the air. Everything
+sounded strange--stranger than anything Eepersip had ever heard. No
+words can describe what she imagined. She never had had such a lot of
+emotions in her head at the same time. She tried to describe them to
+herself, but soon gave it up as useless. She thought: "Here I am; I see
+it; you don't need to tell me about it!" And then she realized that
+she was alone, knowing in her own mind what it was like, yet unable to
+stop wishing that she could describe the hollow, ringing sound. Was
+she becoming homesick? No! it was sheer delight.
+
+For a moment
+she paused. Then she bounded through the yellow sand, and, ever going
+faster and faster, she came to the edge of her sea. Her longing had
+been fulfilled.
+
+This beach was almost overhung at one end by a
+great shelf of rock. The sand was glistening with shells of all colours
+and bordered with sea-weeds washed up. Tiny sand-pipers' tracks ran
+all over it. Eepersip stayed there a long time, gazing into the waves,
+gazing at everything.
+
+The rock-ledge at one end of the beach had
+been catching her eye for some time. She watched how fearlessly the
+gulls plunged on quivering wings, down, down, then rose again, covered
+with silvery drops, to fly here and there. Then she would look back at
+the little precipice. She thought: "_I_ cannot fly! _They_
+do it from the air, but I cannot. I can do it from the precipice!
+Why not? "Then, aloud: "I _will_ be a bird--I _will_ do
+it!"
+
+She walked back to the point where the cliff towered from
+the beach. She climbed up. She selected, in the water so far below, a
+place that was free from the treacherous-looking rocks. Then, swaying
+her arms a moment and plucking up high courage, she gave a flying leap
+and landed in the deep water.
+
+Another miracle! She had never
+had a chance to swim before, but somehow she did it naturally now. It
+was an instinct in her to kick with her legs and throw out her arms in
+the right way. Fortunately she had landed in the place without rocks.
+Shaking herself in imitation of the gulls, so that silvery drops flew
+from her in all directions, she began to swim about. She played in the
+water for a time, entranced, singing as she had never done before,
+even in the meadow. After a while she came out, all shining, laughing
+and dancing. But it was then too late in the day to play any more; so
+she lay down on the sand, well out of reach of the tide, and slept,
+with the murmuring of the sea in her ears all night.
+
+It
+had been high tide; but the tide was now going out, and near the beach
+the tops of the great rocks were appearing. To Eepersip, who had never
+before been near the ocean, these things which happened every day were
+strange and delightful, and she could not look at them enough. Each
+wave was pure blue, topped and trimmed with spray. As the waters drew
+back Eepersip had to retreat; for the low tide revealed more and more
+rocks, and the spray that hit upon them flew back farther and farther.
+Gradually they were left bare and dry, and Eepersip arranged sea-weeds
+and sea-plants in the little pools left in their hollows. When, at
+last, high tide came in, she sorrowed to watch them become part of the
+sea again. But she knew, of course, that when the tide went out other
+pools would be left--perhaps more than there had been before.
+
+Among the rocks at the back of the beach Eepersip found a pool made
+by leaping spray from a storm. She trimmed it with sea-weeds of brown
+and green. She took some of the dried low-tide snails from the rocks
+around it and cast them into the sea. With her hands she caught some
+sluggish yet pretty little fishes and put them into her pool. As she
+was doing this she noticed how the tide was coming in--she had been
+so intent upon her task that she hadn't seen it. It was now almost
+up to her. She stopped what she was doing and watched it anxiously,
+afraid that it was going to reach her pool. But, to her great joy,
+it didn't. The waves lapped as if they wanted it very much, but they
+couldn't quite touch it; and Eepersip, worried no longer, continued her
+happy playing.
+
+In this way the days passed, with something new
+all the time. But she did not forget her little pool. She tended it,
+putting in fresh plants and rocks, and replacing a fish if it died.
+
+She slept in a crevice in the rocks at the end of the beach. There
+was a tunnel under the rocks that the water had cut; if she crept to
+the farther end, no tide could reach her. There was a spring in the
+pasture in back of the beach, about a hundred yards away, and there
+Eepersip got her supply of fresh water. It made a merry brooklet which
+ran bubbling down a small hill and into the sea. When it was stormy she
+had a habit of merely snuggling under the rocks as far as she could
+go, to watch the glistening white-caps and listen to the crashing
+surf. But before she had seen many storms she stayed out when they
+weren't too severe, and sometimes played about in the waves--and she
+liked to be ducked.
+
+In her explorations along the shore
+one day Eepersip found a great raft, made from interlacing twigs and
+plastered over with clay and pitch. Here and there great water-soaked
+ropes bound it firmly. It had been washed up on the shore, and from a
+long period in the sea, had become terribly slimy and water-logged.
+Eepersip hauled it to the water to see if it would hold her weight, but
+it sank immediately. So she let it dry off in the sun for a long time;
+and at last, when it had become quite dry, she tried again. This time
+it held her. It started drifting off to sea with her on it, but she
+quickly slipped off and took it to shore again. A few days afterward
+Eepersip found a board, about three feet long and broad enough to
+serve perfectly as a paddle.
+
+That was what she had wanted. She
+hauled the raft out to her depth, climbed on to it, took the paddle,
+and pushed off merrily.
+
+Under strong strokes the water whirled
+and rushed, and the raft pushed through it. Sometimes she came to a
+sand-flat, and again to such a deep place that when she looked down all
+she could see was menacing shadows. Once the raft came into a shoal of
+carmine-coloured fishes with very long pointed fins. Of course, they
+scattered in all directions as she came amongst them.
+
+When she
+had started it was dawn. By midday, with the help of a favourable wind,
+she was out of sight of land. Then she saw that, if she were going to
+get back to the beach by evening, she must hurry and use her remaining
+daylight in that direction. So she turned about, with great difficulty
+because of the wind, and then she started homeward. But everything
+that had before been favourable was now against her; with her clumsy
+craft she could make no headway, and the waves were rising higher all
+the time. So she gave up, thinking that possibly the wind would soon
+change or calm down altogether. But this did not happen.
+
+She
+was dashed about wildly, ever going farther from land, and seeing
+nothing save the unlimited expanse of rough water. Yet, even in her
+fright, she enjoyed it. She was not hurt at all, and she had only to
+cling tight to the raft. The sensation of being so dashed about and
+of riding up and down on the waves was glorious.
+
+All the same,
+when it began to grow darker, darker, the wind remaining steady, she
+began to wish she had not ventured forth, but had stayed in shelter
+and safety at her little beach. She had always had great fun watching
+the storms, the high spray, the wind-tossed gulls; but now she saw
+that she had wished for rather too much.
+
+It became steadily
+blacker, and still she was borne on, making no resistance now, for she
+saw how useless it was. By the faint remaining light from where the
+sun had set, she saw ahead of her a dark pointed object rising out of
+the water. She knew that it was a rock; and, afraid of being dashed
+against it, she began resisting with her paddle. Extreme fright made
+her strokes powerful, and she actually managed to slow up the raft a
+little. She came gently against the edge of the rock, fastened her
+raft to it by means of one of the ropes, and climbed up to its peak.
+From there, the sea, with its wild waves, was like the sky, full of
+weird cloud-caves, fringed with light from a hidden moon.
+
+She
+looked for a long time; she looked steadily. And then, not far off,
+she saw a dark mass which, outlined against the deep blue of the night
+sky, appeared to be land--blessed land! She realized that the waves
+were going straight toward it. With a cry of joy, she unfastened her
+raft, leaped upon it, gave a useless push with her paddle, and went
+on.
+
+Soon she came to the shore--a smooth beach. She pulled up
+her raft, well out of reach of the advancing tide, and started for
+the bushes to find a place to sleep. For the first time since night
+had fallen, she noticed the wondrous beauty of the moon, almost full,
+and the stars that showed faintly their silvery faces. She crawled in
+among the bushes, and, watching all these lovely things and listening
+to the soft murmuring of the waves, which were now calm again, she
+fell into a deep, delicious sleep.
+
+The next day the sea
+was absolutely calm. The sun was shining brilliantly on the water,
+making it dance and sparkle. Even Eepersip, who was so accustomed to
+waking in a different place from where she had been yesterday, was
+surprised to find herself where she was, and she had to rub her eyes
+hard to make sure that she was not dreaming. Then the whole adventure
+came back to her--the raft, the windy night, the raging sea, and the
+happy landing on this shore. There was her raft, lying on the beach
+just where she had left it.
+
+She got up and started to explore
+along the beach, but suddenly she stopped short in her tracks; for
+there, covered with climbing vines and bordered with bright little
+flowers, was a cottage--a little cottage in the midst of its forest
+of green leaves and bushes. Beautiful though it was, for a moment
+tears came to Eepersip's eyes. Exactly so had her own cottage looked;
+through all these years she had remembered it--just how it was in
+every detail. But this recollection soon passed away, in the dismay
+of realizing that she had come to an inhabited place. It was all so
+beautiful--she had wanted to stay and explore--and her hopes were
+crushed!
+
+She stood stock-still for a long time, looking at the
+cottage. Nothing stirred within. Everything was quiet--oh! so quiet.
+Stealthily as a mouse Eepersip crept toward it, opened the door, and
+went in. A house, a detested house!--one of those houses that she had
+run away from. Everything came back to her--those foolish coverings
+on the floors which they called carpets, at the windows those useless
+decorations called curtains. To think of it! when there was a carpet so
+much lovelier of green grass or of white sand--and no windows to be
+curtained!
+
+It was a delightful little room, all the same; with a
+brownish woolly carpet, a small fireplace, and little blue curtains of
+a delicate material. It was quite deserted, so she decided not to let
+it bother her.
+
+A small back door opened into the lovely woods at
+the back of the house. Quickly Eepersip made her way out into the open;
+and everything looked twice as lovely as before. How light it was,
+with all the world a window, instead of those silly little peep-holes
+fringed about! How much more glowing everything was! Oh, nothing in a
+house could compare with the world of light that Eepersip lived in!
+
+Out here, the sunbeams made shadows wherever they struck; the birds
+twittered; the ripples lapped the shore caressingly. Otherwise all
+was still. But she was not thinking of the sea: she had decided to
+explore the woodland, for she felt, in a way, that it was her home.
+Following a little winding path, she came through a grove of white
+pines carpeted with needles and dotted with gnome-like toadstools of
+red and yellow, looking very bright and mysterious in that shady place.
+They were, to Eepersip, like the traces of some elfin revel, perhaps
+thrones of precious mineral. There were great boulders, too, covered
+with grey-green lichens some bearing aloft tiny cup-like blossoms
+of pearly grey--the cups from which the feasters had drunk their
+flower-wine. Seeing a lighter place ahead, she knew that she was coming
+out of the pine grove. A flood of pale green radiance greeted her, as
+she stepped out of the dimness of the woods into a meadow. White and
+yellow butterflies were fluttering over it in great flocks, with wings
+shining. Eepersip could hear birds chirping and singing. She passed
+on through the meadow and came again into woodlands, so thick now
+that hardly a sunbeam could penetrate the dense canopy of leaves.
+
+After a while she emerged into a clearing. In the middle of it there
+was a pool, almost entirely surrounded with dark green moss, very soft,
+overhung by a boulder. It, too, had a covering of moss. A tiny stream
+flowed silently and mysteriously into the pool, which was so dark that
+Eepersip could just see its floor of dark sand. On the bottom grew
+strange star-leaved plants, and small fishes were nibbling them. It was
+all very strange and magical, it was so silent.
+
+Eepersip stayed
+looking at this pool for a long time, and then she decided to follow
+the little brook which was trickling into it and see where it came
+from. She followed it through deep woodland for about three miles. All
+this way it was sluggish. Then the land changed abruptly; and Eepersip
+realized that she was climbing a steep and rugged hill. She went up and
+up on a rough path. It was very hard climbing, and she was becoming
+tired. At last she got to the top, and her happy eye looked back upon
+the way she had come.
+
+She saw from that high perch the pool,
+into which she knew the little brook was trickling; the blotches which
+were clumps and patches of dark forest; the field, a mass of sparkling
+green light, a brilliant illumination to the gloomy pine forests around
+it; the cottage, a tiny brown speck in the distance--and the sea, the
+billowing sea, with the spots of foam, the towering waves, and that
+green colour which the waves show when they are agitated. She could
+even see the gulls, no bigger than flies to her, swooping about; but
+she was too far away to hear their shrill, excited screams. Long and
+steadily she looked. And then--the strangest thought Eepersip had ever
+experienced came to her happy mind. "Forgetfulness!" she whispered to
+herself. "Oh, I loved it so! and then, when it happened that I came
+to the woodlands again, why--I forgot it. I must go back instantly.
+But I am _so_ tired!" 
+
+Each wave seemed to bring a pain
+to Eepersip's heart, as she watched the sea, like emerald, stretching
+away until it seemed to meet the blue sky. Suddenly she sprang to her
+feet and started down like a wild deer. Tearing through the woodlands,
+through the dense thickets and the brambles, she came out at last by
+the pool. But she had no eye for all its beauties; she had no mind
+but for the sea. She rested a second; then she was on her feet again,
+plunging, rearing, fighting her way through the woods. She came again,
+in the depths of exhaustion, into that pool of light, the meadow.
+Unable to move, she sank down in the delicious soft grass and watched
+the butterflies, like winged jewels, swooping above. Then she fell into
+a deep, heavy slumber.
+
+She was awakened by shrill cries which
+pierced the air. Looking up, she saw a flock of gulls with their long,
+narrow wings, the colour of foam, winging their way toward the sea.
+Then she remembered that she, too, was supposed to be winging her way
+toward the sea, and she cried: "O happy birds, I would I were among
+you, to go with such flashing speed!" It seemed to her that the sea was
+in her care, and that she, through foolish forgetfulness, had wandered
+off from it--wandered off from her guarding, leaving it to the mercy
+of the beasts. Of course, if she had thought a moment she would have
+seen how out of proportion this was, but she could do nothing but blame
+herself, and fancy a terrible monster who would come and drink it all
+up in her absence. And she began fighting and struggling against her
+tiredness, until, with one desperate effort, she managed to start
+running again. Then there was no stopping! Her old strength seemed to
+come back, the strength which she had had before starting her woodland
+explorations--the result, as she thought now, of a foolish desire.
+Once she had started running again, her feet winged with a great
+longing, she sped along the ground.
+
+Soon she passed the cottage;
+and then--there was her sea again, just as she had left it, with the
+waves beating the sandy shore. The gulls were screaming and diving;
+everything was excited and trembling. With a cry of ecstasy, Eepersip
+sprang into the waves
+
+Many happy days Eepersip spent here,
+living in the vicinity of the hated little cottage. Since she had come
+from the sea she had worn a mermaid dress of sea-weeds, fastened at the
+neck by a white shell with a hole through it. Her favourite play was
+with the waves. She could swim now, even under water, with a speed that
+surprised herself, and she dived gracefully from all the rocks that
+she came upon. But it was watching the sea that fascinated her more
+than anything else. She would sit for hours at a time on the rocks and
+listen to the waves bellowing beneath her. Sometimes, when they were
+very high, she would go down on the low rocks and shout with delight
+when the white spray rushed along and whirled itself up into her face.
+The waves would wash her over and over and play with her in their
+salty hands, and, though they seemed rough and wild, something always
+guided her away from the treacherous rocks which they headed for.
+
+But she was born to wander, and it was not long before she was
+off on her explorations again. One sparkling day when the sun danced
+and glimmered on the little ripples, Eepersip started to explore the
+shore-line. Every sun-sparkle made her feel happier and happier, and
+every breath of salty air lighter, until at last she thought she must
+rise up into the air on strong wings. After exploring quite a while
+and finding nothing unusual, she sat down on a rock. Her auburn curls
+goldened in the sunlight, and her brown eyes sparkled.
+
+After she
+had rested a while, watching the swooping sea-gulls, she decided to
+collect shells. She went along the beach some way, picking up shells
+and pebbles. But soon she tired of this and, feeling very hot, flung
+herself into the sea and played a while in the shallow water. Soon she
+thought that she would like to take a long swim, and she started out
+rapidly.
+
+The waves came in higher and higher and brought with
+them great flocks of gulls sweeping around in wide graceful circles
+and uttering strange wild cries. Eepersip went on a long way until she
+saw a great rock ahead, draped with sea-weeds of a dark green which
+were floating up and down with the motion of the waves. There were many
+crabs and snails caught in them. She was borne forward to the rock in a
+mighty wave, and, clinging to it hard, she waited until the wave drew
+back before climbing up. After she had rested some time she noticed
+a shoal of shining little fishes down in the water. Some were gold,
+some silver, and some had bands of dark blue. They all had ruby eyes.
+She watched them for a long time, lying on her stomach on the rock.
+She observed how they nosed down and fed on the oozy sea-plants on the
+bottom, which were covered with silver oxygen-bubbles. Also she could
+see, 'way down there, lovely bright corals of all colours. The water
+was rather muddy, but there was a current coming in underneath, and
+before long it was perfectly clear. The rock was tremendous, spreading
+out beneath the surface and going down, down, all covered with slime
+and sea-weeds. Eepersip was fascinated watching those little fishes:
+she cared for nothing else. How long might she have watched them if
+the tide bad not been rising and rising? Now it was touching her dress
+when a ripple larger than the others came in. And now--a flash of
+lightning down there in the shadows! Eepersip could not realize what
+had happened. Then she thought: a great brownish-green fish had shot
+into the middle of the shoal, seized one of them, and carried it off.
+It was so quick that Eepersip could not think, until some time after
+it was all over, what had really happened.
+
+She swam to the
+shore, but, to her surprise, it was quite a different shore from where
+she had started. She wondered where she was. She landed on a beach of
+white sand, so fine that it was impossible to hold. It was covered with
+shells of all colours. These interested her for a long time, and she
+piled up the whole beach with heaps of them that she had collected,
+and had a beautiful time playing with herself until--
+
+She saw
+some footprints! _Footprints!_ They came down on the beach and
+apparently into the water, then out again, and disappeared in the woods
+on a narrow path which Eepersip had not noticed before.
+
+But she
+was not interested in where they went to or where they came from. Her
+only thought was to get away--away. It was then too late to go out
+in the sea again--that is, far from shore. The sun was about to set.
+She would spend the night there, and then she would wander again. So
+she lay down and went to sleep.
+
+The next morning when she
+woke up she was not alone. A little golden-haired boy with sky-blue
+eyes was looking at her. They looked at each other for a long time.
+
+"Who are you?" he ventured at last.
+
+Here was a puzzler.
+"Eepersip Eigleen," she answered. "I mean," she added doubtfully, "I
+_was_." 
+
+"Who are you now, then?"
+
+"I don't know
+exactly."
+
+"Why don't you?"
+
+"I haven't any name now. I'm
+just somebody. Have _you_ any name?"
+
+"Yes--Toby--Toby Carrenda."
+
+"Do you live here in the woods?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In a house?"
+
+He looked at her curiously a moment; then
+he said: "Yes, of course--don't you?"
+
+"NO!"
+
+"How
+funny!"
+
+"Yes, it is." With a little reluctance--"Will you play
+with me?"
+
+Strange: here was Eepersip, who detested people,
+asking a little boy to play with her! It was simply that she, not
+having seen any children for a long time, was fascinated by this small
+boy who seemed so unafraid of her and so natural.
+
+They wandered
+together on the beach and picked up shells. Then Eepersip asked the
+little boy if he liked to swim.
+
+"Yes," he said. "But do you
+think I'd better?"
+
+"Yes--why not?"
+
+"All right."
+
+So he took off all his clothes and went in with her, and they
+splashed each other and had a lovely time. Eepersip wanted to make him
+a mermaid dress, but there was no sea-weed right there, and she didn't
+want to leave him. So they went into the woods to find some ferns to
+make him a nymph dress. She found a beautiful ferny glade, and sat
+down and began to weave ferns together, talking to him at the same
+time. When it was all done he was delighted.
+
+"But, please," he
+said, "can't I have a shell, too?"
+
+He touched the shell strung
+up on her sea-weed dress. They looked all over the beach, and at last
+they found another shell with a hole all the way through. Then he was
+entirely content.
+
+They went into the woods together and picked
+flowers, and Eepersip showed him how to make fern dresses and how to
+weave wreaths of flowers. They went into a grove of sunlit white pines
+and danced there together. Finally the little boy said: "I'm hungry,
+Eeserpip."
+
+"It's _Eepersip_," she said, "but it doesn't
+matter much. I'll find you something to eat." After a while they found
+some flame-coloured berries, and then Eepersip dug up some white roots
+of which she was fond.
+
+The boy said: "This is jolly, it is. Is
+this the way you get your food?"
+
+"Always," she said.
+
+They
+played a while longer, and then someone called.
+
+Eepersip had a
+strange feeling at that moment. She could not help feeling a certain
+reluctance when she had first played with him; then she had decided
+that he could not have anything to do with the civilized people she
+hated so. He must be separate from them, perhaps even a wild thing
+like herself. She felt a sensation of horror when the strange voice
+sounded. Then he was not alone--then he lived in a house with other
+people!
+
+Startled, she cried: "Who's that?"
+
+"My mother,"
+he answered.
+
+"Then you don't live here all by yourself?" She
+had a bitter feeling of disappointment.
+
+"Oh, no."
+
+"I
+_wish_ you did." This escaped her before she could think. Strange,
+that some magic power in this child had already made her say as much
+as had said.
+
+"I must go now," he said sorrowfully. "But I'll be
+out this afternoon--I guess."
+
+Eepersip fell on her knees in
+front of him and said entreatingly: "Will you do something for me?"
+
+"I will--maybe."
+
+"Don't tell _anybody_ about me."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Never mind why, but don't, will you?"
+
+"I want
+to."
+
+"Then I won't play with you any more."
+
+"All right,
+Eepersip. I won't." She looked at him doubtfully. "I _promise_ you
+I won't. Goodbye. I like you."
+
+Eepersip was delighted with
+her little friend. She waited anxiously for him to come out. Presently
+he came.
+
+"Eepersip," he said, "will you swim with me again?"
+
+They went in again, and this time Eepersip showed him how to swim,
+by holding him up while he kicked with his arms and legs. After a long
+time he could swim a little bit by himself; and then Eepersip took him
+to some rather high rocks and showed him how to jump in. At first he
+wouldn't do it alone; she took his hand and they jumped in together.
+After that he did it alone, and screamed with laughter when he came
+up. Then Eepersip showed him how to go in head first, and he had so
+much faith in her that he tried it right off. Although he went rather
+flat, he liked it very much. The next time Eepersip bent him 'way over
+before he went in, and he straightened out and hit the water clean as
+an arrow. That was much better, he said.
+
+Eepersip asked him what
+his mother had said about the fern dress, for he had gone in so quickly
+that he had forgotten his own clothes. He said that she had asked him
+about it, and he had said that he found it. Eepersip thanked him for
+not telling about her.
+
+But she was discovered in spite of her
+caution. One day when they were playing in the woods, Mrs. Carrenda
+came out and found them. Eepersip dashed for the waves immediately, in
+spite of the fact that Toby's mother called: "Don't run away, little
+girl; I won't hurt you!"
+
+But Toby began to cry bitterly. "Why
+did you send her away, Mother?"
+
+"I didn't, Toby. She ran as
+soon as I came. Who is she?"
+
+That Toby did not answer. There
+were two instincts equally strong struggling within him--one to obey
+his mother, and the other to do what the strange girl asked him to
+with the threat of refusing to play with him if he did not.
+
+"I
+can't tell you, Mother," he said courageously. It would have been as
+true if he had said "I don't know," for he knew nothing but her name,
+after all. However, he never stopped to think that knowing her name was
+not all there was to knowing _her_.
+
+Mrs. Carrenda wisely
+pursued the matter no further; but she determined to keep watch.
+
+Eepersip was much more cautious after this. She was always on the
+lookout. Several times Toby asked her why she didn't want to be seen.
+But she would not answer him. She was, however, very kind in all
+other respects. Several times Mrs. Carrenda found Toby playing with
+her, but never spoke or let him know. She saw that Eepersip played
+nicely with him and that they liked each other much; so she did not
+interfere. Once, however, she put her hands suddenly on Eepersip's
+shoulders from behind and said kindly: "Little girl, don't be afraid
+of me."
+
+Eepersip sprang to her feet, stared wildly a moment,
+and then dashed off straight to the sea. But for fear of making Toby
+very unhappy, Mrs. Carrenda never questioned him about her.
+
+She
+and her husband had many anxious conferences together. Her husband
+thought that it was exceedingly risky to let Toby play so unwatched
+with Eepersip, but Toby's mother did not feel that way at all. Then
+they talked over the matter of who she was.
+
+One day Eepersip was
+peeping into the house to see if she could find Toby, for he had not
+been out to play with her. Looking into the dining-room, she saw him
+there, eating luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Carrenda. They were talking
+anxiously, and she was curious, and listened.
+
+"I have it," said
+Mr. Carrenda suddenly. "Don't you remember those people--the Eeglines,
+or Eigleens--that came over to the hill near Mount Varcrobis where we
+lived before we came here? who wanted to know if we had seen a strange
+little girl, dressed all in ferns? She is the Eigleens' lost little
+girl."
+
+Mrs. Carrenda looked puzzled. 
+
+"They told us, you
+know, that they had given up all hope of having Ee--ee--serpip" (Toby
+started violently) "back again--"
+
+"Oh yes, I remember now."
+
+"--When Fleuriss came, and--"
+
+"Oh yes, it all comes back
+to me now. They were making a great effort to find her and entice her
+back home by telling her about her baby sister."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, father," said Toby," Eepersip--"He suddenly saw her in his
+mind, kneeling in front of him, begging him not to tell--and he said
+no more. Nobody noticed his remark.
+
+A moment Mrs. Carrenda
+gazed at her husband astounded. Then she said: "I believe it is so.
+Let us send word to them right off."
+
+"No," said Mr. Carrenda,
+bluntly. "Supposing they came all the way down here. Supposing the
+plan failed. Mrs. Eigleen would only be unhappier than ever. We'll
+just have to let them alone for a while. Supposing _we_ try
+it. Supposing it fails. Mrs. Eigleen will never know. Supposing it
+succeeds. They will be _much_ happier, and we shall have made
+some staunch and grateful friends."
+
+"Oh, let's try it!" agreed
+Mrs. Carrenda.
+
+"I bet Eepersip--Ee-serpip, Eeserpip, Eepersip,
+Eeserpip, Eepersip--funny name! I bet she'll go home fast when she
+finds out."
+
+"Perhaps--but she is like a sea-nymph now. How
+strange it is! Well, it's worth trying, at any rate."
+
+Eepersip
+had listened with growing amazement--fascinated, entranced. But when
+they paused in their conversation, the charm was broken that had held
+her there. She sped away into the woods. She came to a place that she
+knew well, a glade surrounded by ferns and a few wild-rose-bushes now
+in bloom.
+
+She had a little sister!--it was too much. And that
+little sister haunted her dreams and her imagination, making everything
+seem less joyful than before. She felt a strange longing--the longing
+to see her. She might be several years old now. Eepersip had forgotten
+what a "year" meant, but she had a vague feeling that Fleuriss had been
+living some time already. Why had no one told her? She felt a sort of
+angry resentment, but it cooled immediately when she remembered that
+her parents _had_ been trying desperately to tell her. Yes, a
+plan was certainly shaping itself in Eepersip's mind--but not the
+plan of letting herself be caught, tamed, and carried home. No indeed.
+She dreamed of some day going home by stealth, seeing Fleuriss, and
+playing with her as she now played with Toby. She wondered silently if
+she would be anything like the fair-haired little boy. She wondered
+whether Fleuriss, too, would play with her secretly. If Fleuriss
+were like Toby, how wonderful it would be!
+
+But the problem of
+getting back home to see her did not appear so serious to her now
+while she had Toby to play with.
+
+She continued her beloved
+explorations, discovering islands, beaches, peninsulas, and rocks out
+of sight of land, which she charted down in her mind, so that she
+could almost always find them.
+
+One day Toby came to her and
+told her that they were going off on a tramp, rowing over across the
+bay to the woods near a little cottage that Mr. Carrenda knew about.
+They had always been interested in the cottage; they wanted to see
+who was living there. And they had heard about some beautiful hills
+behind it, which Mr. Carrenda wanted very much to see. And if it was
+pleasant they were going to start the next day. Eepersip was curious.
+She wondered if it could possibly be _her_ cottage and _her_
+hills--the cottage she had discovered, and the hills that she had
+climbed about in. She decided to follow and see where it was that the
+Carrendas were going.
+
+When the boat started she let it get some
+way off, then she plunged into the sea and followed it. The waves came
+up behind, and she gained fast, but when she got dangerously near she
+stopped for a while, waiting for the boat to get farther off. They
+landed just where she thought they might--by the little cottage.
+
+Near it they set up their tent, and soon they were exploring the
+peninsula. They climbed the beautiful hill which Eepersip had climbed.
+Once they saw her as she darted behind a tree, and wondered how she
+had got there so quickly. And they fell to talking about her again.
+She heard them talking over their plan of capturing her, telling her
+about Fleuriss, and, when she had been smoothed down a bit, letting
+her go back to the Eigleens to make them happy. If only they could
+have foreseen!
+
+They tried only once, and never had the chance
+again. It was a golden day in October. Eepersip was sitting on a rock
+repairing some tears in her sea-weed dress. The waves were high, and
+every once in a while a little spray would splash up on to the rock
+where she was sitting. Mr. Carrenda discovered her sitting there,
+and, tiptoeing forward he caught her by the shoulders. She gnashed
+her little white teeth at him and struggled to get away, but he held
+her fast, and was about to pick her up in his arms. She shouted: "O
+waves, help me!" And, magically, a great wave rushed up, whirled itself
+into the air, and broke in Mr. Carrenda's face. He dropped her, and
+with a lightning manœuvre she dived down from the rock into the sea,
+and was far out before he recovered from the surprise. After this she
+remained far from the cottage and made her home on a deserted island.
+This island was a lovely place. It had a beach of fine sand on one side
+and was entirely surrounded with rocks on the other sides--rocks and,
+in places, even high cliffs. There was a grove of yellow pines there,
+where Eepersip danced when she wished to turn nymph again. There was
+a spring of fresh water on a small hill behind the grove. The hill
+was still covered with blueberries and raspberries; also there was a
+multitude of the plants with the sweet white roots that Eepersip was
+so fond of. There were asters, too, and Eepersip wove them in with her
+ferns or sea-weed, and crowned herself with them. Very happy to find
+not a single house on the island, she lived there for a long time,
+glad also to be able to have both the sea and the woods, to which
+she still instinctively returned occasionally. The period through
+which she stayed on this uninhabited island was one of the happiest
+stretches of her life by the sea.
+
+But, now that she was alone
+again, Eepersip was filled once more with longing to see the little
+sister--to know her, love her, play with her, teach her to leap and
+dance and swim: filled with curiosities about what was going on at the
+home which she had been away from for so long. And these emotions grew
+and grew until they became a firm resolution. She struggled a while
+to prevent herself from thinking she had made a mistake in running
+away, and, thinking it all over, said that she had not, even if she
+did miss such exciting things as little sisters.
+
+The plan of
+seeing Fleuriss had become more and more developed, now that she saw
+little of the boy and had more time to think about it. (It was only
+once in a while that she swam to the mainland to play with him.) Her
+idea had changed a great deal: it now was to take Fleuriss away to
+live with her. She wondered whether she could ever get her over those
+awful crags, through that shadowy forest, to the sea; whether she
+could make her comfortable living the wild life. Here was a difficult
+situation, for Eepersip was sure that so young a child could never
+endure the hardships of the life she lived--at least, until she was
+used to it.
+
+This problem troubled her mind for days. Then,
+suddenly, as she was gazing over the restless murmuring sea, she had
+a great inspiration, "Oh! beautiful!" she exclaimed in her delight.
+The vision of the little brown cottage in the grove of white pines had
+come back to her--the whole thing, how she had been borne to it on
+her raft by those friendly yet terrible waves. And now she had a use
+for it! It seemed strange, when she hated houses so. But then, no one
+need know. She would go at once and make sure whether the Carrendas
+had gone from their camp, then fix up the cottage and discover all its
+secrets. _Then_ she could go and take Fleuriss away.
+
+So
+one cold day she swam back to the cottage. The Carrendas' tent was
+gone; everything was as it had been before. But this time it did not
+appear hateful. She opened the door and went into the pleasant little
+living-room with the fireplace. Then she investigated the whole house
+shore thoroughly. She found a room with glass cupboards on the walls,
+filled with a marvellous collection of all kinds of sea-weeds, shells,
+and corals (how Fleuriss would enjoy them! she thought); and there was
+a tiny kitchen, There was one small attic room, with a ladder going
+up to it through a trap-door, and in it was a soft little bed with
+warm blankets, and a fireplace. Above the bed were three casement
+windows, and Eepersip liked to think how it would delight Fleuriss to
+see the stars out these. When she went to the second floor she came
+to a snug alcove with glass doors opening on to a porch, free to the
+wind and sun, overlooking the sea: and two sunny bedrooms.
+
+But
+just as she was preparing to start after Fleuriss, her reason again
+detained her. Fleuriss of course could not begin her wild life in the
+winter: she must have a summer of it first, to see what it was like. So
+Eepersip waited patiently till spring. During the winter she lived in
+a great pasture on a hill behind the cottage.
+
+The spring
+came round incredibly soon, and again Eepersip prepared to start.
+
+The night before she went a great black cloud came up from the
+west, and soon a gale was raging. The waves mounted higher than any
+Eepersip had ever seen before, topped with flying snow-white spray.
+They leaped the highest cliffs, thundered on the wet rocks, and then
+retreated, awashing down through the cracks with a strange hollow
+sound and sweeping the sea-weeds wildly up and down. The wind sounded
+as on a mountain-top, a curious mixture of high-pitched whistling
+and bass droning. Occasionally it would rise into a terrific scream,
+making the waves rage with the uncanny storm-green. At the crisis of
+the storm Eepersip, who had been standing on the beach watching, her
+curls flying, her ferns fluttering and often tearing loose, flung
+herself into the storm from a high rock, and was swept about like a
+tiny insect, disappearing under a wave, bobbing up to take a breath
+just as the next breaker washed over her. She had a glorious time out
+in the waves and the spray. The sea-gulls shrieked; sometimes they
+struck at a fish, and appeared all covered with spray and shaking the
+drops from their wings--strong narrow wings that beat down the air as
+the birds rose again, to hover and swoop and plunge. These marvellous
+birds being blown wildly in the gale reminded Eepersip of the swallows,
+as they were tossed about by the high pasture winds--the swallows
+she had loved so when she lived on the meadow.
+
+Slowly the wind
+abated its fury, and Eepersip, covered with water-drops and spray like
+a silver fish or a sea-gull, swam to the shore bubbling with happiness.
+With the water still standing on her hair, she sang a sea-song on the
+beach, accompanied by the rocking waves, now calmed down, and by the
+screaming and wildly circling gulls.
+
+It was a wonderful night
+afterwards, for soon the sea was entirely calm, and the moon and the
+stars came out, reflecting themselves in trembling silver. Eepersip was
+up all that night, dancing singing, swimming and diving in the glorious
+moonlight. And then she remembered--to-morrow! and went up on the hill
+to say good-bye to the meadow, the pastured hill, and quiet, mossy pool
+that she had loved so.
+
+Up on the hill she saw the sun rise.
+First the dark blue sky turned grey, and then a pearly streak came on
+the horizon as the first ray of the sun appeared; then it turned to
+the most heavenly shade of pink and deep rose, and then into the blue
+of one of the most gorgeous days Eepersip had ever seen. She gazed
+and gazed at the dawn until it grew pale and buttercup yellow, and
+finally turned to blue. The sun made a mass of gold sun-sparkles on the
+sea, and they blended together from the high hill and formed a solid
+splotch of gold, separating at the edges into individual sparkles.
+It was a windy day, but the wind was warm, and at first the sea was
+only rippling gently and smiling.
+
+Then Eepersip remembered her
+little sister Fleuriss, and she wished her already there to share that
+beautiful, beautiful day. And off at one end of the beach she found, to
+her delight, a little green boat with two oars, which had been washed
+in by the storm. Now she had everything she needed, for the clumsy
+raft was difficult to manage in the wind, and she might even be blown
+so far off that she could never find the cottage again. Now, however,
+all was ready.
+
+And so she made her way home, beginning in the
+boat, and rowing to where she had first entered the sea; then past the
+great precipices over which she had so laboriously clambered as she
+went to the sea. over hills, down into valleys, crossing rivers, and
+tearing her way through forests, until at last, to her delight, she
+arrived at the beautiful meadow where she had spent her first years
+of wildness with Chippy, Snowflake and the deer.
+
+The deer did
+not remember Eepersip; that was one thing which distressed her. But
+a little fawn came cautiously and sniffed at her, obviously wishing
+he dared to approach and eat the ferns of her dress. She did not see
+Chippy anywhere.
+
+She was soon at her own house, spying around,
+and looking in windows. All she could think of was Fleuriss, her little
+sister.
+
+
+
+III
+THE MOUNTAINS
+
+The droning wind
+Entwined about the peaks
+A golden trail of music...
+Far off, the snow-topped mountains
+Were sea-waves
+Capped with foam.
+
+Eepersip had begun to wonder whether
+it would be so easy to take Fleuriss away. She might consent to play,
+like Toby; but to run away, like Eepersip?--it was a great problem.
+Eepersip must use some other means than simply appearing and asking
+her sister to go with her. Perhaps she would entice her on with the
+assurance that there was something wonderful waiting. Or maybe she
+could show Fleuriss wonder after wonder--point out the beautiful
+sea from far away, then lead her on to the little cottage which she
+had prepared. And if Fleuriss was cold, or hungry, what should she
+do then? Perhaps she would not like roots to eat. Then, suddenly, an
+idea: she would dress herself up in wonderful flowers interwoven with
+the ferns, she would lure butterflies about her wreaths, she would
+bear armfuls of roses and apple-blossoms and lilacs and scatter them
+over Fleuriss, she would make her a fern dress, and, thus fascinating
+her, draw her away.
+
+Eepersip wondered where she could sleep,
+near the house, and yet concealed. She thought of returning to the
+meadow, but that would be too far for convenient communication with
+Fleuriss. And then she saw a lilac-bush on the eastern side of the
+cottage--a great tall lilac-bush, thick and with great branches. It
+looked as though she could go into it. And when she tried, she found,
+to her great delight, that she could squeeze in, curl up in comfort,
+and be absolutely invisible from the outside.
+
+Then she began to
+make her fairy array, weaving more ferns into her skirt, and more and
+more, until it was thick and flouncy--maiden-hair ferns and Christmas
+ferns, evergreen ferns and hay-scented ferns. She tucked flowers all
+over her dress--late daffodils, cosmos, wild geraniums, primroses.
+She made a girdle of yellow daisies, a crown of golden buttercups;
+she plucked a bunch of roses, lilacs, and ferns, binding them with
+daisies woven together. A great bouquet of violets decorated her
+dress--violets and little white Pyrolas. With a huge hollyhock for her
+wand and her arms full of lilacs and roses, she danced in the woods,
+thinking how her little sister would wonder--and follow.
+
+That
+evening early she climbed an oak which was beside the window of her
+former room, and peeped in. The moonlight shone on the face of a child
+lying in a little wooden crib. She had fluffy black curls and bright,
+snapping black eyes, and she was watching delightedly the shadows of
+the branches on her wall and softly humming.
+
+"Oh," breathed
+Eepersip, "the little sister. I want her, I want her!" Entranced,
+Eepersip watched, sitting in a crotch just outside the window--watched
+her as she lay there, tracing with her finger the curving patterns
+on her wall-paper; as she played her hands in the moonlight and the
+waving shadows on her wall. And after a while the humming died away,
+the finger ceased to stroke the wall, her eyes closed, and in a moment
+she was gently sleeping. Before Eepersip went down she left a fair
+sprig of apple-blossoms on Fleuriss's bed--apple-blossoms that, with
+difficulty, she had brought up the tree. When she went back to her
+lilac-bush she imagined Fleuriss's surprise, when she should wake, to
+see them on her bed; imagined Fleuriss following her, all fascinated
+by butterflies and sweet flowers; imagined her little sister climbing
+mountains with her, eating berries and roots, swimming and diving and
+dancing; and--Her thoughts began to grow more and more fantastic
+--the smell of lilacs intoxicated her--and she went to sleep.
+
+In the morning she climbed the tree again. Fleuriss was just
+waking. Her eyes were turned toward the lovely oak-tree, watching
+the sunlight playing on the emerald leaves. She caught a glimpse of
+Eepersip as she vanished around the trunk.
+
+"Oh, Mother," she
+called softly. "I saw a nymph! She smiled at me, and went away."
+
+"Hush, child," said Mrs. Eigleen, coming upstairs and stroking
+gently the silky black hair. "You were only dreaming."
+
+"No,
+Mother," returned the child, "I was awake. I _saw_ a nymph,
+really."
+
+Mrs. Eigleen only smiled.
+
+And then Fleuriss saw
+the flowers. "O Mother," she cried, " did you bring those to me?" Mrs.
+Eigleen was wonderstruck.
+
+"Why, no!" she answered.
+
+"Maybe
+that nymph left them here."
+
+Mrs. Eigleen was astounded enough
+not to contradict her. "Perhaps," she said.
+
+Eepersip descended
+again and ran off to her safe hiding-place in the lilac-bush. "She is
+so, so lovely!" she thought. "I want her more and more."
+
+In a
+short time little Fleuriss appeared with Mrs. Eigleen. "Fleuriss," said
+her mother, "you may play here in the garden, but don't go outside it,
+and don't climb the trees."
+
+"All right, Mother."
+
+"And
+don't run off and worry me as you did once before." She had _not_
+forgotten Eepersip. Perhaps she scented something in the air. Those
+flowers troubled her.
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+Mrs. Eigleen
+went in, and Fleuriss began to run about and play. Then Eepersip
+stepped out from under the bush, and the lovely butterflies, lured
+by her flowers, fluttered and hovered around her.
+
+"Oh," said
+Fleuriss," goodness, how you frightened me. Sit down on the grass,
+and talk with me. And _how_ do you get those butterflies? They
+always fly away from me."
+
+"Listen, Fleuriss," said Eepersip.
+"I am Eepersip, who ran away. The butterflies and birds all love me
+and come to me in great flocks when I call them. And I want you. I
+want to take you with me to live wild, and eat leaves and berries with
+the birds--sweet red berries. And if you come the butterflies will
+gather around you, too. They will not any other way. And look at all
+my flowers! Butterflies love my flowers."
+
+"Oh, did _you_
+bring me those _bee-yoo-ti-ful_ flowers?"
+
+"Yes, I did. Come!"
+
+"Oh," answered Fleuriss, "and wouldn't it be funny
+if Mother came out and found me not here!"
+
+"And think--the
+birds, the butterflies, the flowers! Look, I'd dress you like this,
+with ferns and flowers and butterflies. And what fun we could have!
+We would dance and sing and chase each other amongst the fluttering
+leaves."
+
+"Oo, I could never catch you."
+
+"No, but I could
+catch you, and that would be as much fun."
+
+"But Mother doesn't
+like me to eat leaves, and berries all the time make one sick."
+
+"But we would not have berries all the time. We would dig up sweet
+white roots and wash them clean; and _m-m!_ they are good, little
+sister Fleuriss. We would have honey. The bees gather honey from the
+flowers, which they would share with us."
+
+"Bees sting," said
+Fleuriss, shrinking away; "they sting, and they hurt, Eepersip."
+
+"Oh, but the bees love us all so they don't sting us," answered
+Eepersip. "It's only the people that try to hurt them that they sting.
+We wouldn't hurt them."
+
+"Oh, _Eepersip!_ the leaves and
+butterflies, and--and honey--_m-m!_ But I oughtn't, really," she
+said, backing off toward the house.
+
+"Oh, come," said Eepersip,
+"come, don't go away. Your Mother wouldn't care; she would love to see
+how happy you were. _Please_ come." And Eepersip's hands went out
+in supplication, scattering over Fleuriss wreaths of flowers, sprays
+of berries, crimson, gold, frosty white.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful!"
+exclaimed the little girl. But when she looked up, Eepersip had
+vanished.
+
+Suddenly the door opened and Mrs. Eigleen stepped
+out. Eepersip had darted under the welcome branches of an apple-tree,
+whose thick blossoms kept her from sight.
+
+"How sweet it smells!"
+said Mrs. Eigleen--"just as if a fairy had been here. Where did
+those flowers come from, Fleuriss?"
+
+"Oh," answered Fleuriss,
+"I saw the most beautiful girl. She brought me flowers and called
+me 'little _sister'_ and wanted me to go away with her!"
+
+Pale and weak from fright, Mrs. Eigleen took Fleuriss by the hand
+and dragged her roughly into the house.
+
+Eepersip sat down under
+the apple-tree in ecstasy. "I saw her," she said softly, "I saw her
+and talked to her, and--oh, how dear she is! But I _do_
+wish she hadn't told about me." She waited there, and in a short time
+Fleuriss appeared again, running.
+
+"Eepersip, Eepersip," she
+cried, "where are you?"
+
+In a moment Eepersip had her arms around
+her waist, kissing her and hugging her.
+
+"Are you coming?" she
+asked; "have you decided to come, Fleuriss?"
+
+"Y-y-es," said
+Fleuriss, "I really have, Eepersip. I thought all dinner time, and
+couldn't eat, I was so 'xcited! But we must go quickly now, or they
+will run after us."
+
+So they ran quickly into the woods--ran
+amid the trees and flowers until they were far from the house. Eepersip
+showed her little sister how to dance, and they danced together. She
+also showed her how to leap and run fast, and Fleuriss was delighted.
+When they grew tired, they sat down together and made fern dresses and
+flower wreaths. Fleuriss followed Eepersip's example, casting aside
+her dress, shoes, and stockings.
+
+"Oh, how 'licious the grass
+feels on my bare toes!" she said, "and the soft moss. Eepersip, I feel
+just like a nymph." (A slight pause.) "When I saw the flowers I said:
+'Mother, I think a _nymph_ left them there,' and she said: 'Oh,
+no, there aren't any nymphs. You're only dreaming!' _Are_ there
+nymphs, Eepersip?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Fleuriss, and if we dance and run
+and dress just like them, we'll pretend _we're_ nymphs, too."
+
+"But why can't we _see_ them, Eepersip?"
+
+"Oh, we can,
+if we look very hard. They're all around in the trees, the flowers,
+and the woods. _Sometimes_ we can't see them, and they turn into
+butterflies so we can. I can see them." 
+
+"Well, sometimes," said
+Fleuriss thoughtfully, "it seems as if they were everywhere--when it's
+windy, you know, and sunny, and there are shadows. In my garden it's
+so beautiful I think there must be nymphs. I can _feel_ them,
+not exactly see."
+
+There was a pause.
+
+Then--"Where we
+going now, Eepersip?" for Eepersip was gradually working off to a hill
+which was a peak of Mount Varcrobis, north of Eiki-ennern Peak.
+
+"Fleuriss," said Eepersip, with a strange emotion in her voice,"
+have you ever seen the sea?"
+
+"No, but I heard Mother talking
+about it once. She said maybe you had gone down there; and she told me
+it was lots of blue water, and there were boats there. Did you really
+go there?"
+
+"Yes; it's _so_ beautiful, Fleuriss. The sun
+makes the waves sparkle like gold, and the great white gulls with their
+long, narrow wings go gliding, circling over the water, sometimes
+plunging down and catching fish underneath. And there is white sand
+there, soft sand, and shells and pretty pebbles, and little fishes
+swimming. And when it's windy the waves come dashing up on the rocks,
+flinging spray high in the air. And there is sea-weed, too, Fleuriss,
+green sea-weed that goes floating up and down as the waves stir it.
+And corals, too. Oh, my little sister, it's so, so beautiful. I would
+show you how to leap into it from the rocks, and how to swim--to
+be a mermaid and play with the gulls and the fishes, dressed all in
+sea-weeds!"
+
+"Oh, Eepersip I let's go _now!_"
+
+"And I
+have a little cottage down there for you to live in--a pretty little
+cottage just like your home."
+
+"Oh, how nice!"
+
+"And we
+shall go riding up and down on the great waves, Fleuriss, while the
+sea-gulls scream over our heads. We shall go 'way out of sight of land
+and find islands and rocks out there. And the waves are tremendous
+when it's windy--very windy."
+
+"Oo--"
+
+"Fleuriss!" And
+Eepersip caught her little sister in her arms--glad that she had
+succeeded in entrancing her with the sea.
+
+"But, Eepersip,"
+said Fleuriss, doubtfully, "where _are_ we going now?"
+
+"I
+thought, Fleuriss, that we'd go to that great hill over there--do you
+see?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Go over there so that you can see from 'way
+of how beautiful it is."
+
+"Oh yes; I'm crazy to see it!"
+
+Eepersip saw that this hill was wooded on one side, but on the far
+side it was like a pasture--she could see sunlight glinting on it.
+On they went, often stopping to pick flowers, to dig up roots, or to
+refresh themselves at some little tinkling brook or mossy spring. Once
+as they were pushing through a fence of low beech-branches they came
+to a spring all surrounded with green moss--oh! so soft. There were
+ferns nodding beside it, and one or two strange pink orchids gazed at
+themselves admiringly in its surface. At the bottom were white stones.
+A cool, green frog plopped into it as they arrived. And Fleuriss was
+fascinated. She sat there for a long time, watching him reappear for
+air, then bob down again when he saw that they were still watching
+him.
+
+Again they came into a great meadow dotted with flowers.
+Butterflies with soft wings stroked Eepersip's cheeks caressingly.
+Fleuriss danced through the flowers, looking, as Eepersip thought, like
+a little butterfly herself. The sky was a heavenly deep blue--a rich
+deep blue, yet filled and sparkling with all the gold of the sun and
+all the coolth of snow. She could see for miles into it, as if it had
+suddenly come nearer than usual. She reached up and could almost see
+her fingers touching it. What a strange sensation!
+
+But Fleuriss
+had a stranger one. As Eepersip danced along, it seemed as though
+her feet barely touched the ground. The flowers and grasses swayed
+gently beneath her, but they were not crushed. And Fleuriss felt a
+bit of dread coming into her mind--dread of living and staying with
+this strange sister. What if she should grow tired of Fleuriss and
+run off? Suppose she should change into a tree--a leaf--a sprite?
+But Fleuriss fought with this feeling--because she wanted to live
+by the ocean, and to do the things that Eepersip had promised.
+
+After a while they came to the foot of the great hill. They
+slept down there, near a tiny lakelet, in the soft grass and among
+the flowers, with the tinkle, tinkle of a little brook in their ears
+all night. The next morning they climbed the hill together, and it
+was very steep and rocky. Fleuriss had to be helped often, and grew
+tired before she reached the top. But Eepersip lured her on by the
+promise of seeing the ocean, and they struggled painfully up.
+
+The sea stretched away to the horizon, blue and sparkling as it
+met the sky. Fleuriss was spellbound. 
+
+"Eepersip, is that the
+sea?" she asked.
+
+"Yes, Fleuriss--the sea, the sea!"
+
+Off to the north was a range of high blue-green hills, and off beyond
+them higher ones, and higher--billowing mountains--and beyond them
+was a range of snowy peaks, rising, sharply outlined, into the blue.
+The lakelet where they had slept was like an opal set with dark green
+pines. But those mountains--! never before had Eepersip seen anything
+like them. The sea was not nearly so beautiful. And again she felt
+that longing which she had felt when she saw the sea--but a more
+passionate longing.
+
+And Fleuriss? How could she climb those
+great peaks--she, who had had great difficulty even with the little
+hill? Well, Fleuriss could grow more used to such things, and then
+they would go together. But Fleuriss--Fleuriss barefoot, dressed in
+ferns--on those snowy summits! No, it would be impossible for years
+and years. She would have to wait--or else go alone.
+
+But the hill had other things than just the view. For there were the loveliest
+little winding lanes, and bright open places, and close spots where
+they could hardly push through the bushes; great patches of delicious
+soft grass, then again enormous smooth-topped rocks from where they had
+first found the long-sought vision of the sea. Such feasts as Nature
+laid before them! There were great beds of the most delicious wild
+strawberries, and nobody to sham them with but the birds. And they and
+the birds gobbled them; and it seemed as if the more they ate the more
+there were to eat; they ripened all the time. And in this marvellous
+place there were such contrasts! They could have anything they wanted
+there. There were places where the sun always struck brilliantly, and
+cool, shady ones for the hot days--places where not much sun ever
+came. There was the loveliest of soft grass, and then again nothing but
+brambles and heaps of pointed rocks. There were lanes leading through
+the woods occasionally, and there were places where no one would ever
+suspect that there was any such thing as a lane. There were little
+fairy glades where they could dance together--glades bordered with
+ferns and carpeted with moss.
+
+Fleuriss and Eepersip lived there
+enchanted day after day, and although they often saw the sea, they did
+not wish to leave the hill. Fleuriss spoke about it several times,
+but Eepersip would hurriedly change the subject. That range of blued
+hills seemed to be calling her--she would forget the sea for a while,
+until the next year. After they had stayed where they were for some
+time, they would go on and on to the blue hills, and perhaps explore
+the great snowy mountains beyond. She could manage with Fleuriss
+somehow.
+
+One day they went exploring farther than ever toward
+the east. They followed a narrow path, winding, winding through the
+bushes. And then it curved around toward the north-east and led through
+low laurel-trees, and here Eepersip stopped to make for Fleuriss a
+crown of the blossoms. And again the path turned and came on to a
+broader gravel road all bordered with gorgeous roses of red and white,
+and Fleuriss was very much surprised at their magnificent beauty.
+But Eepersip was distressed. So they had come to a place where there
+were roads, houses, and people! But as yet they had seen no house.
+Eepersip hoped that there would be none, for she was as entranced as
+Fleuriss with the beauty of it all. And then they switched off on
+another little path, leading southeast on to a wide lawn all bordered
+with marvellous roses. Here they danced together a long time. Next
+they turned into another gravelled path which led eastward, through
+clumps of roses and laurel, downhill and uphill, for a long way; and
+then they saw a garden brilliant with colour. Fleuriss was dazed, there
+were so many flowering bushes--rhododendron, laurel, honeysuckle,
+azalea, quince, and fire-blossom. Hummingbirds, bright emerald and
+ruby with moonlight wings, were darting and sparkling about, sipping
+honey, resting and quivering on the air.
+
+But soon after they
+had discovered the garden, Eepersip said that she was going on a short
+journey, coming back in two or three days. "Will you be all right here
+alone, little sister?" she said anxiously.
+
+"Oh yes, Eepersip,
+and I'm going to find lots of things to show you when you come back.
+But where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going--going--to a beautiful
+place--and take you there sometime."
+
+"Oh--I see. Can't I go
+now?"
+
+"No--because--it would be too hard now. Wait till I go
+and find the easiest way for you."
+
+"All right--good-bye!"
+
+And, with a rustle of ferns, Eepersip vanished around a great
+rhododendron-bush.
+
+Fleuriss continued her explorations
+alone. She saw a gorgeous butterfly come sailing toward her, of yellow
+streaked with black. Others followed, and they covered her with soft
+wing-caresses, crowning her head with their wings. Fleuriss thought (as
+Eepersip had told her) that they were the fairies turning themselves
+into butterflies so that she could see them.
+
+Not a mouse stirred
+when she wormed her way through the bushes, taking care not to step on
+leaves or dry twigs so as to make a noise. And then the sun started to
+set and turned the whole sky golden and rose. Fleuriss crept in among
+a vine with golden flowers (there was no rich purple fruit yet, only
+the lovely flowers) and watched. And, lo! each leaf was quivering, and
+on their smooth surfaces was represented another miniature sunset. How
+marvellous the rose and gold looked through the mass of trembling green
+leaves
+
+Then Fleuriss squeezed her way out of the bush and began
+to explore again. Pushing northward in the dim, rosy light, she came
+to a smooth lawn of pale green moss. On the other side was a stretch
+of woods, then another lawn, of grass this time and smaller; and then
+there was a great row of massive pines and beyond them an opaline lake.
+And still the sun went down, and the mass of colour became smaller and
+brighter, and Fleuriss, who had never seen so much beauty in her little
+life, gazed and gazed. The colour faded slowly, slowly, as she watched,
+until only a deep flush was left, and it was then that Fleuriss thought
+she was in the heart of a giant rose. And--inconceivable--she looked,
+and she was. She was sure of it. She could even see the great curling
+petals around her. Right at the sun was a burning spot. That was the
+pollen of the great flower. And this tiny fire burned and burned until
+only one bright red spark was left. Then it too went out, and after
+it all the rose colour faded away.
+
+Then Fleuriss turned to the
+lake, which also had held in its bright blue surface an image of the
+sunset. The sky was deep blue now. The pines looked even darker against
+it, and in the lake Fleuriss could see the reflection of the crescent
+moon setting. And then she ran down by the side of the lake, and very
+dark and strange it looked in the evening. Dipping her little hands
+into the clear, crystal water, she drank, for she was thirsty. But she
+was too tired to appreciate any more beauty just then, and so she crept
+back to her little nest of flowers to go to sleep. Then she heard a
+gurgle of sweet silvery music, and she listened spellbound, entranced.
+But it was no wicked witch, seeking to entice her by spells: it was
+the solitary wood-thrush, that superb singer of the dusk. And then
+Fleuriss dropped off to sleep.
+
+The next morning dawned fair,
+and she rose bewitched with what she had been through. The sunset and
+the silvery notes of the thrush all came back to her. She went down
+by the lake. It was very different now. Its blue was sparkling with
+the rays of the sun, whereas before it had looked very solitary--an
+icy cold blue. There was no beach--just a grassy bank--and in the
+shallow water she saw some little silvery fishes swimming and playing
+in shoals. And she watched them in their happy play for a long time,
+fascinated by the way they raced after each other around the shining
+stones and pebbles. Because they were so bright and gleaming, poor
+little Fleuriss thought that they were some rare and unheard-of fish,
+little dreaming that they were just common minnows.
+
+Eepersip
+came back that day in a strange way. Fleuriss was looking down on the
+meadowy side of the hill, where the long green grass waved in the wind
+and butterflies were fluttering. And as she looked, suddenly--there
+was Eepersip standing in front of her. She had come from nowhere--she
+was just there without coming at all. Fleuriss was appalled. She
+remembered that strange dancing--was her sister about to melt into the
+air? Fleuriss stood stock-still.
+
+Finally she raised her head and
+said, at first faintly, but with growing enthusiasm: "Oh, Eepersip,
+last night there was a great rose, and I was inside it--and I found a
+beautiful lake with fishes in it--oh, wonderful fishes of silver--and
+the beautiful birdie sang me to sleep in the flowers." And then, her
+voice sounding strangely timid: "O Eepersip--I want--Mother--to see
+it--so beautiful. I love--it here, but----I know Mother would like
+to see it, too. And I guess I can't get along without her. I guess I
+can't, Eepersip."
+
+Eepersip was broken-hearted. "But, Fleuriss,"
+she said--and Fleuriss shuddered a very little as Eepersip took her
+hand--"Fleuriss, if your mother came, she would take you back home,
+and you would not be here any more. If she would come to see it, all
+right, but she would not--and so you would not see it either. Come
+on, show me the lake you found."
+
+Fleuriss was happy in a flash.
+Laughing and dancing, she took her sister down to the lake and showed
+her the wondrous fishes. They went in bathing together, and Eepersip
+showed Fleuriss how to swim, as she had shown Toby. Fleuriss was wild
+with joy. Then they splashed each other and played tag in the water.
+Eepersip puzzled Fleuriss by swimming under water, and Fleuriss would
+scream with delight when she came up in a totally unexpected place.
+This new pastime kept them happy for several days.
+
+But again
+Fleuriss began to grow miserable--and homesick.
+
+And again
+Eepersip resisted this feeling for a long time--two or three weeks of
+misery. But at the end of that time she began to think.
+
+To begin
+with, she thought about where she had been on that little expedition
+of hers. She had been up toward those blue hills to see from nearer
+the snowy mountains. She had loved them more and wanted more than ever
+to go to them. She asked Fleuriss if she would not like to climb the
+high peaks with her. But Fleuriss replied, almost snappishly: "You
+know what I want, Eepersip."
+
+Of course this misery weighed down
+Eepersip's mind frightfully; she was very uncomfortable. And then she
+began to think that after all she would want to be alone when she went
+amongst the mountains; Fleuriss would be all right if she were happy,
+perhaps, but a miserable companion would be unendurable. Perhaps she
+had made a mistake in taking Fleuriss away. Maybe it was true that they
+had to go in different directions--that she herself could not live at
+home, and that her little sister could not live elsewhere. And even in
+Eepersip's untamed heart there was a bit of pity. And she found that
+that pity kept growing. How badly the Eigleens must feel, after all!
+Once she smothered it with the thought, "No, she will be happy if she
+stays long enough, and they will forget her." But it only began to
+grow again.
+
+Up to this unhappy time Fleuriss's flowers had not
+withered or drooped: in this they were like those of Eepersip. But now
+Eepersip noticed that for some peculiar reason hers only stayed fresh
+and sweet. And then she thought again about the mountains and about
+those poor wasted flowers, and the pity grew and grew.
+
+And one
+happy, happy day for Fleuriss, Eepersip led her safely home again.
+
+"Good-bye, Fleuriss," she said. "I'm sorry you wouldn't stay with
+me."
+
+"Yes, I know, Eepersip, but I just couldn't. Why don't
+you come home--you've been away so long--and Mother cries for you
+still. Please come."
+
+"Oh, Fleuriss, I _couldn't_. If I
+were to go back home now, I should just die--even with you."
+
+"Good-bye, then. Sometime I'm going to take Mother to see that
+beautiful hill."
+
+"But not for a long time?"
+
+"As soon as I can."
+
+"Don't."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You know. Please don't."
+
+"Well, I'm not sure. I'm going to--pretty soon.
+Good-bye, Eepersip--Aren't you _ever_ coming home?"
+
+"Oh, Fleuriss, no!"
+
+"I wish you would."
+
+"But I can't."
+
+"Won't you let me take Mother and Daddy to live over there?"
+
+"Well, after a while--if you want to. I shan't be there."
+
+"Why, where are you going?"
+
+"I'm going to the beautiful,
+beautiful white mountains. And then maybe the sea again, Fleuriss--the
+sea."
+
+"Oo!"
+
+"Coming?"
+
+"NO! I'll ask Mother to take me to the sea. She will."
+
+"Then--good-bye!"
+
+And
+she decked Fleuriss's fern dress with beautiful flowers--a crown of
+them and a girdle. A sweet wind arose, carrying the scent of Eepersip's
+flowers to Fleuriss. A few butterflies were blown over to her. Eepersip
+stood on her tiptoes an instant: then, quick as a flash, she whirled
+about and bounded off, free--relieved of a gigantic burden.</p> <hr>
+<p>She went up to the lovely hill and stayed there a few days, amid the
+dancing butterflies and the gorgeous roses. At the lake she would dream
+hour after hour and watch the little jewelled minnows playing about
+the white stones and shining pebbles. In the evening she crept into a
+great bed of thick vines with flowers of white and gold, and listened
+to the lapping of the waves and watched the twinkling fireflies. They
+were her favourites, those poor ignorant little insects. She loved them
+as well as the delicate, gauzy butterflies, the sweeping swallows with
+their slim white wings, or the great gold-and-black bees. She adored
+them all, but the tiny blue-black fireflies, with thin gauze wings and
+the spot of phosphorescence showing now and then, were perhaps the
+loveliest of all. How she liked to see them playing about at dusk,
+sparkling and gleaming--little stars of the trees, in golden waves
+across the sky.
+
+Sometimes, when they began to come out, she
+would go forth and dance and skip with myriads of them clustered in
+her hair. Around each invisible fern and blossom in her dress would
+gather a row of the little insects, until finally one could have seen
+her entire form bordered with fireflies. And besides these which
+alighted on her dress, thousands gathered swarming about her, so that
+her head was entirely hidden in a maze of gold.
+
+Sometimes she
+would sleep at night and in the daytime play with the butterflies,
+birds, and bees. But now she began to sleep more and more in the day
+and play about at night.
+
+One cool morning Eepersip went down
+the lovely hill that she and Fleuriss had found. She walked down and
+then out toward the pastured side of the hill. Here she stayed for a
+long time. She lived in the golden smell of steeple-bush, and instead
+of the wild strawberries that she had had on the hill she found great
+crops of blueberries. And in this pasture she had a sample of a new
+food--checkerberries. To be sure, she had eaten the leaves often
+enough, but to see the waxen white berries was quite new. These also
+she tasted and found greatly to her liking. She would lie and eat
+hundreds of those white berries which tasted of the woods. They were
+almost as good as the blueberries.
+
+Now this pasture formed
+a steep hill, and one delicious morning when a soft, warm wind was
+blowing rather strongly, Eepersip climbed to the top of it. And oh,
+what a sight met her dark brown eyes! Far and near, far and near rose
+mountains, mountains, mountains! Stretching away, fold after fold,
+layer after layer, rose marvellous blue peaks, with the dazzling light
+of the sun brightening the white granite at some of their tops. Peak
+after peak rose up around her, lake after lake stretched out in the dim
+blue distance, with the sun striking them until they were a mass of
+gold, like great precious stones in that setting of purple mountains.
+She could make out three or four farmhouses, but no villages. She stood
+there entranced, watching.
+
+Then down she dashed, through the
+tall grass sprinkled with buttercups and daisies. It seemed miles. but
+it also seemed no more than seconds. At last she found herself by the
+shore of a cobalt lake. It was almost perfectly round, with a group of
+tiny green islets sprinkled in it like a handful of emerald beads. No
+house could Eepersip see, for the lake was entirely surrounded with low
+green-blue hills. The shore was for the most part soft white sand, fine
+as pepper. With a cry of joy at the discovery of this beautiful little
+lake Eepersip dashed into it and swam in the cool of those waters from
+the mountains. And then she saw, playing up and down in the shallow
+water just off one of those many beaches, a shoal of slim fishes.
+They were all silver except one or two that were gold, and they had
+rather bulging red eyes.
+
+For a long time Eepersip watched them.
+Then something caused her to look up. This something was the strange,
+shrill cry of a bird above her. She looked up suddenly and saw the
+bird. But she did not watch it, for the glint of something white--a
+strange whiteness which she had never seen before--caught her eye.
+She gazed long upon it, until, when her eyes became accustomed, she
+was able to make out the outline of a peak, going up sharp as a tooth,
+with bumps of smoother outline stretching away, away into the blue
+immensity of space on either side.
+
+"Oh," said Eepersip, " a
+dream! Oh, what a beautiful dream! But--I feel so wide awake."
+
+She gazed and gazed, silent.
+
+"Oh," she said again, after
+a while, "it cannot be a dream, it mustn't be a dream!"
+
+She
+gazed and gazed again.
+
+"Oh," she repeated, "I must go there at
+once! The snowy mountains!"
+
+She plunged into the beautiful,
+icy lake and swam across it with never a thought of the beauty in
+the green depths around her. Her eyes were fixed upon that one thing
+only. Soon she reached the opposite shore, consisting only of thick
+woods. Her heart--that heart beautiful, yet with a certain sense of
+childlikeness in it which had never left her--was mad for a glimpse
+of those mountains. It was then that she felt as if there were a great
+bird in her, pulling her, hauling her forward, regardless of the thorns
+and nettles which tore her delicate dress of ferns and blossoms. At
+last she got through the forest and found herself in an open meadow,
+with the wondrous mountain before her and warm rain falling gently.
+She saw a farmhouse, and as she went along the simple peasant farmer
+saw her and muttered to his wife: "Look there, Mary." Mary looked, and
+then she said: "Ay, God hath taken this child into his care--ignorance
+demands mercy."
+
+A moment of intense thought. She gazed and
+gazed, bewitched. Then she gave, or tried to give, a little laugh.
+It did not sound. "Oh," she tried to say, "how _queer_ I feel!
+I believe I never felt so queer." And indeed she did feel queer. For
+she felt the feeling of speaking to her heart. She was talking, it
+seemed to her, loudly, but when, even in the midst of her talk, she
+listened, nothing sounded.
+
+After a few seconds, it seemed, she
+ran on, leaping through the wet. Raindrops gathered on the ferns and
+the flowers of her dress, outlining them with the pearly water. She
+looked like a rain-fairy. Hour after hour passed, and she went like
+the wind itself; yet she did not tire. At last she found herself near
+the foot of that wondrous mountain, shimmering with snow-fields, cold
+white against a deepening night sky.
+
+That night a bird of modest
+wood-colour, with speckled breast, sang of moonlight; and, rippling
+faintly, softly, came echoes from his silver-tongued mate. They sang,
+and they answered, and the moon-frost-tipped pines were quiet, and
+clouds floated near, snowy palaces of silence. Spellbound, Eepersip
+was borne away to fairy kingdoms where she danced and where
+birds sang the only melody in the world.
+
+The next morning
+the sun came out and shone through every raindrop in splendid crimsons
+and purple-greens. Eepersip looked about her and discovered a little
+plant with a peculiar flower of white and crimson. She found that its
+leaves were quite delicious, unlike anything that she had had in the
+meadow or by the shore of the sea. They were green--a strange pale
+green, delicately outlined and veined in marble white and pale gold.
+Eepersip loved their pleasant flavour, but could not bear to touch
+them, they were so beautiful.
+
+Then she looked up and beheld the
+strange rough outline of the mountain, and far in the distance, almost
+on the top, was a great snow-field, on which the sun shone directly,
+covering it incredibly with brilliant tints and shades of gold. And,
+oh, the bright green foliage, shining in the dear golden light!
+
+"Fairyland!" whispered Eepersip. "I loved the meadow, I loved the
+sea more, but even before I am really _in_ the mountains, I love
+them the best of all." Then, after a pause, she added: "That snow-field
+of gold, these heavenly little flowers--oh, such beauty!"
+
+After
+a few more moments of breathless gazing, gazing upon everything, she
+started up the mountain. The first few hundred yards she followed
+a faintly marked trail which led through dense woods, over great
+boulders covered with dark green moss. Occasionally a little rushing
+brook trickled across her path. For quite a way Eepersip kept climbing
+over the huge boulders, and the path was very mossy. After a while it
+began to grow fainter and harder to follow, and at last it was shut
+off entirely by the thick bushes and trees which surrounded it. Here
+she sat down to rest and to think a while.
+
+She looked about and
+came upon a bubbling spring, at which she drank. No water she had ever
+found was like this. It tasted of the strong, delicious mountain air.
+She drank deeply, and, when she had quenched her thirst, continued
+her way. Here flowers which made her think of foam at sea--white,
+star-like, with silver-tipped petals--twined themselves among the
+trees mingled with wild roses--dawn-flowers of deep pink or sun-bright
+yellow. Strange orchids grew about, many of them pure white and
+fringed like fluffy clouds. One had green blossoms with long whitish
+spurs--mystic flowers on tall spikes with two smooth leaves. Yellow
+lady-slippers made her think of butterflies with folded wings, or of
+the sun peeping out from dark clouds. But the loveliest of all were
+pink orchids--hosts of them with more deeply tinted lips fringed
+like fairies' fingers: hosts of them on slender stems, each stem a
+dawn-sprite's wand.
+
+"Like the dawn I saw once," she thought,
+"when snow-pink fringey flowers wreathed the sky. The sun was pleased
+and smiled. I danced for him, and the bobolinks and skylarks greeted
+him with song." There were tall flowers, too, pink silk beneath white
+tissue, with very dark and curious leaves up the stalks among the
+blossoms. Butterflies were playing like sun rays, winging softly from
+flower to flower. And as she went on she passed through forests of
+thick bushes and poisonous thorns, open pine-groves, and great pastures
+smelling of hay-scented ferns and budding steeple-bush. All the time
+the path, or rather the easiest way through the thick bushes, had been
+fairly level, but now it began to shoot up steeply, and it was all
+Eepersip could do to keep herself from sliding back in an avalanche of
+pebbles and stones. A bit of tough scrambling followed, and at last
+she broke out on a comparatively level piece of ground. on one side
+of which was a deep ravine in which she heard a brook rushing and
+rippling. On the other side of the ravine was a peak of the mountain,
+crowned with snow and with the sun flashing upon it.
+
+Eepersip
+longed to see the brook, which, by the sound, she judged to be quite
+large. She was not actually afraid to go down over those steep walls
+of dirt and sand, but she _was_ rather afraid that, once being
+down, she would not be able to get up again. So on she went, and it
+grew so steep that, even by digging her feet into every crevice and
+clutching the roots of the trees, which were getting much scarcer and
+more stunted, she could just manage to cling on.
+
+But at last
+a change came. She stood on that high peak, on which there were only
+bare rocks and a little snow, no roots or plants. On either side it
+went down, down, and it was getting late in the afternoon. She could
+see nothing to do. Still the highest peak was many miles ahead, and
+she knew that she could not make it in the remaining daylight. So
+she climbed warily down into a little crevice, where a few ferns and
+luscious mountain blueberries managed to grow. She ate a supper of
+these and of another hardy little berry which she found; then slept in
+peace till daybreak, her tired mind dreaming of strange things--of
+deep palaces at the bottom of the sea and snow palaces at the tops
+of the mountains; of fairies, nymphs, and elves.
+
+In the
+morning she breakfasted on the mountain blueberries again, and found,
+much to her delight, that they quenched her thirst almost as well as
+water. After her juicy breakfast she went on down for about a mile;
+then up, up again on sheer walls of rock, where there was not a sign
+of a plant of any kind. After a stretch of difficult climbing snow
+again began to appear, as the slope became more level. Eepersip went
+down through a snug hollow in the rocks, where it was thick with small,
+scrubby trees and where very little snow had managed to penetrate the
+thick branches.
+
+Oh, but it was cold up here on these tremendous
+heights; the wind was keen and shrilly whistling. But, however cold,
+it was a mountain wind, an exhilarating mountain wind which made
+Eepersip leap into the air--leap and dance as on the meadow. Then,
+after she had rested a while under the welcome branches of the stunted
+firs and eaten tart mountain blueberries again, she went on, up out
+of the hollow and on to the solid rock covered with a deep snow, into
+which she sank at every step. Another mile she trudged. along, pulling
+herself through it. And still the mighty peak retreated before her, so
+that she could make no progress--or, at least, it seemed so. It seemed
+as far away and as faint in the snowy distance as from where she had
+been when the night had come on--a dreaming peak caressed with fingers
+of mist.
+
+At last the ground went up abruptly again. However
+steep, Eepersip found it much easier, being there wasn't so much snow.
+It rose and rose, becoming more gradual, until she stood on another
+high peak, looking off over a tremendous range of mountains. Large
+flakes of snow were falling gently, so that she could not see much of
+these. She thought that she was now on the highest peak, and she sat
+down to wait for the snow to cease and give her a clear view. After a
+time it did; and then, and not until then, she saw another peak, the
+true summit of the mountain, going up, up, and up on the other side of
+a deep valley into which she would have to descend. After sucking a
+few handfuls of the pure mountain snow, she set off with a light heart
+and a happy spirit, her feet falling fast through the light drifts.
+After a while she got down into the valley; and here she came upon a
+brooklet full of icicles, winding through the long ravine and dashing
+over the green slimy rocks in great cascades of rattling icicles and
+foam. Eepersip drank deeply, and was refreshed.
+
+Then, after
+resting a few moments, she went on, up that steep wall of snow and
+rock which would take her to the longed-for summit. Eepersip counted
+sixteen brooklets rushing down over it, carrying hundreds of icicles
+with their currents, foaming and dashing with spray and myriads of
+shiny iridescent bubbles.
+
+Across brook after brook she went,
+watching the colours change in the dazzling snowflakes. The sun was
+shining brilliantly now, making everything unimaginably beautiful in
+magnificent shades of ruby, copper, silver-gold, emerald, and sapphire.
+Each snowflake seemed covered with an almost invisible layer of tiny
+sparkling gems. And once, when Eepersip sat down in a deep snow-bank
+to watch and to rest, the sun happened to strike directly on one of
+the many brooklets that went dashing down the mountain-side, making it
+a blinding ribbon of silver and gold. Occasionally Eepersip saw the
+blossoms of the beautiful talatuna, with ruby-red leaves and blossoms
+of pale green and changing white. She thought that the leaves were
+_all_ red, but when the wind flipped one over she saw that their
+backs were moon-white, pale but glistening. 
+
+On she went,
+through the incredible beauty of the fairyland about her. "Oh," she
+murmured to herself, "how marvellous it is! Oh, fairies, fairies." She
+whirled happily around. She had felt a few delicate touches on her
+shoulders, and at once the air was a-flock with glistening snowflakes.
+Each fern in her dress was bordered with a row of the fairy things,
+and her autumn hair was crowned white.
+
+After a while a slight
+breeze sprang up and the big flakes whirled faster. The breeze rose and
+rose until it was a strong, cold wind, and she could not see a foot
+before her. The only thing to do was to wait for clear weather. But
+in that she was disappointed, for it was growing darker and darker,
+and at last she realized that night was coming on. So she lay down and
+ate a supper of snow, as it fell and fell.
+
+All night the
+snow whirled and whirled, and in the morning Eepersip was completely
+buried. It was a long, hard task to find her way out, or rather to push
+her way out, for almost as fast as the snow fell it froze into ice,
+so that there was on top of Eepersip a thick layer of ice. But just
+before she decided to give up and wait for warmer weather, she broke
+through. Out into the bright sunlight she came; and lo and behold! all
+the ferns on her dress, and the dainty blossoms, together with her
+hair, were covered with a layer of ice which shimmered and sparkled
+in the sun like jewels set in something brighter than the brightest
+gold.
+
+But as soon as she came out into the sun the ice began
+to melt and run off in all directions, and as she skipped and jumped
+about she was almost hidden in the shower of water-drops which flew
+from her as she ran.
+
+And how beautiful, how fairy-like, she
+was! Each fern was covered with a thin layer of the melting ice, and
+the crown of pink blossoms around her curly hair was frozen likewise,
+their fair colour persisting through the ice. Once in a while, when
+the sun touched her, she was a blaze of colour--of silver and gold,
+with here and there a splotch of brilliant red as the sun struck a red
+flower.
+
+After she had found that there was nothing to be eaten
+except snow, she sucked a few handfuls, flavoured with the petals
+of the flowers which she wore. Then she went on, through paradises
+of silver, gold, and red, through deep hollows of shining green.
+Everything was something besides white, and the world that was in
+Eepersip's range of vision was fairyland.
+
+But, as she went on,
+clouds began to float in--little white clouds. They grew thicker and
+thicker, until, before she had come near the highest peak, there was
+nothing but pearly mist--scudding grey mist, curling into fantastic
+shapes as it rose. She could see nothing, and she sat down in the snow
+to wait. That night a gale came up, whistling and howling around the
+peaks, reminding Eepersip of that storm at sea. What an awesome sound
+it made! It sleeted, too, and when she awoke the next morning the snow
+was covered with a crust. The mist had partly cleared, and she pushed
+on again. She went through icy hollows and up on shimmering peaks,
+until, finally, she saw near her that long-sought summit, and, with a
+shout of joy, she dashed up. Fast she went, but when she really reached
+it at last, the mist had closed in again, the wind was up, and it was
+sleeting furiously. It was only through a break in the mist that she
+had made the summit at all.
+
+The next morning it was still
+misty, but not nearly so thick. There was even a faint purple glow
+over on the eastern horizon where the sun was rising. Occasionally
+the mist would break open above, and she would see glimpses of blue
+sky--the deep, deep blue of that day in the meadow with Fleuriss. And
+lying all around on the boulders were frost-feathers. When Eepersip
+first saw them she thought that she was dreaming. But no, they were
+really there, delicate ferns and feathers with scalloped edges--ferns
+and feathers of frost.
+
+"Oh, mountain-fairies--fairies have
+left them here," she said quietly. Some were as long as her forearm,
+and others tiny--oh, so tiny; some were almost round like the inner
+feathers of a bird, and others long and narrow like the outer plumes.
+Down in a hollow were some stunted firs, laden with snow and covered
+with those fronds of ivory chiselled by wind-sprites, lovelier than
+anything Eepersip had ever seen, lovelier than anything ever made by
+Nature. No, Nature could never have carved them, Eepersip thought.
+The fairies--fairies!
+
+Once she found a hollowed rock entirely
+lined with them, like a fairy's crystal palace with strange shadowy
+recesses. They crowded everywhere they could find room, and sometimes,
+when there was no other place, rippled on the snow. They overlapped on
+the rocks, and hung from windward crags, pointing into the wind. And
+behold! Eepersip's dress and her head were covered with small ones,
+like a diadem--a fairy crown and fairy ornaments. Moving gently,
+so as not to disturb them from where they rested, she wandered from
+one cluster to another, looking carefully at each one, noting each
+special pattern, each magic tracery. All day she followed the winding
+rabbit-trails amid the feathery firs.
+
+The sun, too, had been
+pushing out. Now the mist opened in one direction, and Eepersip caught
+a fleeting glimpse of snowy peaks; but it closed again. It opened
+a trifle longer in another direction, and Eepersip saw, 'way down
+below, first low blue-green foothills and lakes golden with the sun,
+then higher purple hills, melting into range after range of billowing
+mountains, and valley after valley filled with white clouds rapidly
+lifting. The mist shut in. Another direction opened in the same way,
+with hills fading into mountains; and far off on the horizon was
+another range of snow mountains, lying just under great white clouds.
+There were clouds hanging over the valleys too, and they cast strange
+shadows on the sunlit trees far below. When the mist shut in, the
+golden lakes seemed to stay the longest. and after the mountains had
+entirely disappeared they could he seen as if hanging in mid-air,
+limpid pools of gold. And more sides opened, and more, the waits
+growing shorter in between, until, on a gust of mountain wind, the last
+of the mist went scudding away, banished, and the sun broke out into
+the blue sky. The snow sparkled, the mountains sparkled, the lakes and
+rivers sparkled, the frost-feathers sparkled, the air itself sparkled.
+And the mountains of the range that Eepersip was in, crowned with
+snow, gleamed like gold. Down on one side of the snowy peak dashed a
+great river, green and swirling, covered with clots of foam. Sometimes
+it would cascade over the rocks throwing up a fountain of spray, and
+sometimes it would slip over a smooth slide, then, whirling round and
+round in a rock basin, thunder down another great cliff in a shower
+of bubbles, rattling icicles, and foam. It not its way through a
+green hollow in the snow, and where it tunnelled under the snow-hanks
+it was overhung with long, gleaming icicles.
+
+Eepersip danced
+in the snow, among the frost-feathers, all that day--danced like a
+mountain sprite, leaping high, then running gracefully in a shower of
+water-drops which flew from her as the frost-feathers melted in the
+warmth of the sunlight. She danced down to the river and played there
+a while--played with the white foam.
+
+At sunset she was again
+at the peak of her mountain. The sky was flushed with magic; a great
+cloud in the west became a brilliantly fringed with gold and red-gold,
+the east was all submerged in a lilac sea, and a delicate laciness
+of pink trailed across the zenith. Sunset fairies alighted on the
+snow-peaks: they were fiery for a moment, and all the great snow-fields
+were flaming. Then the colour faded to pink on the summits. But in
+the sky Nature still flung about her colours wildly--fire was in the
+zenith, the long bank of clouds was vividly fringed with red-gold, and
+there to the south it changed to caverns of shadowed pink and strange
+violet. Seas and bays and cloud islands formed out of it--seas of
+a strange greenish rose. Then one thrill and flame of gold spread
+about the whole earth; the snow at her feet was shadowy gold, and a
+pathway of it danced upon the air 'way to the horizon. It played upon
+each frost-feather; the eastern mountains were flushed with this soft
+gold.
+
+And then, dizzy with the colour and the beauty, Eepersip
+fell asleep, her fingers clutching the rosy snow.
+
+The next morning the frost-feathers had almost disappeared underneath a
+new snowfall. The air was full of its fresh scent, as it came down
+gently in tremendous flakes. Here and there Eepersip saw one of the
+lovely blossoms of the talatuna, with those same ruby-red leaves. How
+beautiful they were, growing in great clusters, just peeping through
+the snow! Once in a while a pale cream-coloured mountain moth would
+flit before her. Occasional gusts brought swarms of tiny bottle-green,
+white-winged snow-beetles, and the air was a-buzz with them. Sometimes
+a blue or white insect like a firefly would hover past, a strange red
+light gleaming about its transparent body.
+
+On and on Eepersip explored, seeing nothing but the wonderland about her--the
+fairy palaces of snow, the fluttering, hovering insects, and the beautiful
+mountain flowers. Following the icy river down, she came sometimes to a
+great cascade of the green water--a cascade coming over one of those
+great cliffs, washing down the snow, throwing up fountains and clouds
+of spray in its furious descent. Sometimes it cut under the banks,
+making a green cave hung with icicles gleaming strangely. One of these
+had been made when the river was in flood; now it was large enough for
+Eepersip to stand in, and, wading in water about up to her knees, she
+went back into its innermost recesses, where the roar of the stream was
+muffled. There were fish there--trout playing in the whirlpools and
+riding swiftly with the current. She found some odd bright stones and
+gleaming pebbles in this mysterious place, silent save for the deadened
+rush of water.
+
+Sometimes, again, the rushing brook took such
+steep course that Eepersip was forced to make a detour into the woods
+for a little way, through clumps of the firs, now growing less stunted,
+but hung with icicles which clicked together in the wind, sounding to
+Eepersip like fairy castanets. Even at this high altitude, she saw
+occasionally a white pine, each cluster of pale green needles laden
+with snow--tufts of snow which seemed to make little faces peering
+out from the tree. Bursts of happiness would overwhelm her now and
+then, and she would leap high and dart like some frightened deer or
+mountain nymph.
+
+Once she found beautiful little violet-shaped
+pink flowers with bowed heads and feathery leaves--snow-pinks blooming
+there, thrusting their buds from the snow itself. She tucked a spray
+of them into her dress of fluttering ferns.
+
+And then she would
+return to the river and follow it again. When the moon came, dappling
+the foamy water with silver, she watched it as it dipped down its
+forehead in the stream and touched the treetops with magic. Then she
+would go on again through the moonlit night. Once she came to a place
+where the brook separated, and she had a difficulty choosing which
+branch to follow.
+
+And when the russet dawn reappeared, tipping
+the mountains with apple-blossom and fire, she had followed it to its
+goal in the very meadow from where she had started--a pool hitherto
+unseen by her. About a hundred feet across it was, beached with clean
+white pebbles. In it bloomed water-lilies, fragrant and white, with
+centres of gold; strange red flowers, too, she saw on the bottom,
+growing between the pebbles. Dragonflies with crackling wings swept
+over it in circles. She saw, too, a shoal of tiny fishes of a brownish
+colour, striped with yellow. They would suddenly dart forward as if
+something had frightened them, and then poise themselves stock-still,
+mimicking so many sticks in the shadows of the abundant lily-pads.
+
+She was wading about in the pool when suddenly--where there had
+been ground for her foot to rest on, nothing was there. The bottom
+of the pool under her foot had slid forward and collapsed! Suddenly
+"Clug-glug, clug-glug, chugarum, glug!" reached her, as a big
+bull-frog's nose appeared by the side of a lily-pad. A second later the
+frog diked up on the lily-pad and stared at Eepersip with his goggly
+eyes. She burst out laughing, he looked so ridiculous staring at her
+like that.
+
+She stayed in the meadow, playing gaily among the
+leaves and flowers. Butterflies of all the colours of the rainbow swept
+over it in great flocks. Flowers bloomed so thickly that there was
+hardly any grass--white ones with waxen petals. striped and bordered
+with heavy golden bands; red ones with centres of dark green-gold;
+great blossoms of pink and purple, whose petals fluttered about in the
+breeze like butterflies. 
+
+One morning she was awakened early by
+"Peep, peep, twitter-itter-ee-e-e-e-e-e, twit chirup, twitter-ee-e-e,
+twit!" She looked up and saw a great flock of snow-white birds with
+long narrow wings. They were flying northward. The flock was much
+more gigantic than Eepersip had supposed, for it kept on until she
+began to think that it was going round and round. But no: after ten
+or fifteen minutes the sky cleared, and she heard faintly in the
+distance: "Twitter-itter-ee-e-e-e-e, _ee-e-per-s-sip!_ e-e-p,
+e-ep, chirup."
+
+Day after day she danced here, playing, as on
+the first meadow, the butterflies, flowers, and swallows. And now,
+as she danced, she seemed to float through the air, her feet almost
+motionless. Sometimes she would leap high and come down--_float_
+down--quite slowly. She seemed to have no weight at all, and a breeze
+would almost lift her off the ground and hold her up in the air.
+Indeed, when she ran with the wind behind her she would be _blown_
+along--blown like a leaf just above the flowers.
+
+One day
+she was dancing there--dancing and leaping in the long grass, amid
+the blossoms. Butterflies drifted over the sunny field--butterflies
+of red and yellow, blue and green, black and white, orange and purple.
+How gracefully they flew; how delicately they alighted on the flowers;
+how fairy-like they were, hovering for an instant over some blossom,
+then dipping their wings and starting off again! Eepersip felt as
+though--as though she were going to be one of them; as though she were
+so happy that she must fly about with them, sip the honey from the
+flowers with them.
+
+As she was thinking happily she heard a few
+faint peeps, which became louder as she danced toward a certain part of
+the field. Then there was a desperate twitter right at her feet, and,
+looking down she saw a yellow fledgling hopping towards her. She picked
+him up carefully and saw that he had broken his left wing. She worked
+a moment with her hands and pulled the bone into place. Then she made
+him a comfortable nest of grass and set out to see where he had come
+from. Looking up, she saw a nest from which a bird was peering about
+anxiously. Straightway she took the little one from the nest _she_
+had made, and climbed the tree with it to its own nest; upon which the
+mother-bird gave a twitter of joy.
+
+After doing this Eepersip
+descended the tree and continued her happy dance with the butterflies
+until evening. Then they all found shelters under the leaves, and the
+stars came out, one by one. Presently Eepersip spied a flicker in the
+meadow--then another and still another, until the fireflies were
+out in full play. They gathered around Eepersip in one flaming mass,
+kissing her with their feathery wings. Making her way over to the pool,
+she saw her reflection, a shimmer of gold.
+
+A light darted out
+toward her from the woods; then another and yet another, until there
+were hundreds of lights flickering and blinking at her from all corners
+of the great field--the lights of elves and gnomes, little fairies
+of the field. And she danced happily among them--danced until the
+dawn appeared on the horizon, sending away the darkness and making
+the stars fade into space. It flushed the whole sky with rose, sent
+arms of it even as far as the west; arms and streamers of colour which
+paled toward their tips. Little white clouds grew pink, too, and the
+colour was reflected on the distant mountain-tops. Again the snow-field
+seemed to become fire--fire which was soon quenched by the coolness
+of the snow. As the sun sent its first golden beams above the horizon,
+the colour faded, turned to yellow, and soon entirely disappeared.
+Then the sky was blue--deep, quivering blue, with the fluffy clouds
+like pearls in an azure setting.
+
+Suddenly Eepersip saw that
+she was dressed in a flouncy array of spring crocuses and maidenhair
+ferns. Lovely flowers of pink and yellow were entwined in her hair, and
+butterflies fluttered around her. She danced happily and leaped high
+in the air. How free and light she felt in the lovely dress that had
+been given her!
+
+That day Eepersip was even happier than usual.
+She floated about, visiting each flower, each bush and tree. She played
+games with the butterflies, the games she had played on the old meadow,
+that first summer of her life in the House without Windows. When she
+rested, she sat on top of a laurel-bush, and not a twig bent beneath
+her. The slightest breeze blew her about, changed the direction of
+her dance. Butterfly after butterfly flew to her, flock after flock,
+as if they had some message to tell her; and after each visit she was
+happier than before. Yes, they were messengers, these happy creatures;
+messengers who came to whisper her a secret--a secret from Nature,
+a secret of the beautiful meadow, a secret from the fairies.
+
+And, when the sun again tinged the sky with colour, a flock of these
+butterflies, of purple and gold and green, came swooping and alighted
+on her head in a circle, the largest in front. Others came in myriads
+and covered her dress with delicate wing-touches. Eepersip held out
+her arms a moment. A gold-and-black one alighted on each wrist. And
+then--she rose into the air, and, hovering an instant over a great
+laurel-bush, vanished.
+
+She was a fairy--a wood-nymph. She would
+be invisible for ever to all mortals, save those few who have minds
+to believe, eyes to see. To these she is ever present, the spirit of
+Nature--a sprite of the meadow, a naiad of lakes, a nymph of the
+woods.
+
+
+
+HISTORICAL NOTE
+_(By Another Hand)_
+
+In the opening week of January, 1923, there appeared on the outside of
+a certain door within a dingy, sunless, and cramped apartment a slip
+of paper bearing the following typewritten notice:
+
+Nobody may come into this room if the door is shut tight (if it is
+shut not quite latched it is all right) without knocking. The person
+in the room if he agrees that one shall come in will say "come in," or
+something like that and if he does not agree to it he will say "Not
+yet, please," or something like that. The door may be shut if nobody
+is in the room but if a person wants to come in, knocks and hears no
+answer that means that there is no one in the room and he must not go
+in.
+
+Reason. If the door is shut tight and a person is in the
+room the shut door means that the person in the room wishes to be left
+alone. The author of this odd manifesto (here reproduced with strict
+textual exactitude from the frayed original) was the author of the
+foregoing story, then just three months short of nine years old. The
+door on which it appeared was that of the room in which, on a small
+typewriter, she wrote down the adventures of Eepersip; and the week
+in which it appeared was that in which these adventures had their
+beginning.
+
+She finished them, in the same room,
+three months later, early in the March of her ninth completed year and
+a few days after her birthday. One of her curious, slightly un-American
+inventions, I must here explain, was the concept of her own birthday
+as an annual occasion for handing out things to the other members of
+her family. She planned this story from the beginning as a gift for her
+mother on March 4. Would her mother "like" it, though? On that point
+there would have to be a disinterested opinion--as it happened, mine.
+With intense secrecy, behind the latched door of that room guarded
+by the constrained preparatory notice, she read me the instalments
+as they were produced.
+
+My candid guess was that her mother
+would indeed "like" it. I liked it myself, if only as unconscious
+expression of a radiant physical vitality--so much I found in it of
+the mighty swimmer, the enjoyable young comrade of trail and river,
+always ready to swing a paddle tirelessly or carry ungrumbling a full
+fair share of pack. I liked it, too, as her answer to the one year
+which she had ever been called upon to spend in undeniably tawdry
+surroundings. But, alas, there came interruptions one of them in the
+shape of the only appreciable illness she has ever had--and these
+pulled down her average daily output. On her big days the small typist
+clicked off fresh copy to the extent of from four to five thousand
+words; but still the appointed morning caught her some pages short of
+the end. The tale came to Finis a few days later. Its length, in that
+first incarnation, was some 40,000 words, or not far from what it is
+now.
+
+Up to that point there had been, of course, no thought of
+print. It was I who introduced the question of print; and it had at
+that time no connection whatever with publication. The author of the
+story never had (and never has) experienced any school system, public
+or private, her education having been exclusively the home-made one
+devised by her mother; and I was beginning to think it high time that
+print became a part of it. It was, in fine, my idea that we ought to
+have a piece of her work put into type in some small shop where she
+could set part of it herself, pull her own proofs, learn more about
+proof-reading by correcting them, and see the whole thing through to
+the binding of a small armful of copies for her friends.
+
+But
+before anything of that sort was done I wanted her to have the practice
+of revising her first copy as carefully as possible and putting it
+into strictly printable condition--as, indeed, she was eager to do.
+Accordingly she took it away with her in the summer, worked on it from
+early July through September in the intervals of swimming, canoeing,
+mountain-climbing, and plain day-dreaming, and brought it back, on
+the 5th of October, 1923, ready for print. Twenty-four hours later we
+left it in a burning building from which nothing got out but the lucky
+human occupants.
+
+From the point of view of an admittedly
+fond parent--for I can make no slightest pretension to the ability to
+contemplate all this with a stranger's or a critic's detachment--it
+was heart-rending to watch the nine-year-old author torture her memory
+to the end of reconstituting the tale in its first shape. There were,
+during the next weeks, a good many blank hours at the typewriter, and
+it was slowly and painfully that page followed page. At this rate, it
+was going to take about three years merely to salvage what had once
+been manufactured out of the void in three months.
+
+Then, one day
+in December, everything was suddenly different. As an experiment of
+despair, Barbara had stopped trying to remember the shape of sentences,
+the precise order and phraseology of details, and had begun to let the
+material come back as it listed. And to her astonishment it came in a
+freshet, like northern rivers when the ice goes out. When, a few days
+later, we put work aside to organize our makeshift Christmas, she was
+still in a happy glow, the first third of the fantasy existed again,
+and the story was running over its banks.
+
+There followed one
+interruption after another, and it was not until the autumn of 1924
+that the second draft was completed. In the late winter of 1924-25,
+Barbara worked patiently through the first third, putting it in what
+she hoped would be final shape. The manuscript had to be laid away
+in May of 1925, and was not touched again for nine months. Then, in
+February and March, 1926, she did her revision of the second and third
+parts, made a few minor improvements in Part I, and typed out a fair
+copy of the whole--the copy from which this little book is set.
+
+To what extent is this twelve-year-old manuscript identical with the
+nine-year-old story? To a far greater extent, I am sure, than seems
+compatible with the huge number of hours spent on it since it was
+completed; for it happens that a disproportionate number of those
+hours has gone into laborious, at times unconscious, recovery of the
+precise effects which were in the lost original. The differences are
+not where a stranger to the author would naturally look for them: that
+is, in the diction and the build of sentences. Barbara's vocabulary
+at nine was, of course, a stratified arrangement of deposits from
+Walter de la Mare[2][3][4] and Mark Twain, Shelley
+and Scott; that is to say, it was just what it is now except for the
+later addition of words which could not be in this story anyhow--the
+words of history, of science. And certainly the fundamental ideas
+and emotions of the story have undergone no change. The fact is,
+it was conceived and written at the end of a phase which could not
+return--that phase of normal childhood in which nature means nearly
+everything and civilization nearly nothing. The whole purport of
+Eepersip's existence is simply a healthy nine-year-old consciousness
+made articulate--something that an eleven-year-old could recover
+only by a feat of the memory, and an adult mind only by an improbable
+_tour de force_ of the imagination. Barbara, in short, designed
+this curious narrative at the last moment when to do so would have
+been at all open to her. By no human possibility could it have been in
+her head at eleven if she had not had it down on paper at nine.
+
+[1][2][3] No books meant more to her, between the ages of six and ten,
+than The Three Mulla-Mulgars, _A Little Boy Lost_, and The Princess and
+the Goblin
+
+The chief differences, then, between the printed and the destroyed
+versions represent the inevitable development of the author's taste
+in minor particulars, and they are these: (1) There is appreciably
+less of the pursuit-and-escape device, and correspondingly more of the
+sheer revelling in natural beauty; (2) a great many exact measurements,
+in the form of dates, distances, rates, heights, and depths, have
+been omitted as realistic and therefore trivializing; (3) there is a
+somewhat maturer attempt to keep the fauna and flora consistent with
+latitude, altitude, and season; and (4) the lapse of time is managed
+rather more consciously and coherently than it was in the first place.
+If, in the treatment of these and other details of the story, there
+seems to he a progressive increase in maturity, that is a consequence
+and a measure of the nine months' interval between the author's
+revision of Part I and her revision of Parts II and III.
+
+It
+will be observed that the differences involve little or no addition.
+The one piece of addition is in the episode of Eepersip's young sister
+Fleuriss, which is considerably more developed. The obvious reason for
+this is that the author's own young sister, at the time of the first
+draft, existed only as an insistent demand on Barbara's part; whereas
+in the period of the revision she was a dream fulfilled, subject to
+adoring daily observation.
+
+As to ordinary literacy, there is
+no perceptible difference, and has been none since the typewritten
+by-products of Barbara's sixth and seventh years. In short, what
+the reader is here given is an articulate eight and nine-year-old
+child's outpouring of her own dreams and longings in a fanciful tale,
+superficially revised by the hand of a twelve-year-old girl whose
+life on its more artificial side is made up principally of books and
+music.
+
+It was the youthful author's idea, not mine, that
+her story should be accompanied by a word of explanation from her
+father. I do not know how, when, or exactly why she formulated such a
+requirement, any more than I can explain where she got many another
+of the ideas with which she has been known to startle or confound me.
+Long after the story had been completed and while it was undergoing
+revision, there arrived a day on which I was told that the requirement
+existed: that Barbara had secretly been counting on me, and with
+pleasure in the thought. Pleasure! If I could give that and so easily,
+and to her, it not mine to make a gesture of resistance. I insist only
+that what I have to say shall be placed where it can stand between
+no reader and the story.
+
+It would be neither good manners nor
+good sense for me to attempt any sort of appraisal of this chronicle
+of Eepersip's adventures in the spacious rooms of her House without
+Windows. I have been too near to the whole thing, and am too near
+the chronicler. The most that I can now add without impropriety is
+a statement of why the first thought, a book to be manufactured but
+by no means published, gave way after all to a different idea.
+
+It began to strike me that here was something representatively
+valuable--valuable, I mean, as a representation of something lovely in
+generalized childhood itself--and yet not so very likely to achieve
+frequent expression. The fact is that the impulses crystallized in this
+story mostly fade into the light of common day a year or two before
+the dawn of that amount of mechanical articulacy which is necessary
+for a tangible expression of them; and they are therefore almost never
+expressed. Actually, I do not happen to be acquainted with a single
+prose document of much scope which achieves the full expression, or any
+first-hand expression, of what in a normal, healthy child's mind and
+heart during that mysterious phase when butterflies, flowers, winging
+swallow, and white-tapped waves are twice as real as even a quite
+bearable parent, and incomparably more important--the phase before
+there is any unshakable Tyranny of Things.
+
+What is probably
+unusual about Barbara is the conspiracy of the circumstances which
+have made these two things, the phase and the necessary articulacy,
+overlap. She is precocious, and the phase may have lasted a year or
+two longer than it does in many. She is not excessively gregarious and
+has not been regimented in schools and groups; therefore nothing has
+as yet standardized her, or ironed out her spontaneity, or made her
+particularly ashamed of it. She has been given plenty of time to know
+herself. And, almost above all, having used a typewriter as a plaything
+from a time that she can't remember, she was able to rattle off an
+easy 1200 words an hour, with any awareness of the physical process,
+years before penmanship could have developed half the proficiency, even
+with intense concentration on the physical process alone.
+
+I
+formed, then, the opinion that her Eepersip, who lives an ardent life
+of three or four years in nearly every child's consciousness, lives
+not at all anywhere no the world's multitude of books. And it came to
+seem to me that this Eepersip very possibly has something to say to you
+about your children, and about yourself of a time that you may easily
+have forgotten, as well as, perhaps, to your children directly.
+
+A last point: Barbara has been given by her parents, in the final
+preparation of this manuscript, exactly what help she has asked for.
+That is not nearly so much help as many an adult author often has from
+us, for there is not one idea or structural change of ours in the
+entire story. But I see no value in withholding solicited advice in
+order to make a Roman holiday for those who like to chuckle or guffaw
+over infantile slips in spelling and grammar. Barbara, whose spelling
+and grammarhappen to be very reliable, would want us to straighten
+them out for her if they weren't; and we should do it. When she asks
+whether a comma will do or ought it to be a semi-colon? we answer as
+well as we can. When she wants to know: "have I made it clear what
+this means?" or "Have I used this word twice too near together?" of
+course we say how it strikes us. Annoyingly from my Yankee point of
+view, she insists on a preference for Oxford spelling, undoubtedly
+met in three out of four of the contemporary books which she reads.
+Well, then, I point out to her that if going to spell "colour" she,
+must also spell "favourite" and "storey" and "veranda." But the words
+themselves, the sentences, are hers, just as truly as is the pattern
+of the whole; and hers is a really workmanlike care for weeding out
+gawky constructions and repetitions of the words of which she ins been
+successively over-fond.
+
+One of the great objects of imaginative
+writing, I take it, is to have joy. Another, not wholly separable from
+the first, is to learn as you go. I like to suppose that Barbara,
+just turned twelve, is having her just share of both.
+
+Wilson Follett
+
+March, 1926
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75304 ***