But how the children wished their mother were waiting for them in the little house to hear the tale!

CHAPTER XIII

NORA'S GRANDCHILDREN

One afternoon Eric and Ivra started out for the Forest Children's moss village to play with them. But when they got there they found all the little houses deserted: not a Forest Child was to be found. They must have gone into some other part of the forest to play. So Ivra and Eric wandered on and on, a little lonely, a little tired of just each other for comrades, till at last they came to the very edge of the forest,--and there was Nora's farm, a rambling red brick house, with a barn twice its size behind it. Down in the pasture by the house half a dozen Snow Witches were dancing in a circle, now near, now far, all over the pasture, and sometimes right up to the farm-house windows.

Ivra clapped her hands and bounded forward. Eric did not follow. He stood to watch. When the Snow Witches saw Ivra running to them they rushed to meet her. For a minute she was lost in a cloud of blown snow, and then there she was dancing in their circle back and forth across the pasture, and then away, away, away! But before she frolicked quite out of sight she turned to look for her playfellow, and beckoned to him.

"Come on," she called. "We're going to slide on the brook below the cornfield."

But Eric did not follow. He did not like the Snow Witches. And just as Ivra and the Witches drifted out of sight, he thought he heard the Forest Children laughing. The sound came from the barn. So Eric ran to the door. It was a big sliding door, and now stood open on a crack just large enough for a child to slip through. Eric went in.

The barn was tremendously big, a great dusty place full of the smell of hay. Ahead of him were two stalls, with a horse in one. But Eric was most interested in the empty stall, for it was from there the laughter seemed to come. He stood looking and listening, and then right down through the ceiling of the stall shot a child, and landed laughing and squealing in the hay in the manger. She sat up, saw Eric and stared. She was a little girl about his own age, freckle-faced, snub-nosed and red-haired. She had the jolliest, the nicest face in the world.

Eric opened his mouth to say, "h.e.l.lo," but kept it open, silent in amazement, for another child had shot through the ceiling and landed beside the girl. This was a boy. He was red-headed, too, freckle-faced and snub-nosed. He looked even jollier than the girl.

Before Eric had closed his mouth on his amazement, "Whoop!" and down came another boy. This boy was red-haired, freckle-faced and snub-nosed, and he looked jollier than the other two put together, if that were possible, for his red hair curled in saucy, tight little ringlets, and his mouth was wide with smiles.

It was this last one who said, "h.e.l.lo, who are you?"

"Eric,--who are you?"

"Nora's grandchildren, of course. Come up. We're having sport."

The three children ran across the barn to a ladder and scrambled up and disappeared through a trap door at the top. Eric followed. The attic was full of hay in mountains and little hills,--hay and hay and hay. He followed the children around the biggest mountain, through a tunnel--and there they vanished!

He found the hole in the stable ceiling and looked down. Not very far below him was the manger full of hay and red-headed children. "Look out down there! Whoop!" cried Eric, and dropped, landing among them.

Then the four laughed heartily together and ran across the barn again, up the ladder, around the hay mountain and dropped down the hole. They did that dozens of times until they were tired of it.

Then they played hide-and-go-seek in the hay country, and after that Blind Man's Buff in the barn below. The little girl was Blind Man first.

They tied a red handkerchief tight over her eyes. Then they ran about, dodging her, calling her, laughing at her groping hands and hesitating steps. But after a few minutes she became accustomed to the darkness and ran and jumped about after them until they had to be very wary and swift indeed. Soon she caught Eric and then he was Blind Man.

By and by they played tag, just plain tag, and Eric liked that best of all. Back and forth across the great room they raced,--up the ladder, over the hay, through the hole into the stable, round and round, in and out, up and down until they were too tired and hot for any more.

Then they lay up in the hay where there was a little window, looking far out across the meadows.

Eric saw Ivra out there in the first field, wandering around alone and now and then looking up at the barn. She must have heard their shouts and laughter. He pointed her out to the other children. "That is my playmate out there," he said. "Let's open the window and call to her to come up. She'll tell us stories."

The children looked out eagerly. "But there's n.o.body there," they said.

Eric laughed. "No, look!" He pointed with his finger. "Over there by the white birch. Look! She sees us." He waved. "Quick, help me open the window."

He could not find the catch. The window was draped with cobwebs and dusty with the dust of years. It looked as though it had never been opened.

The little red-headed girl put her hand on his arm. She was laughing.

"Don't be silly," she said. "There's no one by the white birch. You're imagining."

"Why, look! Of course she's there!" Eric was impatient. "She's moving now, waving to us. Of course you see her!"

"Yes," said the jolliest of the boys. "We do see it--faintly. We've seen it before too,--a kind of a shadow on the snow. But father says it's nothing to mind. Imaginings. Nothing real, just spots in our eyes or something."

Then Eric remembered all that Ivra had told him. She was half fairy.

People could see her if they looked hard enough. But they were not apt to believe their own eyes when they had looked. That was dreadful for her. She had not said so, but he had guessed it from her face when she told him. Well, well, now he understood a little better. These were Earth Children, with shadows in their eyes. Ivra could never be their playmate.

But _he_ could see her well enough because his eyes were clear. And presently he would run out to her and they would go home together. But just now it was jolly and cozy here in the barn, and these Earth Children were good fun. He hoped she would wait for him, but if she did not he would find his way alone easily enough.

"You don't really believe in it, do you?" the red-headed girl was asking. "If you do,--better not. Grown-ups will laugh at you."

"Nora, your grandmother, won't laugh," said Eric. "She knows Ivra well enough, and Helma, too."

"Oh, yes," said the jolliest boy. "But she is queer. We love her, and she's a fine grandmother, I can tell you. And she tells the best stories. But she's queer just the same, and she can't fool us."

"Let's go in and get some cookies from her," said the other boy. "They must be done by now."

So up they hopped, and without another look towards the shadow out on the snow by the white birch, jumped down the hole, and ran out of the barn into the kitchen.

Nora was there knitting by a table, two big pans of cookies just out of the oven cooling in front of her.

How good they smelled! Eric had never tasted hot ginger cookies before, and when Nora gave him one, a big round one all for his own, he almost danced with delight. He perched on the edge of the table and ate that one and many another before he was done.

"This boy, grandma," began the red-headed girl.

"His name is Eric," interrupted Nora, handing him another cookie. "I know him very well."

"Well, he saw It while we were looking out of the barn window! And he said It was real and his playmate, and he wanted to call It in to tell us stories!"

"Don't say 'It,'" said Nora. "Her name is 'Ivra.' But of course you can't play with her. She isn't an Earth Child. She's a fairy. So don't say anything about it to your father when he comes home to-night. It would make him cross."

"But it doesn't make you cross," laughed the jolliest boy. "And so won't you tell us some stories about it now. You know,--the little house in the wood, the Tree Man, the Forest Children, Helma, Ivra and all the rest of it."

"Do tell us a story," begged the other two.

So Nora put down her knitting, and taking the cat on her lap, a great sleepy white fellow who had been purring by the stove, she began to tell them stories.

She told stories about Helma and Ivra, the Wind Creatures, the Snow Witches and many more. The children listened eagerly, clapping their hands now and then, and at the end of every story asking for more.

But Eric was lost in wonder. The children thought the stories were not true,--just fairy stories told them by a grandmother. And Nora had evidently long ago given up expecting them to believe. Her black eyes twinkled knowingly when they met Eric's puzzled ones.

And all the time Eric had only to turn his head to see Ivra walking out there around in the field, looking at the farm house, waiting for him.

But gradually, as the stories went on the little figure out there grew more and more to look like just a blue shadow on the snow, paler and paler. Finally he had to strain his eyes to see it at all.

Then he jumped down from the table and said he must go home. His heart was beating a little wildly. For he was afraid Ivra might fade away from him altogether. These red-headed children were fine playfellows. He liked them,--oh, so much! He wished he could stay and play with them for--a week. Yes. But he must go now. That blue shadow on the snow seemed lonely.