Sometimes I saw them from my bedroom window, 'way out in the fields, whirling and scudding in mad games. And then at last one morning some Wind Creatures flew by, above the garden wall! But when I called Wild Star back and tried to ask him about you, children, as he perched on the wall, they came rushing into the garden and dragged me away. They said it was time for luncheon, and I must change my frock. But let us forget.

I am here! It is spring!"

She jumped up and stood just as the Tree Girl had stood earlier that morning, her face lifted in the wind. Slowly that face grew calm and warm color flooded it.

"How nicely cleaned the house is!" she exclaimed when at last they went in. For she did not see the tracks on the floor nor the clouded windows.

All she saw was that the children had worked there to make it fit for her home-coming.

Ivra was proud and glad that she noticed. "I have made you a spring frock too," she said, bringing it out. "And Eric has made you some sandals. He makes fine sandals now!"

The frock was a brown smock with a narrow green belt.

The sandals were well made, and very soft and light.

Helma stripped off the tattered silk frock, the funny thing with its long sleeves and stiff lace collar, and hid it away out of sight. On went the new smock over her head in a twinkling. She stepped into the sandals. And there was their mother, the Helma Eric had first seen.

"The garden now, we must see about that," she said in her old quiet way.

Then they went out into the garden, and Helma began to plan just where there should plant seeds and just what must be done. The children clung to her hands, looking up into her face, and would not let her take a step away from them. When she stood still they leaned against her, one against either side, and wound their arms about her.

In mid-afternoon, Spring came--not the spring of the year, but Spring himself, the person the season is named for. He was a tall young man, with a radiant face, and fair curls lifting in a cloud from his head.

Where he walked the earth sprang up in green gra.s.s after his bare feet, and flowers followed him like a procession. Helma ran to him, swifter than the children, and he kissed her lips. He lifted Ivra nigh on his shoulder for one minute where she thought she looked away over the treetops hundreds of miles to the blue ocean. But it may have been only his eyes, which were very blue, that shee was looking into.

With him came two Earth Giants. They were huge brown fellows with rolling muscles and kind, sleepy eyes. They crouched down at the opening in the hedge and waited for Spring to go on with them.

"Shall we plant the garden, Helma?" asked Spring.

"Yes, yes," cried the children, and Helma said, "Yes, yes," as eagerly as they.

So the Earth Giants came in and plowed it all up with their hands,--hands twenty times as large as an Earth Man's! When they were done, the garden was a rich golden color, and right for planting. Then Helma pointed out to Spring where she wanted the seeds to be, violets here, roses there, lilies there, pansies there and daisies there. Spring gave some seeds to the children and sowed some himself. Helma sat on the door stone and joyously directed the work.

By twilight the garden was done, and Spring went away with his Earth Giants.

As he went out through the forest, flowers and green gra.s.s followed him--and the next morning even the dullest Earth Person would know that Spring had come.

As for Helma and Ivra and Eric, the house would not hold their joy, and so they dragged out their beds and slept that night in the new-plowed, sweet-smelling garden.

CHAPTER XV

SPRING WANDERING

"There goes another," said Helma as she stood in the door the very next morning after her return. "The littlest Forest Child that was, and all by himself. He seems rather small to go spring-wandering alone."

"He likes to go alone," Ivra answered. She was setting the table for breakfast, and Eric was helping her. "'Most always he's playing or wandering off by himself somewhere."

Helma stood watching the little fellow until he had vanished amid the delicate green of the forest morning. Then she tossed back her hair with a shake of her head and cried gayly, "Let's go wandering ourselves, pets. It's good to be home, but we have all our lives for that now.

Let's adventure!"

The children were overjoyed. They did not want to wait for breakfast.

But Helma thought they had better, for no one knew where, when or how their next meal would be. Of course, though, it was hard to eat. You know yourself how you feel about food when you are going on an adventure. However the bowls of cereal were swallowed somehow. Then the stoutest sandals were strapped on, and the three were ready to set out.

First they went to Nora's farm and before they had waited many minutes in the shadow of the trees on the edge of the field Nora came from the door carrying their jug of milk. They ran to meet her and tell her not to leave any more milk until they should come back. How glad the old woman was to see Helma. "I thought spring would bring you," she said.

"Spring frees everything."

Then Helma, Ivra and Eric were off for their spring wandering. It seemed as though every one else was wandering, too, for they could hardly walk a mile without meeting some friend or stranger Forest Person. All gave them greeting, whether stranger or friend, and all looked very glad that Helma was in the forest again, for good news travels fast there, and even the strangers knew of her home-coming.

In a secret wooded valley, walking softly to hear the birds and the thousand little other songs of earth, they suddenly came upon a strange and thrilling sight. A party of little girls and boys all in bright colored frocks, purple, orange, green, blue, yellow, were putting the finishing touches on an air-boat they were making. It was built of delicate leaved branches and decorated with wild flowers. A great anchor of dog-tooth violets hung over the sides and kept it on the ground.

When they saw Helma and the children coming so silently toward them they jumped into the boat and crowded there looking like a bunch of larger spring flowers. Then they drew in the anchor rapidly. But the little girl sitting high in the back, the one in the torn yellow dress and with blowing cloud-dark hair, cried, "Oh, no fear, it's Ivra and her mother and the clear-eyed Earth Child. Want to come, Ivra? We're off spring wandering among the white clouds."

Ivra shook her head and called, "Not unless three of us can come."

"Too full for that," called down the yellow-frocked one, for now the boat had lifted softly almost to the tree tops. "Your Earth Child would weigh us down. So hail and farewell. Good wandering!"

So the three on the ground stood looking up and waving and calling back, "Good wandering!" until the green boat had drifted away and away and was lost in the spring sky. But for a long time after, there floated down to them in the valley far laughter and glad cries.

The spring nights were cold, and so at twilight they made themselves a shelter of boughs. They slept as soon as it was night and woke and were off at the break of dawn. Helma carried sweet chocolate in her pockets, and forest friends and strangers offered them from their store all along the way. Sometimes when they were tired or warm with walking they would climb into the top of some tall tree, and there swinging among the cool new leaves, Helma began telling them her World Stories again, while the children looked off over the trembling forest roof and watched for homing birds.

But when the hemlock and fir trees began to crowd out the maples and oaks, Helma said quietly one day, "We are nearing the sea." "The sea,"

cried Eric almost wild with sudden delight. "Shall we see it? Shall we swim in it? Oh, I have never seen it!"

"Oh, I saw it from Spring's shoulder," Ivra cried--she really thought she had--"But mother, mother, what a wonderful surprise you had for us!"

They began to run in their eagerness. But Helma held them back. "It's a day's journey yet," she said. And so they walked as patiently as they could down a long, long slope through dark firs and hemlocks.

It was noon of the following day when they finally came to the sea. They had struggled through a thick undergrowth of thorned bushes where the great arms of the firs shut out everything ahead. Then suddenly they were out of it, in the open, on the sh.o.r.e with the waves almost lapping their toes. It was high tide. The blue sea stretched away to the blue sky.

Eric's legs gave way under him, and he knelt on the white sand, just looking and looking at the bigness of it, the splendor of it, the color of it, and listening to the music of it. Ivra ran right out into the foam brought in by the breakers, up to her waist, where she splashed the water with her palms until her hair and face were drenched with salt spray. Helma stood looking away to foreign countries which she could almost see.

But they were not left long to themselves. The heads of a little girl and boy and a young woman appeared over the crest of a great wave, and the three were swept up to the sh.o.r.e. They grabbed Ivra and drew her along with them as they pa.s.sed, laughing musically. Ivra did not like it at first, and sprang away from them the minute she could shake herself free. But when she saw their merry faces and heard them laugh, she returned shyly.

The children were about Eric's and Ivra's ages, and the young woman was their mother. The children's names were Nan and Dan, and the woman's name was Sally. But though they had Earth names they were of the fairy-kind,--called in the Forest "Blue Water People."

Just peer into a clear pool or stream, almost any bright day, and you will be pretty sure to see one of them looking up at you. They are the sauciest and most mischievous of all fairies. Only stare at them a little, and they will mock you to your face with smiles and pouts, and will not go away as long as you stay. For they have no fear of you or any Earth People. They follow their streams right into towns and cities, under bridges and over dams. You are as likely to find one in your city park as in the Forest.

Helma spoke to Sally, while the children eyed each other curiously. She said, "How happy you Blue Water People must be now Spring has freed you at last!"

Sally dropped down on the beach, her dark hair flung like a shadow on the sand. Her laughing face looked straight up into the sky. She stretched her arms above her head.

"He came just in time. Another day--and we would have had to break through the ice ourselves. Truly. We've never had such a long winter.

Why, a _month_ ago we began to look for Spring. We lay with our faces pressed against the cold ice for hours at a time, watching. We could just see light through, and shadows now and then."

"And then I saw him first," cried Dan, who was listening to his mother.

"No, I!" cried Nan.

"No, no," Sallv laughed. "I heard him, singing, a long way off. And I called you children away from your game of sh.e.l.ls. When his foot touched the ice we danced in circles of joy, and tapped messages through to him with our fingers. The ice vanished under his feet, and our stream rushed hither away to the sea. We came with it, and waved him hail and farewell as we poured down. Who can stop at home in spring-time? And we had been ice-bound so long!"