Every one except the Tree Man was dancing, bewitched in the moonlight, all over the gra.s.sy s.p.a.ce around the great tree. The gra.s.s was cool and refreshing under Eric's bare feet, and he often dug his bare toes into the soft earth at its roots as he leapt or ran just to make sure he was on earth at all. For he felt as though he were swimming in moonlight, or at least treading it.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm.

When the Tree Girl's music stopped between dances, then it would go on in Eric's head. It was just the sound of the night after all. Once Eric noticed that the Beautiful Wicked Witch was dancing next to him in the circle but he was not afraid of her there with the others, and in bright moonlight. And she was plotting no ill. Her face was sparkling with delight and she had utterly forgotten herself in the dance.

When the great moon hung just above them, and shadows were few and far between, the Tree Mother came walking through the Forest, quieter and more beautiful than the moon. Wild Thyme ran to her and laid her bushy head against her breast. For Wild Thyme only of all the Forest People loved her without awe. The Tree Mother put her hand on Wild Thyme's head and stood to watch the dancing. Her robe gleamed like frost, and her hair was a pool of light above her head.

Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmm.

Wild Thyme jumped back into the dance and the Tree Mother stood alone.

But although she stood as still as a moonbeam under the tree, she made Eric think of dancing more than all the others put together. It was her eyes. The thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmmmm was in them, and the rest of that night Eric felt as though the music-instrument the Tree Girl was swinging was silent, and that all the music flowed from Tree Mother.

But Eric, after all, was only an Earth Child, and his legs got very tired in spite of the music and the moonlight. So at last he slipped out of the circle, and stumbling with weariness and sleepiness went to Tree Mother. She picked him up in her arms, and the minute his head touched her shoulder he was sound asleep, the music at last hushed in his head.

When he woke it was summer dawn. The birds were flitting above in the tree-boughs and making high singing. He was alone, lying beneath a silver birch, his head among the star flowers.

He knew that Helma and Ivra had not wanted to wake him, but had gone home when the moon set, and were waiting breakfast for him there now. So he jumped up and ran home through the dew.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE DEEPEST PLACE IN THE WOOD

It was on the hottest day of all the hot days of summer that Eric found the deepest place in the Forest. He wandered into it while he was looking for Wild Thyme. Ivra had been no good to him that day. She was usually ready to play in any weather; but on this, the hottest day of the year, she stayed indoors, where it was a little cooler, and lying on the settle she drew paper dolls on birch bark, and afterwards cut them out. Yes, even fairy children love paper dolls and Ivra loved them more than most. Eric wanted her to go swimming in the stream, but he teased her to in vain, for she was entranced with the dolls and would hardly lift her eyes from them.

Helma was swinging in a vine swing she had made for herself high in a tree above the garden. One of the Little People was perched on a leaf just over her head, and they were chattering together like equals. Their eager voices floated down to Eric standing disconsolate near the door stone. But Helma usually knew when her children were in trouble, no matter how tiny the trouble, and so before Eric had stood there long or dug up more than a bushel of earth with his bare toes, she leaned over the nest and called to him.

"Why don't you go and play with Wild Thyme? She doesn't mind the heat.

Every one else is staying quiet till sundown."

Wild Thyme was a happy thought, and Eric walked away in search of her.

But she was in the very last place he would have thought to look on such a scorching day, and that is how he missed her. She was lying full length on the hot burnt gra.s.s in the field at the Forest's edge, loving the heat and sunshine, which covered her like a mantle. If Eric had seen her it is probable he would not have known her or stopped to look twice.

He would have thought her just a little patch of the flower that is named for her.

So he wandered on and on, looking high and low and all about for her, and he went deeper and deeper into the Forest. The deeper he went the cooler it became, for the forest roof kept out the sunshine. The light grew dimmer and dimmer too. Eric had never been so far in before and everything was strange to him.

He saw no Forest People except a little brown goblin who peered at him from some underbrush and then scuttled away into the darkness of denser brush. Eric had never seen a goblin before, but he had no fear of goblins, and so this one did not bother him at all. He heard others scuttling and squeaking, and one threw a chunk of gray moss at him. He stopped and picked it up and threw it back with a laugh in the direction it had come from.

"Come out and play, why don't you?" he called. "I know where there's a fine swimming pool." But there was no answer to his invitation. Instead there was sudden and utter silence. He was disappointed, for he did want a playmate, and he had almost given up looking for Wild Thyme.

After walking for a long while he came at last to one of the windings of the Forest stream, and gratefully stepped into the shallow, clear water, dark with shadows. His feet were burning, and his head was hot. So he drank a long drink of the cold, delicious water, ducked his head, and finally washed his face. Then he waded on with no purpose in mind now but just to keep his feet in the water.

It was so he came to the deepest place; where not even Ivra had ever been. It was almost cool there, and more like twilight than early afternoon. And right in the deepest place, in a nest of smooth leaves, with his feet in the water, lay Wild Star. When Eric first caught sight of him he thought he was asleep, for his wings were lying on the leaves half folded and dropped, and his knees were higher than his head. But when Eric went close enough to see his eyes he knew that he was very wide awake, for they were wide open, watchful and intent,--and purple like the early morning. Such wide-awake eyes were startling in such a sleepy, still place. Eric expected him to spread his wings in a flash and dart away. But the wings stayed half open, purple shadows on the leaves, and Wild Star did not even raise his head. Only his eyes greeted Eric.

But Eric knew without words that Wild Star was glad to see him. So he stepped up out of the water and stretched himself on a mound of silvery moss near by. With his chin resting in his palms and his elbows supporting, he faced the Wind Creature, his clear blue eyes open to the intent purple ones.

It was Wild Star who spoke first.

"I thought, little Eric, you would have crossed the sea before this, and be out of the Forest. I expected to find you next fall on the other side of the world."

Eric was amazed, for he had not said one word of his dream about that to any one. "How did you know I wanted to go?" he cried.

"Oh, you are an Earth Child, after all, and I knew you would want to be going on, as soon as you saw the sea."

"But _why_ do I want to go on?" asked Eric, his face clouding with the puzzle of it. "I am so happy here, and Helma is my mother now. There can't be another mother across the sea for me. And if there were I wouldn't want her,--not after Helma! No, Helma is my only mother, and Ivra is my comrade. And still I want to leave them,--and go on and away over there. It is very funny."

"No," said Wild Star. "It isn't funny. You are a growing Earth Child, not a fairy. It is your own kind calling you. It is the music of your human life."

"I don't know what you mean," said Eric.

"It is like this: you know when you begin to sing a song, you go on and on to the end without thinking about it at all. It is the theme that carries you. Well, a human life is made like a song,--it carries itself along. You do not stop to think why. It can't stop in the middle, on one chord, for long. Yours now is resting, on a chord of happiness. But soon it will go on again. You want it to. Life in the Forest, though, isn't like that. Here it is music without any theme, like the music we dance to. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmm. But there is more than that to an Earth Child's life. It runs on like this stream. The stream is happy here in the Forest, too, but it goes on seeking the sea just the same."

There was a long stillness while Eric looked down into the green depths of the water. At last he asked, "But how could I ever get across the sea? And when I got there how could I get back?"

"Time enough to think about getting back when you are there," laughed Wild Star. "But as to getting there, Helma is the one to tell you that.

She has been an Earth Child, too, you know. She felt just as you did, that spring night on the sh.o.r.e. She has felt it many times. It is only Ivra that keeps her in the Forest. Ivra docs not belong out in the world of humans, and Helma will never leave her. But she will understand your longing. All you have to do is tell her."

Eric clapped his hands, a habit he had caught from Ivra. "Oh, I shall cross in a ship," he cried, "and see all the foreign lands. And when I come back, think of the World Stories I shall have to tell Helma and Ivra!"

He sprang up in his joy, and felt as though he had wings on his shoulders like Wild Star, and had only to spread them out to go beating around the world. For a second the Wind Creature and the Earth Child looked very much alike. And indeed, the only difference was that Wild Star had to wait for the wind, and Eric need wait for no wind or no season. His wings were _inside of his head_, but they were as strong as Wild Star's. And he had only to spread them and lift them to go anywhere he wanted.

Now he wanted to get back to Helma and tell her all about it. Wild Star pointed him the shortest way, and off he ran, jumping the stream and the moss beds beyond, and disappearing into the underbrush.

"I'll look for you next time the other side of the world!" Wild Star shouted after him.

It was twilight when he reached home. Helma and Ivra were sitting on the door stone, hand in hand. They made room for Eric. But he did not snuggle up. He stayed erect, his face lifted towards the first dim stars, and told Helma all about his wanting to go away from them out through the Forest and across the sea, and all that Wild Star had said about music and Earth People's lives. And he told her, too, of the vision of success he had had when he caught Wild Thyme that first day by her bushy hair.

Helma listened quietly, and said nothing for many minutes after he was through. But at last she spoke, putting a hushing hand on Eric's dreamful head.

"I understand," she said. "I knew you would want to go on sometime. And I have a friend across there who will help us. He has a school for boys and I got to know him very well behind the gray stone wall. He asked me about the Forest and you children. And he said that Eric sometime would surely want to go back to humans, and when he did he would help him. He understands boys. It is to him you had better go, Eric, and when you are really ready I will tell you how, and start you on your way."

Eric sighed with contentment, and leaned his head against Helma's shoulder.

But Ivra stayed at her mother's other side, as still and silent as a shadow. Soon the fireflies began their nightly dance in the garden. But Ivra did not go darting after them as usual to make their dance the swifter. And Eric's head was too full of dreams and his eyes too full of visions of the sea to notice them at all.

CHAPTER XIX

MORE MAGIC IN A MIST

Indian summer had come round again before Eric really made up his mind to go. The flowers were asleep in the garden, and there was a steady, gentle shower of yellow leaves down the Forest. That morning when he woke the little house seemed suspended in a golden mist. As he stood in the doorway he felt as though it might drift away up over the trees and into s.p.a.ce any minute. But after a little he knew it was not Helma's little forest house that was to go swinging away into s.p.a.ce and adventure,--it was himself. And suddenly he wanted to go _then_,--to the sea and over and beyond. He called the news in to Helma and Ivra, who were still within doors. Helma came swiftly out to him.