CHAPTER XIV
MARIA STIRS
"Uncle," he began with a rush lest his courage should forsake him,"where does everything come from? Everything in the world, Imean?"--then waited for an answer that did not come.
Uncle Felix neither moved nor spoke, and the question, like a bomb thatfails to explode, produced no result after considerable effort andexpense. The boy looked down again at the alarum clock he had beentrying to mend, and turned the handle. It was too tightly wound to go.A stopped clock has the sulkiest face in the world. He stared at it;the handle clicked beneath the pressure of his hand. "It must come fromsomewhere," he added with decision, half to himself.
"From the East, of course," advanced Judy, and tried to draw her Uncleby putting some buttercups against his cheek and mentioning loudly thathe liked butter.
Then, since neither sound nor movement issued from the man in thewicker-chair, the children continued the discussion among themselves,but _at_ the man, knowing that sooner or later he must become involvedin it. Judy's answer, moreover, so far as it went, was excellent. Thesun rose in the East, and the wind most frequently mentioned came alsofrom that quarter. Easter, when everything rose again, was connectedwith the same point of the compass. The East was enormously far awaywith a kind of fairyland remoteness. The dragon-rugs in Daddy's studyand the twisted weapons in the hall were "Easty" too. According to Tim,it was a "golden, yellow, crimson-sort-of, mysterious, blazing hole ofa place" of which no adequate picture had ever been shown to them.China and Japan were too much photographed, but the East was vague andmarvellous, the beginning of all things, "Camel-distant," as theyphrased it, with Great Asia upon its magical frontiers. For Asia, beingequally unphotographed, still shimmered with uncommon qualities.
But, chiefly, it was a vast hole where travellers disappeared and leftno trace; and to leave no trace was simply horrible.
"The easier you go the less chance there is," maintained Judy. She saidthis straight into the paper that screened her uncle's face--withoutthe smallest result of any kind whatsoever. Then Tim recalled somethingthat Colonel Stumper had said once, and let fly with it, aiming hisvoice beneath the paper's edge.
"East is east," he announced with considerable violence, but might aswell have declared that it was south for all the response obtained. Itwas very odd, he thought; his Uncle's mind must be awfully full ofsomething. For he remembered Come-Back Stumper saying the same thingonce to Daddy at the end of a frightful argument about missionaries andidols, and Daddy had been unable to find any reply at all. Yet UncleFelix did not stir a finger even. Accordingly, he made one more effort.He recited in a loud voice the song that Stumper had made up about it.If that had no effect, they must try other means altogether:
The East is just an endless place That lies beyond discovery, Where travellers who leave no trace Are lost without recovery. Both North and South have got a pole-- Men stand on the equator; But the East is just an awful hole-- You're never heard of later!
It had no effect. Goodness! he thought, the man must be ill. Or,perhaps, like the alarum clock, he was too tightly wound to go, and theburden of the secret he contained so wonderfully up his sleeve halfchoked him. The boy grew impatient; he nudged Judy and made an oddgrimace, and Judy, belonging to the sex that took risks and thoughtlittle of personal safety when a big end was to be obtained, stood upand put the buttercups against her own cheek.
"But I like it ever so much more than _you_ do," she said in a loudvoice.
The move was not a bad one; the paper wobbled, sank a quarter of aninch, revealed the bridge of the reader's nose, then held severelysteady again. Whereupon Tim, noticing this sign of weakening, followedhis sister's lead, rose, kicked the tired clock like a ball across thelawn, and exclaimed in a tone of challenge to the universe: "But wheredid everything come from before that--before the East, I mean?" And heglared at his immobile Uncle through the paper with an air of fearfulaccusation, as though he distinctly held he was to blame. If thatdidn't let the cat out of the bag, nothing would!
The big man, however, rested heavily with his legs crossed, as thoughstill he had not heard. Doubtless he felt as heavy as he looked, forthe afternoon was warm, and luncheon--well, at any rate, he remainedneutral and inactive. Something might happen to divert philosophicalinquiry into other channels; a rat might poke its nose above the pond;a big fish might jump; an awfully rare butterfly come dancing; orMaria, as on rare occasions she had been known to do, might stopdiscussion with a word of power. The chances were in his favour on thewhole. He waited.
But nothing happened. No rat, nor fish, nor butterfly did the thingsexpected of them; they were on the children's side. Maria sat blockedand motionless against the landscape; and the round world dozed.Yes--but the music of the world was humming. The bees droned by, therewas a whisper among the unruffled leaves.
Tim tapped him sharply on the knee. The man shuffled, then looked overthe top of his illustrated paper with an air of shocked surprise.
"Eh, Tim," he asked. "Where we all come from, did you say?"
"Everything, not only us," was the clean reply.
"That's it," Judy supported him.
"Now, then," Maria added quietly, as if she had done all the work.
Uncle Felix laid down his entertaining pictures of public men inmisfit-clothing furiously hitting tiny balls over as much uncultivatedland as possible--and sighed. Their violent attitudes had given him adelightful sensation of repose. They were the men who governed England,and this savage hitting was proof of their surplus energy. He resignedhimself, but with an air.
"Well," he said vaguely, "I suppose--it all just--began somehow--ofitself." And he stole a sideways glance at a picture of a stage Beautyattired like a female Guy Fawkes.
"It was created in six days, of course, us last," said Tim, regardinghim with patient dignity. "We remember all that. But where it came_from_ is what we thought _you'd_ know." He closed the illustratedpaper and moved it out of reach, while the man brushed from his beardthe grass and stuff that Judy had arranged there cleverly in adecorative pattern.
"From?" repeated Uncle Felix, as though the word were unfamiliar.
"Your body and mind," the boy resumed, ignoring the pretence thatlaziness offered in place of information, "and all that kind of thing;trees and mountains, and birds and caterpillars and people like AuntEmily, and clergymen and volcanoes and elephants--oh, everything in theworld everywhere?"
There was another sigh. And another pause dropped down upon creation,while they watched a looper caterpillar that clung to the edge of theillustrated paper and made futile circles in the air with the knob itcalled its head. Some one had forgotten to let down the ladder itexpected, or perhaps it, too, was asking unanswerable questions of thesun.
"I believe," announced Judy, still smarting under a sense of recentneglect, "it just came from nowhere. It's all in a great huge circle.And we go round and round and rounder," she went on, as no one met herchallenge, "till we're finished!"
She avoided her brother's eye, but glanced winningly at Uncle Felix,remembering that she had gained support from him before by a similardevice. At Maria she looked down. "You know nothing anyhow," herexpression said, "so you _must_ agree."
"I don't finish," said Maria quietly, whereupon Tim, feeling that theoriginal question was being shelved, made preparation to obliterateher--when Uncle Felix intervened with a longer observation of his own.
"It's not such a bad idea," he said, glancing sideways at Maria withapproval, "that circle business. Everything certainly goes _round_. Theearth is round, and the sun is round, and, as Maria says, a circlenever finishes." He paused, reflecting deeply.
"But who made the circle," demanded Tim.
"That _is_ the point," agreed Uncle Felix, nodding his head. "Some onemust have made it--some day--mustn't they?"
They stared at him, as probably the animals stared at Adam, wonderingwhat their splendid names were going to be. The yearning in their eyeswas enough to make a ro
ck produce sweet-scented thyme. Even the loopersteadied its pin-point head to listen. But nothing happened. UncleFelix looked dumber than the clock. He looked hot, confused, andmuddled too. He kept his eyes upon the grass. He fumbled in his pocketsfor a match. He spoke no word.
"What?" asked Tim abruptly, by way of a hint that something further wasexpected of him.
Uncle Felix looked up with a start. Like Proteus who changed his shapeto save himself the trouble of prophesying, he swiftly changed the keyto save himself providing accurate information that he didn't possess.
"It wasn't a circle, exactly," he said slowly; "it was a thought, agreat, white, wonderful, shining thought. That's what started the wholebusiness first," and he looked round hopefully at the eager faces."Somebody thought it all," he went on, recklessly, "and it all cametrue that way. See?"
They waited in silence for particulars.
"Somebody thought it all out first," he elaborated, "and so it simply_had_ to happen."
There was an interval of some thirty seconds, and then Tim asked:
"But who thought _him_?" He said it with much emphasis.
Uncle Felix sat up with energy and lit his pipe. His listeners drewcloser, with the exception of Maria, whose life seemed concentrated inher fixed and steady eyes.
"It's like this, you see," the man explained between the puffs; "if yougo into the schoolroom, you find a lot of things lying abouteverywhere--blocks, toys, engines, and all sorts of things--don't you?"
"Yes," they agreed, without enthusiasm.
"Well," he continued, "what's the good of them until you _think_something about them--think them into something--some game or meaningor other? They're nothing but a lot of useless stuff just lyinguntidily upon the floor. See what I mean?"
They nodded, but again without enthusiasm.
"With our End of the World place," he went on, seeing that theylistened attentively, "it's the same again. It was nothing but arubbish-heap until we thought it into something wonderful--which, ofcourse, it is," he hastened to add. "But by thinking about it, wediscovered--we _created_ it!"
They nodded again. Somebody grunted. Maria watched the caterpillarcrawling up his sleeve.
"The things--the place and the toys," he resumed hopefully, "were thereall the time, but they meant nothing--they weren't alive--until wethought about them." He blew a cloud of smoke. "So, you see," hecontinued with an effort, "if we could only _think out_ what everythingmeant, we could--er--find out what--what everything meant--and where itcame from. Everything would be all right, don't you see?"
Judy's expression was distraught and puzzled. Maria's eyes were closedso tightly that her entire face seemed closed. The pause drew out.
"Yes, but where does everything come from?" inquired Tim calmly.
He valued the lengthy explanation at just exactly--nothing!
"Because there simply must be a beginning somewhere," added Judy.
They were at the starting-point again. They had merely made a circle.
And Uncle Felix found himself in difficulties of his own creating.Where everything came from puzzled him as much as it puzzled thechildren, or the looper caterpillar that was now crawling from hisflannel collar to his neck and contemplating the thicket of his denseback hair. Why ask these terrible questions? he thought, as he lookedaround at the sunshine and the trees. Life would be no happier if heknew. Since everything was already here, going along quite pleasantlyand usefully, it really couldn't help matters much to know preciselywhere it all came from. Possibly not. But it would have helped himenormously in his relations with the children--his particular world atthe moment--if he could have provided them with a satisfactoryexplanation. And he knew quite well what they expected from him. Thatdreadful "Some Day" hung in the balance between success and failure.
And it was then that assistance came from a most unlikely quarter--fromMaria. There was no movement in the stolid head. The eyes merely rolledround like small blue moons upon the expanse of the expressionlessface. But the lips parted and she spoke. She asked a question. And herquestion shifted the universe back upon its ultimate foundations. Itset a problem deeper far than the mere origin of everything. It touchedthe _cause_.
"Why?" she inquired blandly.
It seemed a bomb-shell had fallen among them. Maria had closed her eyesagain. Her face was calm as a cabbage, still as a mushroom in a storm.She claimed the entire discussion somehow as her own. Yet she hadmerely exercised her prerogative of being herself. Having gone into theroot of the matter with a monosyllable, she retired again into hereternal centre. She had nothing more to offer--at the moment.
_Why?_
They had never thought of Why there should be anything. It was far moreinteresting than Where. Why was a deeper question than whence. It madethem feel more important, for one thing. Somebody--but Somebody who wasnot there--owed them a proper explanation about it. The burden ofapology or excuse was lifted instantly from Uncle Felix's shoulders,for, obviously, he had nothing to do with the reason for their being inthe world.
Without a moment's hesitation he flung his arms out, let the pipe fallfrom his lips, and--burst into song:
Why should there be anything? Why should we be here? It isn't where we come from, But why should we appear? It's really inexplicable, Extr'ordinary, queer: Why _should_ we come and talk a bit, And then--just disappear?
"Why, why, why?" shouted the two elder children. The air was filledwith flying "whys." They tried to sing the verse.
"Let's dance it," cried Judy, leaping to her feet. "Give us the wordsagain, please." She picked up the clock and plumped it down intoMaria's uncertain lap. "You beat time," she ordered. "It's the tune of'Onward Christian Soldiers.'"
Maria, disinclined to budge unless obliged to, did nothing.
"It's a beastly tune," Tim supported her. "I hate those Sunday hymntunes. They're not real a bit."
He watched Judy and his Uncle capering hand in hand among theflower-beds. He didn't feel like dancing himself. He looked at theclock that, like Maria and himself, refused to go. He looked at Maria,fastened immovably upon the lawn. The clock lay glittering in thesunshine. Maria sat like a shining ball beside it. He felt theafternoon was a failure somewhere. Things weren't going quite as hewanted, the clock wasn't going either. And when they did go they wentof their own accord, independent of himself, of his direction,guidance, wishes. He was out of it. This was _not_ the time to dance.What was the meaning of it all? It had to do somehow with the clockthat wouldn't go. It had to do with Maria, who wouldn't budge. Theclock had stopped of its own accord. That lay at the bottom of it all,he felt. Some day things would be different, more satisfactory--morereal.... Some day!
And strange, new ideas, very vague and dim, very far away, very queer,and very wonderful, poured through his searching, questioning littlemind.
"Beat time!" shouted Judy to her motionless sister. "I told you to beattime. You're doing nothing. You never do!"
Tim stood watching them, while the words rang on in his head: "You aredoing nothing! You never do!" How wonderful it was! Maria never didanything, yet was always there _in_ everything. And the others--howfunny they were, too! They looked like an elephant and a bird, hethought, for Judy hopped and fluttered, while his Uncle moved heavily,making holes in the soft lawn with his great feet. "Beat time, beattime!" cried Judy at intervals.
What a queer phrase it was--to _beat_ time. Why beat it? It wasn'tthere unless it was beaten. Poor Time; and Maria refused to beat it.His eye wandered from Maria to the dancers, and a kind of reverie stoleover him. What was the use of dancing unless there was something todance round? Maria was round; why didn't they dance round her? Histhoughts returned to Maria. How funny Maria was! She just sat theredoing nothing at all. Maria was dull and unenterprising, yet somehoweverything came round to her in the end. It was just because shewaited, she never hurried. She was a sort of centre. Only it must berather stupid just to be a centre. Then, suddenly, two ideas struck himat the same instant, scattering his dreamy state
of reverie. The firstwas--Everything comes from a centre like Maria; _that's_ whereeverything comes from! The second, bearing no apparent relation to it,found expression in words:
He cried out: "I know what! Let's go to the End of the World and make afire and burn things!"
And he looked at Maria as though he had discovered America.
"Beat time, oh, _do_ beat time," cried Judy breathlessly.
"We're going to make a fire," he shouted; "there's lots of things toburn." He looked about him as though to choose a place. But he couldn'tfind one. He pointed vaguely, first at Maria, as though she was thething to burn, and then at the landscape generally. "Then you can dance_round_ it," he added convincingly to clinch the matter.
But the bird and the elephant continued their gymnastic exercises onthe lawn, while Maria turned her eyes without moving her head andwatched them too.
Then, while the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers" filled the air, Timand Maria began an irrelevant argument about things in general. Tim, atleast, told her things, while she laid the clock down upon the grassand listened. But the flood of language rolled off her as minutes rollfrom the face of the sun, producing no effect. There was wonder in herbig blue eyes, wonder that never seemed to end. But minutes don'tdecrease merely because the rising and setting of the sun sends themflying, and there are not fewer words in a boy's vocabulary merelybecause he uses up a lot in saying things. Both words and minutesseemed a circle without beginning or end. It was most odd andstrange--this feeling of endlessness that was everywhere in the air.And, long before Tim had got even to the middle of his enormous speech,he had forgotten all about the fire, forgotten about dancing, aboutburning things, forgotten about everything everywhere, because hisroving eye had fallen again upon the--clock. The clock absorbed hisinterest. It lay there glittering in the sunshine beside Maria. Itwasn't going; Maria wasn't going either. It had stopped. He realisedabruptly, realised it without rhyme or reason, that a stopped clock, aclock that isn't going, was a--mystery.
And the tide of words dried up in him; he choked; something was wrongwith the universe; for if the clock stopped--_his_ clock--time--timemust--he was unable to think it out--but time must surely get muddledand go wrong too.
And he moved over to Maria just as she was about to burst into tears.He sat down beside her. At the same moment Judy and Uncle Felix,thinking a quarrel was threatening, stopped their dancing, and joinedthe circle too. They stood with arms akimbo, panting, silent, waitingfor something to happen so that they could interfere and set it rightagain.
But nothing did happen. There was deep silence only. The slantingsunshine lay across the lawn, the wind passed sighing through the limetrees, and the clock stared up into their faces, motionless, a blankexpression on it--stopped. They formed a circle round it. No one movedor spoke. There was a queer, deep pause. The sun watched them; the skywas listening; the entire afternoon stood still. Something else besidethe clock, it seemed, was slowing up.
"To-morrow's Sunday. Time's getting awfully short," was in the airinaudibly.
"Let's sit down," whispered Tim, already seated himself, but anxious tofeel the others close. Judy and Uncle Felix obeyed. They all sat roundin a circle, staring at the shining disc of the motionless, stoppedclock. It might have been a Lucky Bag by the way they watched it withexpectant faces.
But Maria also was in that circle, sitting calmly in its centre.
Then Uncle Felix cautiously lifted the glittering round thing and heldit in his hand. He put his ear down to listen. He shook his head.
"It hasn't gone since this time yesterday," said Tim in a low tone."That's twenty-four hours," he added, calculating it on the fingers ofboth hands.
"A whole day," murmured Judy, as if taken by surprise somehow; "a dayand a night, I mean."
She exchanged a glance of significant expectation with her brother, butit was at their uncle they looked the moment after, because of thestrange and sudden sound that issued from his lips. For it was like acry, and his face wore a flushed and curious expression they could notfathom. The face and the cry were signs of something utterly unusual.He was startled--out of himself. A marvellous idea had evidently struckhim. "It's either something," thought Judy, "or else he's got a pain."But Tim's mind was quicker. "He's got it," the boy decided, meaning,"We've got it out of him at last!" Their manoeuvres had taken so longof accomplishment that their original purpose had almost been forgotten.
"A day, a whole day," Uncle Felix was mumbling to himself in a dazedkind of happy way, "an entire day, I do declare!" He looked roundsolemnly, yet with growing excitement, into the children's faces."Twenty-four hours! An entire day," he went on, half beneath his breath.
"_Some day;_ of course..." Tim said in a low voice, catching the moodof wonder, while Judy added, equally stirred up, "A day will come..."and then Uncle Felix, breaking out of his queer reverie with an effort,raised his voice and looked as if the end of the world had come.
"But do you realise what it means?" he asked them sharply. "D'youunderstand what's happened?"
He drew a long, deep breath that quivered with suppressed amazement,and waited several seconds for their answers--in vain. The childrengazed at him without uttering a word; they made no movement either. Thearresting tone of his voice and a certain huge expression in his eyesmade everything in the world seem different. It was a moment of reallife; he had discovered something stupendous. But, explanation beingbeyond them, they attempted no immediate answer to his question. Thepressure of interest blocked every means of ordinary expression knownto them.
Then Uncle Felix spoke again; his big eyes fixed Tim piercingly like apin. "When did it stop?" he inquired gravely. He meant to make quitesure of his discovery before revealing it. There must be no escape, noslip, no carelessness. "When did it stop, I ask you, Tim?" he repeated.
Tim was a trifle vague. "I was asleep," he whispered. "When I wokeup--it wasn't going."
"You wound it?"
"Oh, yes, I wound it right enough."
"What time was it?"
"The clock--or the day, Uncle?" He was confused a little; he wished tobe awfully accurate.
Uncle Felix explained that he desired to know what time the clock hadstopped. The importance of the answer could be judged by the intentnessof his expression while he waited.
"The finger-hands were at four," said the boy at length.
Uncle Felix gave a jump. "Ha, ha!" he exclaimed triumphantly, "then itstopped of its own accord!" They could have screamed with excitement,though without the least idea what they were excited about. You couldhave heard a butterfly breathing.
"It stopped at dawn!" he continued, louder.
"Dawn!" piped Tim, unable to think of anything else, but obliged toutter something.
"Dawn, yes," cried Uncle Felix louder still. "It stopped of its ownaccord at dawn! Just at the beginning of a new day it stopped! It'smarvellous! Don't you see? It's marvellous!"
"Goodness!" cried Judy, her mind obfuscated, yet thrilled with atransport of inexplicable delight. "It's marvellous!"
"I say!" Tim shouted, dropping his voice suddenly because he too was ata loss for any more intelligible relief in words.
They sat and stared at their amazing uncle. There was a hush upon theentire universe; there was marvel, mystery, but at first there was alsomuddle. They waited, holding their breath with difficulty. Some one, itseemed, must either explode or--or something else, they knew notexactly what. It would hardly have surprised them if Judy had suddenlyflown through the air, Tim vanished down a hole, or Maria gleamed atthem from the inside of a quivering bubble of soap. There was this kindof intoxicating feeling, delicious and intense. Even To-morrow might_not_ be Sunday after all: it felt strange and wonderful enough forthat!
The possibility that _Some Day_ was coming--was close at hand--had insome mysterious way become a probability. It was clear at last whyUncle Felix had been so heavy and preoccupied.
"You see what's happened?" he continued after the long pause. "You seewhat it
all means--this strange stopping of the clock--at Dawn?"
They admitted nothing; the least mistake on their part might prevent,might spoil or cripple it. The depth and softness of his tone warnedthem. They stared and waited. He gathered them closer to him with botharms. Even Maria wriggled slightly nearer--an inch or so.
"It means," he said in still lower tones, "the calendar,"--then stoppedabruptly to examine the effect upon them.
Now, ordinarily, they knew quite well what a calendar was; but thisnew, strange emphasis he put upon it robbed the word suddenly of allits original meaning. Their minds went questioning at once:
"What _is_ a calendar?" asked Judy carefully--"exactly?" she added, tomake her meaning absolutely clear. It sounded almost like a nonsenseword.
"Exactly," he repeated cautiously, yet with some great emotion workingin him, "what is a calendar? That's the whole question. I'll try andtell you what a calendar is." He drew a deeper breath, a great effortbeing evidently needed. "A calendar," he went on, while the wordsounded less real each time it was uttered, "is an invention of clever,scientific men to note the days as they pass; it records the passingdays. It's a plan to measure Time. It's made of paper and has the dateand the name of the day stamped in ink on separate sheets. When a dayhas passed you tear off a sheet. That day is done with--gone. There arethree hundred and sixty-five of these separate sheets in a year. It'sjust an invention of scientific men to measure the passing of--Time,you see?"
They said they saw.
"Another invention," he resumed, his face betraying more and moreemotion, "is a clock. A clock is just a mechanical invention that ticksoff the movements of the sun into seconds and minutes and hours. Bothclocks and calendars, therefore, are mere measuring tricks. Time goeson, or does not go on, just the same, whether you possess theseinventions or whether you do not possess them. Both clocks andcalendars go at the same rate whether Time goes fast or slow. See?"
A tremendous discovery began to poke its nose above the edge of theirfamiliar world. But they could not pull it up far enough to "see" asyet. Uncle Felix continued to pull it up for them. That he, too, wasmuddled never once occurred to them.
"Scientific men, like all other people, are not always to be reliedupon," he went on. "They make mistakes like--you, or Thompson, or Mrs.Horton, or--or even me. Clocks, we all know, are full of mistakes, andfor ever going wrong. But the same thing has happened to calendars aswell. Calendars are notoriously inaccurate; they simply cannot bedepended upon. No calendar has ever been entirely veracious, nor everwill be. Like elastic, they are sometimes too long and sometimes tooshort--imperfectly constructed."
He paused and looked at them. "Yes," they said breathlessly, awaredimly that accustomed foundations were already sliding from beneaththeir feet.
"Half the calendars of the world are simply wrong," he continued, moreboldly still, "and the people who live by them are in a muddleconsequently--a muddle about Time. England is no exception to the rest.Is it any wonder that Time bothers us in the way it does--always timeto do this, or time to do that, or not time enough to finish, and soon?"
"No," they said promptly, "it isn't."
"Of course," he resumed. "Well, sometimes a nation finds out itsmistake and alters its calendar. Russia has done this; the Russian NewYear and Easter are not the same as ours. Pope Gregory, the thirteenth,ordered that the day after October 4, 1582, should be called October15. He called it the Gregorian Calendar; but there are lots of othercalendars besides--there's the Jewish and Mohammedan, and a variety ofcalendars in the East. All of them can't be right. The result is thatnone of them are right, and the world is in confusion. Some calendarsmark off too many days, others mark off too few. Half the world isahead of Time, and the other half behind it. The Governments know thisquite well, but they dare not say anything, because their officials aremuddled enough as it is. There is everywhere this fearful rush andhurry to keep up with Time. All are terrified of being late--too lateor too early."
"Naturally."
"And the extraordinary result of all these mistakes," he went onmarvellously, "is simply this: that a considerable amount of Time hasnever been recorded at all by any of them. There are a lot of extradays, unused, unrecorded days, still at large--if only we could findthem."
"Extra Days!" they gasped. Tim and Judy's mouths were open now, andslowly opening wider every minute. Only Maria's mouth kept closed. Hergreat blue eyes were closed as well. She looked as if she could havetold them all this in a couple of words!
"Knocking about on the loose," he explained further, then paused andstared into the upturned faces; "sort of escaped days that have neverbeen torn off calendars or ticked away by clocks--unused, unfilled,unlived--slipped out of Time, that is--"
"Then when Daddy said, 'A day is coming,' and all that--?" Tim managedto squeeze out as though the pain of the excitement hurt his lips.
"Of course," replied Uncle Felix, nodding his great head, "of course.Sooner or later one of these lost Extra Days is bound to crop up. Andwhat's more--" he glanced down significantly at the stoppedalarum-clock--"I think--"
He broke off in the middle of the sentence. They all stood up. Timpicked up the clock and handed it to his uncle, who held it tightlyagainst his chest a moment, then put it into his capacious pocket.
"I think," he went on enormously, "it's come!"
An entire minute passed without a sound.
"We can fill it with anything we like?" asked Judy, overawed a little.
"Anything we like," came the sublime reply.
"And do things over and over again--sort of double--and no hurry?" Timwhispered.
"Anything, anywhere, anyhow, and no end to it all," he answeredgloriously. "No hurry either!" It was too much to think about all atonce, too big to realise. They all sat down again beside Maria, who hadnot moved an inch in any direction at all. She was a picture of sublimerepose.
"We have only got to find it, then climb into it, then sail away,"murmured Uncle Felix, with a strange catch in his breath they readilyunderstood.
"When will it begin?" both children asked in the same breath.
"At dawn," he said.
"To-morrow morning?"
"At dawn to-morrow morning."
"But to-morrow's Sunday," they objected.
"To-morrow's--an Extra Day," he said amazingly.
They hesitated a moment, stared, frowned, smiled, then opened theireyes and mouths still wider than before.
"Oh, like that!" they exclaimed.
"Like that, yes," he said finally. "It means getting in behind Time,you see. There's no Time in an Extra Day because it's never beenrecorded by calendar or clock. And that means getting behind the greathurrying humbug of a thing that blinds and confuses everybody all theworld over--it means getting closer to the big Reality that--"
He broke off sharply, aware that his own emotion was carrying him outof his depth, and out of their depth likewise. He changed the sentence:"We shall be in Eternity," he whispered very softly, so softly that itwas scarcely audible perhaps.
And it was then that Maria, still seated solidly upon the lawn, lookedup and asked another baffling and unexpected question. For this was_her_ private and particular adventure: and, living ever at the centreof the circle, Maria claimed even Eternity as especially her own. Herquestion was gigantic. It was infinitely bigger than her originalquestion, "Why?" It was the greatest question in the universe, becauseit answered itself adequately at once. It was the question the undyinggods have flung about the listening cosmos since Time first began itstricky cheating of delight--and still fling into the echoing hearts ofmen and children everywhere. The stars and insects, the animals andbirds, even the stones and flowers, all keep the glorious echo flying.
"Why not?" she asked.
It was unanswerable.