The Little House in the Fairy Wood

  CHAPTER V

  WORLD STORIES

  Now Eric learned that the old woman's name was Nora, for that was whatHelma called her, and seemed glad to find her there. She stayed on onlylong enough to see what Helma had brought in her bundles, and thenstarted out for the farm, drawing her red cape closely about her thistime, and not blowing much as she walked briskly to the gap in thehedge. Once through she disappeared quickly in the high drifting snow.Hardly had she gone her way when Ivra came from another, jumping thehedge and reaching the door in three bounds.

  Helma had bought a good deal of thick brown cloth in the village and astrip of brown leather. It was all for Eric. She had noticed his lack ofshoes and stockings last night, and that his worn clothes were much toopoor and thin for winter in the forest. To-day, while she sewed for him,he would have to stay in. That was a pity, for it is such fun out in astorm. By night, though, all would be finished.

  "And that is good!" exclaimed Ivra. "For to-night the Tree Man has askedus to a party. We're going to roast chestnuts and play games, andthere's to be a surprise, too. The Tree Girl called it all out to me asI passed just now. She put only her head through the door, for the snowcame so suddenly it caught her without a single white frock,--only abonnet. But that was pretty. It has five points like a star, mother."

  "The Tree Girl," said Eric. "What a queer name! But how did she knowabout me to ask me too? Did she ask me?"

  "I told her about you. And of course she asked you. You are myplaymate!"

  Helma pulled a table to the settle and sat down with all the brown clothbefore her, a work-basket, and shears. But first she measured Eric forhis new clothes.

  "You may make the leggins, if you want to," she said to Ivra, "and whenyou come to a hard place tell me and I will help. You may even measurethem yourself.... We're the only Forest People, Eric, who wear anythingbut white in the winter. Most Forest People like to be the color oftheir world. They often laugh at us. But I like brown. Ivra makes methink of a brown, blown leaf, and now here will be two of them! You canblow together all over the forest."

  Eric's eyes swam in sudden, happy tears, but he only said, "_Nora_ worered."

  "Oh, she's not one of us," laughed Helma. "But she's lived close to usso long, she is able to see us. We aren't afraid of her. She's a goodneighbor."

  But why might they be afraid of such a nice old woman, Eric wondered. Hewas to learn sometime, and much beside, for this was the beginning ofnew things for him, and his mother, Helma, and Ivra were strange people.But how he loved them!

  "Now that we are settled at our work, and nothing to interrupt, whatshall it be?" asked Helma. She and Ivra were sewing briskly, one in eachcorner of the settle. Eric was stretched on the floor, looking now intothe blaze, and now up at the windows where the snow tapped and swirled;for to-day,--Helma had said,--was to be a rest day for him. It was thefirst rest day he could remember, and how _good_ it was! To know hecould lie there with no cans to sort or label for hours, and no Mrs.Freg to boss him about when work was over! There were to be no more cansfor him forever, and no more Mrs. Freg. Helma had said that quitefirmly. He believed her and was so happy that he trembled. And so, itbeing true that never again should he go back to that unchildlike lifethat had frightened him so, and tired him so, all the breaths he drewfelt like sighs of relief, and he turned his shaggy little head on hisarm, crooked under it, and watched Helma's flying brown fingers withglad eyes.

  "What shall it be?" asked Helma.

  "Oh, World Stories, please," said Ivra, drawing her feet up under her asshe bent over her sewing.

  "Eric probably knows very few of the World Stories," said Helma. "Sosometime I shall have to go back to the beginning and tell them all overfor him."

  "And I'll stay and hear them over again too!" cried Ivra, dropping herwork to clasp her hands. "I love to hear stories over."

  "Why, better than that, you might tell them yourself. Would you likethat?"

  "Oh, yes--if I can. Do you suppose I can, mother Helma? I shall begin atthe very beginning, way back before men were in the world at all, orfairies even. He'd like to hear about the big animals. And you willlisten, mother, to see that I get it all right?"

  Now these World Stories of Helma's were wonderful stories, but all true.They began way back when the Earth was young. There were stories aboutthe Earth itself, how it hung in space and turned, making day and night.When the strange, great animals that by-and-by appeared on the Earth andhave since gone from it first came into the stories, and then, later,the floods and glaciers, and at last the first man,--any child mighthave listened with delight and wonder. Ivra had listened so ever sinceshe was a tiny girl, old enough to understand at all. And with man, andthe wonderful happenings that came along with him, Ivra had begged forthe stories day and night, and never could have enough of them. For thenin a great procession came the stories of cities and nations, of greatmen and women, of explorations and adventures. They led in turn tostories of languages and writing, of painting and geometry, of music andof life. The names of these things may not promise good stories to you,but that is only because you do not know them as stories. If you couldlisten to Helma telling them, by the fire, or out in the starlight, deepin the wood, or swinging in a tree-top,--then no other stories you mightever hear would satisfy you quite. So perhaps it is as well you do notknow now just where Helma's little house is standing deep in the woodunder the snow.

  Ivra always said that the nicest thing about the stories was theinterruptions. Helma never minded them, and she answered all thequestions Ivra asked. She answered them by making things that Ivra couldsee with her own eyes, by drawing pictures on the ground or in theashes, building with earth or snow, playing with wind and water, and ina hundred other ways. Sometimes the answer to a question would take upthe playtime of a whole day.

  But now Eric was to hear his first story, World Story or any other kind.Can you imagine how it would feel if to-day you were to hear the firststory of your life?

  "All ready?" asked Helma.

  The silence in the room said plainer than words that all was ready forthe World Story. This time it was a story about a man named SaintFrancis, and a story after Eric's own heart.

  Almost as fast as the story went the work of Helma's fingers. But Ivrawas neither so swift nor so skilled, and the leggins were dropped manytimes from forgetful hands because all her thoughts were gone awayfollowing the story.

  Yet somehow the leggins got done, and the jacket and trousers got done,and even a little round cap, and all before dusk. For a finishing touchHelma sewed two soft little brown feathers she had picked up in the snowone on either side of the cap,--which gave Eric, small as they were andsoft as they were, a look of flying.

  Then nothing remained but the sandals, and because Eric was well restedby then, he was allowed to help at them. They were cut from the strip ofbrown leather, and Helma showed Eric how to shape them and sew themhimself. So after supper he stood attired, all in brown, a pale, happychild, ready for his first party.

  Ivra and Eric were to go to the Tree Man's party alone, for Helma wasgoing far away from the wood to spend the evening with a comrade. It wasto be a very long walk for her, for she put on her heaviest sandals andpulled the hood of her cloak up over her hair.

  She walked with the children as far as Little Pine Hill. It was a lowhill, bare of trees, except for a dwarfed pine on the top. In summer theslope was slippery with the needles of the little pine, but now it wasseveral inches deep in snow. It was bright starlight, and far away downan avenue of trees, Eric saw shining open fields, and beyond them thelights of the town.

  There Helma said good-by. Eric looking up at her in the starlight sawher hair like pale firelight under her dark hood and her eyes so calmand friendly. He clung to her hand for a minute.

  "Have a good time," she told them. Ivra leapt away and Eric after her.Helma stood watching until their little forms had flickered out of sightamong tree-shadows. Then she sped down the starlit avenue towards theopen fields and
the town.