Chapter 3

THE WORLD'S END

Sometimes, when David was working hard on his siesta, Mother would tell him that he was to whistle as soon as the Sand Man came. But even that doesn't always help. You have to ask so many times to make sure that the Sand Man _hasn't_ come, and after you have been told repeatedly that you are not yet asleep it makes you discouraged. You know, too, that you mustn't cheat; it's not fair to whistle until you actually see the Sand Man.

Hardly anything is so wearing on a little boy as to wait. This is especially true of siesta-time, when there are always such a number of interesting things going on outside. Through the shutter's chink the yellow sunshine comes squirting into the room--such amazing sunshine, just as it is on circus day! Only to think of what great events must be in progress while you and Mother lie here together in the darkened room, and toss hopelessly in the dreadful throes of trying to get through with your siesta!

One of the mean things about it is that neither side of the pillow has any cool spot. You turn it over once more and once more, and yet once more again, but it is no use. It is utterly impossible to cuddle down and obey orders and go to sleep like a brave soldier-man. The more you try it the more squirmy and itchy you feel; for at such a time one is usually fretted by the repeated ticklings of some bothersome fly. He will sneak along the edge of the pillow and rub his hands together in front of him, and then he's ready. Down he swoops upon your nose, hitting it precisely in the same place where he lit before.

It is easy for Mother to say, "Go to sleep, now," but what bad shift a little boy will sometimes make of his siesta!

There came a day in June when David believed he never in this world could get through with it. He heard the chuck and drowsy clack of the sprinkling-wagon as it ponderously advanced upon its lazy way; he heard the almost whispered clucking of a mother-hen who was calling her chicks to come shuffle with her in the cool loose earth under the shade of the crooked old apple-tree, and presently there came a time when the out-of-doors was all so still that even the falling of a shadow would have made a sound.

David was right sure of that. There was such mystery, such an unwonted sense of unreality a-quiver in this silence, that he wanted, very much, to learn what it was all about. Then, ever and ever so cautiously, he slipped down off the bed. His dimpled toes went patting daintily across the polished floor, and presently he had stolen forth upon a great adventure. His eyes narrowed; he winked rapidly; so dazed he was with the sunshine and the strangeness of a world that had never looked like this before.

He had found out where summer is. It was here in Mother's garden, and you knew it was, for you could feel it in the stillness, and you could see it in the sleepiness of blossoms that drowsed and drooped and hung their lazy heads in the languishing sweetness of good air and golden sunshine. It was all very strange and very dear to David. The sky had never before been so blue, and never so big nor deep nor cool, and the ground was pleasantly warm and nice. As the seeded grass touched his ankles he could feel warm shivers run over his legs, delightful thrills which came to him this day for the first time. He had found out where summer is.

David paused, and listened, and heard nothing. The whole world was listening. By and by a honey-burdened bumblebee began talking to himself; you couldn't quite understand what he said because he mumbled and bumbled so. David knew he was such a very tired and sleepy bumblebee that nobody could understand what he was talking about; and besides, he wasn't nearly so wonderful as a big butterfly that balanced with blazing wings upon a nodding rose.

He was too heavy for the wee, sweet flower. David was right sure the butterfly should have rested less heavily there, for pretty soon the bonnie bloom came all apart and began to fall. One after another the crimson petals slipped away, and dipped and floated and came falling and falling down. David was confident that he could hear the warm whisper of them as they fell, so in tune he was with the summer and the sunshine, out here in Mother's garden.

It was good he had stolen forth into the ardent glory of the noon-time, for if he had not he never would have learned about the place where the world stops. Only a few of us have found out about that place. You don't think about it at all, and then, pretty soon, you _do_ think about it. The way David learned of it was a new way. He laid him down upon the petunia bed--dear, old-fashioned flowers, lavender and pink and white, that peeped between the palings of the white fence--he laid him down and smelled deep the good, queer smell of them, and like the flowers themselves, he, too, peeped between the bars into the vast world which lay beyond. And that is how he learned of the place where the world stops.

Down a long, long lane--down there, a little way past the cottonwood tree, where the lane quits going on, that is where the world stops. You know that is the place because of the awesomeness that comes to you. The old cottonwood stands sentinel over that region of the Great Beyond. So tall and big and still he is that if you look at him awhile you will get the strange feeling of things. High up in the glossy leaves one can sometimes hear a little pattery sound, finer than the crinkle of tissue paper--a pretty little sound like a quiet sprinkle of cooling rain. When he does that he is whispering to the clouds that bring the freshness of the summer shower.

Beyond him, down there where the world stops, is the place where the clouds go to sleep after their long, slow journeyings across the deep, sweet blue of the sky.

"What does my little boy see with his two big, shining eyes? And what does my little boy hear?"

It was Mother's voice above him that was thus humbly asking admission into the strange world he had found, and so well she knew it was marvelous fine, this world of his, that she snuggled his cheek against _her_ cheek, and tried and tried, in her poor, grown-up way, to understand all the pretty things the great silent tree was whispering to the clouds.

"Is it there?" she asked very softly and very earnestly. "Is it down there that the clouds go to sleep?"

And they remained together, these two, side by side, thinking about the sweet go-to-bed place of the clouds. A silence which was new to them, a cool and reposeful silence, had come upon them and held them. They were conversing in a language which has no words. It was a melody in silver--the spirit of motherhood, the soul of childhood blending into music, bringing them nearer, deepening their love and making it more dear to them.

They understood each other, that woman and that little boy. They did not move. David had taken hold of Mother's hand, and he held to it while they kept on looking down there, afar off, where the great silent tree was softly whispering to the summer clouds.