CHAPTER IV

AT THE COBBLER’S COTTAGE

“I don’t like it here!” wailed the voice of the coward within him. “There are too many things that I don’t understand. I’d like to run away from it all.”

“My Grandmother used to tell me never to run away from what I can’t understand,” said David. “Try to understand it--face it, anyway--and if you can’t overcome it, go round it. But always keep your face toward it, because if you run from it, it may run after you, and then there is no telling what may happen. I’m going to face everything in this land! I feel so strong and so happy that you can’t make me afraid--no, not even you, you Doubting Voice--for I’m off to find the Garden, and I want you just to keep still.”

He had walked only a little way when he came to a small cottage. An elderly man was seated on the step, mending a pair of shoes. He called to David as the boy approached.

“What is your name?” asked the man.

“David,” the boy answered.

“Well, well, David,” said the Cobbler, “you are just the little boy I have been looking for. I want you to come into my cottage, and I will show you something.”

Now, the Cobbler was really a witch, and all he wanted to do was to get David into his cottage. Once he had the lad within its doors, he would cast a spell over him that would prevent him from wishing to leave. Then the old Cobbler could do with him as he pleased. But David knew nothing of all this. He entered the cottage; and as he entered, the witch’s spell began to take effect. He forgot the Garden for which he was seeking; he forgot the old woman to whom he had given the cup, and what she had told him; and, saddest of all, he forgot the Blue Bird. This meant that he could neither see nor hear it again till he thought of it himself and sought it of his own free will.

On the table was a tempting supper of cereal and milk, and a large slice of mocha pie stood enticingly before him. The Cobbler motioned to him to be seated and told him that the supper was spread there for him. David was really very hungry, and he sat down and ate a good meal.

Just as he finished the last mouthful of the pie, a little girl entered the room. David, looking at her, thought that he had never in his life seen so beautiful a child. She was about eight years of age. Her hair was golden brown, fine as spun gold, and she wore it pushed back from her face and held in place by a narrow shell band. Her forehead was high and well rounded. And her eyes were so kind and beautiful that David just stood and looked into them, as she in turn was looking into his. It seemed to them both as if they had known one another long, long ago; no, it was as if they had _always_ known one another--as if their meeting now were the most natural thing in the world.

The little girl held out her hand to David.

“What is your name?” he asked her as he took it.

“Ruth,” said the child. “And yours?”

“David,” he answered.

They became friends at once and for ever and ever and ever.

The months passed by, and David and Ruth worked and worked for the Cobbler--for both he and his wife knew how to keep the children busy. But as time went on, the two children grew older and wiser, till at last they grew so wise that they saw right through the old Cobbler and his wife. They knew that the pair pretended a great deal that was not true, simply in order to keep the children in ignorance so that they would fear their elders. For there is nothing that keeps one so filled with fear as ignorance. Many persons who want power just for themselves alone know this, and therefore try to keep others bound in the heavy chains of ignorance.

Many months passed, then. Yet to Ruth and David they seemed but weeks; for the two were held under a certain spell which kept them always in the same state of blindness to past and future. Therefore time, as we know it, had hardly any existence for them; for, in the land where they now dwelt, this was the Law.

So the children grew and grew. And as they grew physically, they also grew mentally. Soon they were approaching the very borderland of womanhood and manhood. The old Cobbler and his wife were really kind enough to them: the only thing that one could find fault with was their extreme selfishness--for selfish they certainly were. Their selfishness showed in their wish that David and Ruth should never hear or know anything that might make the boy and girl restless or desire something other than what the old couple saw fit to give them; for they

wanted the children to remain with them always, and in their old age to care for them and make them comfortable. But this state of things was not to last for ever.

David and Ruth both had their daily tasks and duties to perform. They were kept busy most of the time, and for that reason were sound and strong in body. In their leisure hours they would play and sing together. As Ruth grew older, David found that she had a sweet, clear voice. Together the two would sing songs of their own making, many of them very beautiful.

One day they wandered through the meadow hand in hand, singing, laughing, and playing, for they were both very happy. Presently they came to a clear brook-side. Growing on either bank, hidden in the soft grass, they found the tiny blue flowers called forget-me-nots. They gathered a quantity of these; then, seeking a cool spot on a dry knoll beneath the shade of a pine tree, they wove the flowers into chains, making a fairy-like crown with which David decked Ruth. The sunlight danced about them as the shadows of the pine branches waved to and fro. Ruth’s soft hair fell about her face in a shower of golden beauty, her cheeks were flushed with the joy and zest of youth, and her eyes were soft and as deep as the cloudless sky at noonday. As David gazed upon her it seemed to him that he had never seen anything so filled with beauty and joy in all his life.

“Ruth!” he cried, “how beautiful you are! You remind me of something--something that I have half forgotten--something of long, long ago.”

“What is it?” asked the girl.

“I do not know,” answered David. “But you are so beautiful, you fill my heart with longing--a longing to _do_ and to _be_.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ruth. “I cannot understand you.”

“I do not know how to tell you,” said the boy, laughing, “but--you are so beautiful, Ruth, I would like to do something to prove to you, yourself, how beautiful you are! I am some day going to prove it to you, Ruth; for you truly seem to grow more beautiful every day.”

A tiny olive-green bird hopped about from twig to twig near them. The two watched it in silence.

“Yes, Ruth, I will prove it to you some day. Something has stirred in my heart that has never wakened before. It is like a great, deep longing--not for anything that I can really put into words, but--it seems as if sometime, somewhere, I must have seen something, and my longing is to see and to find it again, whatever it was, so that I may show it to you.”

The little olive-green bird chirped upon the pine twig. There was one note in his song that seemed to stir David’s memory.

“Listen, Ruth!” he cried; “catch that bird’s note. Listen!”

They both waited, and the bird sang again.

David’s eyes shone. “Oh, Ruth,” he cried, “there is one note in that song that seems almost divine!” Ruth sang the bird’s song, in a voice sweet and clear, but very soft.

“Good!” cried David. “Now hold that note.”

Ruth held the note that had especially caught the boy’s ear. David looked at her as she sang. Then, all at once, a wave of memory swept over him.

“I have it, Ruth! It is the note in the Blue Bird’s song. Oh, how could I forget it all this time?”

Then, as if in answer to his cry, far up in the topmost branches of the pine tree came the song of the Blue Bird, clear, sweet, unmistakable. David sprang to his feet.

“My Bird! My beautiful Bird!” he cried, “where are you?” He sought eagerly among the branches above him. The song came almost uninterruptedly, and David followed each note. At last his eye caught the sunlight on the iridescent wings; he fell on his knees, eager face upturned to the tiny woodland creature.

Yes, it was the Blue Bird, the same wondrous and exquisite being that he had known and followed so faithfully, and then forgotten. A vision drifted before his eyes ... the little cottage in which he had been born ... the woodlands ... the beautiful little old lady to whom he had brought the water, and then ... the Blue Bird. Yes, there it was again. He lifted his hands and stretched them upwards, up toward the clear blue sky and the great sun above.

“I must follow the Bird!” he cried. “Now I know and understand the longing in my heart.”

He rose from his knees and returned to Ruth. He found her sitting upon the ground, the chain of forget-me-nots looped round her, the crown which they had made still lending its beauty to her golden hair. Her head rested against the rough bark of the pine tree. Her hands lay folded in her lap; her eyes were closed, and tears had left their trail unheeded upon her cheeks.

“Ruth!” he whispered, “you have been weeping.”

She opened her eyes at the sound of his voice. The lashes, he saw, were still heavy with tears.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “The song is so beautiful--! I never knew before that one _could_ weep because a thing is beautiful, but the tears seem to come from deep down--deeper down than any tears that I have ever known. I have no wish to sob as one does in sorrow, but I could not help weeping. It is the strangest experience I have ever had.”

“Come,” said David, taking her hand. “I want to show you the Blue Bird.”

Together they sought the Bird. When they had found it they gazed and gazed. David told her of the old woman, of her beauty and sweetness, of the long, long trail that he had followed before reaching the Cobbler’s Cottage.

She listened to his story. “Yes, David,” she said--and she tried not to let a shadow of sadness enter her voice--“you must follow the Blue Bird. I will help you in any way I can.”

“Stay here, then, Ruth, just for a moment, while I run to the cottage and get my axe and hunting knife. Watch the Bird till my return, so that I may not lose it again; I will come back in a minute.” And David started off in the direction of the cottage.

“How I should love to go with him,” thought Ruth, “to aid and cheer him! But I must say nothing about it unless he asks me, for I might only be in his way.”

In a few minutes David returned, his hunting knife strapped about his waist and his axe swung over his shoulder. “Ruth,” he said, “I will follow the Blue Bird; and when I get to the end of the trail, I will come back again for you. I would take you with me now, but I fear the way will be too rough and hard for you. It will be better for me to return for you, and that I will surely do.”

Ruth longed to accompany him, and David longed to have her; but because each wished to consider the other and to be unselfish in regard to that which they both most desired, they remained apart--as very often happens in other lives, too.

A flash of brilliant colour streaked the woods: the Blue Bird had flown. David waved his hand, called “Goodbye!” and was off once more upon the unknown trail.

Ruth watched him cross the meadow and enter the woods on the further side. Just at this point he turned to wave once more to her; and as he did so he took the spray of forget-me-nots that she had tucked into his cap and put it into the little pocket in the side of the leathern case that held his hunting knife.

Ruth returned to the cottage alone. As the day drew to a close and David did not return, the old Cobbler and his wife asked her where he was.

“I do not know,” answered Ruth simply. “He followed the Blue Bird, and I saw him disappear in the woods. He did not come back to me after that.”

“Followed the Blue Bird!” cried the old couple in one voice. “We never dreamed that he could see _that_!”