Part 15

Seeing us fully dressed, Delia’s indignation increased.

“Why didn’t you leave me know you were up?” she demanded shrilly. “It’s a quarter past five. I been out here fifteen minutes.”

We were assuring her guiltily that we would be right down when there came an interruption.

“_Delia!_”

Delia’s father, in a gray bath-robe, stood at an upper window of their house across the street.

“What do you mean by waking up the whole neighbourhood?” he inquired, not without reason. “Now I want you to come home.”

“We were going walking,” Delia reminded him.

“You are coming home at once after this proceeding,” Delia’s father assured her. “No more words please, Delia.”

He disappeared from the window. Delia moved reluctantly across the street. As she went, she threw a resentful glance at Mary Elizabeth and me, each.

“I’m sorry, Delia!” we called softly in chorus. She made no reply. Mary Elizabeth and I were left staring at each other down our bell-rope, no longer taut, but limp, as we had left it earlier.... Even in that stress, the unearthly sweetness of the morning smote me--the early sun, the early shadows. It all looked so exactly as if it had expected you not to be looking. This is the look of outdoors that, _now_, will most quickly take me back.

“It wouldn’t be fair to go walking without Delia,” said Mary Elizabeth, abruptly and positively.

“No,” I agreed, with equal decision. Then, “We might as well go back to bed,” I pursued the subject further.

“Let’s,” said Mary Elizabeth.

XVII

THE GREAT BLACK HUSH

On that special night, which somehow I remember with tenderness, I sometimes think now--all these years after--that I should like to have been with those solitary, sleepy little figures, trying so hard to get near to mystery. I should think that a Star Story must have come in anybody’s head to tell them. Like this:--

* * * * *

Once, when it didn’t matter to anybody whether you were late or early, or quick or slow, not only because there wasn’t anybody and there wasn’t any you, but because it was back in the beginning when there were no lates and earlies and quicks and slows, _then_ things began to happen in the middle of the Great Black Hush which was all there was to everything.

The Great Black Hush reached all the way around the Universe and in directions without any names, and it was huge and humble and superior and helpless and mighty and in other ways it was very much indeed like a man. And as there was nothing to do, the Great Black Hush was bored past extinction and almost to creation. For there wasn’t anything else about save only the Wind, and the Wind would have nothing whatever to do with him and always blew right by.

Now, inasmuch as everything that is now was then going to be created, it was all waiting somewhere to be created; and nothing is clearer than that. Lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and paints and planets and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all, were waiting to be created, and among them waited people. I cannot tell you where they waited, because there was no where; but they were waiting, as anybody can see, for time to be begun.

Among the people who were waiting about was one special baby, who was just big enough to reach out after everything and to try to put it in his mouth, and they had an awful time with him. He put his little hands on coloured things and on flame things and on air and on water and on musics, and he wanted to know what they all were, and he tried to put them in his mouth. And his mother was perfectly distracted, and she told him so, openly.

“Special Baby,” she said to him openly, “I don’t see why every hair in my head is not pure white. And if you don’t stop making so much trouble, I’ll run away.”

“Run away,” thought the Special Baby. “Now what thing is that?”

And he stretched out his little hand to see, but there wasn’t anything there, and he couldn’t put it in his mouth; so without letting anybody know, he started off all by himself to see what running away is really like.

He ran and he ran, past lines and colours and blocks and flame and music and paint and planets, all waiting about to begin, till he began to notice the Great Black Hush, where it lay all humble and important, and bored past extinction and almost to creation.

“What thing is that?” thought the Special Baby, and put out his little hand to get it and put it in his mouth.

So he touched the Great Black Hush, and under the little hand the Great Black Hush felt as never he had felt before. For the Special Baby’s hand was soft and wandering and most clinging--any General Baby’s hand will give you the idea if you care to try. And it made it seem as if there were something to do.

All through his huge, helpless, superior, and mighty being the Great Black Hush was stirred, and when the Special Baby was frightened and would have gone back, the Great Black Hush did the most astonishing things to try to keep him. He plaited the darkness up like a ruffle and waved it like a flag and opened it like a flower and shut it like a door and poured it about like water, all to keep the Special Baby amused. But though the Special Baby tried to put most of these and _all_ the dark in his mouth, still on the whole he was badly frightened and wanted his mother, and he began to cry to show how much he wanted her. And then the Great Black Hush was at his wits’ end.

“Now, who is there to be the mother of this Special Baby?” he cried in despair, for there wasn’t anything else anywhere around, save only the Wind, and the Wind always blew right by. But the blowing by must have been because the Great Black Hush had never spoken before, for these were the first words that ever he had said; and the Wind, on hearing them, stopped still as a stone, and listened.

“Would I do?” the Wind asked, and the Great Black Hush was so astonished that he almost dropped the Special Baby.

“Would I do?” asked the Wind again, and made the dark like blown garments and like long, blown hair and tender motions, such as women make. And she took the Special Baby in her arms and rocked him as gently as boughs, so that he laughed with delight and tried to put the wind in his mouth and finally went to sleep, with his beads on.

“_Now_ what’ll we do?” said the Great Black Hush, hanging about, all helpless and mighty.

“We can get along without a cradle,” said the Wind, “because I will rock him to sleep in my arms.” (This was before time began and before they laid them down to go to sleep alone in a dark room.) “But we ought, we _ought_,” she added, “to have something for him to play with when he wakes up.” (This was before time began and before anybody ate. But they always played. That came first.)

“If he had something to play with, what would that look like?” asked the Great Black Hush, all helpless.

“It musn’t have points like scissors, or ends like string, and the paint mustn’t come off. I think,” said the Wind, “it ought to look like a shining ball.”

“By my distance,” said the Great Black Hush, all mighty, “that’s what it shall look like.”

Then he began to make a plaything, and he worked all over him and all over everywhere at the fashioning. I don’t know how he did it, because I wasn’t there, and I can’t reckon how long it took him, because there wasn’t any time, but I know some things about it all, and one is that he finally got it done.

“Look!” the Great Black Hush cried to the Wind,--for she paid more attention to the Special Baby now than she did to him. And when she looked, there hung in the sky, a great, enormous, shining ball.

“That’s big enough so he can’t get it in his mouth,” she said approvingly. “It’s really ginginatic.”

“You mean gigantic, dear,” said the Great Black Hush, all superior. But the Wind didn’t care because words hadn’t been used long enough to fit closely, and besides he had said “dear” and she knew what _that_ meant. “Dear” came before “gigantic.”

“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”

But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything the Wind had told him to make and he didn’t know whether anything else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.

By-and-by--there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and that is why so many people prefer it--when he couldn’t stay any longer, he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.

“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.

But he wasn’t cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging, swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands for them, but they were so big he couldn’t put them in his mouth and so he might reach out all he pleased.

“_Ho_,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was before.”

But the Wind sighed a little.

“I wish everything were more so,” she said. “I ought to have a place to take the Special Baby and make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his little back. Also, I want to learn a lullaby, and this is so public.”

Then the Great Black Hush thought and thought, and remembered that away back on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, there was a tidy little place that might be just the thing. It was _not_ up to date, because there wasn’t any date, but still he thought it might be just the thing.

“By the welkin,” he said, “I know a place that is the place. I’ll go and sweep it out.”

“Not so fast,” said the Wind, gently. “I go also. I want to be sure that there are enough closets--” or whatever would have corresponded to that before there was any Modern at all.

So the three went away together and groped about on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, and there the Wind swept it out tidily and there they made their home. And when it was all done,--which took a great while because the Wind kept wanting additions put on,--they came out and sat at the door of the place, the Great Black Hush and the Wind and the Special Baby between.

And as they did that a wonderful thing was true. For now that the Great Black Hush had withdrawn to his new home, lo, all the swinging plaything balls were shining through space, and there was light. And the man and the woman and the child at the door of the first home looked in one another’s faces. And the man and the woman were afraid of the light and their look clung each to the other’s in that fear; but the Special Baby stretched out his little hands and tried to put the light in his mouth.

“Don’t, dear,” said the woman, and her voice sounded quite natural.

“Pay attention to me and not to the Baby,” said the man, and _his_ voice sounded quite natural, and very mighty, so that the woman obeyed--until the Special Baby wanted her again.

And that was when she made her lullaby, and it was the first song:--

WIND SONG[B]

Horn of the morning! And the little night pipings fail. The day is launched like a hollow ship With the sun for a sail. The way is wide and blue and lone With all its miles inviolate Save for the swinging stars we’ve sown And a thistle of cloud remote and blown. Oh, I passion for something nearer than these! How shall I know that this live thing is I With only the morning for proof and the sky? I long for a music more soft to its keys, For a touch that shall teach me the new sureties. Give me some griefs and some loyalties And a child’s mouth on my own!

Lullaby, lullaby, Babe of the world, swing high, Swing low. I am a mother you never may know, But oh And oh, how long the wind will know you, With lullabies for the dead night through. Babe of the earth, as I blow ... Swing high, To touch at the sky, And at last lie low. Lullaby....

[B] Reproduced by permission of _The Craftsman_.

But meanwhile the Special Baby’s real mother--the one who had told him about running away--was hunting and hunting and _hunting_ for him and going nearly distracted and expecting every hair in her head to turn pure white. She went about among all the rest, asking and calling and wanting to know, and finally she made up her mind that she would not stay where she was, but that she would run away and hunt for him. And she did. And when all the things that were waiting to be born heard about it, there was no holding them back either. So out they came, lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and planets and paints and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all came out in the wake of the lost Special Baby. And some came early and some came late, some hurried and some hung back. And among all these came people, and many and many of the to-be-born things were hidden in peoples’ hearts and did not appear till long after; and this was true of some things which I have not mentioned at all, and of some that have not appeared even yet. But some people did not bring anything in their hearts, and they merely observed that it was a shameful waste, so many shining balls swinging about and only the Special Baby to play with them, and _he_ evidently eternally lost.

But the Special Baby’s real mother didn’t say a word. She only ran and ran on, asking and calling and wanting to know. And at last she came to the Outermost Way and near the Wild Wing of Things, and the Special Baby heard her coming. And when he heard that, he made his choicest coo-noise in his throat and he stretched out his arms to his real mother that he was used to.

And when his real mother heard the coo-noise, she brushed aside the Wild Wing of Things and took him in her arms--and she never saw the Wind and the Great Black Hush at all, because they are that kind. So she carried the Special Baby off, kicking and crowing and catching at the swinging, shining balls--but they were too big to put in his mouth so there was no danger--and _she_ hunted up a place where she could make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his little back. But about them all things were going on, and everybody else was doing the same thing, so nobody noticed.

Then, all alone before their home on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things that was all brushed aside, the Great Black Hush and the Wind looked at each other. And their look clung, as when they had first found light, and they were afraid. For now all space was glowing and shining with swinging balls, and all the things were being born and making homes, and time was rushing by so fast that it awed them who had never seen such a thing before.

“_What_ have we done?” demanded the Great Black Hush.

But the Wind was not so much concerned with that. She only grieved and grieved for the Special Baby. And the Great Black Hush comforted her, and I think he comforts her unto this day.

Only at night. Then, as you know, the Great Black Hush comes from the Outermost Way and fills the air, and with him often and often comes the Wind. And together they wander among all the shining balls--you will know this, if you listen, on many a night--and together they look for the Special Baby. But _he_ has grown up, long and long ago, only he still stretches out his hands to everything, for he is the way he was made.

XVIII

THE DECORATION OF INDEPENDENCE

That year we celebrated Fourth of July in the Wood Yard.

The town had decided not to have a celebration, though we did not know who had done the actual deciding, and this we used to talk about.

“How can the _town_ decide anything?” Delia asked sceptically. “When does it do it?”

“Why,” said Margaret Amelia--to whom, her father being a judge, we always turned to explain matters of state, “its principal folks say so.”

“Who are its principal folks?” I demanded.

“Why,” said Margaret Amelia, “I should think you could tell that. They have the stores and offices and live in the residence part.”

I pondered this, for most of the folk in the little town did neither of these things.

“Why don’t they have another Fourth of July for the rest, then,” I suggested, “and leave them settle on their own celebration?”

Margaret Amelia looked shocked.

“I guess you don’t know much about the Decoration of Independence,” said she.

The Decoration of Independence--we all called it this--was, then, to go by without attention because the Town said so.

“The Town,” said Mary Elizabeth, dreamily, “the Town. It sounds like somebody tall, very high, and pointed at the top, with the rest of her dark and long and flowy--don’t it?”

“City,” she and I were agreed, sounded like somebody light and sitting down with her skirts spread out.

“Village” sounded like a little soft hollow, not much of any colour, with a steeple to it.

“I like ‘Town’ best,” Mary Elizabeth said. “It sounds more like a mother-woman. ‘City’ sounds like a lady-woman. And ‘Village’ sounds like a grandma-woman. I like ‘Town’ best.”

“What I want to do,” Margaret Amelia said restlessly, “is to spend my Fourth of July dollar. I had a Fourth of July dollar ever since Christmas. It’s no fun spending it with no folks and bands and wagons.”

“I’ve got my birthday dollar yet,” I contributed. “If I spent it for Fourth of July, I’d be glad of it, but if I spend it for anything else, I’ll want it back.”

“I had a dollar,” said Calista, gloomily, “but I used a quarter of it up on the circus. Now I’m glad I did. I wish’t I’d stayed to the sideshow.”

“Stitchy Branchitt says,” Betty offered, “that the boys are all going to Poynette and spend their money there. Poynette’s got exercises.”

Oh, the boys would get a Fourth. Trust them. But what about us? We could not go to Poynette. We could not rise at three A.M. and fire off fire-crackers. No fascinating itinerant hucksters would come the way of a town that held no celebration. We had nowhere to spend our substance, and to do that was to us what Fourth of July implied.

The New Boy came wandering by, eating something. Boys were always eating something that looked better than anything we saw in the candy-shop. Where did they get it? This that he had was soft and pink and chewy, and it rapidly disappeared as he approached us.

Margaret Amelia Rodman threw back her curls and flashed a sudden radiant smile at the New Boy. She became quite another person from the judicious, somewhat haughty creature whom we knew.

“Let’s us get up a Fourth of July celebration,” she said.

We held our breath. It never would have occurred to us. But now that she suggested it, why not?

The New Boy leaped up on a gate-post and sat looking down at us, chewing.

“How?” he inquired.

“Get up a partition,” said Margaret Amelia. “Circulate it like for take-a-walk at school or teacher’s present, and all sign.”

“And take it to who?” asked the New Boy.

Margaret Amelia considered.

“My father,” she proposed.

The scope of the idea was enormous. Her father was a judge and wore very black clothes every day, and never spoke to any of us. Therefore he must be a great man. Doubtless he could do anything.

Boys, as we knew them, usually flouted everything that we said, but--possibly because of Margaret Amelia’s manner of presentation--this suggestion seemed to strike the New Boy favourably. Afterward we learned that this was probably partly owing to the fact that the fare to Poynette was going to eat distressingly into the boys’ Fourth money, unless they walked the ten miles.

By common consent we had Margaret Amelia and the New Boy draw up the “partition.” But we all spent a long time on it, and at length it read:--

* * * * *

“We the Undersigned want there should be a July 4 this year. We the Undersigned would like a big one. But if it can’t be so very big account of no money, We the Undersigned would like one anyway, and hereby respectfully partition about this in the name of the Decoration of Independence.”

There was some doubt whether or not to close this document with “Always sincerely” but we decided to add only the names, and these we set out to secure, the New Boy carrying one copy and Margaret Amelia another. I remember that, to honour the occasion, she put on a pale blue crocheted shawl of her mother’s and we all trailed in her wake, worshipfully.

The lists grew amazingly. Long before noon we had to get new papers. By night we had every child that we knew, save Stitchy Branchitt. He had a railroad pass to Poynette, and he favoured the out-of-town celebration. But the personal considerations of economic conditions were as usual sufficient to swing the event, and the next morning I suppose that twenty-five or thirty of us, bearing the names of three or four times as many, marched into Judge Rodman’s office.

On the stairs Margaret Amelia had a thought.

“Does your father pay taxes?” she inquired of Mary Elizabeth--who was with us, having been sent down town for starch.

“On his watch--he used to,” said Mary Elizabeth, doubtfully. “But he hasn’t got that any more.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Margaret Amelia, “whether we’d really ought to of put down any names that their fathers don’t pay taxes. It may make a difference. I guess you’re the only one we got that their fathers don’t--that he ain’t--”

I fancy that what Margaret Amelia had in mind was that Mary Elizabeth’s father was the only one who lived meanly; for many of the others must have gone untaxed, but they lived in trim, rented houses, and we knew no difference.

Mary Elizabeth was visibly disturbed.

“I never thought of that,” she said. “Maybe I better scratch me off.”

But there seemed to me to be something indefinably the matter with this.

“The Fourth of July is for everybody, isn’t it?” I said. “Didn’t the whole country think of it?”

“I think it’s like a town though,” said Margaret Amelia. “The principal folks decided it, I’m sure. And they _always_ pay taxes.”

We appealed to the New Boy, as authority superior even to Margaret Amelia. How was this--did the Decoration of Independence mean everybody, or not? Could Mary Elizabeth sign the partition since her father paid no taxes?

“Well,” said the New Boy, “it _says_ everybody, don’t it? But nobody ever gets to ride in the parade but distinguished citizens--it always says them, you know. I s’pose maybe it meant the folks that pays the taxes, only it didn’t like to put it in.”

“I better take my name off,” said Mary Elizabeth, decidedly. “It might hurt.”

So the New Boy produced a stump of pencil, and we found the right paper, and held it up against the wall of the stairway, and Mary Elizabeth scratched her name off.

“I won’t come up, then,” she whispered to me, and made her way down the stairs, her head held very high.

Judge Rodman was in his office--he makes, I find, my eternal picture of “judge,” short, thick, frock-coated, bearded, bald, spectacled, square-toed, and with his hands full of loose papers and his watch-chain shining.

“Bless us,” he said, too, as a judge should.