Page:McClure's Magazine v9 n3 to v10 no2.djvu/160

886 was being put to bed she was telling her mother what a sad story it was—and what should she do if she thought of it in her sleep? Here was a possible clue to her troubles. Ten minutes later we heard the sound of sobbing. It was the pain, she said; the mysterious pain; but I was as certain as though I had been herself that it was

Yet another evening she begged me to stay a little while with her, as she was sure she could not fall asleep. The best way for a little girl to fall asleep, I told her—and every little girl ought to know it—is to think she is in a garden, and to gather a lot of moss-roses, and to make a chain of them; and then she must glide away over the grass, without touching it, to a stile in the green fields and wait till she good hears a pattering of feet; and, almost immediately, a flock of sheep will pass by, dozens and dozens, and then a flock of lambs, and she must count them every one; and at last a lovely white lamb with a black face will come, and she must throw the rose-chain over its head and trot along beside it till she reaches the daffodil meadows where the dream-tree grows, and the lamb will lie down under the tree, and she must lie down beside it, and the tree will shake down the softest sleep on them, and there will be no waking till daylight comes. Once more, a few minutes later, there was a sound of weeping in the dark. Oh, yes, she had counted the sheep and the lambs, every one of them, and had got to the meadows; but one little lamb had stayed behind and had got lost in the mountains, and she could hear it crying for the others.

There is a foolish beatitude in dallying with these childish recollections, but unless I record them now I shall be the poorer to the end of time; they will vanish from memory like that diamond dust of dew which I once saw covering the nasturtium leaves with a magical, iridescent bloom. All during the summer months it has been a joy to see the world through her young eyes. She is a little shepherdess of vagrant facts and fancies, and her crook is a note of interrogation. "What is a sponge, father?" she asks. And there is a story of the blue sea-water and the strange jelly-like creature enjoying its dim life on the deep rocks, and the diver, let down from his boat by a rope with a heavy stone at the end to sink him. "Poor sponge!" says W. V., touching it gently. As we go along the fields we see a horse lying down and another standing beside it—both of them as motionless as stone. "They think they are having their photographs taken," says W. V. The yellow of a daisy is of course "the yolk." On a windy May morning "it does the trees good being blown about; it is like a little walk for them." When she sees the plane-tree catkins all fluffed over with wool, she thinks they are very like little kittens. Crossing the fields after dusk I tell her that all that white shimmer in the sky is the Milky Way; "Oh, is that why the cows lie out in the grass all night?" After rain I show her how the water streams down the hill and comes away in a succession of little rushes; "It is like a wet wind, isn't it?" she observes. Having modeled an ivy leaf in clay, she wonders whether God would think it pretty if He saw it; but "it is a pity it isn't green." When the foal springs up from all four hoofs drawn together and goes bounding round in a wild race, "Doesn't he folâtre, father?" then in explanation, "that comes in Madame's lesson, Le poulain folâtre."

In the woods in June we gathered tiny green oaklets shooting from fallen acorns, and took them home. By-and-by we shall have oaks of our own, and a swing between them; and if we like we can climb them, for no one will then have any right to shout "Hi! come down, there!" So we planted our prospective woods, and watered them. "They think it is raining," whispered W. V. with a laugh; "they fancy we are all indoors, don't they?" At 7:30 on the longest day of the year the busiest of bumble-bees is diving into bell after bell of the three foxglove spires in the garden. W. V.'s head just reaches the lowest bell on the purple spire. "Little girls don't grow as fast as foxgloves, do they?" She notices that the bells are speckled inside with irregular reddish-brown freckles on a white ground; "Just like a bird's eggs." This is the only plant in the garden which does not outrun its flower; there is always a fresh bell in blossom at the top; however high it goes, it always takes its joy with it. That will be a thing to tell her when she is older; meanwhile—"I may have some of the gloves to put on my fingers, mayn't I, father?"

In July the planet was glorified by the arrival of her Irish terrier. She threw us and creation at large the crumbs from her table, but her heart was bound up in her