The Happy Isles

by Basil King

And now something special had arisen. He got out of bed. He didn't kneel down because, being anxious not to mislead God by giving Him wrong information, he had first to consider what he ought to say. Stealing softly across the floor, lest the creaking of the boards should betray the fact that he was up, he went to the open window, and looked out.

It was one of those mystic nights which, to a soul inclined to the mystical, seem to hold a spiritual secret. The air, scented by millions of growing things, though chiefly with the acrid perfume of the blue spruces on which he looked down, had a pungent, heavenly odor such as he never caught in the daytime. There was a tang of salt in it, too, as from the direction of the Sound came the faintest rustle of a breeze. The rustle was so faint as not to break a stillness, which was more of the nature of a holy suspense because of the myriads of stars.

Seeking a formula in which to couch his prayer, he found a phrase of Mr. Tollivant's often used in domestic intercession. "And, O Heavenly Father, we beseech thee to act wisely in the matter of our needs." What constituted wisdom in the matter of their needs would then be pointed out by Mr. Tollivant according to the day's or the season's requirements. Accepting this language as that of high inspiration, and forgetting to kneel down, the boy began as he stood, looking out on the sanctified darkness:

"And, O Heavenly Father, I beseech thee to act wisely in the matter of my needs." Hung up there for lack of archaic grandiloquence, he found himself ending lamely: "And don't let me give it to her if I oughtn't to, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen."

With his effort he was disappointed. Not only had the choice of words not taken from Mr. Tollivant been ludicrously insufficient, but he had forgotten to kneel down. He had probably vitiated the whole prayer. He thought of revision, of constructing a sentence that would balance Mr. Tollivant's, and beginning again with the proper ceremonial. But Bertie's way of reasoning came to him again. "I guess He knows what I mean anyhow." He recoiled at that, however, shocked at his own irreverence. The thought was a blasphemous liberty taken with the watchful and easily offended deity of whom Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant had begged him always to be afraid. He was wondering if by approaching this God at all he hadn't made his plight worse, when the rising of the wind diverted his attention.

It rose suddenly, in a great soft sob, but not of pain. Rather, it was of exultation, of cosmic joyousness. Coming from the farthest reaches of the world, from the Atlantic, from Africa, from remote islands and mountain tops, it blew in at the boy's window with a strong, and yet gentle, cosmic force.

"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind."

Tom Quidmore had but one source of quotation, but he had that at his tongue's end. The learning by heart of long passages from the Bible had been part of his education at the hands of Mr. and Mrs. Tollivant. Rightly or wrongly, he quoted the Scriptures, and rightly oftener than not. He quoted them now because, all at once, his room seemed full of the creative breath. He didn't say so, of course; but, confusedly, he felt it. All round the world there was wind. It was the single element in Nature which you couldn't see, but of which you received the living invigoration. It cooled, it cleansed, it strengthened. Wherever it passed there was an answer. The sea rose; the snows drifted; the trees bent; men and women strove to use and conquer it. A rushing mighty wind! A sound from heaven! That it might be an answer to his prayer he couldn't stop to consider because he was listening to the way it rose and fell, and sighed and soughed and swelled triumphantly through the plantation of blue spruces.

By morning it was a gale. The tall things on the property, the bush peas, the scarlet runners, the sweet corn, were all being knocked about. In spots they lay on the earth; in other spots they staggered from the perpendicular. All hands, in the words of old Diggory, had their work cut out for them. Tom's job was to rescue as many as possible of the ears of sweet corn, in any case ready for picking, before they were damaged.

But at half-past two he dragged himself out of the corn patch to fulfill the dreaded duty. Nothing had answered his prayer. He had not so much as seen his father throughout the day, as the latter had gone to the markets and had not returned. The gale was still raging, and he might be waiting for it to go down.