Across the Stream

by E. F. Benson

"I don't mind your crossness," she said. "You let me finish wiping your foot. And then I'll go down and tell your mamma—"

"Oh, don't say I was cross," said Archie. "I'm sorry I was cross."

"Nay, I'll just tell her how much better you feel this morning. And I shouldn't wonder if there was a great treat coming, something you'll like ever so much."

"Is it another train?" asked Archie.

"Bless the boy!" said she. "How you think about trains!"

* * * * *

Archie ate his breakfast, and passed an entrancing morning. Everybody seemed desirous of congratulating him, as if he had done something particularly meritorious, as on the occasion of his not getting drowned when he jumped out of the boat after the pike. He held a sort of levee, the most remarkable incident of which was the appearance of Miss Bampton with a piece of white chalk, with which she drew on the green drugget by his bed, so that he could easily see it, a great map of England and Central Europe. There was the South of England, with London written large, and here was Lacebury also conspicuously marked. Then there was the English Channel with France below it, and Paris in the middle, and away to the right, some distance below, the Lake of Geneva. Then, still explaining, she made marks like caterpillars which were mountains, and said that now the mountains were covered with snow, even down to the tails of the caterpillars and below was the Lake of Geneva, quite blue. All the roads were covered with snow up by the caterpillars' tails, and there were no wheels on the carriages, but they slid over the frozen snow instead. There was skating up there, for they made lakes which were covered with ice. They just put water into flat places, and there was your lake, and it instantly froze. It never rained there, but if it wanted to do anything, it just snowed. Usually it didn't want to do anything, and there was the sun and the snow, and wouldn't it be jolly to go there?

This presented itself to Archie's mind as a purely abstract proposition. Of course it would be jolly to go to a place where you saw the real mountains and had a glimpse of the real Lake of Geneva, and slid instead of walking; but what next? Did any one ever go there?

Apparently. Right at the tail of the caterpillar was a place called Grives. There it was, written down: the railway only went as far as Bex, and there the sledges began. And always the sun shone, so that you sat out of doors with the snow all round you, and felt perfectly warm.

Suddenly Archie could stand it no longer. It was like talking to a starving man about roast beef. There was roast beef somewhere in the world, and he wanted it so badly. In the same way something inside Archie starved for sun and snow and thin air.