THE WIND HUNT
After all, Mother Helma was not there the next morning,—nor the next, nor the next. She did not come back for days and days and days. Much happened before she returned, and much happened after. I will tell you.
During the days the children roamed the forest looking for their mother. They asked every one they could find whether he had seen her. The Tree Man, his daughter, the Bird Fairies, and the Forest Children, not one of them had seen or heard of her since she went away. But they all said with one accord that she would surely come back in her own time. It was not wise to go seeking her so. She loved them. She would return.
"Wait and be patient," they said. "Time will bring Helma."
But they were Forest People, who live long, long lives, and see far. Eric was an Earth Child, and Ivra was not all a Forest Child. So they found it hard to be wise and wait and do nothing but trust Helma and know she would return.
So they went wandering all the day. They did not go home for meals, even, after a while, but ate with the Tree Man and his daughter or the Forest Children. Sometimes as they walked through the forest, looking all about, even up into the trees for their mother, they would suddenly burst into play. "Tag," Ivra would cry, tapping Eric on the shoulder, and away she would fly, he after her, in a race that grew merrier and merrier as it ran on. Ivra darted and twisted away when Eric thought he had her, rolling down little hills on the snow crust, climbing trees, jumping brooks until he was lucky enough to catch her by one of her pigtails at last, or snatch her flying skirt. "Tag!" Then away he sped, and the game would go on for a happy while.
But sooner or later they always stopped running, stopped laughing, and remembered why they were wandering the wood alone. Then they would call for Helma. Ivra's voice was shrill and sweet, and rang through the bare woods like a birdsong. Eric's wavered a little uncertainly, as though he doubted whether Helma knew it well enough to answer. "Helma, Helma, Helma! Ohh Helma! Helmaa-a!"
No Helma answered. Sometimes a Forest Child came running to say, "We haven't seen her yet, Ivra. But we are watching." The Bird Fairies fluttered at the call and nodded their little heads uneasily. Children's voices calling for their mother was a sad sound, and made the kindly little creatures restless. One or two of them would fly to nestle in Ivra's neck and whisper, "Give her time. Do not hurry her so. She will come back."
But the children were losing faith. They went calling, seeking and playing through the woods all the hours of daylight. At night Ivra told Eric World Stories, World Story after World Story until sleep made them forget.
The fifth morning of their search dawned blue and clear and windy.