The Little House in the Fairy Wood

by Ethel Cook Eliot

"No," said Wild Star. "It isn't funny. You are a growing Earth Child, not a fairy. It is your own kind calling you. It is the music of your human life."

"I don't know what you mean," said Eric.

"It is like this: you know when you begin to sing a song, you go on and on to the end without thinking about it at all. It is the theme that carries you. Well, a human life is made like a song,—it carries itself along. You do not stop to think why. It can't stop in the middle, on one chord, for long. Yours now is resting, on a chord of happiness. But soon it will go on again. You want it to. Life in the Forest, though, isn't like that. Here it is music without any theme, like the music we dance to. Thrum, thrum, thrum, thrummmmmmmm. But there is more than that to an Earth Child's life. It runs on like this stream. The stream is happy here in the Forest, too, but it goes on seeking the sea just the same."

There was a long stillness while Eric looked down into the green depths of the water. At last he asked, "But how could I ever get across the sea? And when I got there how could I get back?"

"Time enough to think about getting back when you are there," laughed Wild Star. "But as to getting there, Helma is the one to tell you that. She has been an Earth Child, too, you know. She felt just as you did, that spring night on the shore. She has felt it many times. It is only Ivra that keeps her in the Forest. Ivra docs not belong out in the world of humans, and Helma will never leave her. But she will understand your longing. All you have to do is tell her."

Eric clapped his hands, a habit he had caught from Ivra. "Oh, I shall cross in a ship," he cried, "and see all the foreign lands. And when I come back, think of the World Stories I shall have to tell Helma and Ivra!"

He sprang up in his joy, and felt as though he had wings on his shoulders like Wild Star, and had only to spread them out to go beating around the world. For a second the Wind Creature and the Earth Child looked very much alike. And indeed, the only difference was that Wild Star had to wait for the wind, and Eric need wait for no wind or no season. His wings were inside of his head, but they were as strong as Wild Star's. And he had only to spread them and lift them to go anywhere he wanted.

Now he wanted to get back to Helma and tell her all about it. Wild Star pointed him the shortest way, and off he ran, jumping the stream and the moss beds beyond, and disappearing into the underbrush.

"I'll look for you next time the other side of the world!" Wild Star shouted after him.

It was twilight when he reached home. Helma and Ivra were sitting on the door stone, hand in hand. They made room for Eric. But he did not snuggle up. He stayed erect, his face lifted towards the first dim stars, and told Helma all about his wanting to go away from them out through the Forest and across the sea, and all that Wild Star had said about music and Earth People's lives. And he told her, too, of the vision of success he had had when he caught Wild Thyme that first day by her bushy hair.