"Yes, it is a kindly moon. It will keep right along overhead all the way to West Salem. But you must go to sleep now. I shall call you early in the morning to meet Grandfather."
She was a reasonable soul, entirely confident of my care, and so, putting her head on my arm, she went away to dreamland. At such times my literary ambitions and failures were of no account. [To wish myself back there with that tiny form beside me is folly—but I do—I do!]
In the cool lusciousness of the June morning we met Grandpa, and as we entered the gate of the Homestead (which Mary Isabel only dimly remembered), I said, "This is your home, daughter, you belong here."
"Can I pick the flowers? Can I walk on the grass?" she asked quickly.
"Yes, pick all you want. You can roll on the grass if you wish."
Too excited to eat any breakfast, she ran from posy bed to posy bed, and from tree to tree, indefatigable as a bee or humming-bird. At five in the afternoon Zulime and Constance came.
In the weeks which followed I renewed my childhood. To Mary Isabel as to me at her age, the cornfield was a vast mysterious forest, and the rainbow an overpowering miracle.
"Don't they have rainbows in the city?" she asked one evening as we were watching a glorious arch fade out of the sky above the hills.
"Not such big beautiful double ones," I replied. "They haven't room for them in the city."
She took the same delight in the flame and flare of the Fourth of July which I once owned. She loved to walk in the fields. Snakes, bugs, worms and spiders enthralled her. Each hour brought its vivid message, its wonder and its delight, and when now and again she was allowed to explore the garden with me at night, the murk and the stars, and the stealthily moving winds in the corn, scared, awed her. At such moments the universe was a delicious mystery. Keeping close hold upon my hand she whispered with excitement, "What was that, Poppie? What was that noise? Was it a gnome?"