Maida's little house

by Inez Haynes Gillmore

Very late, long after midnight indeed, it seemed to her that somebody came into her room, that she half-waked; spoke. That somebody did not answer and she fell asleep again. Yes, she remembered now, that that somebody seemed to come in through the window. She fell asleep and yet not entirely asleep.... That somebody moved about the room ... looked at everything.... That somebody stopped near the little hair-cloth trunk which contained Lucy’s clothes. After a while ... that somebody went away ... through the window.... But all night long, a sense of trouble and disturbance kept bringing Maida out of deep sleep to ruffled wakefulness; then sent her back into a heavy and fatiguing slumber.

Thinking this over and staring up at the blue sky, Maida drifted off to sleep. She woke—it must have been nearly two hours later—perfectly refreshed. But she did not go back immediately to the Little House. Instead, the sight of a columbine in the woods made her determine to land. She knew that Rosie particularly loved the columbines and pursuing, half absently, the trail which went to the Moraine, she soon gathered a great armful.

Maida became so absorbed in this pleasant duty of reparation that she went further than she intended. In fact, it was with a real sense of surprise—and a slight tingle of terror—that suddenly she found herself at the approach to the Moraine itself. She had not been there since the extraordinary day of the picnic and although she had not let her mind dwell on the curious experience of that occasion, she had by no means forgotten it. For a moment, she hesitated about going further. And then she caught a glimpse, across the rust-brown pine-needle-covered expanse, of a great clump of columbines faintly nodding their delicate heads. Involuntarily Maida dashed across the Moraine and picked them. More appeared beyond. She picked all these and then just beyond, she caught sight of a tiny field of columbines. Maida moved in their direction, plumped herself down in the midst of their beautiful living carpet. It was cool there and quiet. The pines held the sun out, although their needles were all filmed with iridescence; but they let little glimpses of the sky through their branches. Some strange wood insect burst into a long strident buzz.

Suddenly there came, as though from the very ground under her feet, a long wailing cry.

Maida turned white. Her heart leaped so high that she felt with another such impulse it would break through her chest. She jumped to her feet, still clutching her flowers, raced across the Moraine into the path. She had not gone very far before something stopped her; not an obstacle but a thought. She had expected, remembering the day of the picnic, that the voice would be joined by two others. This did not happen. That first voice maintained its eerie call. The thought was, “That cry is not the cry of anything frightening like a goblin or a wild animal, or a tramp—it is the wail of a baby.”

Maida stood for a moment just where she had stopped. The cry began again. Terror surged through Maida. But she clinched her hands and made herself listen. Yes, that was what it was—the wail of a baby. Could it be some little baby animal crying for its mother—a fawn like Betsy’s or—and here Maida’s hair rose on her head again—a baby bear? Her common sense immediately rejected this theory. There were no bears in the woods. And if it were a baby deer, she would be ashamed of being afraid of a baby deer when Betsy showed no fear. For another interval she stood still fighting her cowardice. Then suddenly she took her resolution in hand. “I’m going to find out what it is,” she said aloud. Perhaps she was assisted in this by the cessation of the mysterious wail. Only for a moment however! Her resolution received another weakening blow by the sudden resumption of the uncanny noise. But she did not actually stop, she only faltered. For the farther she walked across the Moraine, the more it sounded like the crying of—not a baby animal—but a regular baby. Suddenly all Maida’s fear vanished forever. “I am not afraid any more,” she said to herself. And she wasn’t.

The hard thing was to discover where the cry came from. It seemed under her feet. She plunged here, there, beyond—everywhere, looking up and down but finding nothing. Then she began a more systematic search. Starting with the very edge of the Moraine she took every rock as it came along, searched around and over it, each clump of bushes, parted them and walked through them. Still the cry kept up. Occasionally she stopped to listen. “That baby’s sick,” she said once, and later, “I do believe it’s hungry.”

Ahead, a big rock thrust out of the earth like an elephant sitting on its haunches. At one side, two bushes grew at so acute an angle and with branches so thickly leaved, that the great surface of the rock was concealed. Maida parted them.

Underneath there was no rocky surface. The bushes concealed a small low opening to what looked like a cave. Was it a cave? Where did it lead? How far? Would—and again Maida’s heart spun with terror—would she confront an enraged mother bear if she entered it? But these questions all died in Maida’s mind. For, emerging undisputedly from the cave, came the fretful cry of a baby.

Without further question, Maida dropped to her hands and knees and crawled into the opening. Crawled down rather; for the entrance sloped at first. Then, it began to grow level. The crying grew louder.