It did not occur to him that in her reliance, too, there might be a kind of wisdom—not to be expounded by logic, perhaps—but deep as life.... For himself, he knew that he had not wisdom to advise any one. He simply did what he could—and when his advice prospered, he was as naively and proudly surprised as any one.
XI
THE children were brought up in the oak-tree. Richard made a cradle-box at the end of one of the low boughs that almost swept the ground and there was always one baby in the box on the bough and one on the ground among the roots—a new one that had just come down from the bough.
And then, presently, one of those on the ground—with the help of Eleanor and a chair—climbed to the first branches close to the trunk.... Then another one climbed, and another, till they were all swarming in the great oak—no longer close to the trunk, but far out on the branches among the leaves, swinging and lilting in the wind.
The boys played they were sailors climbing the masts that swayed giddily beneath them; they sat on cross-beams and gazed out to sea; or they were on the scaffolding of tall buildings, hammering great steel beams into place as the sky-scrapers rose in the air; or they were the advance force of an army—scouting aeroplanes, swooping toward a besieged town.
Between the branches of the great tree and the wind that swayed them or drove shrilly against them, the boys adventured on life. But Annabel made of the tree an outdoor home as like the one across the lawn as the leaves and branches and a great trunk shooting up through the centre would permit. The tree-trunk was the chimney, of course, and she had roaring fires in every room, up stairs and down, and cooking and sweeping and dusting, with lively flourishes and much running up and down stairs. She was a little lonely at times, because the boys—who did not really care for the game—would suddenly desert her for excursions in the aeroplanes, or to shoot arrows from the house-top. She was liable to find herself, at any moment, with her house swept and dusted, and no one to live in it with her. Only down from the top among the leaves and the swaying limbs would come wild growls and quick whispers—intent and breathless calls to action.... Then Annabel would leave her dust-cloths and her pots and pans, and creep stealthily up, up, up—till the topmost branch was reached, and the wind blew in her face, and her little pigtails stood straight out with delight and she was filled with the glow of life. For days she would play the game in the top of the tree. And then, some morning, she would find herself back among her treasures—her sticks and bits of moss and leaves, close to the trunk of the tree, going up and down stairs in happy content; and her imagination would grow deep and intent. Her face, pressed against the bark, seemed no longer to need the swing of the dangerous branches and the surging of the wind to rouse it. She would sit close to the trunk of the tree on a solid limb, and play the great game almost without stirring—a deep silent game that stirred her to the very core.... The boys were willing to play house with her and sometimes to sweep and dust a little along the branches, and visit back and forth, upstairs and down. But as for sitting on a limb, intent and still, gazing at what went on beneath the line of sight!... They left her sitting there alone, gazing at nothing, and fled to the top of the tree and yelled with shrill vacant calls of delight and relief.
But when the youngest baby, who proved happily to be a girl, when the time for climbing came—when this youngest baby had been pulled and boosted by Annabel up into the tree beside her, and when two of them could sit happily side by side, looking at each other in silence, then there seemed a fairer division of forces.
Gradually the boys, when they ventured far out on dangerous limbs, would feel a silent tug pulling them back to the heart of things.