Well may you believe that the departing of that first Summer was a sad matter to him. He had done his best, you see, and a whole new world of trying had been thrown open to him. And really he was beginning to get the knack of that kind of weaving. And she was a fine big apple-cheeked woman now, and—
“Well, if I do say it myself,” growled Andy, “she looks very handsome in those dresses; and for the first time in my life I take a Pride in my Work.”
But in spite of all that the Voice came, you must know, and told him this little dream-girl must die, and there would be another, a different little girl next year; and all the weaving must be gone through with again.
“Shall I be weaving this lass her shroud?” asked Andy of the Voice.
But the Voice did not answer him.
When Andy told all this to her, his first Summer cried for a whole week in amongst the trees and over the pastures and meadows—
And then one morning, she was no longer there.
Andy sat in the doorway of the cabin and stared across the hills. He saw pine trees, ever green, and he made up his mind she had not died but had gone into one of them so as to live forever. And then he fell to thinking how there were so many millions of pine trees, and he guessed to himself how each of the millions of Summers we have had must have gone into one of those trees so as never to die but to be always of the Green Folk, ever green. Well, he rocked back and forth keening soft to himself, when he happened to hear the Voice again and the Voice said:
“You must see by now, Andy, it’s just as I told you. You’ve no money now, have you? You have spent it all, buying stuff to weave her garments from. And she has worn the garments and has thrown them away; so there is nothing left. Nothing left except the joy of good work well done, and the feeling that God has really whispered in your ear. Now you’ll have to go back down to Glastonbury and the work with-the-little-’w.’ You’ll have to stay there through the winter, Andy, and save your pay. But when the time comes again, I’ll call you.”
So Andy put a padlock on the old log cabin where his loom was set up and went back down to the mill-town. And being as he was a clever man, he was put back on his job right away. And the gray mists of winter packed down on the gray town and on the little gray people in the town. And Andy worked at his machine.