THE WIND, A HELPER
Mary Stewart
A little girl was once standing in a dark, narrow street playing with some bits of coloured paper she had found in an ash-can. Suddenly a gust of wind came around the street-corner. It blew the coloured scraps right out of the child’s hand and carried them up over her head, then higher still, over the house-tops, until they were out of sight.
Janie, that was the little girl’s name, watched them fly away, with tears in her eyes. Her busy mother had given her this day for a holiday, she had no toys to play with, and she loved those gay bits of paper. As she looked after the scraps up into the little patch of blue sky, which was all she could see between the high houses, she saw a small, white cloud scudding along, just the way the papers had flown.
“What makes the cloud fly so fast?” thought Janie, and as if in answer another gust of wind came blowing down the street. “Oh, wind, blow me, too,” cried Janie, “take me up in the sky with the cloud,” and she held out her little petticoat.
The wind filled it and blew her—well, it didn’t quite blow her into the sky, but it did a kinder thing. It blew her down the dark, narrow street, through other streets, each getting wider and cleaner, until at last it blew her right into the country. There she found herself racing over green fields, with the sky overhead so big and so blue that the clouds looked like a flock of little sheep. There for a moment the wind left her—he had other things to do—and Janie stood looking around her happy and surprised. It was a spring day and the grass, which was waving in the wind, was soft and green and full of buttercups and daisies. “Far prettier than my scraps of paper,” thought Janie. The trees were covered with new, green leaves, some of them were dressed in pink and white blossoms, and their branches swayed in the wind as if they were waving a welcome to the little girl. But she didn’t have long to stand and look. Back came the wind, bringing new scents of blossoms and other sweet spring things with him, and off the child ran again.
Presently she saw in front of her a shining blue line, and when she reached it she found it was the sea. If any one of us has ever seen the sea on a clear windy day we can never forget it, and that is just the way Janie felt. The waves were high and blue, but they wore great white caps which broke against the wind, and he scattered them into splendid foamy bits of spray, while the waves came dashing over the beach.
It was all so beautiful that Janie took a long, deep breath of wind, and suddenly her cheeks grew pink and her eyes bright, and you never would have known she was the pale, sad little Janie who stood in the dark street watching her scraps of paper blow away.
She was standing on the beach gazing out to sea in astonishment. For there, on the blue water, was something which looked like a great bird with its wings outspread, only it was far bigger than any bird, and as it skimmed over the water she saw men moving upon it. Can you guess what it was? It was a splendid ship; but as Janie had never seen one before, except in pictures, she was much puzzled. “What makes it fly so fast?” she wondered, and for an answer the wind blew her along the beach, through a garden, and almost into a little white cottage, where a woman was standing with a baby in her arms.
She didn’t seem to mind a bit when she saw a strange little girl come flying down the garden path to her house. She just laughed and cried, “This is another trick of my friend the wind.” Then she laid the baby down in a cradle and took both Janie’s hands, making her sit on the door step where the wind had dropped her.