Tommy thought a while and then he said:
“I know. I guess you mean that we love the things that aren’t strong the best. It wouldn’t hurt a daisy or a big mullein or a clover blossom one bit if it was to rain hard. Would it? But the wee spring flowers couldn’t stand so much, could they?”
“Yes, that’s it. Then, you see, I always think all the flowers are real people, just as real as you and I are, only different, and of all the Flower People—I always call them the Flower People when I think of them—it seems to me that the spring Flower People are the loveliest. For they come to us almost before the winter’s gone and while it is still very cold and we haven’t any other flowers.”
“I think so too,” said Tommy. “You always ’splain to us children and tell us lots of nice things to think about, Phœbe. But I like it best of all when you ’splain things to just me, for then I can understand real easy.”
The children soon came to a big chestnut tree and Phœbe sat down under it to rest awhile. Tommy walked on. Phœbe looked around her. She could hear the children laughing and chattering up the glen. She watched Tommy. He walked along, stopping every now and then to watch a butterfly or to peer into the waters of the brook as it rippled along the side of his path.
Phœbe sat quiet for some time. The voices of the other children sounded farther away until they scarcely reached her. She saw Tommy’s little figure far down the glen, beside the Still Pool. “I wonder what he is looking at,” she thought, “he has been standing beside the pool such a long time.” She called, “Tommy, Tommy,” but he did not turn his head. She waited a moment and then started toward him. As she came near him she saw that he was gazing into the waters of Still Pool as though he saw something very wonderful in it.
Still Pool was a beautiful little well of water at the northern end of the glen. It was formed by water from the brook which had some time gone out of its course and left here this deep, clear pool, all surrounded by ferns and water cress. It was almost always so clear that you could look right down to the bottom of it and see the white pebbles there. The children had always called it the “Still” pool, because it seemed so very quiet in this part of the glen and the pool was the stillest of all.
Phœbe came up to Tommy. He did not hear her; he was looking into the pool. So she came behind him very softly and laid her hand on his shoulder.
“What are you looking at, little Tommy?” she asked.
“I have called and called you, but you never turned your head. I don’t believe you even saw me as I came up here.”