XIX THE CUSTODIAN
When the river is low, a broad, flat stone lying a little way from shore at the foot of our lawn becomes an instrument of music. In the day it plays now a rhapsody of sun, now a nocturne of cloud, now the last concerto, Opus Eternal. In the night it becomes a little friendly murmur, a cradle song, slumber spell, neighbour to the Dark, the alien Dark who very likely grows lonely, being the silent sister, whereas the Light goes on blithely companioned of us all. But if I were the Dark and owned the stars, and the potion which quickens conscience, and the sense of the great Spirit brooding, brooding, I do not know that I would exchange and be the Light. Still, the Light has rainbows and toil and the sun and laughter.... After all, it is best to be a human being and to have both Light and Darkness for one's own. And it is concerning this conclusion that the river plays on its instrument of music, this shallow river
"—to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals."
I have heard our bank cat-birds in the willows sing madrigals to the stone-music until I wanted to be one of them—cat-bird, madrigal, shallows, or anything similar. But the human is perhaps what all these are striving to express, and so I have been granted wish within wish, and life is very good.
Life was very good this summer afternoon when half the village gathered on our lawn above the singing stone, at Miggy's and Peter's "Announcement Supper." To be sure, all Friendship Village had for several days had the news and could even tell you when the betrothal took place and where; but the two were not yet engaged, as Miggy would have said, "out loud."
"What is engaged?" asked Little Child, who was the first of my guests to arrive, and came bringing an offering of infinitesimal flowers which she finds in the grass where I think that they bloom for no one else.