Of what do you suppose she was thinking? She was thinking of her mother, who had died before she could remember her, and wondering where she was; and she was picturing what her mother had looked like, and what her mother would have said to her, and how her mother’s arms would have felt about her, and her mother’s good-night kiss; and she was wondering how it would be to wake in the night, a little frightened, and turn and stretch out her arms and find her mother breathing there beside her, ready to wake her and give her an in-the-middle-of-the-night kiss and send her back to sleep again. And she thought about it all so longingly that her little heart was like nothing in the world so much as the one word “Mother.”
“It will be you,” said the Earth.
So the Earth spoke to its Shadow who was, of course, just then fastened to that same side, it being night.
“Shadow, dear,” Earth said, like a prescription, “fold closely about her and drop out a dream or two. But do not let her forget.”
So Shadow folded about her and dropped out a dream or two. And all night Earth lapped her in its silences, but they did not let her forget. And Shadow left word with Morning, telling Morning what to do, and she kissed the little girl’s eyelids so that the first thing she thought when she waked was how wonderful it would be to be kissed awake by her mother. And her little heart beat Mother in her breast.
As soon as she was dressed (“Muvvers wouldn’t pinch your feet with the button-hook, or tie your ribbon too tight, or get your laxtixs short so’s they pull,” she thought), as soon as she was dressed, and had pressed her feet to Earth, Earth began to talk to her.
“Go out and find a mother,” it said to her.
“My muvver is dead,” thought the little girl.
Earth said: “I am covered with mothers and with those who ought to be mothers. Go to them. Tell them you haven’t any mother. Wouldn’t one of those be next best?”
And the Earth said so much, and the little girl’s heart so strongly beat Mother, that she could not help going to see.