To

THE LITTLE GIRL ON CONANT STREET
AND TO THE
MEMORY OF HER GRANDMOTHER
HARRIET BEERS

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I.In Those Days[1]
II.In No Time[16]
III.One for the Money[35]
IV.The Picnic[53]
V.The King’s Trumpeter[77]
VI.My Lady of the Apple Tree[103]
VII.The Princess Romancia[118]
VIII.Two for the Show[147]
IX.Next Door[159]
X.What’s Proper[173]
XI.Dolls[192]
XII.Bit-Bit[211]
XIII.Why[228]
XIV.King[247]
XV.King (continued)[281]
XVI.The Walk[307]
XVII.The Great Black Hush[315]
XVIII.The Decoration of Independence[329]
XIX.Earth-Mother[354]
XX.Three to Make Ready[375]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Somewhere beyond sealed doors[Frontispiece]
FACING PAGE
Sat on a rock in the landscape and practised[32]
Little by little she grew silent and refused to join in the games[128]
But the minute folk left the room—ah, then![168]
She settled everything in that way; she counted the petals of fennel daisies and blew thistle from dandelions[196]
Then out of the valley a great deev arose[216]
To see what running away is really like[316]

There used to be a little girl who does not come here any more. She is not dead, for when certain things happen, she stirs slightly where she is, perhaps deep within the air. When the sun falls in a particular way, when graham griddle cakes are baking, when the sky laughs sudden blue after a storm, or the town clock points in its clearest you-will-be-late way at nine in the morning, when the moonlight is on the midnight and nothing moves—then, somewhere beyond sealed doors, the little girl says something, and it is plain that she is here all the time.