IN WHICH JANE STAYS LONGER THAN SHE HAD
EXPECTED TO AND WE ENTERTAIN HER. AS
USUAL, FLIP TELLS A STORY
EVERYONE was rather anxious to see how Mother Dear would receive Jane. Mother did not take to strange women as a general thing, but, as Flip explained later, Jane was hardly a woman, so it made matters easy. Flip was the only one who was embarrassed. He almost ruined his hat, twisting it out of shape, as he said:
“Mrs. Sherman, this is Jane Houghton. I hope you will like her.”
Mrs. Sherman shook hands with Jane, and the grip of the two women was like the grip of two men. Jane was not at all ill-at-ease. Then Mrs. Sherman put her two hands on Jane’s shoulders and suddenly kissed her on the forehead.
Walter giggled and turned a handspring.
And so, instead of taking the afternoon train back, Jane was invited to stay as the Shermans’ guest until Monday. Of course, Mother Dear explained that it was because Martha Mary had asked it and it was her birthday, but I think Mother was romantic and liked to see Jane and Flip together. You can never tell what these grown-ups are thinking!
Saturday afternoon, Flip hitched up the do-si-do-cart and in piled all the children, with Jane and Flip, and they went on the loveliest picnic they had ever had. Parts of it were a surprise. For example, they had had no idea that Mother Dear and Father were invited, but when they reached the Cypress trees near the ocean beach, at sunset, the first thing they saw was Mother standing near a campfire that Father had built. There was the most wonderful smell in the air; it was like fried bacon, and fried bacon it was. There was green corn, too, roasted in the fire, and chicken cooked on a forked stick, and watermelon and pancakes and heaps of doughnuts. Everyone ate as much as they could, and then Father lit his pipe and Mother sat on the ground next to him and the Children all lay on their stomachs on the sand, with Jane and Flip, to watch the moon come up over the ocean. Once, when he thought no one was looking, Flip kissed Jane on the ear, but Edward Lee caught him, and for punishment Flip had to tell a story. He grumbled and said it was too nice a night to spoil with his nonsense, but when Jane said:
“Please, Dear,” he couldn’t help it.
“This is to be a story of the trees,” said Flip.
John sniffed. “You always tell about things that are not alive,” he said. “Father doesn’t. Neither does Captain Mick.”
“But, John,” said Martha Mary, very much surprised, “the trees are alive.”
“They can’t talk.”
“They could, once,” said Flip. “And they still do talk in their own language, but of course you cannot understand them.”
“Can Father?” asked Edward Lee.
“I don’t think so,” answered Father.
“Can you, Flip?”
“No, but I know what they mean to say. Listen, now, and I will try to finish the story before anyone interrupts again. Elizabeth, stop sticking things in Hermit’s ear! Now—where was I?”
“You hadn’t started,” said Martha Mary.
“All right; then I’ll start with once, years and years ago. It was in a large forest, way up in the mountains, where there are only wild things and no men. The trees grow very tall and straight there; the branches are heavy and the trunks all covered with grey moss, and everything else is green. The forest, many years ago, was ruled by a lovely princess. Her name was Shade of the Mountain Lake and she was a large, lovely, blue crane. The trees just called her ‘Princess,’ because that was easy to say when the wind hummed in the branches, and ‘Shade of the Mountain Lake’ was much too long. Princess ruled her tree land for many years and the wood-folk were glad that they had chosen her, because she was so wise and graceful and lovely. You see, her soft breast feathers were colored with the blue of the sky of a Spring morning, and the grey of her slender neck was taken from the shaded spots near an old mountain. The green of her eyes once belonged to two splendid emeralds, and when the emeralds lost their color they became priceless diamonds. So how could Princess help but be beautiful?
“She was very proud of her kingdom; of the tall green trees and the blue-green lake and the very blue sky. All day she would fly over the hills, smiling on her people, sailing here and there, down and up, sometimes almost to the sun. One day, when she was very high in the Heavens, she saw, way off across the valley, a spot of red. That was a color that was not known in the mountains, so she flew with the wind, out across her valley and another valley until she came to a land where men lived. And there, what do you think she saw? Fields and fields and fields of the loveliest wild flowers, all golden and purple and pink, and gardens with red, red roses, and sweet-smelling lilacs climbing over the stone walls, and soft-colored fruit blossoms—there were more flowers than days in a hundred years. All afternoon she flew over the gardens, smelling the perfumes and always finding something new to surprise her. When night came she flew back to her kingdom in the mountains. But she was very sad, for she had thought her land the loveliest in the world and now she knew that it had none of the wonderful flowers that grew in the man’s world. All night she grieved and in the morning called her council to her—a branch of a pine and a branch of a redwood and a branch of the single oak that grew at the foot of the mountain. She told them how she had spent the day and how very, very much she wished her land to have all the colors and not only the green in Spring and the brown in Autumn. Then the branch of the single oak spoke and said:
“‘Let me help you. The Pine has always been the most plentiful tree in the mountains and the Redwood has been the tallest. I have been out of place and able to do but little save giving shade. Now I think I can help.’
“She whispered her idea to Princess, and when Princess heard she was so pleased that she soared high into the sky and sang to the morning sun. Then down again she flew, and told the silver stream her secret. And this is what she did:
“First she went to the single oak and took from it several fine, green branches, all covered with fresh leaves. These she carried one at a time up the side of the hill and laid them side by side on the grass. Then she called to the sun and he came over the treetops and warmed the oak leaves with his golden light. When they were all glowing Princess called to the clouds and asked for just a little rain. Down it came, so very quietly that not even the sun went away. And so the drops, falling through the sunshine to the oak leaves, formed a lovely rainbow. Then the rain stopped, but the rainbow remained, coloring the oak leaves with blue and red and gold and amber and violet. Princess was so happy, then, that she could hardly wait to carry the beautiful colored sprays into the forest to plant them at the foot of the tall trees. All the wood-folk—the rabbits and the snakes and the silly young bears—came out to watch her as she worked. When her task was through she called all her subjects to her and introduced them to the new color she had brought into the mountains, and she called it Child of The Oak.
“Child of The Oak grew very much in a short time. She had the form of a clinging vine; up over the branches of the other trees she crept, just like a really and truly baby. Her colors were the loveliest you have ever seen. Just think of leaves that were golden red as the loveliest poppies and green as the wildest hillside and violet like the softest field flowers and blue like the morning sky. She was so beautiful that all the trees grew to love her in a very short time.
“Then, one day, the most awful thing happened.
“It was early morning in the month of May. Across the further valley and right through the Valley of Shade of The Mountain Lake and up the hillside and into the mountain land, came a whole school of children, to the place where no man had ever been before. It was very nice at first. They sang songs about Angels and Fairies and the one that went like this:
“I’ll sing you a song of the fields in the Spring
With a chatter of birds in the treetops,
And the poppies and daisies will dance as I sing
And the birdlings will warble and flutter a wing
And the sleepy, fat owl will wake up, the old thing!
As I sing to the birds, the gay happy birds,
The silly young birds in the tree tops.
“Then they tied ribbons to the tallest pine and took hold of the ends and danced a May dance, and their pink and white dresses, with their baby cheeks all flushed, and their golden hair waving, they looked just like the South Wind.
“But of course such nice things could never last. Pretty soon one of the children found a spray of Child of The Oak and plucked it and carried it to the awfully awesome person who was in charge of the party. She said it was:
“‘Remarkably beautiful and most ethereal,’ and, although I haven’t an idea what that means, I know by the way she said it that it must be something hateful. Back she sent the children to gather as much as they could find. They rushed about tearing Child of The Oak up by the roots and it hurt just as much as though someone were to pull Liza’s hair. The tall trees all hung their heads so they wouldn’t see Child of The Oak suffer and the Mother Oak moaned and held out her arms, but of course no human being could understand her. It was so pitiful, so unfair, and no one knew the least thing to do. And then, what do you think? Guess what, Edward Lee! What do you think, Walter? Oh, you never can guess!
“Down from the top of the mountain came the North Wind. Princess went to him, weeping, and, ‘Father Wind,’ she cried, ‘can’t you help Child of The Oak?’
“‘Certainly,’ said North Wind. Down to the May party he swept and blew deep breaths of the pollen that grows on dryads’ wings all over the Child of Oak branches. The pollen that grows on dryads’ wings is deadly poison, you know. So, as soon as the children touched it, they became ill; they found spots of red on their arms, and their faces became swollen as though they had mumps. They itched simply miserably, and all went home sick, and had to be put to bed with salves all over them. And so, they never dared touch Child of The Oak again, because the North Wind had put the poison on her to protect her. When the men came to the mountains they never touched the lovely colored leaves, for they called them ‘Poison Oak.’
“But Princess did not mind, because she knew that the real name was Child of The Oak and that Child of The Oak was the loveliest child in all the hill world.”