CHAPTER XIIIPLAY-GROUND, AND AFTER.
Itwas the prettiest spot in that grim forest; it appeared so peaceful and bright. Blackberry and wild-raspberry bushes, on which the fruit shone glossy and ripe, grew all around; a spring gurgled up from a bed of moss. The grass, patterned over with wild-flowers, was more lovely than any carpet woven by man. Some one had spread upon it a little feast: there was a jug of milk, bread and butter, and honey and cakes.
Kitty wondered who was coming to feast on these simple dainties, for though she peered through the bushes she saw nobody. Yet somebody had found a delightful place for a picnic.
“Eat,” said the guardian child.
“But why may I eat here, when I could not eat there?” asked Kitty.
“You want food, and the star has stayed to let you rest. You will not be greedy if you eat now. You will be innocent and good; so long as the star watches there is no danger of evil.”
Kitty sat down, and the guardian child came down and became her little host. He offered her fruit and honey; he gathered blackberries for her. Perhaps the naughty sprite was sulking; perhaps it was sleeping; it did not move, but lay curled up in a little ball.
Kitty ate and drank. The birds hopped about her; the squirrels peeped at her from the branches; a field-mouse eyed her with its bright and furtive glance; a crowd of lovely wild things watched her. The shy creatures drew around the guardian child; they seemed to know he was Love’s messenger. He sang, and the birds sang in answer. A little callow, yellow-beaked nestling had fallen out of its nest, and was crying piteously. Had it lost its mother? The guardian child fed it and gentlyput it back into its mossy cradle. It was the friendliest scene. All around the coral-eyed pimpernels were wide open.
“It will be fine weather,” said the guardian child. “They are play-ground’s weather-clock. The sun whispers to them what it means to do during the day. Tick, tick; these are play-ground’s clock,” he went on, pointing to bell-like blossoms, some tight-closed, others half-unclosed, others wide open. “They tell the hour. The wind winds them up. Hush! listen to the tick-tick of the leaves.”
When Kitty had rested awhile, she and her guardian child began to play together. They blew bubbles through long reeds, and rainbow-tinted pictures seemed to form on the bubbles. Kitty looked to see what these pictures were, but they faded away and broke before she was quite sure that she had made them out. They ran races together. Kitty thought she never had so merry and gentle a play-fellow as her guardian child; and as they played together he seemed to grow more and more like Johnnie. The wild woodland animals frisked and gamboledabout them; butterflies and dragon-flies darted around. Kitty thought it was just like the story of the blue rose come true, and that Play-ground Land was the mysterious garden she had imagined.
When the games seemed merriest the Love spirit suddenly stopped playing, and perched once more upon Kitty’s shoulder.
“Look!” he said, pointing upward. “The star is moving.”
Yes, the fiery heart of the star had begun to beat, and already it was beginning to glide over the tree-tops.
“Oh!” Kitty exclaimed in dismay, “cannot we play a little longer?”
Just at that moment the loveliest butterfly twinkled past. It looked like a flower on wings. Because the dance had not got out of Kitty’s toes she began to dance after it.
A little girl now dashed out of the wood. She had the liveliest face, the whitest teeth, the merriest eyes Kitty had ever seen. Golden bells tinkled on her pointed cap and on her dress. Tinkle, tinkle went those golden bells as sheran. She seized Kitty by the hand, and before Kitty could say yes or no, she found herself running with her hand clasped in that of the strange child.
Kitty had never run so fast; the breeze seemed to run with her; the carpet of soft moss seemed to speed them along; the birds seemed to say, “Quick, quick; who’ll go faster, our wings or your feet?”
The sprite sniffed the woodland air with immense satisfaction; it was as wide awake now as it had been fast asleep before.
The guardian child whispered in Kitty’s ear, “Enough, enough; you have played enough.”
The star glided in the sky over the narrow path that stretched away like a straight white ribbon under the forest trees.
At last Kitty stopped, out of breath, at the foot of a branching tree. A little bird caroled above a merry song.
“I wonder if it has a musical box or a whistle in its throat. Would you not like to open it to find out?” said Kitty’s new play-fellow, shaking the golden bells in her cap.
“Yes—no—I don’t know,” panted Kitty, who was so much out of breath she had not a notion what she was saying, or if she was standing on her head or her heels.
Again the beautiful butterfly she had seen twinkled past on its wings like flowers.
“Catch it!” cried the little girl, seizing Kitty’s hand once more, and, willy-nilly, away she was speeding again. Run—run—through the alleys and glades of the deep forest; run—run—across a park-like clearance, and still the butterfly fluttered before. Like a will-o’-the-wisp it went, up and down, now here, now there, always before them. Settling down a moment—then off again just as they neared it. To the right—to the left—Kitty was beginning to feel angry at the dance that butterfly was leading them. The oftener it escaped the more determined she grew to catch it. She was so eager that she did not hear the warning sigh of her guardian child, “It is so happy; it is so happy. Don’t hurt it!” She heard only the shrill cry of the naughty sprite standing on her left shoulder and shrieking, “At it now! Upwith it! Now’s your time! Now you’ve got it! Tally ho! tally ho!”
“Tinkle, tinkle,” went her playmate’s golden bells, quicker, quicker rushed these four racing little feet. At last the naughty sprite whispered, “Hush! Down upon it?”
They stopped running; they drew in their breath; they crept on tiptoe, softly—softly. Yes, there on a gray stone stretched the butterfly—a lovely flamy thing; all blue and pink and delicate golden markings. Softly it balanced itself, backward and forward, giving an occasional shake and quiver to its wings.
Kitty’s spirit was roused; she was in a manner angry with that winged creature that had escaped her so long. Now, with one blow of her little hand the swift tiny thing might lie there still forever.
The naughty sprite whispered, “Down upon it!”
Up flashed Kitty’s hand.
“I was so merry, merry,” whispered a voice in her ear.
“It is only a butterfly,” urged the sprite.
Kitty looked up. Her guardian child was pale as a dying child, he who had been so rosy such a little while ago; and in that upward glance Kitty perceived that all around, the woodland creatures were gazing at her. The birds, the field-mice, the rabbits with flapping ears, the hares had stopped running to look, the squirrels chatting and cracking their nuts, the dragon-flies hung suspended about like animated jewels, green frogs, and toads with wonderful eyes, all were looking at her, but not as they had looked in Play-ground Land. In all their eyes, that had been so friendly and trustful, there was now a fear and a reproach.
“Are you the same Kitty whom we trusted?” they seemed to be saying. “Will you take one of our innocent, joyous lives, just for play?”
“No, I will not,” cried Kitty; and she let a tear drop upon the butterfly. And a low cry of joy burst from God’s lovely, helpless, wild creatures, and the forest trees stirred as if drawing a sigh of relief.
“Silly!” hissed the naughty sprite; and awayscampered the strange little girl in a pout, and tinkling her golden bells.
But the guardian child, all rosy with gladness, laughed, and its laugh had the velvety note of the blackbird’s whistle; and again there sounded on Kitty’s ear that airy peal of Christmas bells.
But Kitty’s little heart was still sore with the reproach of the wild animals’ questioning eyes.
“They trusted me!” she sobbed, “and I would have killed one of them for play.”
“Who was that little girl who ran so fast?” she asked her guardian child when she once more found herself standing upon the narrow path following the star.
“Thoughtlessness,” he replied; “and I can answer for it, nothing runs so fast as that empty-headed creature can race along.”