 11. The story of Willie and Fancy. It always seemed to Willie as if other children knew so many more things than he did, as if they played at some game at which he was left out, as if they had some clue to life in its enjoyment which he had somehow missed. Perhaps it was only because he had never known any children of his own age. His father and mother were dead, and he lived with his grandparents in the little cottage at the top of the hill, just about a mile from the village. There were two other cottages adjoining his grandfathers, but no one had lived in them since he could remember, and all three cottages were nearly tumbling down and yet never quite tumbled. The grandfather used to say it was a bad thing to live in a broken-to-bits cottage, but he never thought of leaving it. Willie was left to do just as he liked, for his grandparents were very old and did not know how to amuse a little boy. His grandmother, to be sure, cut up her husband's old clothes for him and made him a seed-cake once a fortnight, but that was all. The cut-up clothes were very funny, the trousers were generally too short, and the jacket sleeves too long, and the pockets were never in the right place. But somehow they always seemed to go well with Willie's grave little face, and large blue eyes and soft hair that was brown in the shade and gold in the sun. He was very lonely in the winter time, for his grandmother was very old and nervous and did not like his wandering about in the cold or when the snow was on the ground. You might fall and break your legs, she said. And then what would you do? Wouldn't legs are dear to buy and awkward to walk with? Besides, boots are always bought in pairs, and one boot would be wasted if you had no foot to put it on. So it's real economy to stay at home and keep two legs, my dear. And Willie looked up, with his big blue eyes at his grandmother and said, Yes, granny dear, but the odd boots would do to throw out the spare hose in the cherry tree. It would never do to throw new boots at them, his grandmother answered. It would frighten the poor little sparrows, for they'd been used to old ones for so long. And so all through the winter Willie seldom went far from the cottage, but he amused himself by getting over the fence into the next door gardens, and then by the unbolted doors into the empty cottages. He was never tired of going through and through the deserted rooms. He looked in all the empty cupboards, and stood before all the rusty little fireplaces, trying to imagine what the people who had dwelt there once had been like. The people who had lived and laughed and worked and wept between the moldy, grimy walls, who had sat over the damp fireplaces and kept their good things in the bare cupboards, and who had died or journeyed on to other places. Perhaps there were children, he thought once, and perhaps they ran in and out and sang and danced, and gathered the fruit in the garden in the summer and played at snowball in the winter. I would give the world to have seen them. In the summer time he was not nearly so lonely. For then he could go off for the whole day if he pleased, and wander about in the fields and woods, or over the brow of the hill to look the long straight road beyond. He never knew where that road led to, and in the evening he went home past the blacksmith's shop. The blacksmith lived just half way between the village and the cottage, and there was generally a little group of children round the door of the forge, and Willie used to stand too and watch the sparks fly upward and listen to the sound of the blacksmith's hammer, but he always stood a little way off from the others, for they were strange to him, and he was shy. The blacksmith's little daughter was generally sitting by the door sewing. It seemed as if she stitched away at the same piece of blue-checked linen forever. She was evidently making something, but Willie often thought it had no beginning and would have no end, that forever the blacksmith would be hammering at his anvil, and forever his little daughter would be sitting by the door stitching away at the same piece of coarse blue linen. Grandfather, Willie asked one day, is it far to the rest of the world? The rest of the world, his grandfather said, looking up. Why, what are you thinking of, lad? I want to see it, that's all. Is it far? It depends what part you want to see. It's a long way from end to end of the world, if that's what you mean, and a vast deal lies between. Shall I ever see it all, grandfather? No, I should say not. I've seen little enough myself, and I don't know you're going to see any more. By and by, you'll have to learn, and when you've done learning, you'll have to work. And when you've done working, and maybe before, you'll have to die. That's what life is for most of us, lad. One after another, one after another, little enough difference there is in the lives of us to take them all around. But some work in one way, and some in another, the old man's wife said, looking up quickly. And it's the business of some to travel far, and of some to stay at home. Tell me more, granny, dear, the boy said eagerly. His grandmother thought about more things than his grandfather did, or at any rate, talked about more, and Willie liked best to listen to her. What does one do if one wants to travel? Get ready. Ready for what one means to do. Get what ready, dear granny? The old woman took her knitting, put on her glasses, and looking up into her little grandson's face, said quickly, oneself. He waited a minute, and then he asked, What shall I be when I'm a man, dear granny? How can I tell, lad? You're only a boy yet. Bless me, she said suddenly, but you're eight years old. It is time you took to gang ready to be a man. Then she turned to her husband, Tom, the boy's eight years old. We must write to the city and ask John what we shall do with him. The old woman's eldest son, who was a lawyer, lived in the city. He was a clever man who had taught himself nearly all he knew, and had made money for people who were glad to get his advice. Yes, we must write, John. He will tell us what to do with the lad. What would you like to be, Willie, someday, when you're a man? Willie thought for a few minutes. Granny, dear, I should like to be something that should take me right to the end of the world. I want to see what there is there. And I should like to go to sea and a ship and to be wrecked. Oh, granny, I should like it so, and to escape in a little boat while the waves tossed and tossed all about, and we rode over them and over them's ever so high. The old woman laid down her knitting, took off her spectacles, and wiped them well, and put them on again. Willie, my little lad, you have been reading books. Now, where did you get them? Oh, it's only the book up on grandfather's shelf, grandmother. I looked at the picture, and then I thought I should like to be one of the people in the boat. Ah, well, people are safe enough once they're in a picture. But no one knows what they've had to go through before they got there. Don't let pictures unsettle your mind, lad, and set you hankering after dangerous things that do you no good till they're past and gone, and maybe you've taken you with them. Oh, grandmother, but I'm tired of seeing so little, and being so little, I want to see more. Ah, it's wonderful the things one wants and never gets. It takes a long time to understand how little it is one ever gets what one wants, the grandfather said. One grows used to doing without it last, and so content. More is the pity of one's young, felled woman answered, and then she turned to Willie again and said, Learn to do without things, lad, but never be content not to get them while you have hands to work and feet to run and head to think. Try after all things, but not to keep them, for they're better worth winning for others than for oneself. Remember that, dear, as long as you live. But I don't know anyone to do things for, except you and grandfather, the boy said, puzzled. He often wondered how it was that his grandmother talked so strangely. After the first few minutes, she sometimes said things that seemed to belong not to the old woman who lived in the cottage and knitted day in and day out, and who thought of nothing save the chickens and the cherry tree and the making of cakes and clothes for Willie and the keeping of the cottage tidy. But to some past life and to some world in which she lived no longer, and of whose ways some knowledge lingered unknown to her memory, it was almost as if some past self awoke, a self of which the present one was unconscious. I don't know anyone but you and grandfather to do things for, and even then I don't know how to do them or how to begin, granny, dear. You won't have far to look. There will be a crowd waiting when you first lift up your eyes, dear. One has never too far to seek when one has a mind to help. Learn how to do first, and the chance to do will be at your elbow. Ah, but, grandmother, I want to see so much, and first of all, I want to go right to the end of the world. Well, well, she said, and took up her knitting again. Well, ask your uncle John. There's little that he cannot give one advice about. Your grandfather shall write soon enough. Go out and see that the chickens are gone to roost, and take a little run over the brown and maybe you'll think less at the end of the world for tonight. Then Willie went out and looked at the chickens. They fluttered their wings and flew past them as they entered the fowl house. For they were just settling down to roost and did not want to be disturbed. He pulled to the door of the fowl house, and then he went out at the little wooden gate by the side of the cottage and ran along the road that led over the hill. If I could only run to the end of the world, he thought, or to the great sea and hear the waves. I don't want to do things, he went on. I want to see them. There was a little grassy bank at the side of the road. He sat down to think and rested his face and his hands so long, wondering and wondering, that he did not notice the twilight gather closer and closer around him, or the mist rise up from the river and fields and wrap the trees in a soft gray cloak and hide all things before him. It was odd, but as he sat there, it seemed as if he could hear a soft voice singing the words that were running in his head. Right to the end of the world. It isn't a song, he said to himself. It's only what I was saying to myself, and yet I thought I heard someone else singing it. He looked up, but there was no one near. He saw the mist then. He felt it softly touching his face and hair. It made him think of the waves and the sailors. Oh, if I could but see them just once, he cried. I will take you, Willie. Come with me, he heard a voice say. And looking up quickly, he saw that on the dewy green bank beside him a little girl was singing. He looked at her face, long and gravely. He could see it well in the dim light. It was very beautiful, and he'd never seen it before. But yet he felt that he and she knew each other. He remembered her as one remembers some sweet dream for getting when one dreamt it. She had soft, restless eyes that seemed to have a thousand things to say. Her hair was like threads of gold and fell down to her waist, and her mouth was sweet and her smile was bright. Oh, she was lovely and never was anyone half so sweet as Fancy when Willie first saw her. Dear Fancy, he said, for he knew her name quite well. Have you come to me? Then she crept up closer to him. We will go so far together, she said softly. Oh, Willie, you are not afraid, are you? The sea is creeping up to us. It has overtaken the river. It is sweeping over the meadows. Are you afraid? She whispered. Then he held her tight and close, and her face was pale, and he no longer saw the gold upon her hair or the sweetness in her eyes. For the night had grown dark, and the wind had risen and cried out truly from tree to tree, and slowly and surely the great sea was coming with many a leap and many a roar over the meadows and the hill towards them. And yet he knew that somewhere, a far off in some still corner that fled back and back as the sea came on, the cottage was safe. The danger was only for him and for Fancy, and he was brave for both. And still the waves came madly on till suddenly they were at his feet, and then he ran, holding Fancy close so that no harm should come to her. Perhaps we could ride on the waves, she whispered. See, there is a great ship. The wind is driving it on. Oh, we are going already. Hold my hand, hold fast, lest we be lost. But he could hear no more, for they were riding on and on over the great waves, faster and faster than the ship, and nowhere was anything to be seen save the blackness and the sea and the sky and the great ship being driven on. Soon they overtook the ship. They saw the man at the wheel. They knew that he was not thinking of the storm and the waves, but of a little cottage high up on a cliff and of the sunshine falling down upon it and of a woman shaving her eyes with her hands and forever turning her face southwards and watching while the children played among the flowers and asked, When will he come home, dear mother? When will he come home? On went Willie and Fancy, on and on. There was a little boar tossing higher and higher while death rode on in front, but oh so slowly. Willie could have cried out with fear, for he knew the boat would overtake it, and he saw the wild eyes and the scared white faces of the wrecked as they with their last hope passed by. On went Willie and Fancy, on and on, till far above them shone one little star and the water became suddenly smooth and the waves rocked them as a mother rocks her child to sleep and gently carried them home to the cottage gate. And in a minute Fancy had waved her hand to him, and Willie had climbed the narrow stairs that led to the little room in which he slept. He heard Fancy's voice long after she had left him. He heard it in his dreams that night. We will go so, she whispered. We will see the end of the world together. Part 2 Where shall we go? Fancy asked. Where shall we go today? The sun is in the sky, the flowers are all in bloom, and the birds are singing. Where shall we go today? She did not wait for an answer, but danced all down the wood, taking the strangest flights and singing the wildest songs, telling Willie a hundred things he had never heard before, teaching him to hear where till now he heard no sound, and to see where formally he had seen nothing. He never knew how they went, how high they climbed, or the names of the places he passed, or of the people he met, but none of them were strange to him for Fancy knew them well, and made them all known to him. Dear Fancy, he said, Why did you not come before? I have been alone so long, till you came, I had no companion. You did not call me, she cried. You did not want me till the days when you went through and through the empty cottages, thinking of all the people who once dwelt there, and then, though you said no word, I heard your voice calling me faintly, and I came a little nearer, and a little nearer until at last I was sitting by you on the grassy bank. And when shall we go to the end of the world? He asked. Let it be soon, for I am always thinking of it. We will go to night, she said, this very night. I will tap at the window pane when you have slept one single hour, and then you must wake up and open wide the window, and there on the window ledge I will be waiting. How shall we get down? We will climb down by the cherry tree, and soon we will be far away. Is it very far? He asked. For what will grandmother say? It is very far, but we shall soon be there. And then fancy skipped away. He saw her at the end of the wood, the sun still shining on her hair, and he held out his hands and called. Come back for a little while now, and sing me one song more, dear fancy. But she laughed a merry mocking laugh, and was gone. Where have you been, my little lad? His grandmother asked. And what have you been doing? Oh, grandmother, he said. I'm so happy I shall never be lonely more. But his grandmother had no desire to listen. Ah, well, you will have to go to school soon and learn, and then you'll have less time in your hands, was all she said. Am I to go to school? He asked. Your grandfather has written to Uncle John about it. The blacksmith's old daughter is going to school, and she's younger than you. She's going to learn someday how to teach others. It is time you were thinking of your books, too. And then the grandmother took up her knitting. A great man is your Uncle John, she said presently. A very great man. And all his greatness is his own doing. We never thought he'd be the man he is. Then suddenly she said, There's a large cake in the oven, dear lad. You think you could go and turn it? So Willie went and turned the cake, and then sat down on the rug, and looked at the great tabby cat fast asleep, and listened to the ticking of the clock, and thought how much he longed to see all the world before he did any work in it. And then he smelled the cake, and remembered how kind his grandmother was to him. Yet here was he, who had never done anything in the world, grumbling and discontented, because someday he would have to make a beginning. He got up and went back to his grandmother, and put his arms around her neck, and his little face close to hers. Dear Granny, he said, I will be a great man someday if I can. I will try to be like Uncle John. Perhaps fancy will teach me. Fancy. Fancy will teach you nothing, she said. Don't waste your time on Fancy. And then she looked into the old lad's blue eyes and grave pale face. It is by your own head and your own heart that you will be great, my dear, if you have the will to mind them. Part three. Willie, Willie, called Fancy. Are you ready? I'm waiting. And in a minute Willie sprang up and opened the window. He was dressed and had been listening for her tap. He clambered onto the window ledge, and then together they jumped into the cherry tree and down to the garden beneath. He stopped for a moment and looked around, at the cottage, and his own little window wide open, and the foul house, and the empty cottages beyond, and at the cherry tree above him, and at Fancy. Fancy with her golden hair, and restless eyes and eager bright face beside him. Are we going to the end of the world? He asked, with a sigh, for he had longed so much for the strange journey. Yes, we are going, answered Fancy. Are you ready? Yes, I am ready. But, wait a minute, he said, and picked a rose. It fell to pieces as he held it, and the rose leaves fluttered to his feet. He looked down at it, and something like a sob was in his throat, though he did not know why. It is long years since that summer night, and he has traveled far and seen much. And many things are known to him now. Yet no memory of past days stays with him more faithfully, or is sweeter than the memory of this one evening, when he stood beneath the cherry tree with Fancy by his side, and the rose leaves at his feet, waiting to start for the end of the world. He and Fancy, hand in hand, together. Come, said Fancy. Come, and looking into her eyes, and giving herself up to her guidance, they started. Slowly down the garden they went, over the fence at the bottom, then quickly across the field. They passed the blacksmith's cottage. There was a light in the window, for the blacksmith's wife was stitching at new clothes for her little daughter. On through the village they went. They heard the neighbors talking in the doorway, but they did not stay to listen. We must run, said Fancy. Hold my hand tighter, and through the woods, and along the roads, and over the great high hills, faster and faster they ran. They saw the twinkling lights of the city, and in a minute they were there. They heard a mother weeping, for her little one had died. They heard some merry-makers singing, till the voices grew faint in the distance. Quicker, quicker, cried Fancy. For we must journey faster than the wind, and faster than time, and as yet we have not overtaken the middle of the night. The city is not sleeping yet. Faster, faster, faster, she cried. And on they went, past the city, and over the moors. They saw the mountains in the distance. The moon was slowly climbing them. On and on through the dense forest, on and on through the villages, and over the shining waters, past great cities with their high buildings, and their towers, and their steeples, past the scattered houses around and beyond them. The houses that seemed as if they would have crept into the throng had their courage been great enough. Past every habitation in which man could live, on and on, faster and faster went Willie and Fancy, till fewer and fewer became the landmarks, and farther and farther apart, all things that the hand of man had placed. And taller and thicker were the trees, and vaster and vaster the great bear tracks of land. And then at last, amid mighty stones that seemed hurled from some unseen height, mountains and forest and sea and cities all far behind. Then at last, Willie and Fancy stood at the end of the world. Before them were only the clouds and the great moon shining. And the little stars that seemed like golden stairs leading up higher and higher. And beyond and above all, towered two mountains in the midst of the stars and the clouds. The one bathed in golden light, the other darkened drear, wild and rugged, with strange masses of blackness clinging to it. Come up higher, come up higher, he could hear Fancy calling. The little stars shall be your steps, come up higher. And with his eyes still straining upwards, he went on climbing up and up, treading on the stars till they were far beneath his feet and even the moon was behind. Until at last he halted and saw the world of far off beneath him. Fancy, he cried. Fancy, where are you? I am here beside you, she whispered, for she was half afraid. There's a woman up there. Tell me what she's doing. Then Fancy looked up and laughed a wild, strange laugh. It almost made Willie shudder. It seemed so out of place. She is there to rub up the world. Left Fancy. Oh, it takes a great deal of rubbing. So many people make it dull and so few make it bright. And there she sits, forever working away. But it is little enough she can do. So little that few besides the children find the bright places. What are the two hills over there? Why is one dark and one so bright? They are the sunshine and the storms. The one is made of laughter and gladness, of all the good that people do. The other of tears and sorrow and misery and vice. From one the sunbeams and all the warm sweet days of summer journey. From the other is hurl the storms, and from it steals the darkness. Every smile you cause, every good thing you do, makes the one hill taller, and is given back as sunshine into the world. Every tear you cause others to shed, every wrong you do, is heaped on that dark hill there, and helps to make the sad days and the stormy ones. Of joy and sorrow, of light and darkness, is the whole world made. Called the grandmother, it is the first day of school. Get up, lad, and feed the chickens, and hurry away to the village. Oh, grandmother, but I like the woods so well, Willie answered. Uncle John says you were to learn, learn on until he comes in the spring, and then he'll see what you're fit for. So Willie got up and fed the chickens, and took his books, and went to school. He passed the blacksmith's shop that the blacksmith's daughter was learning to, and no longer sat by the door of the forge. All down the road, fancy went by his side, singing to him in the fresh sweet morning. But he had no time to listen to her. He had to think of all that he was going to do. The first day, and the first week, and the first month went by, and every morning saw Willie going to the village. At first, fancy always went by his side. But he found that her songs came between him and his books, and he turned his head away and would not hear her, and would not see her until at last she troubled him no more. The days were not so sweet when she had ceased to sing him songs, and to take him breathless journeys, and to tell him of the strange things that were or might be. Between the earth and sky. He went on day after day trying to do his best, making his happiness and seeing his grandmother's face light up when he was first in his class, or in hearing his grandfather say, ah, he's a good lad. He'll be as great as his uncle John some day. At night, when he had learned his lessons, he went to sleep quickly, lest fancy should come and carry him off on some strange journey, and so unfit him for the next day's work. Yet how he sometimes thought of her and longed for her, and dreamt for a little while of those days that would surely come, when he and she would once more be companions. At last the winter came, and with it the holidays, and Willie, being older, was allowed to walk about as he pleased, and so he wandered through the leafless woods, and over the brow of the hill, and looked again and again at the long straight road, wondering to what strange city it might lead. One day, when the snow was on the ground, he went in the woods and sat down beneath a tree to think awhile. The few leaves that lingered were seer and yellow, but as he looked down the pathway, he thought as he shivered that they would look like gold if the sun would but shine through the trees, and as he thought this, suddenly he looked up, and there was Pansy. But ah, how she was changed! All the color had gone from her face, and her eyes were sad, her hair was dull. Pansy, he said, is it you? And his heart smote him for forgetting her. Yes, it is I, she answered, sadly and bitterly. But how you were changed, he said. The blue has gone from your eyes, and the gold from your hair. Oh, Pansy, you were not as bright as you used to be. How can I be? she cried. You will not hear me, you will not see me, you will not listen if I sing or follow if I lead. How can I be the same? Then the tears came into Willie's eyes. Sing to me, he said. Sing one of your old sweet songs to your Pansy and let me wander with you again. Then Pansy tried to sing, but her voice was weak and faltering, and she broke down in the middle of her song and sobbed. Oh, I cannot, she cried, for I'm starved. And I am almost frozen, said Willie, his teeth chattering with cold. But come closer, Pansy, and tell me what I can do to help you. All my sweet Pansy, he cried. How happy we have been together! But you were frozen, she said. What is the use of you? Is your heart cold too? Oh, no, he answered. That is very warm, it always is. Let me creep in there, she whispered, and make it my home. And I will grow bright again, and make the world bright for you. And I will tell you strange stories and sing you sweet songs, which you shall hear in your sleep and call dreams. Take me into your heart, dear Willie, and let me rest there. Pansy, oh, Pansy, he cried. There is no one as sweet as you, even now. And he held out arms, and she nestled down in them and found her home at last. For many a day was she there. Many a lonely hour did she beguile for Willie. Many a song she sang to him, and many a tale she told him. And sometimes, when he had worked hard and yet could not accomplish what he wished, she would whisper some sound to him, that helped him. He hardly knew how to do what before he had given up as hopeless. But the months went on, and Willie had so much to do that, though Pansy still stayed in his heart, he had no time to listen to her. And then sorrow came to him, for his grandfather died, and his heart was so full of grief, there was no room in it for Pansy. I must work hard and learn all things, so that I may know how to comfort you, dear Granny, he said. And by and by we will live together in the cottage again. But she answered, Oh, no, dear lad, you will be great when you are a man, and the people will want you to go and live among them to make their lives better. And still Pansy stayed by his side, half hoping that one day he would turn from his work and see her, and once again go journeying with her. She had grown small and thin and sad and grave, and her steps were slow and soft. And she was afraid to whisper to him, lest he should tell her that the time for play had passed, and the time for work had come, and send her away from him. At last there came the day on which she left him. Willie had grown tall and strong, and had to choose what he might be when he should be a man. And then his uncle sat down and talked to him, of all the things that he might do. When Willie had listened, he looked up and said, Uncle John, I should like to be a lawyer. And when Pansy heard that sad word, she fled away from him swiftly, and forever. She went back again to the cottage, in the woods, and the fields where she and Willie had been so happy, and sadly roamed alone until the blacksmith's little daughter, dreaming over her poetry books one day, went fast asleep, and Pansy, stealing up to her, crept into her life and held fast to it forever. Long afterwards, when the blacksmith's little daughter had become a woman, and was a teacher of others, and lived in the schoolhouse, Willie met her, and wondered why it was he found some new beauty in her face. In her eyes there seemed to be some strange history that was half his own, and he thought that life with her would be sweeter than any life without her. At last he felt a wondering if she would marry him, so that he might have her with him always. And when she said yes, and everything around seemed changed and brighter far than it had, since he had wandered away from the cherry tree, he never thought for a moment that the reason was just this, that the blacksmith's daughter had taken his fancy, end of the story of Willie and Pansy. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 From Any House Stories This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Any House Stories by Lucy Lane Clifford, Chapter 12. In the Porch. They sat down in the porch, the two women and the boy, and the stranger who had come from the country. The old woman was spinning, and the young one was sewing, and the stranger was watching the rain clouds gather. The boy was turning over the leaves of a book in which the lives of great men were written down. I would give the world to know a great man, he said, and the spinner looked up and answered, Ah, it is a grand thing. One feels when knows the world when one knows a great man. And what is greatness, asked the woman from the country, and then they were all silent, each wondering how the others would answer. And at last the boy spoke again, looking round at the women. Have any of you known a great man, he asked? And again they were silent, but presently the spinner said, When I was young, there was a rich man living in the town. He must have been great for he was very rich, and over his grave there stands a tall marble monument. And what did he do, asked the boy. I don't know what he did, but once when he was young he had no money, so he set to work, and he worked and worked hard, so that long before he was middle age he became very rich, and then he built a great house and lived in it, and kept grand horses and carriages, and when he drove through town all the people looked after him with wonder. But what good deeds did he do, asked the boy, and what great things. I never heard of any good deeds, the spinner answered. He had no time to think of the poor, or to fight battles as the heroes did, but he worked hard to become rich, and he had all things that money could buy. It is a good thing to work, said the woman from the country. And was he learned, asked the boy. I do not know, the spinner said. He may have been, but he had his business to think of, and he did not talk much, or write books, or paint pictures, or teach others. None can tell how much he knew. And had he many friends? He had little time to make friends, and none knew him well, but sometimes rich men sat at his table and ate and drank, and invited him to their houses. But he had little time to go, and little to say when he went, for he had to think of all the ways of making money, so that his riches might exceed those of other men. And had he wife and children? Oh no, said the spinner, shaking her head sadly. He had no time to give to his affections, and his heart had no room for them. And for what did he work? He worked to become rich, and to live among the things that money buys, and so that, if he chose, he might live at ease. He was a great man to win all these things for himself. And who loved him? There were none who loved him, but some feared him in many long to be as rich as he. And had he never lived? What then? Dear lad, I cannot tell. Another would have been in his place, and the money that he earned would have been in other hands, but I cannot tell in whose. And what was the good of him? I do not know, but he was a great man, and when he died, he left the directions for a grand marble to him. And what was the good of that? Ask the boy. Ah lad, if our name is written in no human heart, and none care to remember it, and if there are no books and no deeds called after us, is it not a great thing to have it written up on marble? It would be sad indeed if there were no room anywhere on earth for it. There was room on a marble tomb for his. Did any weep for him? No, there were none to weep for him, but the marble monument is there, tall and fine. Do any remember him? Few remember him, and none care to think of him, but there are some distant cousins of his in a far-off land, and they spent his money. They had no need of it, and they never saw his face, but they spent his money with a lavish hand, all the gold and silver which he had heaped up. Oh, he was a great man, and very rich. And then the spinner was silent. And now tell me, said the boy, turning to the young woman, did you ever know a great man? I have known so few people, she answered thoughtfully. She was silent for a few minutes, and then spoke again. When I was a little girl, she said, there was a poor woman who lodged for a time in my mother's cottage. She was very poor. She had only a few clothes and a little shoe that her father had given her. She had only a few clothes and a little shoe that her father, who was a cobbler, had left unfinished when he died, and she had an old sampler which she had worked when she was a child. One day she showed the little shoe to the village cobbler, and I think he always worked better afterwards, for he said he had never seen work better done than the work that was in the unfinished shoe, and he felt ashamed of his own bad stitches. When the woman had been a year in my mother's house, she died and left my mother all she had, just the old clothes and the little shoe and the sampler. On the sampler there was worked the name and age of the worker, Sarah Short aged seven years, and right at the bottom there was written on the frame. I have tried to work this well, for daddy said good work lives on forever. And my mother told me to take these words to heart, and then she hung the sampler up over the fireplace in our little sitting room. And one day, just a few years ago, an artist came to my mother's cottage and asked if he could lodge there for the summer while he painted a picture. So we made room for him, and every day he went out to paint the view from the hillside. He was not strong when he came, and he was sorely disheartened about his work, for he was poor and no one bought his pictures, though he tried very hard to paint his best, no one seemed to care for them or to notice them. He was almost in despair when he came, and beginning to think that it was of no use working well or hoping for good things to come. After a bit he lost patience with the picture he was painting, for it took so much time, and he was not sure that any would buy it, or that those who cared for pictures would ever see it, so he put it away and began painting portraits of the village folk. He painted many, and there was one delicate child whose little face he painted just for the love of it. And because he loved the child, he took so much pains with the portrait that he did it better than all the others, and those who saw it stood for a long time looking at the pale little face and the large blue eyes, and then I think they felt a thinking of things far better than themselves. At last there were no more portraits to paint, and the painter seemed to lose all heart again, and he used to take a book and go to the woods and spend the whole day in reading. My mother was grieved for him, for she saw that he was poor, and that fame and money would be very sweet to him. One day, the young woman stopped for a moment and looked up at the boy, scarcely seeing him, but thinking of the days that were gone and living once more in them. It seems like yesterday, she said with a sigh, and then went on. One day, when he was going out, and had to pass as usual through our little sitting room, his eye caught the old sampler hanging up over the fireplace, and he went up to it and looked at it, and then he read the words beneath. Good work lives on forever. He read them and turned away, and then went back and read them again. The next morning he took the unfinished picture to the hillside again, and worked at it with a will to which he had been a stranger many a day. He worked at it every day, oh so carefully. Many a bit he painted out and painted in again, and many a night he was dissatisfied with his whole day's work, but still he went on, and on. It seemed as if there was something in his heart that he painted right into the picture, and besides this, he painted all he saw, and at last when it was done, and when looked at it, one fancied one could hear the birds sing, and feel the sweet summer air coming from the south. I always thought when I saw it, continued the woman, that it was a blessed thing for us all to live in so beautiful a world, and a sin and sorrow when we did anything to disgrace it. There are few of us, she added, who can do things worthy of it. That is too great a happiness for many of us to reach. At last the painter went away, and we heard no more of him for a long time, not till the next year, and then news came that everyone was talking of his pictures, that they were hanging in the exhibition, and were counted the best there, and the pictures were the view from the hillside, and the portrait of the little child, and we were all so proud and happy in the village, thinking of the grand people who would see our child's face, and the view of our own countryside that we had known all our lives. After that the painter painted many pictures, and we heard his name many times, though it was long before we saw him again. But at last one day he walked into our cottage, looking proud and happy, as those who have done well must surely feel. He told us how the picture he had painted, which he had so nearly put away unfinished, had been sold and hung up in a public gallery where all could see it. But the portrait of the child, he had brought for the child's mother, for he said that none could value it as she would. And then he told us how he owed most of his fame to the old sampler that hung up over our fireplace, for he had given up his picture in despair, fearing he would gain nothing by it. But when he read the words written on the sampler, he sat and thought how gain and fame were small things to seek, and that the knowledge that one had done good work would surely be sweeter far than either. So he had taken out his picture and worked at it again, trying hard with that, as with all after work, to make it better and better, never wholly satisfied with what he had done, and forever with each new thing he did aiming higher and higher, striving after that perfection which many seek, yet none can hope to gain. And now, said the woman, looking up at the boy again, all people know his name, and the knowledge he sought is his, and all other things are in his reach. He offered to buy the old sampler of us, and said he would keep it all his life, but my mother would not sell it, for she said it had been given to her from simple love, which no money can buy. Surely the painter is a great man, and the woman stopped. Yes, said the boy, he is a great man, but I think the cobbler was a great man too. Do you know what he was called? I never heard his name, the woman answered, but I suppose it was that by which his daughter went. Where did he live? asked the boy. I do not know, the woman answered, but what he was and where he lived do not concern us. It is what he did that has been of help and service to others, and what we are matters little, but what we do matters to all the world. Surely she was right, seeing how immortal is human action, be it good or ill. None of us can say that the good shall live and the bad shall die, and none of us can tell when we may be making history. Surely the things we can do matter little, the boy said. I cannot think that anything I can ever do will be of consequence. You cannot tell, said the woman, and thus it is that we must be so careful. And why is what one does so much greater than what one is, he asked absently, half-forgetting the story she had just told him. Man must die, the woman answered sadly, even the best loved and the greatest, and those who knew him and remember his face die also in their turn. So he who desires to live must fashion his own immortality out of what his hands shall find to do, and he whose ambition is highest has no wish to be remembered, saved by those who loved him, but that his work shall be remembered, that is the desire of his soul. Many a man lives and works and dies, said the woman from the country, without thought of anything, save of doing his best in a day, glad and ready to help those about him, content to die when his turn comes, and never a thought of lying in wait for immortality. It steals on many a one unawares and wraps him round so softly that he never knows that it is his, said the young woman, taking up her sewing once more. I am not thinking of those, said the stranger, but of those whom it never touches, and who have neither thought nor knowledge of it, and yet are as useful as any. One does not think of the stones hidden at the base, and yet the great tower rests on them, and but for them would never stand so high. Ah, but then is surely a great thing to help a tower to stand, the spinner said, but the stranger did not seem to hear her and went on. It is a simple hearted fold, pure lived and pure thinking, who do well for love of doing well, and for love of those about them that help each one in his place to make the world so beautiful and life so sweet. Each one helps to make a hole, just as the little grains of sand make up the long seashore. But we were talking of great men, the boy said impatiently. Did you ever know any, he asked the stranger. She was silent for a moment, and then she spoke, looking away from the boy, far off into the distance, as if the place she had come from lay beyond, and her thoughts were going home to it with every word she said. No, she said. I have never known any that were called great. But once, years and years ago, I knew a scholar. He had more knowledge than any man for miles and miles around. Tell me about him, the boy said eagerly. He had studied all his life long, the stranger went on. He knew all manner of languages, and had read all the books that were written in them. He was always studying, he shut himself up and saw no one, and talked to no one if he could help it, and learned more and more and more, and bought all strange and learned books to read, and at last I heard there were few greater scholars than he. Many people went to his house, but even if he saw them he did not say much, for he was always thinking of the strange science, and that new art, and of the books he was reading, and the language he was learning, so that he seemed to have no words for common use. And those who went to see him, came away strangely impressed by his learning, and yet no wiser than they went. What did he do with his learning, asked the boy, did he teach any? No, he taught none, the simple people were afraid of him, for he knew so much and said so little. Even to learned men like himself he did not say much more, so they too went away disappointed. What did he do with his learning? He did nothing with it, he never wrote it down, he never taught others, he just went on forever taking in and never giving out, he was like a human cupboard. He was just like a cupboard, left the boy. But the stranger frowned when she heard him laugh, it seemed as if the recollection of the scholar was painful to her. And one day she went on. A lock was put on his lips, so that he could never learn again, and could speak no more, for the key to the lock has never been found in this world, and so there was nothing more to be done with the scholar, and he was hidden away out of sight and sound forever, and all of his learning was locked up with him. Is that all? asked the boy. But the stranger went on quickly not seeming to hear him. There was a blacksmith living in the same place with the scholar. He had a wife and children, he worked hard as best as he could, and was always cheerful and hopeful, and had helping hand and a ready smile for all who looked for them, and for many who had no thought of finding them. He died at the same time as the scholar, and those who were nearest to him would have died for the love of him, but that they knew it would be greater love still to live for him. All the place was sadder and poorer for his loss, and the best wishful could wish for his sons, was that they might grow up to be like him. But he was not a great man, surely there are many like him, the boy said. And he was lucky in his friends to be loved so well, the spinner said. No, he was not a great man, and there are many like him, the stranger said with a sigh. But he was worth considering. It is the like of him that have made the world worth living in for us, and will make it worth living in for those that are to come. As for love, she said, looking at the spinner, there is always love somewhere for the heart that knows how to bid it welcome, and she rose to go on her way. But we were talking of greatness, the boy persisted. Yes, we were talking of greatness, she repeated sadly. Don't hanker after it or go seeking it. Do what you can as best you can, and someday, perhaps without your knowing it, you will be looking over your shoulder. And before any of them spoke again, the stranger was journeying on into the distance. The drowsy night is coming, the mist is on the heath, above the stars are shining, the glowworms underneath, the flowers for sleep are sighing, the bird is in its nest, the daylight is all hidden with sunshine in the west. The ladybird at sunset went swiftly to her home, the bats their wings are spreading, and quite prepared to roam, and hark the cricket singing his love song to the skies, where all the stars are waiting to see you close your eyes. They wish you all sweet slumber, they wish you all good night, they'll tell the sun to rouse you when once again to his light, and while you sleep the roses may think your cheeks so fair, that in the early morning you'll find them resting there. End of Lullaby. This recording is in the public domain. Tony was the idlest boy in Switzerland. Other boys of his age chopped wood, gathered idol vise, looked after goats and cattle, carried parcels for the strangers, guided them on short expeditions, and earned pence in many ways. But Tony did none of these things, and when his mother tried to make him useful, he looked so frightened that at last she left him alone and let him do as he pleased. Gradually he grew to look quite stupid as if his wits had gone a wandering. And he was called the wooden head, that was the name by which all neighbors knew him. Poor little wooden head, he's no use at all to you, they said to his mother, and at this she waxed angry, for though she often called him wooden head herself, she did not like to hear others do so. Perhaps he thinks more than he cares to say, she would answer. But he never tells of what he thinks, and a thinker who says nothing is like a signpost that points no way, and has not written on it to guide him who looks up, old Gaspar said one morning. The signpost was made before the writing, and the talking that is worth hearing only comes after much thinking. He'll tell us enough some day, the mother'd answered. But though she spoke up bravely, she was sad at heart. I love thee dearly, my little son, she said. I love thy pale face and wide open eyes, looking as though they expected to see heaven's door creak on its hinges, so that thou mightest know what the heavenly city was like. But who, besides, will care for thee if thou art stupid, and if thou art useless, who will want thee? Even thy father gets impatient. Tony turned from the faggot that was beginning to crackle, and merrily liquided its long flames, the black soup pot hung over it. Could I be with thee, and yet far off, he asked. I long to be far off. Dear mercy, his mother exclaimed. But why dost thou want to be far off, Tony? Then I would be little, and could lie in thy arms, and none would want me to do the things I cannot do and forget to do. But how would being far off make thee little, my son? All the people are little far off, he answered. I often watch the strangers come down the pathway from the big house. They grow bigger and bigger as they come near. They pass the door and go on by the gorge, getting smaller and smaller, till they are as little as the figures in the wood that my father cuts away in the winter. When they return, they grow bigger and bigger again as they come near. Yes, I want to be very little and far off. My son, thou art a fool, his mother said. Is thy father even smaller, dost thou think? It is only the distance that makes the strangers seem as thou hast said. If thou drew near them, thou wouldst see that they had neither grown smaller nor larger. But Tony shook his head and would not understand. They are little to me, he said. I would like to go away and be little to thee again, and then thou wouldst not be always asking me to do this thing and that, and be angry at my forgetting. There are so many things in my head that come before my eyes and make my hands useless. Thou art no good if thou art useless, his mother sighed. All things have a reason for staying in the world, and the reason for the young and strong is that they are useful. But Tony answered only, Someday I will go far off and be very little, and went to the sunshine and sat down on his little stool by the door. Presently he began to sing a song learned in some strange fashion unknown to any near him, as a solitary bird might learn from its own lonely heart. Ah, dear child, his mother said sadly as she listened. He is no fool in spite of his talk, or if he be one, then his voice is sweeter than the wisest. There is not room for an evil thought anywhere within sound of it. While I listened to him I could even forgive Gaspar's wife for getting the fine linen to be washed for the English lady. It was a small thing to quarrel about. But you do not know yet where Tony lived. In the summer his home was far up a high mountain in Switzerland. Beneath was a valley abounding in little meadows and winding pathways that had at one end a waterfall. The waterfall fell over a mountain side and was like a dream forgotten before waking time. For though the spray went down and down, it never reached bottom, but scattered itself when the sunshine and was lost. Tony used to watch the falling water, and tried to feel as he imagined it felt, caught by the breeze and carried away in its arms. Sometimes he could almost fancy himself journeying with it, on and on until he lost all likeness to himself, and meeting the great winds he became a part of them and swept over the far off sea. All about the valley and here and there on the mountains were the chalets or dark wooden houses of the peasants. Some were built on piles so that when the storms and floods came the herdsmen and their beasts might still keep themselves dry, and some had heavy stones on their roofs so that the winds might not blow them away. When Tony was very little and before he had seen the builders at work, he thought that the piles were wooden legs in which the chalets had walked up in the darkness and stillness of the night, and that the two little windows in most of their front were eyes with which they had looked out to guide themselves. He often wished that he could see them staggering step by step upward along the zigzag pathways. When he grew older it was almost a grief to know that human hands had built them on the mountain and in the valley and that they would stay where they first rose till the winds and rain had done their worst. There was a little heap of rubbish on one side of the mountains. He had often wondered what it meant, but at last he knew and then he stood looking at it and thought sadly of the children crouching over the fire while the herdsmen watched the sweeping storm gather to shatter their home and leave it to the past. Just above his father's chalet was a big stone house called the Alpine Hotel where strangers came and stayed in the summer. The strangers talked among themselves in a language Tony did not understand and were curious about the country round, professing to love it much and day after day they walked over little bits of it. It seemed odd to Tony that they should travel from far countries to see the things that he had lived among all his life. Just the hills and valleys, the snow and the Edelweiss, the sunshine and the infinite stillness, was it really for these that the strangers came? He wondered sometimes what more might be in the distances beyond his home and in what strange forms the great world stretched itself. Yet he did not trouble often about either the strangers or the world they came from, but silent and lonely let the days and nights slip by as one that swims with but just enough movement to keep himself from drowning. So Tony seemed to swim through time and to find each day as difficult to remember from the one that went before or came after it as he would have it to tell one mile of sea from another. Sometimes he wondered if the strangers were people easy to break or to kill or to get lost. For though they never ceased praising the beauty of the mountains, they were afraid to go alone up the steep paths or on the snow planes that he could have wandered over in his sleep. But it was good that they had so little courage, for they gave his father money to show them the mountain ways to carry their food and to pull them across the little precipices and crevices that Tony's scarce noticed to cut steps on the sheer ice to which his feet clung surely, to take care of them altogether, those foolish strangers who professed to love the mountains and you were afraid to be alone among them. All day long while his father was away, Tony stayed in the chalet watching his mother scrub and clean and wash and make the soup ready for his father at night. Or he would sit by the doorway listening to the falling avalanche and letting the warm sun fall on his closely cropped head. Happy Tony, the trees made pictures and he saw them, the wind blew and he understood. Surely he belonged to the wind and the trees and had once been a part of them. Why should he trouble to work? Vaguely his heart knew that not to work as his father and mother worked had the journeyed into the world from the mists beyond it. Had he not been very little once when he set out on that first journey? Someday when he had done his resting on the mountain, he would go on to the distance and be very little once more, and there were besides other thoughts the knees that came into his heart, for he and nature were so near akin, thoughts of which those about him knew nothing, but he had few words with which to talk, even the easy ones of daily life his lips found difficult to use. When the evening came and the soup was eaten, he stood by the doorway listening to his father's stories of what the strangers had said and done. Sometimes when they had been niggardly or very silent or the day of disappointing one, his father would be cross and grumble at the soup, or reproach Tony for being idle, but his mother always took his part. Nay-nay do not be hard on him, she would say. Now he is as one called too soon, before his sleep has satisfied him, and his dreams overtake his waking hours. Let him get his dreaming done, and he will rouse to work as men do in the morning time. Ah, nonsense, the father would answer. Weak in any of us dream who are too stupid to wake and too idle to work, if it were not that he could sing I would have no patience with him. The strange thing about Tony's song was that no one knew how he had come to be it. He sang a little bit of it in the days when he looked for Edelweiss, seeking the little white flowers that grow on the edge of the snow on the Alps, and when he brought any back they were tied in bunches and offered for sale to the strangers. That was before he had grown so silent, before the time when the great cobweb seemed to have wrapped him round, before he wandered into a dream and shut the door on the waking world. One day he came back with his basket empty. But where is the Edelweiss? his mother asked. I did not see any, he answered, and sat down beside the smoking wood. Then he began the song he had known since he could sing at all, but this time there was something that his mother had never heard before. Where did thou learn that, she asked, but Tony would not speak. It is hard on thee, Gaspar's wife said, that thy son should be a fool. Nay, he is no fool, the mother answered. But he cannot tell even where he learnt the song, the woman said. He learned it in the clouds or on the mountainside, farther up than our feet can climb, what may be there, only the like of Tony can tell, and she waited scornfully for Gaspar's wife to go, but then she sighed sadly enough. Surely he will someday awaken, she thought, or what will be the good of him? But from that time Tony forgot more and more the things he was told to do, and lived among his dreams which grew so tangled that even he could not tell the sleeping from the waking ones. It was only in the summer that the days passed thus, when the storms came and the snow descended, the hotels and all the chalets on the mountain were closed, and the peasants and herdsmen and their families and their flocks went down to the valley for the winter. Tony and his parents lived with a neighbor at the entrance to the village, all of them huddled together in a wooden dwelling. The floods came, and the wind swept past, and the snow drift piled higher and higher against the windows, till it was hardly possible for any light to enter the close and smoky room. Tony used to watch his father cutting bits of wood. Chip by chip he seemed to take away the walls that held little animals and men and women in prison. He never realized that his father's sharp knife and precise eye shaped the toys, or understood that it was just for the sake of the money they would bring that his mother placed them away so carefully, till the dealer from Geneva came to buy them, or till it was time to put them on the tray outside the chalet door, so that the strangers might see and bargain for them. One winter there was a dark, nutty morsel of wood that fascinated him. Every morning as he drank his milk, his eyes wandered toward it. In the evening, as he crouched shiveringly by the smoldering fire beneath the black soup pot, he kept his eyes fixed on it and wondered what strange thing it concealed. One day his father took it up and, turning it over and over, began to cut, till there came forth the figure of a little woman who had on her face an expression of listening and waiting. Tony's father looked at her and held her up before him, when he had taken off the last bits of wood that clung to her. Maybe thou art expecting someone to come and bear the company, he said, speaking to it affectionately, as though it were a child. But I do not know of any thou canst have, unless Tony here will please thee. Tony, shrinking back, fancy that the woman's eyes turned towards him. She's only wood, my lad, his mother said, and tomorrow she will be sent to the dealer's far off. There is nothing to be afraid of. She cannot move, and in things that cannot move, no danger lies. All things that live and move have power to frighten, but not this bit of wood that has been shaped by thy father's knife. But Tony crept out of the chalet and trampled the soft snow underfoot, and he was afraid of the little wooden woman lying still and wide-eyed in the smoky chalet. When he went back, his mother looked up and said, just as if she had divine'd his thoughts, our neighbor Lois has gone to Geneva to look for mules for the summer. He has taken all thy father's carving with him, so thou needst not be afraid of the little woman any more. This has happened more than a year ago, and Tony had forgotten the piece of wood and what had come from it. Now his father was carving again, and making ready for the dealer who arrived once a year to buy their winter's work from the peasants, and if the dealer would not buy, the little figures would be put away in a drawer ready for the strangers. If I were but like one of them, Tony used to think as he saw them wrapped in soft paper, to be always little, to be handled tenderly, and put to sleep in a drawer till the summer, and then to be warmed through and through by the sun, why should they have legs that never ache, and hands that never work? It was a cold morning when the dealer came, a dark, silent man, black-haired, with overhanging eyebrows. Who is this? he asked, looking at Tony. He is my son, the father said, but little enough good is he save to sing. Is he the boy whose song the goat heard say was learned in the clouds? It may be. Tony's song is known all down the valley and over the mountain too, his mother said. A stranger came to Geneva once and tried to sing it, the dealer said, but he could not remember at all. It is no good to Tony, the father said. He is only a fool and will not use his hands and feet. Then the mother spoke up for her son. Don't judge him harshly, she said. Surely some are made to use their hands and some their feet, and some it may just be their hearts to feel and their lips to speak. Does he not sing a song he has fetched from the clouds? Let that travel instead of his feet and work instead of his hands. He's called the wooden head, his father went on, unheeding, and he might well be all wooden, but for his song, the rest of him is no good. A song is something lived longer than the strongest hands that ever worked for bread, and traveled farther than the swiftest runner, said the mother. And he would be like one of those, the father added, pointing to the little car figures he had made. They were hidden in a block of wood, just as thy song is hidden in thee, his mother said, looking at Tony fondly. He would be better without his song, his father said. He might dream less and work more. The dealer considered him was silent, and when he spoke again he spoke slowly. Let him go to the city with me, to Geneva, he said, and I will take the song from his lips and send it over the world. Tony, asked his father, wilt thou go to Geneva? Perhaps there thou wouldst get thy wish to be far off and very little. Ah, said his mother with the heart that stood still. But I have heard it said that a wish in its fulfillment sometimes find themselves strange company. But go of that wilt, dear lad, there is much in the world I would not keep thee from seeing it. The peasants came out of their chalets and stood at their doors, watching Tony as he went through the village with the dealer. But Tony did not see them. He walked as one who was dazed. The icicles hung like a fringe on the waterfall, and everywhere the sun had kissed it, there rested a little golden star. But he did not look up as he passed by. He kept his eyes toward the long straight road, and wonder if in the stems of the fir trees beside it there dwelt strange figures like those his father had set free with his knife. The dealer pulled some wire from his pocket, and fashioned it carefully as he walked on. But he said no word until a village was far behind, and they could no longer hear the trickle of the unfrozen water. Then he looked up and said, Sing! Mechanically, as though he were a puppet of which the string had been pulled, Tony began to sing, and the dealer twanged the wire in his hands to let almost echo the song. But Tony did not hear it. Over his senses had stolen a great rest. He walked as though before him he saw the land of his dreams and presently would enter its gateway. Twang twang went the wire. The fir trees swayed a very little in the breeze, more and more as the twilight deepened as the night came on. Tony turned his face toward them. He felt as if he knew them. He wanted to go to them, to walk among them as his friends. But something held him, and he could not. The trees knew him, and held out their arms. They whispered a message, but he did not understand it. But he was going to understand them, to learn their language and ponder their secrets. Twang twang went the wire. The trees were wrapped in darkness at last, but Tony did not stop. He went on, on, and on without stopping into the blackness till that too was behind, and toward him slowly stole the morning light. There was a range of low mountains far in the distance. They rose higher and higher as he drew nearer as if to greet him. Sing! said the dealer. But his song was different. It seemed no longer to come from his heart but only from his lips, and as he sang he heard the note repeated. The song was going out of him and on to the dealer's wire. He did not look toward it. He did not care. He felt nothing keenly. His legs were growing stiff and his feet were hard, yet lighter to lift than they had been. He was not tired or warm or cold or glad or sorry but only in a dream. The fir trees were far, far behind now. Tony and the dealer had passed other villages than the one from which they had started yesterday. They were nearer to the mountains that had looked so low at first, and before them was a blue lake reflecting the bluer sky. Beside the lake was a long road that led to the city of Geneva, the city toward which they were journeying. But there were more villages and little towns to go through first, towns with white houses on the hillside, and others low down close to the water's edge. They were carved wooden balconies to some of them, and some were built altogether of wood. Tony wondered in what strange forest the trees of which they were made had grown. He seemed to have more and more kinship with the things that belonged to nature's firstness, with the sky and the lake and the trees, nay even with a dead wood that had been used on human dwelling places. But toward human beings he felt a strangeness spring up in his heart as if between him and them had begun a separation. They seemed to be made of different texture, of different flesh and blood from himself, and they, these people, were so tall they overshadowed him. They took long steps and carried great loads that would have crushed him, and yet they did not look bigger than his father and mother. It was only when they were beside him that he realized the difference in height. It did not surprise him, for nothing surprised him now, or stirred his pulse, or made his heart beat quicker. He went on, on. The dealer twang to the wire, and the music of it grew more and more to resemble Tony's song. But Tony trampled in silence looking at the lake and sky, while the sun shone and the mountains rose higher and higher. He felt as if they were his parents, or had been once in a far off time, and now they were reaching out to him, trying once more to bring him back to themselves before it was forever too late. Too late for what? He did not know. He could not answer himself. His heart was growing still and slow. His lips were growing dumb. Sing! said the man again. Then Tony opened his mouth, but the words of his song had gone. He could not remember them. He could not say them. Only the notes came forth, but they had no meaning that could be written down in words, and each listener heard them differently. Gradually, instead of singing, he listened, for his song was all around and about, but it did not come from behind him. But when he tried to turn, he could not. He was clasped everywhere by the wire, and in the midst of its cold tangle he walked, strange and rigid as if in a dream. One arm hung by his side, he could not move it. One o' hand was in his pocket, he could not pull it out. His clothes seemed to have changed to have grown as stiff as he, and to be separate from him no more. Only his feet moved just enough to carry him forward, and that was all. But now the last miles of the road were behind, and the sounds of a city were before him with lines of houses standing up high and white, and many little windows like gaping mouths talking in the air, or lidless eyes looking out on the people in the streets. Lower down there were windows, reaching to the ground, filled with all manner of things to please those who had money to go in and buy. Tony walked by all, scarcely knowing, but he understood, for he had seen his shadow. He was in the distance, toward which he had looked so often from the mountain home. He was far off and very little. He knew that he was bound and a prisoner, but it did not matter. He did not care. It was only part of a new life in the new world that he had entered. Suddenly, with a jerk, he stopped by one of the great windows. A door opened and he entered. All about him was wooden. Wooden houses and people and animals, and everywhere a sound of ticking. Tick, tick, tick. He was lifted by the dealer's hand onto a height. Before him was a house, a chalet, with a flight of stairs outside leading to a balcony. Go up, the dealer said, and slowly, stair by stair, he went, his feet growing stiffer and stiffer with every step upward. He rested on the balcony. There were two little doors leading into the house. They opened suddenly and disclosed a little room behind. In the room waiting, Shirley waiting for him, was the strange little woman Tony had seen his father take from the block of wood. He remembered that he used to be afraid of her. How foolish he had been! Now he was afraid of nothing. He took his place beside her. He felt that they would never be apart again unless great change or sorrow came. Shirley, it was like marriage. He saw that the little woman was as big as he. Had she grown, or had he— But he could not think or reason. He was jerked back, the wire twang, the doors closed, and all was still. He was in the darkness waiting, too, but for what or how long he did not know. All time was the same to him. He could measure it no more. In the distance he heard other wires twanging, and presently the melody of his song came from many directions, as though the place were full of it. He could hear the people on the street they hummed it as they passed by. Once, far off, he heard a band playing it. But he did not listen long, for all things grew faint as they would have grown dim, too, had he been in the light to see and know. For Tony's life had gone into his song. Only a simple little song, just as his, has been a simple little life. Life is not only in nodding heads, and work is not only for hands that move and feet that walk. It is in many other things. After a time there were sounds of fitting and tapping over Tony's head, a loud ticking, tick, tick, tick, unceasingly, and then a strange whirring in an iron tongue strung out, clang, clang, up to eleven. As the last stroke fell, the little doors flew open, and Tony and his companion were jerked out by the wire that bound them onto the balcony at the top to the stairs by which he had mounted, and stood together while all around and above the song was played, the song that would never come from his lips again. Before them, separating the place in which their dwelling was from the street was a great window letting in a flood of light, and on the outer side against the glass were pressed eager faces watching. But Tony and his companion did not know this. As the last note died away, they were jerked back into the little room, and all was darkness until another hour had passed, and then it all happened again. Hour after hour it was always the same, day after day, week after week, month after month, in a light and dark, in heat and cold. Two weary faces once were pressed against the window, those of a woman and a man, and as the doors opened, and the two little figures came forth on the clock, stood while the song was played, the woman cried, It is Tony, it is Tony, it is his song, there beside him is the woman you made, and he is wooden too, he is wooden. Thou art dreaming, said the man, Tony has gone into the world, and we will go and seek him. No, no, the woman cried in despair, his song has gone into the world, but Tony is there, and she pointed to the clock, he is wooden, he is wooden. The man looked long and silently. He had always a wooden head, he answered slowly, maybe the rest of him has gone wooden too, for he did not move enough to keep quickened, but he was useless, he added, trying to comfort his wife. Didst thou not say thyself that his song would work instead of his hands, and journey instead of his feet? Oh, that was well enough for those who did not love him, said the mother, but it does not comfort me, it is Tony that I want, my son Tony, who sat by the door and sang, or by the fire watching the wood smolder. While she spoke, the song ceased, the figures were jerked into the darkness, and the doors closed before the man and woman lay the long road and the weary miles that led back to the village and the mountains. End of Wooden Tony, recording by Scott Sherris, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. End of Anyhow Stories, Moral and Otherwise, by Lucy Lane Clifford.