The Wind Boy - Chapter 11 Gentian at the Loom

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter eleven of The Wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter eleven
Gentian at the Loom. When the children got back to
the little brown house, they found their mother beside the
lamp and the bowl of tulips, working with the plastilina.

(00:22):
Already it was beginning to take shape again. They stopped
by her shoulder to watch. She hardly knew that they
were there. However, she was so absorbed in what she
was doing, and because they wanted the work to go
well just as much as she did, and because they
knew that if they spoke and called her mind away,

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she might do no more That night, they said not
a word, but after a little quietly turned aside. Kay
settled down to a book. He was reading, a story
of the sea, and Gentian ran softly up to NaN's
attic room. Nan was sitting in the open window mending

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one of Kay's stockings. Beside her was a heap of
brown and black stockings belonging to both the children, and
a torn frock of Gentian's. Nan was holding her work
close to the window to catch the very last ray
of light. She looked up at Gentian and smiled a greeting.

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She knew very well what Gentian wanted. For both nights
that Nan had been here, Gentian had come up to
look at and to touch the starry brightness night robe.
So now, Nan said, even before Gentian had asked permission, Yes,
you may open the drawer and take it out. Oh,

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may I bring it over there by the window. Yes,
do so Gentian pulled out the top drawer in the
chest of drawers, and that, to her was something like
opening a door into the night sky. The night robe
lay folded there, so blue and starry. Gentian lifted it

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out with her finger tips. She had to look to
make sure that there was anything there but air. It
was so light, slowly and carefully that its trailing wispy
folds should not sweep the floor. She carried it over
to the window and the last light of day there

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she sat down on the floor at NaN's knee and
held the wonderful robe in her lap. Her face as
she bent above it was full of delight and wonder
Nan put by her, darning to watch Gentian's face so
full of rapture, But Gentean was too lost in the

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happiness of gazing at the starry brightness to know that
Nan was looking at her at last, In spite of
her delight, she sighed, but ever so softly. What is it, gentein,
Nan asked, in words almost as soft as the sigh. Oh,

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I wonder if I shall ever have anything so beautiful.
Nan did not answer at once, but stayed looking down
into Gentian's lifted blue eyes. Then she said, in a
matter of fact voice, any one who has a night
down like this has to make it. Genteen, I do

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not know whether you could learn to make it, but
I think you might. But where would I ever get
the starry brightness to make it of? Why you would
have to make the starry brightness? That is what a man? Well,
I can hardly do that. Why do you say so?

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Wouldn't you like to try? How could I try? Trying
is the easiest end of it. It's the doing that
we'll tell. Genteen was gazing up at Nan with hope
and delight now in her blue eyes. If you want
to try right away now to night, you will have

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to go through into the other house, the one above
this one. Remember, for the starry brightness cannot be made
down here, not without giving a lifetime to it? Do
you mean that little brown house we saw just above
ours in the crystal light that day with the wind. Boy,

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am I to go up there? Yes, a young woman
who lives in that house has promised me that you
will help you with the making of a little starry
brightness robe just for yourself. This morning, when I was
tidying my room, I suddenly saw the way up into

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that other house. There I found her, and we talked
about you and the way you came at night to
see my starry robe. And she herself said she would
ask the great artist there, great artist you know, to
set up his loom for you. She is expecting you now,

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Oh how kind she is. But what has the great
artist to do with it? He has the loom and
the colors. So it is to his house you must
go if you are to weave the starry brightness. Run
through now to the other house, and the kind young
girl will take you. Gentiean sprang up and ran to

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put NaN's night robe back into the drawer. Then she
looked all about the little attic room eagerly, expectantly, but
slowly her eager face grew blank. Oh where can I
go through? She cried, See Nan, it is all just
a hard old plaster. All you will have to get

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very still and then remember what the wind boy showed
us when he pointed that is all. So Gentian grew
very still. She even shut her eyes, and she remembered hard.
Are you through? Nan asked after a minute, Why no,

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said Gentian, when she had opened her eyes and glanced
about at the attic room very dim now in the dusk.
Can't you see I'm still here where I'm through? Nan laughed,
And I wouldn't know whether you were two without asking.
Good I you're through through to the other house, yes,

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but that can't be. You're here with me. I'm through
at the same time, and I do wish you would
hurry and come too, for I must get back to
those stockings. There are so many, and Kane eats his
for school tomorrow. Gentian was almost in tears. She believed

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Nan when she said she was through into the clear land,
though she could not understand how that could be when
she saw her here at the same time. But there
was something in NaN's voice and in her eyes that
made everyone who listened to her and looked at her
believe her, no matter how strange things, she said, But

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what can I do to come through too, Gentian begged,
Grow still, I am still. I don't mean that kind
of still still with your body, I mean deep still,
still with your heart. So Gentian tried again. But how

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was she ever to grow deep still when she was
so excited? Deep still, deep still, deep still, Nan said
to her softly, over and over. And when NaN's voice stopped,
Gentian had grown deep still, and there she was threw

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into the other house. She was standing with Nan in
an attic room very like NaN's own. Only even at
first glance you would have known it was a room
in the clear Land, for the light was clearest, serenest, crystal,
and though it was almost night here, as in the

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land below, there was no darkness in this twilight. The
purple dusk was bathed in crystal. I can't stay with
you because of the stockings, Nan said, But if you
run down the stairs, you will find that kind young
girl waiting for you somewhere. I'm sure I told her

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you would harm you know, Oh, please do stay, Gentian begged.
When she had gone up into the clear Land with
Kay and the wind boy, she had felt no strangeness
and when she had got through to the other school,
she had not been strange either. But here, in the
clear land's dusk, in its purple shadows, even if they

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were crystal shadows, in this empty attic room, she did
feel strange and alone. Please stay, she begged. Nan shook
her head. No, I must go back, But run along down, dear,

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and bring back with you, if you can, a starry
brightness night robe. At mention of the starry brightness night robe,
Gentian forgot her strangeness. She stood on tiptoe to kiss
NaN's cheek, and then without another word, she ran out
of the room and down the stairs. In her own house,

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the stairs would have been quite dark by now, but
here in this other house she could see well enough
in the shadows. She went rather shyly through the hall
downstairs to the sitting room door, for after all, this
house she had entered from the top was not her own,

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and she had not even knocked. But the sitting room
was empty, how like and unlike her own. There was
a big bowl of tulips on a little low table
against the wall. Only the curtains were gold and not brown.
For a minute, she thought that she must be dreaming

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or that she was still in her own house after all.
But as she stood there alone for a minute, the
crystal light and the sweet stillness over everything made her
know that she was indeed in the clear land. But
where was the friendly young girl Nan had promised we'd
be waiting. The strangeness had come back to Gentian's heart.

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As she stood alone in this other room, she turned
and very softly, lonely, went out into the hall and
to the door. There on the door stone, in the crystal,
lonely twilight, sat a girl about NaN's age, a girl

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with a clear, quiet face. Twilight was in her eyes
and in her hair, and she was wrapped about in
a twilight cloak. Gentian never learned her name, but then
and always after, she called her the Twilight Girl. I

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was waiting for you, said the twilight girl. Nan was
sure you would want to come. I have told the artist,
and he has set up the colors and left the
loom ready. Gentian clapped her hands. Thank you, oh, thank you.
If I can only make a starry, brightness night robe

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like NaN's, come, then, the Twilight girl said, rising and
taking Gentian by the hand, they went out at the
little swinging gate down the street and turned in at
the Artist's drive. Looking up at the mansion, Gentian saw
how it was very much like their own artist's mansion,

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except that it was whiter and more shining, and its
towers and arches were lost in the sky. Up the wide,
shallow marble steps they went, and in at the great
front door, which was standing wide open. The twilight girl

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had not bothered to ring the bell, nor did she
now look around for any one. She led Gentian in
as though the house were hers, and up the stairway.
At first Gentian felt a little shy about coming into
the Great Artist's House. So but then she remembered how
Nan said that children were free to go in and

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out of the Great Artist's House, just as the wind
was free to blow in and out, and she felt
strange about it no longer. Up and up and up
they went, flight after flight of wide stairs, and at
the top of each flight, through winding passages. If Gention

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had climbed so many stairs down in the world, her
legs would surely have begun to ache. But here her
sandals were silver, remember, and it was rather like climbing
blue air. Indeed, the stairs were blue, and may very
well have been air. Down one long passage, she saw

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the great artist himself, pacing back and forth before a
row of windows opening towards the Twilight mountains. He was
very tall and very noble, and dressed in a flowing
silvery robe. His head was bent as he paced or
turned away towards the windows, so he did not see

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Genteen and the Twilight Girl, or know that they had
stopped to gaze at him. He is planning his work,
the Twilight Girl whispered, and Gentian remembered how her mother,
when she was planning a new statue, would pace back
and forth in the same way. After that, they climbed

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a very steep, narrow flight of stairs that ended in
a tower room. The windows all around were opened outward,
and when Gentian stood in the room, she felt that
she was standing high up in the sky where it
turns to blue, Only now it was the soft blue
of evening. They one of the windows, a little loom

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was set up, and before it stood a stool. Sit
here on the stool, the Twilight Girl said, and I
will show you how to begin. So Gentian sat down
on the stool before the loom. Her feet did not
touch the floor. And the Twilight Girl smiled at that.

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You are, after all a very little girl to be
sitting at this loom, she said, But it will do
no harm to try. And Nan thought that you could
make the starry brightness even if your feet wouldn't touch.
How grateful Gentian was to Nan for so believing in her.
And when the Twilight Girl had shown her how to

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handle the colors and how to set to work, she
said to herself, Oh, it's much easier than I thought
it could be. I know I can do it now,
the Twilight Girl said, giving all the colors into her hands. Try.
But Gentian hardly had to try. She could do it

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right from the first, very swiftly. Under her hands, starry
brightness began to grow, and very soon she found that
as she worked she could think too, and she went
on thinking her thoughts while her hands flew. She thought, Oh,

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this is going to be too beautiful to wear at
night when no one sees me. I want to wear
it in the day, when my schoolmates down there see
me coming in something so beautiful and strange, they will
not laugh at me anymore. They will stop talking about
my being so queer and a foreigner. They will wish

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that they had a starry brightness and talk only about that.
But as Gentian thought these thoughts, the threads had grown
tangled and more tangled, until now they ended in a snarl,
and the starry brightness was losing its starringess under her fingers.

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What are you doing, wondered the Twilight girl, bending above her.
What are you thinking of? To let the stars go?
Then Gentian told her what she was thinking of. The
Twilight Girl shook her head. That was it, she said her,
smile a little sad. Of course, you can't weave a

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starry robe with those thoughts. Starry brightness is not to
make you proud before others with it is just for yourself.
You can't make it except just for yourself. Do you
mean that my thoughts spoil it? Asked Gentian, surprised, of course,

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answered the Twilight girl. You must give up wanting anybody
to see your robe, and then you may be able
to untangle the threads. Perhaps so, gent gave up the thought,
and the threads almost untangled themselves in her fingers. Again,

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The weaving went on swiftly and smoothly, and soon it
was going so easily that Gentian began to think her
thoughts again as it grew in beauty and starliness. She thought, Oh,
I want mother to have one. Poor dear mother who
works so hard and has no pretty clothes, How happy

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such a beautiful, starry robe would make her. I would
rather she had it than I. But the threads were
getting tangled again, and the stars no longer forming. What
are you thinking of now, the Twilight Girl spoke softly,
bending at Gentian's shoulder. Something is wrong, see there are

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no more stars, Gentian told her thoughts. The Twilight girls smiled, well,
was not sad now, but it was grave. That was
a nice thought, Gentian, she said, But this kind of
robe each one must make for himself. No one else

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can do it for him. You must make it yours
in your thought, or it will not come right. That
saddened Gentian for a minute. Where was the happiness of
doing it just for yourself if you couldn't do it
for someone else too? But after a minute her doubt

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about the happiness of it passed, and she tried again.
Then the stars came quickly and flowingly, and the blue
under Gentian's flying fingers trembled and grew deep into a sky,
and Gentian thought, it isn't every little girl of eight

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who could make a thing so beautiful. I must be
different somehow from most other children. But hardly had the
stars at this thought begun to dim before without noticing
she stopped. No, no, she said out loud. It was
the artist who set up the loom for me and

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gave me the colors. I must be grateful to the artist.
He could do it for any little girl he wanted to.
And the twilight girl, who had reached her hand to
stop Gentian drew it back, now a light of gladness
in her eyes. After that the starry robe grew and grew.

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Sometimes with her thoughts the threads would go wrong again
and begin to tangle, But then Gentian would rest a
minute and get deep still. After that her thoughts would change,
and all would be well. And soon those times ended altogether,

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and it was smooth work and swift. The starry brightness
had grown almost large enough now for a night robe
for Gentian, and it lay on the loom like a
piece of the night sky. It was then that the
great Artist came up the narrow steep stairs into the

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tower room and stood behind Gentian, looking down at her
busy fingers, but Gentian had not heard him so softly
had he come. The Twilight Girl stood back so that
he might see all. He nodded and then stayed still watching.

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Soon all the thread was used, and Gentian turned up
to look at the Twilight Girl. When she saw the
great artist above her, there in his silvery robes, she
got down from the stool and stood before him, awed
and happy. You have done un well, little human, he said,

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in a voice, the sound of which Gentian could never
afterward remember. Perhaps Gentian should have thanked him then for
having set up the loom for her and letting her
come up to work on it, but she was too
much in awe of him to say anything at all.
She could only smile into his deep eyes and be still.

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Then he stooped, and, taking the starry brightness from the loom,
handed it to her. She gazed her thanks out of
her blue Gentian eyes as she held the starry brightness
against her breast. The Twilight Girl took her hand and
led her away down the stairs. When they got back

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to the little brown house, the Twilight Girl said gently,
run up the stairs, now, Gentian, and back to Nan,
Who's waiting. It will be easy enough for you to
find the way through to the earth. With that starry
robe in your arms, everything will be easier. She bent
down and kissed Gentian on her cheek, a cool, kind kiss.

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The great arcist was pleased with you. You should be
very happy, she said. Oh I am very very happy.
Genteen answered, and oh, I thank you. The twilight girl
shook her head, smiling. You did it all every bit
by yourself, Nan will know. So Gentian ran away up

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the stairs, and when she opened the door into the
attic room, she knew that she was back in her
own world, for there was dark at the window, and
Nan was sitting by a lamp finishing the last stocking.
Gentian ran up to her and threw the starry brightness
in a heap into her lap. How NaN's face shone. Then, yes,

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I think it outshone even Gentians. Now I will sew
it up for you, she said, And to night you
shall sleep in it, Oh will you? And may i?
Gentian clapped her hands. So under the lamp light, Nan

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sewed up the starry filled me gown, while Gentian knelt
on the floor at her knee and watched. When it
was done, she handed it to Gentian and said, now
run away to bed, for your mother remembers to send you.
That will be a fine surprise for her, for once
in her life. Gentian was only too eager to run

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away to bed. End of chapter eleven.