The Wind Boy - Chapter 12 On Paths of Night

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter twelve of The Wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter twelve,
on paths of night. There was no need of a
lamp in the room to undress by, for the stars

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had risen and the room was silvery with the shining.
Gentian's night robe, by starshine was even lovelier than it
had been by lamp light. The stars in it had
a clearer radiance, and the blue quivered in a light
all its own. The minute that Gentian had slipped out

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of her clothes and into this loveliness, she felt that
she had become as light as the gown. Light as
a feather, she thought. But then she knew at once
that that was not right. She was long light than
any feather, for a feather must sometime flutter to the earth.

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But she felt that if she were to leave the ground,
she could stay in the air as long as ever
she liked. How wonderful, How wonderful, she thought. Of course,
she had climbed the air very lately in the clear country,
but in that crystal land it did not seem like

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such a marvelous thing to do. Here, in her mother's
little brown house right down here in the village where
she lived. To climb the air would be a different,
a stranger thing. Gentian got on to the one chair
in the bedroom to gaze at herself in her mother's

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high mirror. The night robe looked like a blue cloud
fallen about her, and the stars in it shone out softly, radiant,
lighting her hair and face. She clapped her hands, then
softly she opened the door and softly went out to

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the stairs and down. She stood in the doorway of
the sitting room, looking at her mother and Kay, a
merry laugh, ready to break on her lips when they
should see her there in her glimmering night robe. She
wanted to watch the wonder grow in their eyes. But

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Detro was bent above the statuette, her eyes narrowed while
her hands worked cleverly and quickly making the wind boys
clustering curls. Her thoughts were all on her work, and
she had forgotten where she was, perhaps even who she was.

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As for Kay, he sat beyond her, at the other
side of the table to get the lamp light too.
His coppery head was bent over his book, and his
eyes following the pages never wavered. He was far out
at sea on a sailing vessel, lost in another world.

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Another time, Gentian stood watching her mother and her brother
for many minutes, but they did not look up or
feel that she was there. She could not get Kay's attention,
of course, without disturbing her mother. And now that she
saw how her mother was working with the intent narrowed

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eyes that Gentian knew so well, she dared not disturb her.
Her heart sank a little, for she had longed to
show them her handiwork. But after a little waiting there,
unnoticed in the doorway, she softly turned and went back
up the stairs again to her room. Well in the

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morning she could show them. She would go to bed now,
so she turned back the bedclothes, and, after kneeling to
say her bedtime prayer, got in at once. She fell asleep,
But it was not in the way she or any
other little girl usually falls asleep. The minute her head

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touched the pillow, she felt herself slipping into sleep, as
into deep water. Only, of course, sleep did not take
her breath away, as water will when your head goes under.
When her head went under in this water of sleep,
her breath came lighter and lighter, easier and easier, until

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it was not like breathing at all. It was so light,
And then she forgot everything she thought of nothing, of course,
she could never tell about that. That was the very
deepest sleeper person can know. And the next minute she

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was wide awake. She had slept only the briefest while,
but because it had been so deep a sleep and
so dreamless, that while had rested her more than a
whole night of just ordinary every night's sleep. Now she

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was suddenly wide awake, wider awake than she had ever
been in her life. Perhaps here in her bed, with
the starlight pouring in at the window, she sat up.
Only it was not like sitting up at all, for
she came up as lightly as the tulips had come

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up after the wind boy had run over them. And
then she noticed that every movement she made was made
as she thought it, as though her thoughts did the moving,
and not her body at all. That was delightful thinking it.

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She got out of bed and went to the door.
Why this is the way the clouds move and the wind,
she thought. She went down the stairs as a petal
floats from the cherry tree, and in a second she
was standing on the grass in the lamplight, just outside

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the sitting room window. She crossed her arms on the
sill and looked in. Oh, if they could only look
up and see her, now, how amazed they would be.
The masker had stood like this looking in, And just
at first they might think she was the masker. But

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right away they would know better, and Kay would laugh.
But what would her mother say to her, being out
of alone in the night. Well, Gentian knew very well
that ordinarily her mother would not like it at all,
that she would never allow her to do such a thing.
But in this night robe that made her so light,

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in this starry brightness, everything was different. Her mother would
surely be wise enough to see that. Why, in this
starry brightness she was part of the night. She was
the sky itself and the night wind. She belonged out here.
Detra and Kay worked and read on and never dreamed

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that Gentian was out there in the night looking in
at them. After a little she turned away and moved
like a cloud across the little grass plot, through the
hole in the hedge, down the grassy paths to the
stone steps that led up to the tulip garden in

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the tulip garden in the grassy center where the wind
Boy had slept. Gentian sat with her arms wrapped about
her knees. How alone she was out here and far
from her mother and Kay, back there under the lamp
light in the little brown house. And as she looked

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towards the little brown house, she saw NaN's light wink
out in the attic. Was Nan in her starry brightness too?
And would she come out into the soft night? Gentian
thought of the wind boy. Why had she and Kay
Saturday morning ran away to play with the Clear children

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and left him behind. Well, she would not play with
the Clear children again unless they would let him play too.
But they must find the masker tomorrow night at dusk.
They must do nothing but watch. And when they did
catch it and the wind Boy had torn off the mask,

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how splendid for them all it would be. The wind
boy would be happy again. He would look as though
he had looked that minute when he first awoke here
at noon, while Gentian was watching him. He would measure
for silver sandals then, and the shoe man would be
glad he could go back to play with the Clear

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children and be at home once more in the Clear land,
and Genteeen and Kay would play with him there, and
with the others, and then too, Once the wind boy
was happy, Mother could make her statuette look happy too,
and ready to fly with all of him, for she

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would see him like that. Once he was happy and
free of all that mask business, she would make glad
of his wings, and she would get the light across
his brow. Well, perhaps the masker was hiding somewhere out here,
perhaps in that black shadow over there by the white

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birch at the edge of the garden. Gentian looked hard,
but could see nothing. So velvety black was the shadow. Yes,
the masker might very well be there, but she was
not a bit afraid at the thought. In her starry brightness,

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she could not be afraid of anything so foolish and
silly as that mask. Indeed, she could not remember now
how it was that such a silly thing had ever
frightened her. She turned her back on the velvet shadow,
but her courage was not needed. The masker was not

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lurking there. If the moonlight and starlight could shifted through
the leaves of the white birch, Gentian would have seen
nothing but tulips, red, yellow, purple white, with their petals
closed in the dew. Gentian now was looking towards the

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artist's house, and she thought of Rosemarie alone asleep in
her high nursery. How jolly it would be if she
and Kay could only have her as a playmate. But
hadn't the artist half promised it Saturday morning here in
the tulip garden. If when he came back he should

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have forgotten, Gentian decided to remind him. For out here,
in her starry brightness, she saw how horrid it must
be for Rosemarie, always alone. All the tulip gardens in
the world, and automobiles and pretty dresses and famous grandfathers
couldn't make up to a little girl for being alone.

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I will be bold and speak to the artist about it,
she promised herself. Then she looked off over the wood
to the far away mountains. They were as black and
velvety as the shadow under the white birch. Nan came
from the mountains. Gentien remembered, perhaps she has gone back

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there now, in her starry brightness, for a visit. I
shall go and look for her there. Then she rose
and went toward the mountains. She went right across the
tulip beds, not bothering about the grassy paths, just as
the wind boy had done. But that was all right,

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for the tulips did not even bend under her feet.
I cannot tell you about her journey through air and
starlight toward the mountains, for I have never run along
the paths of night. Even genty and herself never found
words to tell it in. But she did come to

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the mountains, moving with her thought, and stood at the
very top of the tallest one, just above the spruce
and pine and birch trees, on a ragged ledge of
bray must covered rock. The village. Looking back and down
on it was just a few pinpoints of light, but

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the sky was close. Oh, I want to know all
about the stars, Gentian thought. Perhaps Nan can tell me.
I shall ask her to morrow or to night if
I find her hair. How many many worlds there must be.
I want to go to all of them and live

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in all of them, one after another. Sometime above the
mountain top, just beyond, a light that was not starlight,
suddenly caught her glance. It was moving towards her along
the paths of air. Her eyes smiled, for she thought
it might be Nan, coming in her starry brightness, she said, waiting,

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watching slowly, it came toward her through the starlight and
the blue, And when it had come quite near, she
saw that although it was some one, it was not Nan.
It was much too tall, and she knew that Nan,
even in her starry brightness, could never have just this clear,

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steady radiance. Gentian, standing there on her stony ledge on
the mountain top, became stiller than she had ever been
in her life before, Yes, stiller than deep. Still, her
breath stopped, her heart beat softly. It was as though

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she hardly lived. She stood straight and still with folded hands,
and her eyes stayed open only because she dared not
move her lids to cover them. The being passed very
near her mountain top, moving slowly as to unheard holy music.

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He passed by, but as he passed, he turned his
face and looked down at Gentean, standing still and small
on the mountain top. At his look, she covered her
eyes with her hands and sank down on the moss
covered rock. She lay curled there, remembering brightness and beauty

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lost in awe. But the face itself she never remembered,
for it was not a face for a human child
to see. When at last she looked up again, the
bright being had passed by and was gone. It had
passed behind the farthest mountain. For a minute. Gentian wanted

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to follow, to catch a glimpse again, if only from
far off. She took a step out into the air,
but something stopped her. Perhaps it was the memory of
her mother and Kay, and her father out there searching
for them somewhere in the world. Whatever it was, it

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turned her about sharply and sent her running fleetly along
the paths of night toward the pin points of light
that were the village and home. When she reached the
tulip garden and floated down on the grassy center, she
saw that the little brown house was dark. Mother must

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have finished with the wind boy and Kay with his book,
and both have gone to bed. But where mother think
Gentian had vanished to. When she saw her bed empty,
Gentian had not thought of mother's being frightened by her adventure.
She ran up the air and across to her mother's
open window. When she stood in the still shadowy room,

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she was glad to be there. How it had happened
that Dettra when she came to bed, had failed to
notice that Gentian was not there in her own little
cot I cannot tell you, but she had not noticed surely,
or she would not be sleeping peacefully now. Gentian listened

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to her, even gentle breathing. I can never sleep in
this starry brightness, she thought, as she stood glimmering in
the room. It is too wonderful for just the little girl.
So quietly, not to disturb her sleeping mother, she slipped
it off, and, feeling for her plain little cotton nightgown

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on its peg in the dark closet, she put it
on instead. Then, still moving very softly, she folded up
the starry brightness and put it away in the lowest
empty drawer of her chest. When she closed the drawer,
she felt that she was closing a door into the sky.

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But it was so still in the house, and she
was so strange and lonely. She could not get into
her own bed now and go to sleep. The memory
of the brightness and the beauty of that face that
had turned toward her on the mountain top, and the
way she had almost gone after it beyond the mountains,

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was too keen. Softly uncertainly. She stole across and stood
beside her mother's bed in the farthest shadow in the room.
She bent and touched her mother's cheek with her own.
Who is that, Deetra asked, in a half asleep voice.

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Who it's Gentian. Gentian whispered and crept in beside her.
Deetra turned and folded an arm about her little girl.
Why you are cold, she whispered, snuggle close, Oh, may
I stay and sleep here? Yes? But why I thought

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you were so fast asleep? No, I was out in
the night. It was so big, and then came the angel.
I wanted you. Dettera smiled sleepily at herself in the dark.
What strange dreams you have? She murmured. Then she lay

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thinking about her little girl and wondering about her for
a long time. But Gentian had fallen asleep almost at once,
folded happily in her mother arms. End of chapter twelve.