The Wind Boy - Chapter 13 Kay and the Masker

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter thirteen of The wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter thirteen,
Kay and the Masker. The next afternoon, Kay and Gentian
took their homework out under the cherry tree. There was

(00:24):
more than usual of it to day, and they wanted
to get it all out of the way before twilight,
for at twilight they had promised each other to lie
in wait for the Masker, and they hoped that the
wind Boy would come to join them. Even as they studied,
they kept glancing up, half expecting to see him standing

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in the garden waiting for them, and several times Gentian
was sure she spied a bit of his purple wings
when the spring wind moved over head in the cherry tree.
You really must study, Gentian, Kay at last, cried a
little impatiently. If you keep looking up there for him

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all the time and thinking about him, you'll never get
done this afternoon. Then mother'll keep us in to night.
Gentian sighed, all right, she said, I'll try, and she
bent over her lesson book determinedly. Just then the wind
Boy did come running down from the clear land and

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into the boughs of the cherry tree, but he made
no more sound than the spring wind had already made there,
so the children did not let themselves look up. He
knelt in a forked branch, watching them for some time,
but they did not lift their eyes from their books.

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He shook the boughs, then, making the air sweet with
cherry blossom smell. Still they would not look. He spread
his purple wings and drifted to the grass, and, standing
directly before them, looked down wistfully at the coppery tops

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of their bent heads. He had come to play with them.
But if you are to play with the wind boy,
you must first see him, and he has no way
of getting your attention, and if you are quite ready
to give it. So he waited now in vain for
his human playmates. At last, too proud to stay longer unwonted,

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he turned away and flew slowly over the hedge and
back to the artist's tulip garden. There he stretched himself
out in the grassy center, where the sun was warmest,
and stayed half asleep, waiting for twilight and time to
watch for the masker. But back under the cherry tree,

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it was Gentean who was now rebuking Kay, Really, Kay,
unless you stop staring up at that nursery window, you'll
never get done, and mother won't let us out in
the twilight, please you see, Rosemarie had come to her
high nursery window and stood looking down at the brother

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and sister. She was hoping that Kay would soon put
by his books and climb, for if she herself might
not climb down the brown limbs of that old cherry
tree among the budding blossoms, the next best thing was
to watch somebody else doing it. But to day Alas

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he did not climb, and Rosemarie as the wind Boy,
turned away after a while, lonely and disappointed. After that,
Cay and Gentien got on famously with the work they
had set themselves, and there was only silence and now
and then the turning of a page in the tiny garden.

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But after all the wind Boy was not patient enough
to wait for twilight to return to the little brown
house and his playmates. He found them through with an
early supper, Tossing a ball before the door. They were
throwing it back and forth to each other, calling and laughing.
The wind boy heard their happy voices before he came

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to the hedge. Gentian was the first to see him
and clapped her hands. So you've come, she cried. We've
been looking and looking for you. But it's not time
to watch for the masker yet. What shall we play
till twilight? She knew very well, of course, that the
wind Boy would not be able to catch or throw

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their ball, for she remembered that he could not even
open the secret door that needed only a touch. In
the clear land. You must know, the wind boy could
open doors well enough and play ball too. It was
only down here that he had no touch for things.

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Let's play hide and seek, he suggested, I'll blind first, Oh,
lets Both children agreed. So the wind Boy faced the
cherry tree, and, crossing his arms on the old brown trunk,
closed his eyes against them. Away. Gentian ran almost before

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he had began to count, around the house and out
across the meadow. At the back. There in a hollow
behind some huggleberry bushes, she crouched to hide, But Kay
had not gone so far. He wanted to get his
goal and fool the wind Boy, who he thought much

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of herd Gentian running away around the house and would
go in that direction, leaving him safe to slip in
and get free. So very softly, moving on his toes,
he got to the Lilac hedge and worked his way
in among the bushes. Once there, safely hidden, he stood erect.

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The wind Boy did just as Kay had expected. When
he had finished counting, he turned about and looked all
around carefully. For an instant he looked straight at Kay's
hiding place, and Kay felt that their eyes met, but
they could not have, for the wind Boy never saw

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him there at all. Peering out through the green leaves,
once again, he turned on his heels, looking carefully every way.
When he ran away in the direction he had heard
Gentian's feet taking. Now, Kay would have jumped from his
hiding place and got his goal with ease if he

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had not heard a sound behind him. He turned to
see what it was and stayed as though frozen, for there,
standing close against a tree trunk on the Artist's lawn
and looking back around it as though in fear of
someone seeing it from the windows of the Great House.

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Was the Masker. It had come early tonight. Kay wanted
to shout for the wind Boy and Gentian, but that
would do no good, he knew, for the Masker would
only escape again. Then he remembered the policeman who was
able to keep special watch every evening. He looked out

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carefully toward the street. Yes, there he was, just arriving
for dearer and pacing back and forth within easy call.
But Kay did not call. No. He suddenly decided to
catch the masker for himself and have all the fun
of waving the mask in the faces of the wind

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Boy and Gentian when they should come back to the goal.
So he simply stayed perfectly still, waiting in his leafy secrecy.
And now that he had decided on a brave thing,
the masker suddenly became not so terrifying to him. It

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was a figure only about his own height, covered from
neck to heels in a blue silk cape. The cape
had a peaked hood, and this was pulled over the
masker's head. The mask itself was the only frightening thing,
and since he knew that it was only a mask,

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why mind it anyway? Seen close like this in late
afternoon light, it was almost more comical than horrible. The
long green eyes, the big brown ears, the pointed nose,
and the turned up mouth came very near to making
him laugh and so giving away his hiding place. But

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he had no intention of doing that. He waited, hoping
with all his heart that the policeman would not look
over the hedge and see the masker too. After a minute,
the masker left the concealment of the tree and ran
very swiftly toward the hole in the hedge. To reach

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the hole, it had to pass Kay. He leapt out
and caught at the flying cape. With a startled but
stifled scream. The masker wrenched the cape from his grasp
and fled back across the g right towards the artist's house.
This time it did not stop to hide behind the trees,

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for Kay was after it right At once he realized
that the masker was making for the secret door behind
the syringa bush. Well that should not happen again, not
if he could help it. He ran faster than he
had known he could run, taking a short cut right

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across a bed of jonquils that headed the masker off.
Before it could get near the Syringa bush, it swerved
off and sped away in the direction of the tulip garden.
Down long grassy piles. It ran, the blue Cape streaming
behind like a streak of cloud. For Kay had pulled

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it loose from one shoulder, but Kay was gaining. Then
the maskers stopped bothering about the paths and dashed through
the flowers, over ferns, over freshly planted places, and at
last reached the foot of the stone steps leading up

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to the tulip garden. And Kay followed through everything. To
what his mother or the artists would say to all
this ruin of their feet, he gave not a thought
at that time. He was after the masker, and he
meant to catch it. He could only think of that.
Just at the top of the steps, the masker tripped

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over its cape and fell, sprawling. Kay, who was close
behind and had not time to stop, tripped over the
masker and fell, sprawling too. Up got the masker to
its knees to run again, but Kay reached out a
hand and clutched the cape. At that the masker had

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to stand still, though tugging, for the cape was fastened
securely to a strap round the masker's waist. There cried Kay,
springing up. Now I've got you, you horrid thing that
scares children and keeps the wind boy away from his comrades.
I'm not afraid of you, and he reached for the

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mask to tear it off, but the masker itself pulled
down the mask before Kay could, and Kay gave up
his hold on the cape and fell back a step
in utter dismay for the mask coming off had brought
the peaked hood with it. And there were the dancing

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dark curls, and the merry brown eyes and the rosy
cheeks of Rosemarie. And she was laughing. Indeed, she was
laughing so hard that her knees gave out, and she
sank to the ground, shaking with mirth. Oh, I would

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and to tripped if I hadn't got to laughing, she said,
when she could stop a little. Didn't I fool you? Oh?
Wasn't it fun? You never guessed it was I all
the time? But how you can run? But Kay had
nothing to say. He could only stare and stare. He

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had never been so near to Rosemarie before, or dreamed
anybody could be so pretty. At last, he found his voice, though,
and asked, was it always you all the time? He
could hardly believe it. Yes, of course, didn't you guess?

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But how did you come by the mask at all? Oh?
One day when I was wondering what I should do alone,
and wanting, oh so to play with you and your sister.
But Old Prinney, that's my governess, said I never could.
I just found it. It was blowing about the hedge.

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Old Prynney's nose was buried in a book and she
never saw it. So I hid it out of my cape.
I tried it on that night when she left me
alone to do my lessons. It was so funny. I
laughed and laughed at myself in the mirror on my door.
Then I got this blue cape out of Prynney's closet.

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It's her best Sunday cape, you must know. But I
had to be covered up, didn't I. If my dress showed,
everybody would guess. There is a secret door, yes, behind
the serringa interrupted kay Rosemarie looked at him, surprised. Why
that's my secret door? What do you know about it?

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I'll tell you afterwards, only go on with your story.
I found it for myself one day. I was playing Indians.
You see, since I was playing alone, I had to
be all the Indian and the white settlers too well.
The Indian chief was just about to scalp a white man.
Only the white man tumbled back into some bushes and

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then ran away and got safe. When I tumbled back
among the bushes, it was the syringa bush. You know why.
I tumbled right into that door, and so I found
out about it. I used it for all my play
after that. It fitted into so many stories. It is
such fun, Yes, it must be. I wish we had

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a secret door. It's awfully exciting. If only Prinny would
let us play together, we could find lots of things
to do with it. I should say so. But do
you use it when you go out and in with
the mask? Yes? And then I run from tree to tree,
just like the Indians. You know, nobody has ever seen

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me from the windows. Prennye would looking out anyway, Not then,
for she's having her supper with the housekeeper. They're having
it early tonight because grandfather's coming home and they must
get me dressed for him. But weren't you afraid of
the policeman. No, why should I be afraid of the policeman.

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Didn't you know he is on watch for you to
catch you. No, why haven't you heard how frightened everybody
is of the mask, even some of the grown ups.
Your grandfather has told the policemen to catch you, not you,
of course, the masker. No, I didn't know all that.

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I wouldn't hear any of it. Of course they would
think I might be frightened of the masker myself, I suppose.
Rosemarie burst into laughter again at the quaint thought. Oh,
it would have been all the more fun if I'd
known that. You would have been afraid of the policeman.

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If you had known, Kay asked, wondering at her, Yes,
perhaps a little, But I would have gone out all
the same. Oh, Kay, you must never tell on me.
It will be so exciting now. But I want the mask, Rosemarie,
you see. And then Kay told her all about the

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wind boy. She listened enchanted. But when he was done,
she asked, aren't you making it all up out of
your head? No, no, it's as true as true. He
is very unhappy, but once he gets the mask back
and has torn it up, everything will come right with

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him again. Well, of course you must take it to him.
Then he must be clever, the wind boy, to have
made it so frightening. Only now, Kay, when I give
it to you, am I ever to get into your
garden again and look in at your window. If I
couldn't play with you, It's been fun to frighten you

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and have you chase me. Why last night when you
were after me and I got in at my secret door,
it was the most fun I have ever had in
my whole life. Oh, Rosemarie, why don't you ask your grandfather?
He might Rosemary shook her head. No, he mightn't. Miss

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Prane is to say about everything. When she says no,
I must never never ask him. But I should think
Kay had not time to say what he should think.
For suddenly a voice came calling Rosemarie, Rosemarie, where are you?

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The voice sounded vexed and frightened at the same time,
for the artist had returned a little earlier than they
had expected, and Rosemarie was not to be found. Miss
Prine and Polly had searched the whole house, and now
they were calling in the grounds. It was Miss Prane's voice,
the children were hearing. She had come in her hunting

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to the foot of the stone steps. Oh there she is,
whispered Rosemarie. Oh bother, stay here and hide. Kay, here
here is the mask, Give it to the wind boy.
Won't she just be furious about the cape, though I
don't care. It's been worth it playing with you. Then

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she stood up and ran down the steps. Kay stayed
still where she had left him, the mask at his back.
Oh there you are, he heard Miss Priane's exasperated voice exclaiming,
in my best cape, what will you bear next? Naughty, naughty,

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mischiefous girl. For a long whay. As they went down
the grassy path, Hay heard Miss Prane's quick scolding words,
but for some time after the voice had faded out,
Hay stayed thinking. He thought, rose Marie's not really naughty.

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It's just that she has nothing else to do but naughtiness,
nobody to play with. If she could play with Gentian
and me, she wouldn't want to take Miss Prane's best cape,
and not to get her lessons and frightened little children.
We'd find plenty to do without that, how jolly it

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might be. We'd play Indians and shipwreck and everything. Gentian
just wants to play fairy stories all the time, but
rose Marie's different. And there's the secret door and all
the gardens. He sat on his eyes bright, thinking up

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the things they might do with Rosemarie. Why there would
be no end to them, But after some time he
remembered the wind Boy and Gentian, who must have come
back long ago to the goal, and now were wondering
where he was and perhaps hunting him. He picked up
the mask and ran away down the steps. End of

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Chapter thirteen.