It was the way in which the boy had said “just anybody.” Peter gazed beyond the gate into the green mysterious depth of country—an Eden from which he was excluded by that hostile back. His eyes followed Friday Lane: it ran on, trees, sunshine and shadows, tremulous with the wings of birds, a canopied track, across fields, into the heart of wooded fairyland. What promises lay over there? A voice of ecstasy kept calling.
Reluctantly he set his feet against the pedals, glanced across his shoulder to Kay and was going to have said—
Something that glistened shot down her cheek and swiftly vanished.
Very deliberately he dismounted. Yankee-Doodle, or a tune not unlike it, was being played at the moment. He thumped the student of the mouth-organ in the place from which Eve was created. Kay, all legs, flushed face and blown hair, watched from the back seat of the trike the novel sight of her brother being violent.
The boy tumbled from his perch, putting the gate between himself and Peter. Yankee-Doodle ended abruptly—the mouth-organ slipped from his hand. The freckled good humor of his face changed to an expression of amused and fierce intelligence. It was his way to be amused when he was angry or in danger—Kay and Peter were to learn that later. He bobbed in the grass, recovered his fallen treasure, rubbed it on his sleeve, stuffed it into his knickerbockers’ pocket and grimaced across the rail.
“You’re a fresh kid.”
Peter removed his cap; his curly hair fell about his forehead. “You’ve made my sister cry,” he said. His hands were clenched.
One leg hopped over the gate; then another. “I haven’t,” the boy denied stoutly.
“You have. You called her ‘just anybody.’”
The boy stepped into the road—a pugnacious little figure. “Pshaw! What of it? Girls cry for nothing.”
Peter drew himself erect. “My sister doesn’t.”
The boy raised his eyes and met Kay’s. Ashamed of himself, but more ashamed of showing it, he spoke stubbornly, “She’s doing it now.”
There was silence. A small strained voice, which sounded not at all like Peter’s, said, “I never hurt people. I never fought in my life. But if I did ever fight, I’d like to punch your head. And—and I think I could do it.”
The boy lost his shame and became happy. “Guess you can’t. Anyhow, why don’t you have a shot at it?”
Without waiting for a reply, he commenced to take off his coat and to roll up his shirt-sleeves. He did it with an air of competence which was calculated to intimidate. All the while he carried on a monologue. “So he’d like to punch my head—my head. Why, I could get his goat by just looking at him. In America I’ve licked boys twice his size, and they hadn’t curly hair, either.” He faced Peter, doubling his fore-arm, and inviting him to feel his muscle. “See that. Say, kid, I’m sorry for you.—Ready?”
Peter nodded; before his nod had ended something hit him on the nose. He threw up his arms to defend himself, but the something seemed all about him. Always smiling into his own was the freckled face of a pleasant looking boy—so pleasant that it was hard to believe that it was he who was doing the hurting. And Peter—he hit back valiantly; but somewhere at the back of his brain he kept on seeing pictures of the boy dead. It was disconcerting; every now and then, when he should have pressed home his advantage, he shortened his blows intentionally, with the strong weakness of the humanitarian.
A bird rose twittering out of a hedge. From a meadow across the road, a cow hung its mild head over, looked shocked, switched its tail disapprovingly, mooed loudly, swung round and lumbered away uncertainly, like a distressed old lady with gathered skirts, in a futile endeavor to bring help.
Peter saw it all. His faculties were unnaturally and desperately alert. It was odd how time lengthened its minutes—how much he saw and heard: the deep blue stillness of sky-lagoons, the foam and wash of traveling clouds, the erect and listening quiet of tree-sentinels and hedges, and, somewhere out of sight, the sigh-sigh-sighing of wind in distant country.
There was a cry behind him. How long had he been fighting? He could not guess. Between himself and the boy rushed a little girl. Her small hands commenced to beat the boy furiously. She could not speak; she was choked with sobbing. The boy’s arms fell to his side; he let her aim her puny blows at his impudent face, making no attempt to stop her. Suddenly she swayed and sank into the flowers at the side of the road. Peter stooped; his arms went about her. The boy looked on, gazing from these strange invaders to the waiting trike. It was he who was excluded now. He wanted to say something—opened his mouth several times and halted. At last he stumbled out the words.
“I’m—I’m sorry. And you’re not just anybody.” And then, “I say, you’re plucky ‘uns—won’t you shake hands?”
The bird came back to the hedge and dropped into its nest. The cow, having sought help in vain, looked distractedly into the road and saw a boy pushing open a gate, while another boy, a little bruised and battered, pushed an ancient tandem tricycle into a meadow, and a small girl, with flushed face and blowy corn-colored hair, dabbed her eyes furtively with the hem of her dress.
The trike had to be hidden. It was unlikely, but always possible, that it might be coveted by tramps. Friday Lane lay before them. The boy turned to them with abrupt frankness. “Here, what your names?”
“Mine’s Peter, and my sister’s is Kay.”
“Well, Peter, I guess I hit harder than I meant. But—but I reckon you could have punched my head if you’d chosen. Didn’t get warmed up to the work before she stopped us—was that it?”
They were up to their knees in the meadow-world; the air was full of kind new fragrances. Peter’s eyes were dreamy. The boy rambled on, leading deeper into the avenue of oaks, so that already the first straggling fringe of woods commenced. “My brother’s like that. In Alaska, when the dogs took to fighting, he’d just stand still and laugh and holler at them. Then, all of a sudden, when he saw that they were eating one another, he’d go clean mad and wade in among ‘em and lay ‘em out with the butt of his rifle. He’s a wonder, my brother.”
“I’m sure he is,” said Peter, and Kay, trotting closely by his side, repeated his words to show her interest.
The boy, flattered by the attention of his audience, with the treachery of the born story-teller, sharpened their appetite by suspense. He wagged his head mysteriously. “I could tell you heaps about him if you were to come here often.”
He waited to see what effect that would have. Kay had been hiding behind her brother, clinging to his hand. Now she came level with him, bending her face across him so that she could meet the eyes of the boy. She asked, “May we, Peter? Do you think we can?”
“Not often,” said Peter guardedly; “but as often as we can.”
The boy held out a further inducement. “One day I might show him to you. He’s like that with dogs and—and especially with girls: laughs at ‘em, hollers at ‘em, and then——-. He’s the most glad-eyed chap that ever came down the pike, I reckon. That’s what gives me all my trouble.”
Neither Kay nor Peter knew exactly what was meant. So Peter said, “You’ve been everywhere, haven’t you? And we—we just tricycle out and——”
The boy had drawn his mouth-organ from his pocket and was playing, stamping his feet and swaying his body. Suddenly he stopped and his voice took up the air:
“I’ve been shipwrecked off Patagonia,
Home and Colonia,
Antipodonia;
I’ve shot cannibals,
Funny looking animals,
Top-knot coons;
I’ve bought diamonds twenty a penny there,
I’ve been somewhere, nowhere, anywhere—
And I’m the wise, wise man of the
Wide, wide world.”
They gazed at him wide-eyed in the hushed summer woodland. Then they beat their hands together, crying, “Oh, again, again, please.”
The boy smiled tantalizingly. “Can you climb?” He shot the question out. The next moment he was scrambling up a tall oak. Sometimes his body was lost in leaves. Sometimes it sounded as though he were tumbling, tumbling through the branches to the ground. At last, from a bough high up where the sky commenced, his impish face gazed down on them. First they heard the mouth-organ, then the voice, singing of somewhere, nowhere, anywhere—of the splendidly imagined No-Man’s-Land through which every child has longed to wander.
And they believed his song, as though it were autobiography. In a picture-flash they saw the world, beautiful, tumultuous, full of terrors—saw it as a vast balloon, swimming through eternal clouds, painted with the dreams of young desire: islands in sun-drenched seas, where palms stood motionless, pointing to the skies with silent hands; countries of yellow men, small and crafty, who lived in paper houses and fed on flowers; enfeebled cities, dazzlingly white, whose eyes had been burnt out by the door of hell left open in the iron heavens; and snow-deserts where the frost carved Titans with his breath.
This freckled pugnacious master of the mouth-organ,
This pugnacious master of the mouth organ, caroling a street song in the tree-turrets of Friday Lane, became for them the embodied soul of adventure.
0243m
The boy came slithering down. Kay watched him, how he dangled by his arms, caught on with his legs, dug in with his toes, got himself completely dirty and always saved himself at the last moment from falling.
He dropped breathless at their feet. “It’s fine up there. Different from down here. Up there it belongs to anybody.”
Kay wasn’t quite sure that she approved of him. He had ripped his coat, and it didn’t seem quite kind to give his mother so much work. She spoke reproachfully. “D’you like tearing your clothes?”
He gazed at her out of the corners of his eyes with a sly expression. “I don’t mind. Don’t need to mind—my clothes are magic. They mend themselves.”
“Mend themselves!” She tugged at Peter, to see in what spirit he was accepting this amazing assertion. “Why, how wonderful!” And then, reluctant to show doubt, “But—but how can they?”
The boy grinned broadly. “Not really, you know—just pretence. I—I mend them myself. I’m an awful liar. Come on now.”
Confession had made him self-conscious; he darted ahead. Kay and Peter followed slowly. He turned. “Aren’t you coming?”
It was Peter who answered. “But to where?”
“To where I live—the Happy Cottage.”
Was this also pretence? The name sounded too good to be true—and yet it was the kind of name you tried to believe, despite yourself.
The boy left the grassy avenue and broke into the undergrowth of woods. He went in front, parting the branches for Kay. He explained to them, “Friday Lane’s shorter, you know; but this other way’s heaps jollier.”
Presently above the rustle of their passage they heard a little singing sound. Sometimes it grew quite loud and near them; sometimes it died away into the merest breath.
It was like someone who was almost asleep, humming over and over the first two notes of a tune that refused to be remembered. Kay snuggled her hand into Peter’s; she was a little scared. Everything was so dark and eerie. The sound drew near and seemed to slip away from under her very feet. She cried out; it was as though someone had touched her and had vanished before she could turn round.
The boy heard her cry and looked back. He nodded reassuringly. “It’s always doing that—plays no end of pranks. You needn’t be frightened; it won’t hurt you.”
“But what is it? What won’t hurt you?” Peter asked almost angrily.
The boy laid his finger on his lips. “The wood’s haunted. That’s the queen fairy calling. There are all kinds of fairies hidden about here. When you see them, they turn into rabbits and birds, and——” Because Kay had covered her face, he stopped. “I’m—I’m an ass. It isn’t really, you know. I just tell myself that.”
“Then what is it?” asked Peter, slightly awed, for the voice kept on singing.
The boy laughed. “It’s the tiniest little river that’s lost itself. It creeps about under the bushes and wriggles through the leaves on its tummy, trying to find a way out.”
“And does it find it?” asked Kay, plucking up her courage.
“You bet you. Wait till we get to the Happy Cottage.” And all of a sudden they got there. It was as though the little river had led them, for just where they broke out into the sunlight it rushed past them, flashing silver and singing merrily, with all the words of its song remembered. At first they saw a green, green stretch of grass, over which the yellow of cowslips drifted like blown gold-dust. Then they saw Friday Lane, with its tall oaks holding back the woods, like big policemen marshaling a crowd when a procession is expected. And then they saw the Happy Cottage—a bee-hive, with low-thatched roof, set down in a refuge of flowers. It had one chimney, from which smoke was lazily ascending; and it must be logs that the fire was burning, for the air was filled with the indescribable homey smell that sets one dreaming of all the country cottages, tucked away in gardens, and all the summer happiness he has ever chanced on.
They followed the little stream right up to the high hedge which went about the Happy Cottage; they crossed it by a plank, pushed open a gate and entered. Flowers, flowers everywhere and the banjo-music of bees humming. A red-tiled path, moss-grown and edged with box, led through a wilderness of beauty, comfortably untrimmed and neglected. The door of the cottage stood open; across its threshold lay a Great Dane, which rose up and growled at sound of their footsteps. The boy called to him, “All right, Canute, old dog. Come here, old fellow.”
Canute came with the solemn suspicion of majesty, ignoring the strangers, and placed his great head against his master’s breast, gazing up attentively.
“Canute, this is Kay and this is Peter. They’re my friends. You’ve got to look after them. D’you understand?”
The dog blinked his eyes and turned away indifferently, as much as to say, “Your friends! Humph! We’ll see. Very sudden!”
“He’s always like that with newcomers,” said the boy. “He’s very particular about my brother. Guess he’s thinking what I said, that he don’t let the Faun Man know just anybody.” Fearful lest he should have given offence, he made haste to add, “But you’re not just anybody any longer.”
The door opened without ceremony directly into the living-room. The leaded windows were pushed back; roses stared in and bent inquisitively across the sills, spilling their petals. The house was silent; it was like stealing into someone’s heart when the soul was absent. Guns on the walls, brilliant little sketches, golf-sticks in a corner, old oak furniture, a mandolin lying in a chair—everything betrayed the room’s habitation by a strong and alluring personality. Peter, looking round, became conscious of a spirit of loneliness and yearning. On the walls were pictures of many beautiful women, but in the house itself were no signs of a woman’s hands.
The boy explained. “He’s not here to-day. He’s gone to town. This is where we play; it’s upstairs that he works.” He volunteered no information concerning the task at which the Faun Man worked. Casting his eyes round the walls, he said, “Those are all his girls. Pretty! Oh, yes. But they give me an awful lot of trouble. Want some tea? Yes?”
He went out into the kitchen at the back. He let the children follow him, but refused their offers of help. “I’m a rare little cook, I can tell you. Had to be on our ranch in America—there was no one else. You just watch me.”
But Kay had been thinking. She had supposed that there were mothers everywhere—that every boy had a——. She said, “Where are your mother and sisters?”
He looked up from toasting some bread. “Haven’t any.”
She laid her hand on his arm. “But—but didn’t you ever have any?”
He answered cheerfully, not at all sorry for himself, “Nope. Not that I remember.”
She glanced at her brother. “Peter and I’ve always been together.”
Peter added, “So that’s why you thought girls cried for nothing? You don’t know anything about them. I shouldn’t have been angry.”
The boy winked joyfully. “Oh, don’t I know anything! Leave that to the Faun Man. I know just as much as I want to. But say, I’d have liked to have had your sister for my sister. I really would have.”
Kay leant over his shoulder as he knelt before the fire. “If I were your sister, d’you know what I’d do for you? I’d tell you not to climb trees and, if you did do it, I’d mend your clothes for you.”
He told them something of his history as they sat at table. How he’d left England with his brother when he was so little that he couldn’t remember. How he’d lived on a cattle ranch and knew how to ride anything. He tried to make them understand the freedom and the solitariness of his life in those wide stretches, where there weren’t any street lamps but only stars, and where one gazed on green-gray grass for miles and never saw a single house. And he told them of the places he had been to—the queerly natural ghost corners of the earth, Alaska, Mexico and the South Sea Islands. Every now and then his imagination would gallop away with him. Then he’d twist his head and stoop forward, as if listening for the first expression of doubt. Before it came, he would try to forestall it by saying, “You know, that last part’s not really.”
When he had said it several times Kay laughed softly. The boy looked up, a little offended. “What is it?”
Her eyes were dancing with happiness. “You’re—you’re a very pretence person, aren’t you? Peter and I, we’re pretence persons. We’re always going to one place and telling ourselves we’re going somewhere else.”
The boy sank his head between his hands. His words came timidly. “It makes one happy to pretend, especially when one’s always been lonely. It’s like climbing a tall tree—it belongs to anyone up there.” He turned slowly, staring at his guests. They wondered what was in his mind. At last he said, “I wish—I wish you’d call me Harry. And please don’t tell me where you come from. Let’s be pretence persons—— I’d like to be your friend.”
With the quaint solemnity of childhood, they clasped hands. Outside the bees played their banjo-music, the flowers whispered, laying their faces close together, and the stream ran singing past the cottage, with all the words of its song remembered.
