United States or Cambodia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But his parents were determined to make an ideal dream-child of him, and, of course, he had to submit. I had the contempt for him which a philistine boy feels for a creature whom he knows he can lick with one hand tied behind his back, and I had nothing whatever to say to him.
And the two would keep tenderly, always, the thought of a child who had loved his home and his people and who had tried so hard, so long, to bring them together. He knew the dream-child would not visit him again the little ghost was laid that had followed him all his life. From over the border whence it had come with so many loving efforts it would never come again.
It was then, she said, that the cry sounded loudest and nearest, as if her pretty boy were frightened by the tempest. What wild, terrible rovings we had, she straining forward, eager to overtake the dream-child; I, sick at heart, following, guiding, protecting, as best I could; then afterwards leading her gently home, heart-broken because she could not reach the child.
She had grieved over the death of a favorite child until she lost her mind, and, as the first indication of it, she had sought by nights a white dream-child which always called her, so she said, and led her afar with a little, pale, beckoning hand. I had smiled at the story then. What had that grim old bygone to do with springtime and love and Josephine?
Other children have come to us, she loves them all dearly; but the boy who bears her dead son's name is to her aye, and to me as dear as if she had given him birth. He came from the sea, and at his coming the ghostly dream-child fled, nevermore to lure my wife away from me with its exciting cry. Therefore I look upon him and love him as my first-born.
Perhaps every woman's heart supplied the vision of her dream-child, of the child she loved. Think of the other play where the kettle is said to be hissing hot and everybody shuns it with such care that onlookers wince too. Lydia thought she could write the fairy plays and the symbolic plays, all American, if Jeff liked, and he might correct the grammar.
When the buds swelled, and the old earth grew green in the sun, and the gulls came back to the gray harbor, whose very grayness grew golden and mellow, I thought I should see her smile again. But, when the spring came, came the dream-child, and the fear that was to be my companion, at bed and board, from sunsetting to sunsetting.
And almost every night of this wonderful time the dream-child called his mother, and we roved the gray shore in quest of him. In the day she was herself; but, when the night fell, she was restless and uneasy until she heard the call. Then follow it she would, even through storm and darkness.
The picture was nearly done, but she found touches to be added here and there. There might be a stray lock there, like that. And a little bit more shade under the chin, and the wistful droop of the mouth relieved, oh, a very little bit! Amelia looked so serious. "Poor little thing! Well, it's a serious matter to be a dream-child, with not an ounce of good red blood in your veins."
I was in a maze of perplexity. What should I do? I shrank from the thought of the boy being taken away from us. Since we had found him the dream-child had never called. My wife seemed to have turned back from the dark borderland, where her feet had strayed to walk again with me in our own homely paths.
Word Of The Day