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"I I didn't have them at all, Miss," admits Helma. Vee presses her lips together sudden and then shoots a knowin' look at me. "There!" says she. "That reminds me. I haven't had tea, either. Well, Torchy?" "My blow," says I. "I was just goin' to mention it. There's a joint somewhere near, ain't there?" "Top floor," says Vee. "Come, Helma, you'll go with us, won't you?"
"Oh, I shall cross in a ship," he cried, "and see all the foreign lands. And when I come back, think of the World Stories I shall have to tell Helma and Ivra!" He sprang up in his joy, and felt as though he had wings on his shoulders like Wild Star, and had only to spread them out to go beating around the world. For a second the Wind Creature and the Earth Child looked very much alike.
Helma lifted Eric's chin in her palms and looked long and earnestly at the child she was letting go away from her all alone out into the queer world of Earth People. She picked him up in her strong arms then, as though he were a very little boy, and kissed him. She ran with him to the opening in the hedge and set him down there, laughing. "Run along now 'round the world," she said.
"No, no. We must get the house clean and ready for her. We must hurry." And then such a house-cleaning was begun as you or I have never seen. The Forest Children had been up at dawn to greet the spring, and now they came running to tell Ivra and Eric about it. When they heard that Helma was at last coming back and the house was to be cleaned they wanted to help.
I heard the child say, 'The nisse comes fast! And then I heard a scream from my Helma, a great scream like a mare when her foal is torn from her. I spun around fast, ja! I dropped the wheel and spun fast! I saw " He covered his eyes with his hands. The Portuguese had crept close to me, and I heard him panting like a frightened dog.
She isn't an Earth Child. She's a fairy. So don't say anything about it to your father when he comes home to-night. It would make him cross." "But it doesn't make you cross," laughed the jolliest boy. "And so won't you tell us some stories about it now. You know, the little house in the wood, the Tree Man, the Forest Children, Helma, Ivra and all the rest of it."
Helma showed them how to make the moat and the bridge, and Sally and she took turns and made up a story about the castle and told it to them. Towards evening some Earth People came by, near to the shore, in a little steam launch. There were men and women and several children in it. They crowded into the side of the boat towards the shore to stare curiously at Helma and Eric.
So I steps in quiet where the youngster is busy with the comb and brush. "Someone special to see Miss Helma," says I. "To see me?" says she, droppin' pussy and gazin' at the door. "Why, who can O-o-o-o-o! Daddums! Daddums!" And as they rush to a fond clinch in one room something happens to me in the other. Uh-huh!
She's a cute youngster Helma." "She is all I have to live for, Sir," says he, bowin' his head. "Then why take such chances as this?" says I. "Twenty thousand! Say, you know this ain't any jay burg. You can't expect to get away with a wad like that." "I know nothing about the money," says he, stiffenin' up. "They'll have to find it to prove I took it."
Then away he sped, and the game would go on for a happy while. But sooner or later they always stopped running, stopped laughing, and remembered why they were wandering the wood alone. Then they would call for Helma. Ivra's voice was shrill and sweet, and rang through the bare woods like a birdsong.
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