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Updated: June 21, 2025
You play with them and when you tell me about it afterwards I'll pretend I was there playing too." Then the two clasped hands and went skipping home. One morning when Ivra woke up she knew spring had come before her eyes were open. But Eric had to go outdoors to make sure. He was sure enough when he smelled the ground, a good earth smell.
When he saw them he cried, "Hurrah! Happy birthday, Ivra!" At his cry all the little windows in the little moss houses opened and there were the tousled heads of the Forest Children, their eyes blinking sleepily against the gilded morning light. "Thank you, thank you," Ivra cried back to the youngest Forest Child. "Hurry and follow."
He did not like the Snow Witches. And just as Ivra and the Witches drifted out of sight, he thought he heard the Forest Children laughing. The sound came from the barn. So Eric ran to the door. It was a big sliding door, and now stood open on a crack just large enough for a child to slip through. Eric went in. The barn was tremendously big, a great dusty place full of the smell of hay.
But the little boy was as quick as she and threw himself on the sled while she never slackened her pace, but drew him straight and fast up the steep slope. "I have never seen them before," Ivra whispered to Eric. "But mother has told me of them. They don't talk as we do you see. They don't have to. They know each other's thoughts. They almost never leave their Stars.
"No, no. Mother doesn't want us to visit you." But Eric said, "May I open the cage door and the window and see the bird flash away? I should like that." "No. Well, perhaps," said the Beautiful Wicked Witch. "Will you come then?" "I can't, I suppose, if Mother Helma doesn't want me to. Are you sure she doesn't, Ivra?" Ivra was sure. The Beautiful Wicked Witch laughed then.
But after a little he knew it was not Helma's little forest house that was to go swinging away into space and adventure, it was himself. And suddenly he wanted to go then, to the sea and over and beyond. He called the news in to Helma and Ivra, who were still within doors. Helma came swiftly out to him. "The trees are beckoning again, mother," he cried.
Her eyes seemed to light the room, or perhaps it was her gown, like an opal fire, blue and pink and purple, changing and glowing, and made of the softest silk. Ivra nestled close to her knee where she could stroke the gleaming silk. Eric sprawled on the floor at her feet, his face upturned to hers. Then she told them a story. It was not like any of Helma's World Stories, but the children liked it.
There on the floor near the hearth lay a little brown sandal, one of its strings pulled out and making a curlycue on the floor. That must belong to Ivra. The fire, the red berries, and the little, worn sandal, seemed to be wishing Eric a good morning and a happy day.
"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.
"Good news!" thought Eric. But he did not say it for he knew Ivra liked the Snow Witches almost best of all to play with and would miss them. Now the Tree Girl came through the gap in the hedge. She was wearing a green frock, green sandals, and pussy willow buds made a wreath in her hair. "Spring, spring!" she cried as she came up the path. "We heard the sap running in our tree all night.
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