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Updated: June 21, 2025
Ivra could never be their playmate. But he could see her well enough because his eyes were clear. And presently he would run out to her and they would go home together. But just now it was jolly and cozy here in the barn, and these Earth Children were good fun. He hoped she would wait for him, but if she did not he would find his way alone easily enough.
A circle of little yellow leaves kept her hair from her eyes, which, in spite of her bashfulness, were steady and kind like her father's. "I am glad you are here." she said. From that minute Eric felt at home in the tree. Eric and Ivra were the first of the guests. The others perhaps had been too scared to come.
But Eric hardly heard what she was saying. He moved nearer and nearer to the window. Ivra followed him, charmed by the laughing face there too. Then together they unbolted the windowpane and opened it outward. The Beautiful Wicked Witch stepped in. "How silly to be afraid of me, children," she laughed. "I have only come to play with you." "Oh goody!" cried both of the children together.
But Helma laughed, her head thrown back, so that the children could look into her happy eyes and see the glow of her short hair under her grotesque hat. "Keep your keys, cousin," she said, "and your old skylight keep shut tight as tight. I shall find a way out. But my children must be patient, and Ivra must teach Eric to keep his face and body clean.
But when the hemlock and fir trees began to crowd out the maples and oaks, Helma said quietly one day, "We are nearing the sea." "The sea," cried Eric almost wild with sudden delight. "Shall we see it? Shall we swim in it? Oh, I have never seen it!" "Oh, I saw it from Spring's shoulder," Ivra cried she really thought she had "But mother, mother, what a wonderful surprise you had for us!"
For hanging just above the water on the edge of the sea was a great blue sea-shell air-boat with blue sails; and the Tree Mother stood in it, talking to Helma and Ivra who had run down to the water's edge. The boat and the sails were blue. Tree Mother's gown was blue. The sea and the sky were blue. Tiny white caps feathered the water. Tiny white clouds feathered the sky.
All was in order, the beds made and pushed back against the wall, the hearth swept, and some clusters of bright red berries arranged above the fireplace. But where were Ivra and Helma? Ivra had called her mother "Helma" last night, and so it was that Eric already called her and thought of her. There was not the tiniest sign of them. Oh, but yes.
"Could I play in it, and run and climb? Would I be as free as in this little old brown smock?" The Beautiful Wicked Witch raised her hands in horror. "My cobweb frock! Why, it would be ruined! It would be in shreds! How can you even think of treating it so!" So Ivra shook her head until her funny little pigtails flopped from side to side. "I don't want to wear it then for even a minute.
She and Ivra were sewing briskly, one in each corner of the settle. Eric was stretched on the floor, looking now into the blaze, and now up at the windows where the snow tapped and swirled; for to-day, Helma had said, was to be a rest day for him. It was the first rest day he could remember, and how good it was! To know he could lie there with no cans to sort or label for hours, and no Mrs.
Eric did feel it. For there was magic in the day. The magic came to him in the air, in the smell of the earth, in the new warm wind and said, "Everything is yours that you want. Joy is coming." And Mother Helma was what he wanted. So he felt sure she was on the way. "She must have found the key, or do you suppose she climbed the gray wall?" wondered Ivra. "Shall we go to meet her?" asked Eric.
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