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Updated: June 5, 2025
She had a notion that during the night Mother came in more than once, and she had a vague dream, too, all about Joan and wood-ladies, of which she could not remember much when she woke up. Joan was always dressed first in the morning, being the younger of the pair, but now there was no Joan, and Nurse was very gentle with Joyce and looked tired and as if she had been crying.
I cocked a snook at them an' the wood-ladies laughed like leaves rustling." "But where did you sleep last night?" "I didn't sleep," said Joan, grasping her spoon anew. "I'se very sleepy now." She was asleep as soon as they laid her in bed, and Mother and Joyce looked at each other across her cot, above her rosy and unconscious face. "God help us," said Mother in a whisper.
You're trying to frighten me, aren't you?" "I'm not," protested Joan. "I did see a wood-lady. Wood-ladies doesn't hurt you; wood-ladies are nice. You're a coward, Joyce." "I can't help it," said Joyce, sighing. "But I won't go into the dark spots of the wood any more." "Coward," repeated Joan absently, but with a certain relish. "You wouldn't like to go there by yourself!" cried Joyce.
"What is the truth of this?" There was never any answer, any hint of a solution, save Joan's. And she, as soon as she discovered that her experiences amounted to an adventure, began to embroider them, and now she does not even know herself. She has reached the age of seven, and it is long since she has believed in anything so childish as wood-ladies.
Wood-ladies were dim inhabitants of the woods, beings of the order of fairies and angels and even vaguer, for there was nothing about them in the story-books. Joyce, who felt that she was getting on in years, was willing to be skeptical about them, but could not always manage it.
"If there was wood-ladies, they wouldn't hurt a baby like Joan," suggested Joyce. "Oh, who could hurt her!" cried Mother, and fell to calling again. Her voice, of which each accent was music, alternated with the harsh roars of Jenks.
But I wouldn't." "Why wouldn't you?" asked Joyce. "'Cause I didn't want to be a wood-lady," replied Joan. "Listen to me, darling," said Mother. "Didn't these people whom you call wood-ladies take you away out of the wood? We searched the whole wood, you know, and you weren't there at all." "I was," said Joan. "I was there all the time, an' I heard Walter an' Jenks calling.
"Besides," she considered, enumerating her resources of comfort; "besides, there can't be such things as wood-ladies, really." But Joan was a long time gone. The dome of pines took on an uncanny stillness; the moving patches of sun seemed furtive and unnatural; the ferns swayed without noise.
Joan struggled in her embrace till she got an arm free, and then rubbed her eyes drowsily. "Hallo!" she said. "But where have you been?" cried Mother. "Baby-girl, where have you been all this time?" Joan made a motion of her head and her free arm towards the wood, the wood which had been searched a dozen times over like a pocket. "In there," she answered carelessly. "Wiv the wood-ladies.
The fern gave suddenly, and Joan fell over on her back, with her stout legs sticking up stiffly. In this posture she continued the conversation undisturbed. "I know, Joy. It was wood-ladies!" "Wood-ladies!" Joyce frowned in faint perplexity as Joan rolled right side up again.
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