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Page 34
The queen led them down the hill to the shore again; and there they
found the ferry-man ready, waiting. It is customary, I believe, for
every one to be ferried home. The river, that way, is treble as wide,
and the sandman is always wandering up and down the brink, scattering
his sand so that one is apt to get too drowsy to swim the whole
distance. The children piled into the boat--all but Michael; he stood
clinging fast to the queen's gray dress.
"Don't you want to go back?" she asked, gently.
"Nyet; the heart by me no longer to bump--here," and Michael pointed to
the pit of his stomach.
"Aw, come on," called Peter.
But Michael only shook his head and clung closer to the gray dress.
"All right, ferryman; he may stay," said the queen.
"Good-by!" shouted the children. "Don't forget us, Michael."
"Nyet; goo'-by," Michael shouted back; and then he laughed. "You tell
Mi' Peggie--I say--Go' blees you!"
And this was Michael's patch.
The ferryman stood in the stem and swung his great oar. Slowly the
boat moved, scrunching over the white pebbles, and slipped into the
water. The children saw Michael and the queen waving their hands until
they had dwindled to shadow-specks in the distance; they watched the
wake of starshine lengthen out behind them; they listened to the
ripples lapping at the keel. To and fro, to and fro, swayed the
ferryman to the swing of his oar. "Sleep--sleep--sleep," sang the
river, running with them. Bridget stretched her arms about as many
children as she could compass and held them close while eight pairs of
eyes slowly--slowly--shut.
VIII
IN WHICH A PART OF THE BOARD HAS DISTURBING DREAMS
It is a far cry from a primrose ring to a disbanded board meeting; but
Fancy bridged it in a twinkling and without an effort. She blew the
trustees off the door-step of Saint Margaret's, homeward, with an
insistent buzzing of "ifs" and "buts" in their ears, and the faint
woodsy odor of primroses under their noses.
To each member of the board entering his own home, unsupported by the
presence of his fellow-members and the scientific zeal of the Senior
Surgeon, the business of the afternoon began to change its aspect. For
some unaccountable reason--unless we take Fancy into the
reckoning--this sudden abandoning of Ward C did not seem the simple
matter of an hour previous; while in perspective even Margaret
MacLean's outspokenness became less heinous and more human.
As they settled themselves for the evening, each quietly and alone
after his or her particular fashion of comfort, the "ifs" and "buts"
were still buzzing riotously; while the primroses, although forgotten,
clung persistently to the frills or coat lapels where the Youngest and
Prettiest Trustee had put them. There it was that Fancy slipped
unnoticed over the threshold of library, den, and boudoir in turn; and
with a glint of mischief in her eyes she set the stage in each place to
her own liking, while she summoned whatever players she chose to do her
bidding.
Now the trustees were very different from the children in the matter of
telling what they remembered of that May Eve. Of course they were
hampered with all the self-consciousness and skepticism of grown-ups,
which would make them quite unwilling to own up to anything strange or
out of the conventional path, not in a hundred years. Therefore I am
forced to leave their part of the telling to Fancy, and you may believe
or discredit as much or as little as you choose; only I am hoping that
by this time you have acquired at least a sprinkling of fern-seed in
your eyes. You may have forgotten that fern-seed is the most subtle of
eye-openers known to Fancy; and that it enables you to see the things
that have existed only in your imagination. It is very scarce
nowadays, and hard to find, for the bird-fanciers no longer keep
it--and the nursery-gardeners have forgotten how to grow it. In the
light of what happened afterward, I think you will agree that Fancy has
not been far wrong concerning the trustees; she has a way of putting
things a little differently, that is all.
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