Dreamland

Dreamland

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Dreamland, by Julie M. Lippmann
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Title: Dreamland
Author: Julie M. Lippmann

Release Date: July 23, 2005 [eBook #16348]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
DREAMLAND***
E-text prepared by Al Haines

DREAMLAND
by
JULIE M. LIPPMANN
Author of "Miss Wildfire," "Dorothy Day," etc.

The Penn Publishing Company Philadelphia
MCMXIV

TO
LULU AND MARIE.

CONTENTS.
THE WAKING SOUL BETTY'S BY-AND-BY THE WHITE ANGEL
IN THE PIED PIPER'S MOUNTAIN MARJORIE'S MIRACLE
WHAT HAPPENED TO LIONEL MARIE AND THE
MEADOW-BROOK NINA'S CHRISTMAS GIFTS

DREAMLAND.
THE WAKING SOUL
Larry lay under the trees upon the soft, green grass, with his hat tilted
far forward over his eyes and his grimy hands clasped together beneath
his head, wishing with all his might first one thing and then another,
but always that it was not so warm.
When the children had gone to school in the morning, they had seen
Larry's figure, as they passed along the street, stretched out full-length
beneath the trees near the gutter curbstone; and when they returned,
there he was still. They looked at him with curiosity; and some of the
boys even paused beside him and bent over to see if he were sunstruck.
He let them talk about him and discuss him and wonder at him as they
would, never stirring, and scarcely daring to breathe, lest they be
induced to stay and question him. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to
lie lazily under the trees, and watch the sunbeams as they flirted with
the leaves, and hear the birds gossip with one another, and feel the

breeze as it touched his hot temples and soothed him with its soft
caresses.
Across the street, upon some one's fence-rail, climbed a honeysuckle
vine; and every now and then Larry caught a whiff of a faint perfume
as the breeze flitted by. He wished the breeze would carry heavier loads
of it and come oftener. It was tantalizing to get just one breath and no
more in this way.
But then, that was always the case with Larry; he seemed to get a hint
of so many things, and no more than that of any. Often when he was
lying as he was now, under green trees, beneath blue skies, he would
see the most beautiful pictures before his eyes. Sometimes they were
the clouds that drew them for him, and sometimes the trees. He would,
perhaps, be feeling particularly forlorn and tired, and would fling
himself down to rest, and then in a moment--just for all the world as
though the skies were sorry for him and wanted to help him forget his
troubles--he would see the white drifts overhead shift and change, and
there would be the vision of a magnificent man larger and more
beautiful than any mortal; and then Larry would hold his breath in
ecstasy, while the man's face grew graver and darker, and his strong
arm seemed to lift and beckon to something from afar, and then from
out a great stack of clouds would break one milk-white one which,
when Larry looked closer, would prove to be a colossal steed; and in an
instant, in the most remarkable way, the form of the man would be
mounted upon the back of the courser and then would be speeding off
toward the west. And then Larry would lose sight of them, just at the
very moment when he would have given worlds to see more; for by this
time the skies would have grown black, perhaps, and down would
come the rain in perfect torrents, sending Larry to his feet and scuttling
off into somebody's area-way for shelter. And there he would crouch
and think about his vision, fancying to himself his great warrior doing
battle with the sea; the sea lashing up its wave-horses till they rose high
upon their haunches, their gray backs curving outward, their foamy
manes a-quiver, their white forelegs madly pawing the air, till with a
wild whinny they would plunge headlong upon the beach, to be pierced
by the thousand rain-arrows the cloud-god sent swirling down from

above, and sink backward faint and trembling to be overtaken and
trampled out of sight by the next frenzied column behind.
Oh! it sent Larry's blood tingling through his veins to see it all so
plainly; and he did not feel the chill of his wet rags about him, nor the
clutch of hunger in his poor, empty stomach, when the Spirit