Painted Windows | Page 9

a rain like that -- for I should have to face it. I could see that in a few seconds the gutters had begun to race, the road where I lay was a stream, and then -- then the rain ceased. Never was anything so astonishing. The sky came out blue, tattered rags of cloud raced across it, and I had time to conclude that, whip- ped and almost breathless though I was, I was still alive.
And then I saw a curious sight. Down the street in every direction came rush- ing hatless men and women. Here and there a wild-eyed horse was being lashed along. All the town was coming. They were in their work clothes, in their slippers, in their wrappers -- they were in anything and everything. Some of them sobbed as they ran, some called aloud names that I knew. They were fathers and mothers looking for their children.
And who was that -- that woman with a white face, with hair falling about her shoulders, where it had fallen as she ran -- that woman whose breath came between her teeth strangely and who called my name over and over, bleat- ingly, as a mother sheep calls its lamb? At first I did not recognise her, and then, at last, I knew. And that creature with the rolling eyes and the curious ash-coloured face who, mumbling some- thing over and over in his throat, came for me, and snatched me up and wiped my face free of mud, and felt of me here and there with trembling hands -- who was he?
And breaking out of the crowd of men who had come running from the street of stores and offices, was an- other strange being, with a sort of bat- tle light in his eyes, who, seeing me, gathered me to him and bore me away toward home. Looking back, I could see the woman I knew following, lean- ing on the arm of the boy with the roll- ing eyes, whose eyes had ceased to roll, and who was quite recognisable now as Toot.
A happiness that was almost as ter- rible as sorrow welled up in my heart. I did not weep, or laugh, or talk. All I had experienced had carried me be- yond mere excitement into exultation. I exulted in life, in love. My conceit and sulkiness died in that storm, as did many another thing. I was alive. I was loved. I said it over and over to myself silently, in "my heart's deep core," while mother washed me with trembling hands in my own dear room, bound up my hurts, braided my hair, and put me, in a fresh night-dress, into my bed. I do not recall that we talked to each other, but in every caress of her hands as she worked I felt the un- spoken assurances of a love such as I had not dreamed of.
Father had gone running back to the school to see if he could be of any as- sistance to his neighbours, and had taken Toot with him, but they were back presently to say that beyond a few sharp injuries and broken bones, no harm had been done to the children. It was considered miraculous that no one had been killed or seriously injured, and I noticed that father's voice trem- bled as he told of it, and that mother could not answer, and that Toot sobbed like a big silly boy.
Then as we talked together, behold, a second storm was upon us -- a sharp black blast of wind and rain, not ter- rifying, like the other, but with an "I've-come-to-spend-the-day" sort of aspect.
But no one seemed to mind very much. I was carried down to the sit- ting-room. Toot busied himself com- ing and going on this errand and on that, fastening the doors, closing the windows, running out to see to the ani- mals, and coming back again. Father and mother set the table. They kept close together; and now and then they looked over at me, without saying any- thing, but with shining eyes.
The storm died down to a quiet rain. From the roof of the porch the drops fell in silver strings, like beads. Then the sun came out and turned them into shining crystal. The birds began to sing again, and when we threw open the windows delicious odours of fresh earth and flowering shrub greeted us. Mother began to sing as she worked. And I sank softly to sleep, thrilled with the marvels of the world -- not of the tem- pest, but of the peace.
The sweet familiarity of the faces and the walls and the furniture and the garden was like a blessing. There was not a chair there that I would have ex- changed