“Why don’t they sit down on the grass to eat?” wondered the littlest Forest Child.  “And why don’t they wash their feet in the fountain?  They look so very hot and walk as though it hurt!”

“Sitting on the grass and washing their feet in the fountain is against the law there,” Helma said.

But neither Ivra nor the littlest Forest Child knew what “against the law” meant.  Eric knew, however, for he had lived nine years, remember, where most everything a little boy wanted was against the law.

“But why do they stay?” Eric asked.

Helma looked a little grave.  “Why did you stay, dear, for nine long years?”

He thought a minute.  “I hadn’t seen the magic beckoning,” he answered then.

“Neither have they,” she said, “and perhaps never will, for their eyes are getting dimmer all the time.”

“But how can they help seeing it?” cried the littlest Forest Child.  “See, all around the garden!”

It was true.  All around the garden the tall trees stood and beckoned with their high fingers, beckoned away and away with promise of magic beyond magic.  But the people in the garden never lifted their eyes to see it.  They were looking intently into their tea cups as though it might be there magic was waiting.

“They are prisoners,” said Tree Mother, “just as you were, Helma, with this one difference.  You were locked in, but they have locked themselves in and carry their keys like precious things next their hearts.”

Helma sighed and laughed at once.  Then she leaned far out and tossed a daffodil she was carrying down on the heads in the garden, shaking her short, flower petal hair as she did it—­she had cut it before starting on the adventure—­in a free, glad way.

No one looked up to see where the flower had dropped from.  The people down there were not interested in offerings from the heavens.  So the boat sailed on.  Away and away over the canning factory they drifted, where the little girl looked out from her window and up, and waved her hands.  “What are you waving at like that?” a man asked who was working near.  “Oh, just a white summer cloud,” she said.  For she knew very well he did not want the truth.  And I might as well tell you here that that pale little girl was a prisoner who had not turned the lock herself, and did not carry the key next her heart.  Others had done that before she was born.  And she had seen the beckoning in spite of the lock and now was only waiting a little while to answer it.

The children were glad to find the forest roof beneath them again.  It was noon when they sank down in the garden at their own white door stone.  Tree Mother left them there and flew away with the littlest Forest Child, the one who liked to wander alone by himself.

Nora was in the house when they ran in.  She had cleaned it with a different cleaning from what it had had for Helma’s first return.  There were no little foot prints on the floor now, and the window panes shone like clear pools in sunlight.  Three dishes of early strawberries and three deep bowls of cream were standing on the table before the open door.  And then besides there was a big loaf of golden-brown bread.