“Sometimes,” said Ann, “it seems to me they’re lying in wait for me.  That they’re going to spring out.  That this is a dream.  That there isn’t any Katie Jones.  Some nights I’ve been afraid to go to sleep.  Afraid of waking to find it a dream.  There’s an awful dream I dream sometimes!  The dream is that this is a dream.”

“Poor dear,” murmured Katie.  “It will be more real now that we’ve talked.”

“I used to dream a dream, Katie, and I think it was about you.  Only you weren’t any one thing.  You were all kinds of different things.  Lovely things.  You were Something Somewhere.  You were the something that was way off beyond the nothingness of Centralia.”

“The something that didn’t squeak,” suggested Katie tremulously.

“Something Somewhere.  You were both a waking and a sleeping dream.  I knew you were there.  Isn’t it queer how we do—­know without knowing?  My father used to talk about people being ‘called.’  Called to the ministry—­called to the missionary field—­called to heaven.  Well maybe you’re called to other things, too.  Maybe,” said Ann with a laugh which sobbed, “you’re even ‘called’ to Chicago.”

The laugh died and the sob lingered.  “Only when you get there—­Chicago doesn’t seem to know that it had called you.

“My Something Somewhere was always something I never could catch up with.  Sometimes it was a beautiful country—­where a river wound through a woods.  Sometimes it was beautiful people laughing and dancing.  Sometimes it was a star.  Sometimes it was a field of flowers—­all blowing back and forth.  Sometimes it was a voice—­a wonderful far-away voice.  Sometimes it was a lovely dress—­oh a wonderful gauzy dress—­or a hat that was like the blowing field of flowers.  Sometimes—­this was the loveliest of all—­it was somebody who loved me.  But whatever it was, it was something I couldn’t overtake.

“And you mustn’t laugh, Katie, when I tell you that the thing that made me think I could catch up with it was a moving-picture show!

“It came to Centralia—­the first one that had ever been there.  I heard the people next door talking about it.  They said there were pictures of things that really happened in the great cities—­oh of kings and queens and the president and millionaires and automobile races and grand weddings; that the pictures went on just like the happenings went on; that it was just as if the pictures were alive; that it was just like being there.

“Oh, I was so excited about it!  I was so excited I could hardly get ready.

“You see ever since Tono had died—­two years before, I had kept that idea that things were hard.  That the thing to do was to be hard.  I dreamed about things that were lovely—­the Something Somewhere things—­but as far as the real things went I never changed my mind about them.  You mustn’t let them into your heart.  They just wanted to get in there to hurt you.

“Now I forgot all about that.  These pictures were dreams made real.  They had caught up with the Something Somewhere.  And I was going to see them.