“Now, I want to hear those thoughts which Mary Joe pronounces so queer,” said Anne, patting the mop of curls at her side.  Paul never needed any coaxing to tell his thoughts . . . at least, to congenial souls.

“I thought them out in the fir grove one night,” he said dreamily.  “Of course I didn’t believe them but I thought them.  You know, teacher.  And then I wanted to tell them to somebody and there was nobody but Mary Joe.  Mary Joe was in the pantry setting bread and I sat down on the bench beside her and I said, ’Mary Joe, do you know what I think?  I think the evening star is a lighthouse on the land where the fairies dwell.’  And Mary Joe said, ’Well, yous are de queer one.  Dare ain’t no such ting as fairies.’  I was very much provoked.  Of course, I knew there are no fairies; but that needn’t prevent my thinking there is.  You know, teacher.  But I tried again quite patiently.  I said, ’Well then, Mary Joe, do you know what I think?  I think an angel walks over the world after the sun sets . . . a great, tall, white angel, with silvery folded wings . . . and sings the flowers and birds to sleep.  Children can hear him if they know how to listen.’  Then Mary Joe held up her hands all over flour and said, ’Well, yous are de queer leetle boy.  Yous make me feel scare.’  And she really did looked scared.  I went out then and whispered the rest of my thoughts to the garden.  There was a little birch tree in the garden and it died.  Grandma says the salt spray killed it; but I think the dryad belonging to it was a foolish dryad who wandered away to see the world and got lost.  And the little tree was so lonely it died of a broken heart.”

“And when the poor, foolish little dryad gets tired of the world and comes back to her tree her heart will break,” said Anne.

“Yes; but if dryads are foolish they must take the consequences, just as if they were real people,” said Paul gravely.  “Do you know what I think about the new moon, teacher?  I think it is a little golden boat full of dreams.”

“And when it tips on a cloud some of them spill out and fall into your sleep.”

“Exactly, teacher.  Oh, you do know.  And I think the violets are little snips of the sky that fell down when the angels cut out holes for the stars to shine through.  And the buttercups are made out of old sunshine; and I think the sweet peas will be butterflies when they go to heaven.  Now, teacher, do you see anything so very queer about those thoughts?”

“No, laddie dear, they are not queer at all; they are strange and beautiful thoughts for a little boy to think, and so people who couldn’t think anything of the sort themselves, if they tried for a hundred years, think them queer.  But keep on thinking them, Paul . . . some day you are going to be a poet, I believe.”

When Anne reached home she found a very different type of boyhood waiting to be put to bed.  Davy was sulky; and when Anne had undressed him he bounced into bed and buried his face in the pillow.