The House Without Windows

In a little brown shingled cottage on one of the foothills of Mount Varcrobis, there lived with her father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Eigleen, a little girl named Eepersip. She was rather lonely. She kept advising Mr. and Mrs. Eigleen to make a beautiful garden, where flowers would bloom year after year, and to which birds and butterflies would come back again and again. Accordingly all three set to work with a will, and in a few years they had made the most beautiful garden that was ever seen. Around its borders bloomed apple-trees, pear-trees, and peach-trees, and inside them bloomed azaleas, rhododendrons, magnolias, lilacs, honeysuckle, and fire-blossoms. Next came the ground flowers. There were seven kinds of roses, and there was a whole corner devoted to early spring flowers: crocuses, daffodils, squills, and narcissi. Another corner was carpeted with tender anemones, all snow-white. In the centre of the garden there was a circular bed filled with iris of all kinds and colours. Clematis and morning-glory vines climbed over the wooden benches, and near the centre was a tall arch with ramblers climbing all over it. Another bed was thickly clustered with great purple violets. The paths through the garden had gracefully bending ferns on each side.

For the first few months Eepersip was delighted with her flowers, and the butterflies and birds pleased her even more. But she was not a child who could be contented easily, and pretty soon she began to feel lonely again. One July day a fresh idea came into her head. She packed some sandwiches and some crackers in a small lunch-basket.

She paused on the path suddenly, then drew back; for a doe and her daisied fawn were grazing close by. Eepersip took from her basket a lump of sugar, and held it out to the beautiful creatures. Very hesitatingly the doe moved forward, followed by her fawn, and at last took the lump of sugar from Eepersip’s fingers.

Eepersip had not expected this. On the contrary, she had thought that they would be startled and would bound away out of sight in the woods. She gazed silently at the doe, who had begun to graze again without a sign of fear. Could it be a dream? she thought. Eepersip had experienced the delightful sensation of the doe’s slightly rough tongue around her fingers; and suddenly, she felt as if she could never leave them⁠—as if she must stay always and play with the woods. Already she had become acquainted with a doe and a fawn, and they were not afraid of her! She sat down on the grass, and the fawn lay beside her. She cuddled it close in her arms.

The next morning when Mr. Eigleen woke up, there was hardly a ray of light, but dawn was breaking out here and there. Mr. Eigleen got all ready for an exciting morning. Without waking anybody, he seated himself out in front of the tent, on the side next the field, in such a position that he could see Eepersip when she came up, and where he could pull-to the front flap immediately and bolt out the back way to the tree by the pool without her seeing him. He waited a few minutes, and then he saw her head bobbing up the bank. Hurriedly he closed the front flap before she saw him. Slipping out the other end and round in a long curve, he ran at full speed to the pool and hid behind the big pine. Now it was at the foot of the pine that Eepersip usually stooped over to drink, because there the water was deeper and clearer. When Eepersip came up the bank, she stared curiously at the tent, thinking: “What! are my parents still here?” Then on she went to the pool. She approached it in a roundabout direction, her face drawn with suspicion; but, as usual, her route ended at the gnarled roots of the big pine⁠—no instinct could draw her away from it.

Mr. Eigleen stirred the leaves gently as she bent over. She lay down flat by the tree, cupped her hands, and began to drink. Very quietly Mr. Eigleen put his hands on her, one on either shoulder, knowing that her dress of ferns would tear. She started, and struggled so violently that his hands relaxed their grip on her shoulders, sliding down her arms, so that they were now hand in hand. That was all Eepersip needed.

But he didn’t come back. She waited and waited and often called, but he did not appear. “What can have happened to my little friend?” she thought. At last she set out to look for him, calling as she went. She looked in every crevice, to see whether something had frightened him and he had plunged into some hiding-place. But she did not find him. At last, whistling and calling, she came near to where she had left him, on the edge of the meadow. Then what did she see in the snow but footprints⁠—human footprints! Chippy’s little tracks had started back in the direction of the burrow, but the strange footprints came towards his and overtook them⁠—and at that point his suddenly left off. Then she discovered the others going down the hill again. It was only too clear⁠—Chippy had been captured!

Eepersip sat down in the snow and wept. But suddenly she straightened up and became herself again. Why not follow those footprints down the hill and get her Chippy back? With a hopeful heart she dashed down, following the tracks. But she came into a small village, where she was afraid of being caught. She could not go on; so she went back.

Another idea! Why not follow the footprints some night, when there were not so many people around, and when, even if there were, she would not be seen so easily? But there was the question of being able to see the footprints in the dark. No, that would be impossible: the only thing to do would be to wait. For what, Eepersip had not the slightest idea.

The next morning when she woke up she was not alone. A little golden-haired boy with sky-blue eyes was looking at her. They looked at each other for a long time.

“Who are you?” he ventured at last.

Here was a puzzler. “Eepersip Eigleen,” she answered. “I mean,” she added doubtfully, “I was.”

“Who are you now, then?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I haven’t any name now. I’m just somebody. Have you any name?”

“Yes⁠—Toby⁠—Toby Carrenda.”

“Do you live here in the woods?”

“Yes.”

“In a house?”

He looked at her curiously a moment; then he said: “Yes, of course⁠—don’t you?”

“No!”

“How funny!”

“Yes, it is.” With a little reluctance⁠—“Will you play with me?”

That evening early she climbed an oak which was beside the window of her former room, and peeped in. The moonlight shone on the face of a child lying in a little wooden crib. She had fluffy black curls and bright, snapping black eyes, and she was watching delightedly the shadows of the branches on her wall and softly humming.

“Oh,” breathed Eepersip, “the little sister. I want her, I want her!” Entranced, Eepersip watched, sitting in a crotch just outside the window⁠—watched her as she lay there, tracing with her finger the curving patterns on her wallpaper; as she played her hands in the moonlight and the waving shadows on her wall. And after a while the humming died away, the finger ceased to stroke the wall, her eyes closed, and in a moment she was gently sleeping. Before Eepersip went down she left a fair sprig of apple-blossoms on Fleuriss’s bed⁠—apple-blossoms that, with difficulty, she had brought up the tree. When she went back to her lilac-bush she imagined Fleuriss’s surprise, when she should wake, to see them on her bed; imagined Fleuriss following her, all fascinated by butterflies and sweet flowers; imagined her little sister climbing mountains with her, eating berries and roots, swimming and diving and dancing; and⁠—Her thoughts began to grow more and more fantastic⁠—the smell of lilacs intoxicated her⁠—and she went to sleep.

In the morning she climbed the tree again. Fleuriss was just waking. Her eyes were turned toward the lovely oak-tree, watching the sunlight playing on the emerald leaves. She caught a glimpse of Eepersip as she vanished around the trunk.