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Chapter 17 Detra meets the Artist · The Wind Boy

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  Chapter seventeen of The Wind Boy by Ethel Cook Eliot. This LibriVox recording is
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  in the public domain. Chapter seventeen deter meets the artists, and when they
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  got there, it was Nan who thought up the most wonderful things to play.
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  They were games the children had never heard of before, and they were
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  the greatest fun. Afterwards, they could never play them over again, for
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  somehow they could not remember how they had gone. That was strange, for
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  at the time they had not seemed complicated, but simple as day. They
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  found themselves in these games, jumping farther than they had known they could jump,
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  climbing higher, and hiding in more secret and smaller places that they would
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  ever have thought of hiding in alone. But after a while they grew tired
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  of even these wonderful games, and threw themselves down in the grassy center of
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  the tulip garden to rest. Now, said Rosemarie, tell me more about
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  the wind Boy. But we have told you all, Kay answered, there
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  is nothing more. Well, if he's real and not just a pretend game
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  of yours, Rosemarie asked, teasingly, why doesn't he come and play with
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  us? Now? Why? I don't know, Perhaps he will. Perhaps
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  he's been around all this time wanting to play with us. But Gentien shook
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  her head. No, Kay, he's nowhere about. I've been looking for
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  him all afternoon. He hasn't come once. I would have seen him if
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  he had. Well, now that he has his clear children playmates back,
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  perhaps he won't want to come down here any more. Perhaps he only came
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  before because he was lonely, Kay said. Gentian didn't have answer. That
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  she herself had been thinking exactly that thing for hours, with this difference that
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  she had not the heart to speak it. Let's try to see up into
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  the clear land. Rosemarie suggested, then, why can't we see that other
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  tulip garden that you say is just up there over this one? We can
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  try, Kay answered, But it takes a special kind of looking to see
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  it, doesn't it. Nan, How should we look then? I don't
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  know exactly, but Gentian went there through the walls of NaN's attic room.
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  You told me, how did you do that? Gentian? By getting deep?
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  Still? What is that? Gentian could not explain. Now, Nan,
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  who had been lying on her back nibbling a sweet grass blade, said
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  there are many many ways of looking to see into the clear land. Let
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  lie quietly on our backs here for a little, and just try. So.
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  The four playmates lay on their backs in the cool grass, sentineled about
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  by many colored tulips, and tried to see up into the clear land.
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  But for all their looking and all their expectant stillness, it did not take
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  shape for them in the blue spring air. Rosemarie was the first to grow
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  impatient. She sat up. Oh there is nothing but blue sky up there,
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  she cried, and white clouds. I think it must have been all
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  your imagining, Kay, and Gentian No, no, Kay protested it was
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  not imagining. You ought to see the statue at mother made of the wind
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  boy. Then you'd know that he was as real as you are. Oh.
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  Has your mother seen him too? Yes, of course. But the
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  funny thing about that is that she does not remember she has. I should
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  think that was a funny thing. Why it's not possible? Should Oh?
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  But it is, Nan interrupted. She was still stretched on her back,
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  looking up into the blue spring air. The truest and most important things are
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  almost always those we have no words for. That is what Ka means.
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  I'm not remembering. Although Nan said this very gently, and it explained nothing
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  to Rosemarie. Still she at once believed her and laughed, no more,
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  Let's go and see the statuette. Gentian suggested. Then you will love it,
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  Rosemarie, just as we do, all right, only not for a
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  little while. It's so cool and comfortable here in the grass, and I'm
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  finding such funny pictures in the clouds. Wait a little, I will go
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  and bring the statuette here instead, Nan said, getting up, Suddenly,
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  it will be all the more beautiful out here with the sun on it.
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  Now. Neither Cain nor Gentian would have thought of touching their mother's work,
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  but it never entered their heads that Nan was doing anything wrong, and they
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  were right to believe in her. So she ran away to fetch the statuette.
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  Rose Marie, who was sitting up, watched her go running. She
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  looks just like a relief of a dancing girl on an old Greek vase in
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  grandfather's study, she said. She moves as though she were hearing music.
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  Yes, she walks like that too, I've often noticed, Kay agreed thoughtfully.
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  Sometimes I almost hear it too, the music, but never quite After
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  that, they lay quiet, saying no more, until Nan returned with the
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  statuette held very carefully before her. She stood it up in their midst in
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  the grassy place. Rosemarie knelt in front of it. Oh, he is
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  just as you described him, Kay, she cried. And he is shining
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  too. You didn't describe that. I've been wondering about that shining, Kay
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  said, when he's just made out of gray Plasterlina, where does the shininess
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  come from? Why that's his happiness? Nan tried to explain. It shines
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  out through his face and even through his wings and body. But a statuette
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  can't be happy. It's only a statuette, that is true. But your
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  mother could copy the happiness, and here it is. I wonder, Genteen
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  said suddenly and softly. I wonder if that is what the clear land is
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  happiness? And this land down here is only a copy of that shining,
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  even ourselves only copies. Ooh, gentiean Nan said, perhaps you must ask
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  the great artist up there sometime. I don't know. Rosemarie was still kneeling
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  in front of the statuette. It was so alive, seeming she almost expected
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  at any minute that the breeze would stir its curls and its wings bend.
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  As the minutes passed, that still remained, always ready for flight, but
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  never flying. Her strange surprise grew. That will tell you how real and
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  beautiful Datter had made him. They were also absorbed Gentian in her new searching
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  thoughts, Rosemary in the statuette, Kay in Rosemary's delight, and Nan in
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  them all that they did not hear the artist coming down the path toward them.
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  For some time he stood all unknown above them. But after a while
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  he spoke, what is this? His voice rang with wonder and delight.
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  Who brought this beautiful thing here? I did? Nan answered, no surprise
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  in her face as she turned to him, it is yours? Nor what
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  is Detra's? She made it last night? She did not go to bed
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  at all. I should think not who is Deetra? Why she is our
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  mother? Both Kay and Gentien cried together proudly. Why have I not known?
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  Then? May I take it up? He asked of Nan. You
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  may think it strange that the great artist should ask of Nan, the general
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  housework girl, permission to touch a statuette he had found being played with by
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  the children in his own garden. But if you think so, that is
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  because you have not seen the statuette, and you have not seen Nan,
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  Yes, she nodded. Detro would like you to see it very gently,
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  Yes, Reverently. The artist raised the little statuette up and held it out
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  before him in the afternoon sunlight. He turned it around and around slowly,
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  his eyes narrow and intent, as Deetra's eyes had been narrow and intent when
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  she worked on it. Is she at home now, the artist, he
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  asked. Finally, he spoke of Debtra as the artist. The children's eyes
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  shone with pride. No, she is at the factory, Nan answered.
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  She works there all day, but she will come soon now in a factory,
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  the creator of this working in a factory. Yes, they are refugees.
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  The father who went to the war has lost track of them. So
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  Detra cannot stay at home with her children. She must earn bread and a
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  roof for their heads. In a factory. There is better work for her
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  than that, the artist promised. She shall never go there again. If
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  I can help it, May I take this to her house for its safety,
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  and and wait there for her. Nan nodded. She will be glad
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  of your praise, she said, But she must have more than praise.
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  The Artist spoke to himself. She must be paid for this. If she
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  will let me have it, it shall be done into bronze. And stand
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  there just where I found it, beside a fountain here in the tulip garden.
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  The wind Boy will stand. All was on tiptoe about to fly.
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  People will come far to see it. At that, Gentian clapped her hands.
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  It was a soft clapping, but the Artist heard and turned to look
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  down at her. He said, smiling, Now for the first time,
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  you were right all the time, little wind girl, when you assured me
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  that the wind Boy was real. Your mother has proved to us forever that
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  he is real, real as ourselves. Detter was very, very tired when
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  she came home from the factory that evening. She had not been to bed
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  at all the night before, you will remember. But when she turned in
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  at her little garden gate, she braced her body, put back her shoulders,
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  and made her steps light to greet her children. She came in with
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  a high head and her eyes smiling. But she stopped amazed in the door,
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  for there rising to meet her was the Artist, his head topped with
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  its mass of gray curls, just escaping the low ceiling. Of the little
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  room in his hand. He still held carefully the wind boy. He could
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  not let it go. Good evening, said Dattra. Good evening, answered
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  the artist. Datra untied her cape at the neck and dropped it beside her
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  on to a chair. In the cape and in the shadow of the room,
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  she had looked like tired working woman, But now without the dark garment,
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  and in the light of the candles that Nan had just brought in,
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  she was herself. The self The children always saw her wide frank eyes,
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  her high held head, her straight, slim body made her look like a
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  brighter and human candle. The artist bowed his head over the statuette. This
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  is beauty, he said, yes, I know. Dettra replied, tranquility.
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  I saw it so clearly last night that I stayed up all night to
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  work. I want to bite it of you for my tulip garden. And
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  then Deettra and the artist sat down on the bench under the window and talked.
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  Nan was getting supper and setting the table, but it did not interrupt
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  the artists, for she passed back and forth as softly as a shadow outside
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  the door under the cherry tree. Kay and Gentien and Rosemarie had gone to
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  play, but the sound of their laughter did not disturb the artists and Deettera
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  either. When you have created a beautiful thing, that is happiness. But
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  the next happiness is to find some one who understands what you have done and
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  knows that it is beautiful. Deettra had both. But at last supper was
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  ready and the children had come in. Rosemarie stood by her grandfather. He
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  got up. I shall share this with the artists of the world, he
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  said, to morrow all the papers shall have news of your genius and its
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  promise. Then your husband, if only he is alive and searching, must
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  come upon your name and find you. I have been thinking of that all
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  the time you were talking, Detra answered, And if he does find us,
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  now we shall take this money you are paying me for the wind boy
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  and buy the meadows behind this house, and he will turn them into the
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  tree nurseries he has always wanted. Then we shall live on here in our
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  adopted country, for there is nothing left in the old for us. The
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  artist nodded, well, pleased with the plan. I shall send my wires
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  and cables at once, he promised. To morrow the world will know that
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  here in this little brown house dwells a new great artist. If your husband
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  is alive, he must hear or read your name, and come that night.
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  The little brown house, set like a stepping stone to the artist's great
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  one, could scarcely hold its happiness. At last, the three had reason
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  to hope that a czar would find them and soon. The artist had been
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  so sure they had no one to help them before. But Gentie and awoke
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  in the night to remember the wind boy. He said he liked her best,
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  he had kissed her, he had been a perfect playmate, But now
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  he had forgotten and was staying away in the clear country with the clear children.
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  In spite of her happiness, Gentian's blue eyes in the dark were touched
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  with puzzled wonder and of chapter seventeen,