Drift Off To Maida's Little House (Chapter 15 & 16)

Welcome back,

Drift Off listeners,

To another cozy evening on the podcast where I whisk you away to the land of dreams with sleepy tales.

I'm your host Joanne,

And tonight we continue our journey with Maida as I read a few more chapters from Maida's Little House,

The second book from the beloved Maida series.

We will embark on a magical journey with Maida and all of her friends where they spend a happy summer together in a sweet little house in the country that has everything a child could wish for.

This book highlights themes of friendship,

Independence,

And the joy of simple pleasures in a young girl's journey towards health and happiness.

Now,

Go ahead and close your eyes.

Take a slow,

Deep,

Comfortable breath.

Hold it for a moment and exhale slowly.

Feel the tension melting away from your body as you prepare to drift off into a world of wonder and imagination.

And so,

My friend,

Lay back,

Relax,

And let the soothing narration lull you into a peaceful sleep.

Chapter 15 Arthur's Adventure It was after eleven on a cloudless night.

The great white moon filled the sky with light,

Covering the earth with a thin film of silver.

The barn door opened slowly and noiselessly.

Arthur emerged,

Patting the grass as quickly as possible,

Moving in the direction of the trail.

For a while,

He proceeded swiftly,

But once out of hearing of the little house,

He moved more slowly without trying to deaden his footsteps.

It was clear that his excursion had a purpose from the way he moved steadily forward.

The magic mirror was his objective.

He dipped into the Bosque Dingle,

And there,

Perhaps because the air was so densely laden with flower perfumes,

He stopped.

Only for an instant,

Though.

After sniffing the air like a wild creature,

He continued on.

Presently,

He came out on the shore of the lake.

Taking a key from his pocket,

He opened the little boathouse where the canoes were locked each night since the accident.

He pulled one out and shoved it into the water.

He seated himself and started to paddle across the pond.

Curiously enough,

He did not paddle straight across the magic mirror.

He kept close to the edge,

As though afraid of being seen,

Slipping under overhanging boughs and taking advantage of every bit of low drooping bush.

His progress was so stealthy and silent that he might not have been observed at all from the middle of the lake,

However,

This was a slow method.

It was nearly midnight when he reached the point opposite the boathouse,

His apparent destination.

He stopped short of it,

Tied the canoe to a tree trunk where a half-broken bough concealed it completely,

And stepped lightly ashore.

Apparently he had landed here before.

A little side trail revealed under the moonlight led in the direction of the main trail.

He took it.

Now his movements were attended by much greater caution.

He went slowly,

Pacing his feet with the utmost care even in the cleared portions of the trail.

Wherever underbrush intervened,

He took great care to skirt it,

Or with a quiet leap or a long straddle to surmount it so that no sound came from his movement.

It was surprising,

In a boy so lumbering and with large hands and feet,

How delicately he picked his way.

He moved with extraordinary speed and surprising quiet.

A little distance up the trail,

He turned again.

This time,

He took a path so faint that only a full moon would reveal its existence.

Arthur followed it with perfect confidence.

At times,

It merged with underbrush and low trees,

But he must have previously blazed a path through those obstacles,

As he made his way without hesitation for the only spot which offered egress,

Emerging on the other side with the same quiet and dispatch.

He went on,

Proceeding with greatly increased speed,

But with no diminution of his caution.

After a while,

He came into cleared land that surrounded the big house for many acres.

Now he moved like a shadow,

But at a brisk pace.

He had the confident air of one familiar with the lay of the land.

After a while,

He reached a wide avenue of trees.

Mr.

Westerbrook had taught him its French name,

An alley.

This was one of five,

All beginning at the big house and ending with a fountain or a statue.

Arthur proceeded under the shade of the trees until he came out near the big house.

He swung himself up among the branches of a tree,

Found a comfortable crotch,

And seated himself with his back against the trunk.

With a forked stick,

He parted the branches and watched.

The moon was high,

And as the night was still cloudless,

It poured white fire over the earth.

The great lawn in front of the big house looked like silvered velvet.

Halfway down its length,

The fountain still played into its white marble basin.

Four swans,

Grayed,

Feathery heaps of snow,

Slept with their heads under their wings,

Moored against the marble sides of the basin.

As Arthur stared,

A faint perturbation stirred the air,

As though a motor had come to rest unseen by him.

Presently,

A high,

Slim dog,

A Russian boar hound,

Came sauntering across the lawn.

He poked his nose into the basin of the fountain.

One of the swans made a low,

Sleepy cry,

Moved aimlessly about for an instant,

Then came to rest in sleep apart from his companions.

The hound moved into the shrubbery,

Then returned to the lawn.

As if the swan's call or the dog's nosing had evoked it,

One of the white peacocks emerged from the woods,

Spreading his tail with a superb gesture of pride and triumph.

The long,

White hound considered the display gravely.

The peacock,

Proudly strutting,

Sauntered over the velvet surface of the lawn alone.

Then a companion joined him,

Followed by another.

Finally,

Three great snowy sails floated with majestic movement across the grass.

The display ended as suddenly as it began.

One of the trio suddenly returned to the trees.

The other two followed immediately.

The lawn was deserted except for the fountain,

Which kept up its exquisite plate.

The boar hound sped noiselessly towards the house.

Arthur waited for a moment,

Then slipped down from the tree and made his way back,

But he did not follow the same trail.

He made a detour that would take him further around the lake,

And if he seemed cautious before,

Now he was caution itself.

He moved so slowly and carefully that no human could have known of his approach unless they had eyes,

Ears,

Or a nose superhumanly acute,

And Arthur had his reward.

Suddenly,

He came to an opening that gave past a little culvert onto a glade.

At the end of the glade,

A group of deer were feeding in the moonlight.

Arthur did not move after discovering them.

He seemed scarcely to breathe.

There were nearly a dozen.

The bucks and does pulled delicately at the brush foliage.

The fawns grazed on the grass.

Despite Arthur's caution,

Instinct told them something was wrong.

The largest buck was the first to sense it.

He stopped feeding,

Lifted his head,

And sniffed the air suspiciously.

Then one of the does caught the sense of danger.

She too lifted her head,

And for what seemed a long time,

Tested the atmosphere with her dilated nostrils.

Then the others,

One by one,

Showed signs of restlessness.

Only the little fawns continued to feed placidly at their mother's sides.

But apparently,

The consensus of the adults was too strongly in favor of retreat.

For an instant,

The adults moved anxiously.

Then suddenly,

As though the word of alarm had been whispered into every velvety ear,

Dash,

Flash,

A series of white gleams from their tails,

And the glade was empty as if there were no deer within a hundred miles.

Arthur went on,

And now,

As though hoping for another reward of his patience,

He moved with even greater care.

But for a long time,

Nothing happened.

In the meantime,

Clouds came up,

Occasionally covering the moon.

Then,

With the light gone,

The great harbors and white straits between the clouds seemed to fill with stars.

The moon would start to emerge,

Her light silvery everything.

The smaller stars would retreat,

Leaving only a few big ones to flare.

Such an obscuration had come.

While the moon struggled to pull herself free,

A second cloud interposed itself.

The world turned dark,

Almost black.

The effect on Arthur was to make him pick his way with even greater care.

The trail here was not a blind one.

It ran into the path that led from the gypsy camp to the moraine.

Ahead,

Arthur could just make out the point where the trails crossed.

Suddenly,

The moon came out with a great vivid flare,

As though an enormous searchlight had been turned on the earth.

Something,

Just a ghost of a sound,

Arrested Arthur's footsteps.

He stopped,

Stood stock still,

Listened,

Watched.

Something or someone was coming up the trail from the direction of the gypsy camp.

In a moment,

They would pass the opening.

It sounded human,

For the sound was of human footsteps.

They came nearer and nearer.

A straight light figure,

With hair that gleamed as though burnished,

Passed into the moonlight.

It was Sylvia Burl.

Arthur's first inclination was to call.

But something within him warned him not to do that.

Something just as imperative advised him to another course of action.

He waited a moment or two,

To let Sylvia get far enough ahead,

So that she could not possibly hear his footsteps.

Then he followed her.

She walked with extraordinary swiftness.

So swiftly indeed,

That Arthur was put to it to keep up with her.

However,

She had the advantage over him in that she knew the trail perfectly.

Her feet stumbled over no obstacles,

Her arms hit no protruding branches,

Her face brushed against no scratchy twigs.

She moved indeed as though it were day.

Arthur was in a difficult situation.

He must walk quickly to keep up with her,

But if he walked too quickly,

She would certainly hear him.

Presently,

She came to the place in the trail where it turned at right angles on itself.

Arthur,

Anticipating this,

Stopped in the shadow of a tree in the far side of the bath.

Sylvia turned swiftly.

It happened that she did glance indifferently backwards over the way in which she had come,

But she could not have seen Arthur,

For she went on at the same composed high pace.

But Arthur saw that she was carrying under her arm a bottle of milk.

Arthur quickened his cautious footsteps,

Came in his turn to the fork in the trail.

There was Sylvia ahead.

Her white skirt fluttering on both sides of her vigorous walking,

Much as the white foam of the sea flutters away from the prow of the ship.

She kept straight on,

And Arthur followed.

The moon dipped behind clouds and re-emerged,

Casting alternating light and shadow over the path.

On and on they went,

The stalker and the stalked.

They were approaching the moraine.

Big stones began to lift out of the underbrush on either side.

Some were like great tables,

Flat and smooth.

Others were protruding like huge monsters resting on their front paws or haunches.

Layers of rust-colored leaves accumulated over many years lay between them.

The moonlight caught on the rocks with a black glisten and on the leaves with a red gleam as the dew was falling.

Arthur began to wonder what he should do next.

He assumed Sylvia was heading to the moraine,

Mainly because there seemed no other place for her to go,

Though he couldn't guess her purpose.

If she stopped there,

He would soon become visible to her.

He could either retreat by the path he had come or disappear into the woods on either side.

He couldn't bring himself to turn back.

If he chose the second option,

He would undoubtedly get lost and would have to wait for daylight to find his way home,

Stretching the generous liberty Mr.

Westerbrook had given him.

He might call out to Sylvia,

But something inside warned him not to make his presence known.

He continued to follow the vigorous figure ahead.

Sylvia hurried faster and faster,

As if approaching her destination.

Arthur hurried too.

Sylvia broke into what was almost a run,

Holding the bottle of milk carefully.

Arthur was perplexed.

Why was she speeding?

What could she possibly need to do at this spot and at this hour?

What required such urgent haste?

Perhaps he would find out in another moment.

Then,

Suddenly,

Strange things happened all at once.

Sylvia's rapid progress,

As it neared its objective,

Became less careful.

An overhanging briar caught her hair,

Pulling her up sharply.

In her first effort to extricate herself,

She turned completely around and caught sight of Arthur,

A little way down the trail.

She started so convulsively that even Arthur could see it.

Then,

With a swift wrench of her slender hand,

She tore her hair free and ran like a deer towards the moraine.

Arthur ran too.

As he ran,

He called,

Don't be afraid,

Sylvia.

It's Arthur Duncan from the little house.

Don't mind me.

I won't hurt you.

But Sylvia only increased her speed.

Arthur did the same.

He was gaining on her quickly.

He entered the moraine just as Sylvia was disappearing from it on the other side.

I tell you,

He called.

I'm not going to hurt you.

Stop.

I want to speak to you.

Sylvia did not answer.

He heard her frantic floundering among the underbrush.

For the noise she made,

She might have been an elephant.

Then suddenly,

There was silence,

Utter and complete.

Had she fainted?

What could be the matter?

What a silly girl to act like that.

Arthur rushed across the moraine and into the woods on the other side.

Sylvia had disappeared as completely as if she'd vanished into thin air.

Arthur stared around like one waking from a dream.

Then he began to search for her.

He peered around rocks and into clumps of bushes.

Nobody,

Nothing.

Sylva Burl,

He called.

Sylva,

Sylva,

Where are you?

And then,

Because he was genuinely worried,

Please answer,

Please,

I'm afraid you're hurt.

He expanded his search over a wider area.

He climbed rocks,

Remembering how Sylva could climb,

And looked up into trees.

He crawled on hands and knees through every little thicket he found.

All the time he kept calling.

Still nobody,

Still nothing.

As far as he could see,

He was absolutely alone in that part of the wood.

After half an hour,

He gave up.

He was a little alarmed and very humiliated.

He walked back over the trail to the magic mirror.

His head bent in deep thought.

He found the canoe,

Slid into it absently,

And mechanically paddled himself across the water.

All the while,

He continued to think hard.

It's like a dream,

He thought.

I'd think anyone else was dreaming who told me this.

When he reached the barn,

The whole mysterious episode seemed to float out of his mind in a great wave of drowsiness.

He fell immediately into slumber,

But his sleep was full of strange dreams.

When he awoke in the morning,

His experience of the night before threatened to blend with them.

But I didn't dream the peacocks or the deer,

He reassured himself.

And I know I didn't dream Silva.

He said nothing of his experience to any of the other children,

Though he found himself tempted to tell Meda,

But a kind of shyness held him back.

At times,

He wondered if Silva might be lying injured somewhere in the woods.

But always,

Something instinctively made him believe this was not true.

Halfway through the morning,

Granny Flynn sent him on an errand to the village.

As he came out of the post office,

He ran into Silva Burl just about to enter it.

He tumbled off the wheel he had just mounted.

Say,

He said,

Without any other greeting,

Where did you disappear to last night?

Last night?

Silva repeated in a tone of mere curiosity.

What do you mean by last night?

You know very well what I mean,

Arthur persisted.

Last night,

In the moraine,

In the woods.

In the moraine,

In the woods,

Silva repeated.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I didn't sleep in the woods last night.

I slept in my tent as usual.

Arthur looked at her hard.

Well,

He said after a moment,

Either you're telling the biggest whopper I've ever heard,

Or you were walking in your sleep.

Walking in my sleep?

Silva said scornfully.

You're crazy.

And she passed on.

Sweet dreams,

My friend.

Sleep well.