Contents     

  PREFACE  

  THE BLUE FLOWER  

  THE SOURCE  

  THE MILL  

  SPY ROCK  

  WOOD-MAGIC  

  THE OTHER WISE MAN  

  A HANDFUL OF CLAY  

  THE LOST WORD  

  THE FIRST CHRISTMAS-TREE  

   

    

       THE BLUE FLOWER     

       The parents were abed and sleeping. The clock on the wall ticked loudly and lazily, as if it had time to spare. Outside the rattling windows there was a restless, whispering wind. The room grew light, and dark, and wondrous light again, as the moon played hide-and-seek through the clouds. The boy, wide-awake and quiet in his bed, was thinking of the Stranger and his stories.     

       “It was not what he told me about the treasures,” he said to himself,       “that was not the thing which filled me with so strange a longing. I am not greedy for riches. But the Blue Flower is what I long for. I can think of nothing else. Never have I felt so before. It seems as if I had been dreaming until now—or as if I had just slept over into a new world.     

       “Who cared for flowers in the old world where I used to live? I never heard of anyone whose whole heart was set upon finding a flower. But now I cannot even tell all that I feel—sometimes as happy as if I were enchanted. But when the 

 Prev. P 3/129 next