o haven't sometimes felt the veil get
thinner and thinner until you could see the light shining through. But
we've been brought up to think such ideas are silly and to be ashamed of
'em and only to believe in what we can touch and taste and, in spite of
stars shining every night over our heads, to think creation stops with
heavy things like us. And how anyone who's ever seen a fish swimming in
the water can think that--I don't know. What do they know of us and how
can they imagine folks on legs walking around and breathing the air that
makes 'em die? So why aren't there creatures, all kind of 'em, we can no
more see than a fish can us?"

I couldn't answer that, so I went back to Moira.

"She'll get queer going on like this," I said. "Thin veils and light
shining through and creatures that feel about us like we do about fishes
are all right for old folks who've lived their lives. She's got to live
hers and live it the way ordinary folks do."

"Ain't she happy?" asked Mis' MacFarland. "Don't she like rolling a hoop
and playing with the other children? Didn't you say only yesterday her
mischief would drive you out of your senses?"

I couldn't deny this. Unless you'd seen her as I had, she was just like
any other happy little girl, only happier maybe. Like, I said, you could
see her heart shine some days, she was so happy. About that time I
found out more how she felt. One still night, for no reason, I got out
of my bed and went into Moira's room and there she was sitting up in her
bed, her eyes like starlight.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Why--I--don't know--I'm waiting for something!"

"Waiting! At this time of the night! How you talk! You lie right down,
Moira Anderson, and go to sleep," says I, sharp.

"I can't yet," she says, turning to me. "I haven't been able to find it
for two days now. I've not been good inside and I drove it away."

"For mercy's sake, speak plain! What did you drive away?"

"Why, don't you know?" says she. "You lose your good when you're unkind
or anything."

"Your _good_!" I says. "Where do you get it from?" For she spoke as
though she were talking of something that was outside herself and that
came and went.

"It comes from out there," she says, surprised that I didn't know.

"From out there?"

"Oh, out there where all the things are you can _feel_ but can't see.
There's lots of things out there."

I sat quiet, for all of a sudden I knew plain as day that she thought
she