you, with your pretty dreams, are willing to have us go.

CHAPTER XIV

SKY BLOSSOMS

David had learned a trick of loudly clacking his heels upon the
walk to make it seem that he was no longer a little boy. With the
picture held firmly in his hands he went strutting proudly at
Mother's side when they fared forth this early morning for the
Doctor's house.

The street was very still and smelled of yesterday's rain. In the
moist hush and semi-darkness which precedes the dawn, the
buildings were all silent and buried in mystery, and they gave
back a distinct replication of David's footstep. In response to
his question as to what other little boy was out of bed so
early, Mother answered:--

"That is no one, David. What you hear is an echo."

"Why can't I see Echo?"

"One never does see him."

"Is he a fairy?"

"Rather."

Here ended the conversation. And now, as Mother and Son trudged
onward in silence, a strange feeling came upon the little boy,
for the world at this hour was so new to him. A distant milk
wagon, resembling a block of shadow on wheels, went clattering
over the pavement, and from time to time a man smoking a pipe and
carrying a tin pail would pass by with long, swinging strides.

The upper air looked different, too. At one place a tall church
spire, topped by a copper cross, was blazing with sunshine, and
certain windows of the high buildings also began to flame. A pink
cloud lay asleep in the blue lap of heaven, and there was a
single star, like a pale drop of fire, that trembled up there as
though it were about to fall.

"What is that for?" asked David.

"What do you mean, my son?"

"Up there, Mother--see! It is a queer eye. It winks at us."

"One of the flowers of heaven, little boy; that's what it is."

"Did you ever have any?"

"Oh, no, David, because they are so hard to get."

Miss Eastman felt that in the serene beauty of the morning there
was something vaguely troubling. To think that all this
loveliness of the clear dawn, all this freshness of the sweet air
which to her and to David meant the joy of an exquisite
fairyland, could yet mean to others only the beginning of another
day of sorrow, of death, and squalid misery! How could it be
possible that the children of Duck Town, those who should be as
happy to-day and as full of health as this little boy of hers,
were still held fast in the grip of terrifying disease?

All the same, it was not a pleasant prospect to th