he petunia bed--dear,
old-fashioned flowers, lavender and pink and white, that peeped
between the palings of the white fence--he laid him down and
smelled deep the good, queer smell of them, and like the flowers
themselves, he, too, peeped between the bars into the vast world
which lay beyond. And that is how he learned of the place where
the world stops.

Down a long, long lane--down there, a little way past the
cottonwood tree, where the lane quits going on, that is where the
world stops. You know that is the place because of the awesomeness
that comes to you. The old cottonwood stands sentinel over that
region of the Great Beyond. So tall and big and still he is that
if you look at him awhile you will get the strange feeling of
things. High up in the glossy leaves one can sometimes hear a
little pattery sound, finer than the crinkle of tissue paper--a
pretty little sound like a quiet sprinkle of cooling rain. When he
does that he is whispering to the clouds that bring the freshness
of the summer shower.

Beyond him, down there where the world stops, is the place where
the clouds go to sleep after their long, slow journeyings across
the deep, sweet blue of the sky.

"What does my little boy see with his two big, shining eyes? And
what does my little boy hear?"

It was Mother's voice above him that was thus humbly asking
admission into the strange world he had found, and so well she
knew it was marvelous fine, this world of his, that she snuggled
his cheek against _her_ cheek, and tried and tried, in her poor,
grown-up way, to understand all the pretty things the great
silent tree was whispering to the clouds.

"Is it there?" she asked very softly and very earnestly. "Is it
down there that the clouds go to sleep?"

And they remained together, these two, side by side, thinking
about the sweet go-to-bed place of the clouds. A silence which
was new to them, a cool and reposeful silence, had come upon them
and held them. They were conversing in a language which has no
words. It was a melody in silver--the spirit of motherhood, the
soul of childhood blending into music, bringing them nearer,
deepening their love and making it more dear to them.

They understood each other, that woman and that little boy. They
did not move. David had taken hold of Mother's hand, and he held
to it while they kept on looking down there, afar off, where the
great silent tree was softly whispering to the summer clouds.

CHAPTE