The children felt their hearts stand still. They knew it could not be their own mother, for she would have turned the handle and tried to come in without any knocking at all.

“Oh, Turkey!” whispered Blue-Eyes, “if it should be the new mother, what shall we do?”

“We won’t let her in,” whispered the Turkey, for she was afraid to speak aloud, and again there came a long and loud and terrible knocking at the door.

“What shall we do? oh, what shall we do?” cried the children, in despair. “Oh, go away !” they called out. “Go away; we won’t let you in ; we will never be naughty anymore; go away, go away!”

But again there came a loud and terrible knocking.

“She’ll break the door if she knocks so hard,” cried Blue-Eyes.

“Go and put your back to it,” whispered the Turkey, ” and I’ll peep out of the window and try to see if it is really the new mother.”

So in fear and trembling Blue-Eyes put her back against the door, and the Turkey went to the window, and, pressing her face against one side of the frame, peeped out. She could just see a black satin poke bonnet with a frill round the edge, and a long bony arm carrying a black leather bag. From beneath the bonnet there flashed a strange bright light, and Turkey’s heart sank and her cheeks turned pale, for she knew it was the flashing of two glass eyes. She crept up to Blue-Eyes. “It is — it is — it is!” she whispered, her voice shaking with fear, “it is the new mother! She has come, and brought her luggage in a black leather bag that is hanging on her arm!”

“Oh, what shall we do?” wept Blue-Eyes; and again there was the terrible knocking.

“Come and put your back against the door too, Turkey,” cried Blue-Eyes; ” I am afraid it will break.”

So together they stood with their two little backs against the door. There was a long pause. They thought perhaps the new mother had made up her mind that there was no one at home to let her in, and would go away, but presently the two children heard through the thin wooden door the new mother move a little, and then say to herself — ” I must break open the door with my tail.”

For one terrible moment all was still, but in it the children could almost hear her lift up her tail, and then, with a fearful blow, the little painted door was cracked and splintered.

With a shriek the children darted from the spot and fled through the cottage, and out at the back door into the forest beyond. All night long they stayed in the darkness and the cold, and all the next day and the next, and all through the cold, dreary days and the long dark nights that followed.

They are there still, my children. All through the long weeks and months have they been there, with only green rushes for their pillows and only the brown dead leaves to cover them, feeding on the wild strawberries in the summer, or on the nuts when they hang green; on the blackberries when they are no longer sour in the autumn, and in the winter on the little red berries that ripen in the snow. They wander about among the tall dark firs or beneath the great trees beyond. Sometimes they stay to rest beside the little pool near the copse where the ferns grow thickest, and they long and long, with a longing that is greater than words can say, to see their own dear mother again, just once again, to tell her that they’ll be good for evermore — just once again.

And still the new mother stays in the little cottage, but the windows are closed and the doors are shut, and no one knows what the inside looks like. Now and then, when the darkness has fallen and the night is still, hand in hand Blue-Eyes and the Turkey creep up near to the home in which they once were so happy, and with beating hearts they watch and listen; sometimes a blinding flash comes through the window, and they know it is the light from the new mother’s glass eyes, or they hear a strange muffled noise, and they know it is the sound of her wooden tail as she drags it along the floor.

Lucy Clifford


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