First they went to Nora’s farm and before they had waited many minutes in the shadow of the trees on the edge of the field Nora came from the door carrying their jug of milk.  They ran to meet her and tell her not to leave any more milk until they should come back.  How glad the old woman was to see Helma.  “I thought spring would bring you,” she said.  “Spring frees everything.”

Then Helma, Ivra and Eric were off for their spring wandering.  It seemed as though every one else was wandering, too, for they could hardly walk a mile without meeting some friend or stranger Forest Person.  All gave them greeting, whether stranger or friend, and all looked very glad that Helma was in the forest again, for good news travels fast there, and even the strangers knew of her home-coming.

In a secret wooded valley, walking softly to hear the birds and the thousand little other songs of earth, they suddenly came upon a strange and thrilling sight.  A party of little girls and boys all in bright colored frocks, purple, orange, green, blue, yellow, were putting the finishing touches on an air-boat they were making.  It was built of delicate leaved branches and decorated with wild flowers.  A great anchor of dog-tooth violets hung over the sides and kept it on the ground.

When they saw Helma and the children coming so silently toward them they jumped into the boat and crowded there looking like a bunch of larger spring flowers.  Then they drew in the anchor rapidly.  But the little girl sitting high in the back, the one in the torn yellow dress and with blowing cloud-dark hair, cried, “Oh, no fear, it’s Ivra and her mother and the clear-eyed Earth Child.  Want to come, Ivra?  We’re off spring wandering among the white clouds.”

Ivra shook her head and called, “Not unless three of us can come.”

“Too full for that,” called down the yellow-frocked one, for now the boat had lifted softly almost to the tree tops.  “Your Earth Child would weigh us down.  So hail and farewell.  Good wandering!”

So the three on the ground stood looking up and waving and calling back, “Good wandering!” until the green boat had drifted away and away and was lost in the spring sky.  But for a long time after, there floated down to them in the valley far laughter and glad cries.

The spring nights were cold, and so at twilight they made themselves a shelter of boughs.  They slept as soon as it was night and woke and were off at the break of dawn.  Helma carried sweet chocolate in her pockets, and forest friends and strangers offered them from their store all along the way.  Sometimes when they were tired or warm with walking they would climb into the top of some tall tree, and there swinging among the cool new leaves, Helma began telling them her World Stories again, while the children looked off over the trembling forest roof and watched for homing birds.

But when the hemlock and fir trees began to crowd out the maples and oaks, Helma said quietly one day, “We are nearing the sea.”  “The sea,” cried Eric almost wild with sudden delight.  “Shall we see it?  Shall we swim in it?  Oh, I have never seen it!”