“Faster, faster, Tree Mother,” begged Ivra, who was hanging over the side of the boat and losing herself in joy with the motion and height.

“Faster?” said the Tree Mother.  “Then take care!  Hold on!”

The boat shot forward with a sudden rush.  The spring air changed from cool feathers to a sharp wing beating their faces.  Eric and Ivra slipped to the floor and lay on their backs.  They dared not sit up for fear of being swept overboard.  They could see nothing but the sky from where they lay, but they loved the speed, and clapped their hands, and Ivra cried, “Faster, faster!”

The Tree Mother laughed.  “These are brave children,” she thought.  “Shut your eyes then,” she said, “and don’t try too hard to breathe.”

They swept on more swiftly than a wild-goose, so swiftly that soon the children could neither hear, speak nor see.  And then at last they were traveling so fast that it felt as though the boat were standing perfectly still in a cold dark place.

Gradually light began to leak through their shut eyelids, the wing of the wind beat away from them, and the boat rocked slower and slower in warm, spring-scented air.  But in that brief time, they had traveled many, many miles.

Now when the children leaned over the side, they saw that they were sailing slowly over their own Forest.  The tree tops were like a restless green sea just a little beneath them.  They flew low enough to hear bird calls and the voices of the streams.

It was then they suddenly noticed that the littlest of the Forest Children was there curled up fast asleep at Tree Mother’s feet.  Ivra cried to him in surprise, and he woke slowly, stretching his little brown legs, shaking his curly head, and lifting a sleepy face.  He was puzzled at seeing others beside Tree Mother in the boat.  He had been riding and awake with her all night up near the stars, and had dropped to sleep as the stars faded.

She bent now and took his hand.  “I picked these wanderers up at dawn,” she said, “and now we are all going back together.  We are well on the way.”

They had left the forest roof and were sailing over open country,—­a short cut, Tree Mother explained.

“Oh, look,” cried Ivra excitedly, almost tumbling over the edge in her endeavor to see better, “isn’t that the gray wall off there?”

Yes, it was the gray wall, the gray wall that had prisoned their mother all winter.  The boat went slower and slower as they neared it and then almost hung still over the garden.  The garden was full of people, having some kind of a party, for many little tables were set there with silver and glass that shone brilliantly in the sun.  Servants were hurrying back and forth carrying trays and their gilt buttons sparkled almost as much as the silver.

But how strange were the people!  Eric and Ivra and the littlest Forest Child laughed aloud.  They were standing about so straight and stiff, holding their cups and saucers, and their voices rising up to the air-boat in confusion sounded like a hundred parrots.