RIBBONS IN THE WIND

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 285, 22 February 1928, Page 6

RIBBONS IN THE WIND

A breath of gorse drifted along the summer wind, and magic, stirring like a dream above a phantom town, moved on its way. A road ran seeking the golden hills that glowed, lustre-peaked, against the sunset, a white road which, came out of the unknown. Ketitah, of the lonely eyes, was:waiting for the moon-rise. Ever since morning she had waited in the wood above the road. Behind her was a birch grove, which, in the westering sun, was a tremulous splendour, with a sea of undergrowth wavered into golden billows by every passing wind. Ketitah was a child of the woods, a little wild thing with black eyes which held within them a world of loneliness. Nobody loved or wanted her, so she spent the long hours in the woods, with the lost wild things. Far below, the stream was silver in the half-light. And the lapping of the water to Ketitah was like the flap of ribbons in the wind. Somehow it called to her, and gave a strange comfort. She had explored the farthest end of the wood, in all its vagaries of brook and and beyond the clumps of fir, the wild cherry arches and branching byways of elderberry and hawthorn. She had made friends with the stream, the clear icy-cold stream which was set about with smooth red sandstones and fringed with great, clumps of water-fern. A bridge led her dancing feet over the hill beyond, where perpetual twilight reigned under the massive gum trees. Far in the east, the thin blue smoke from occasional chimneys rose into the air. and here and there a caravan window caught the sun. A warm wind set the birch leaves dancing in ecstacy. Then the sun set. Up sprang Ketitah, eyes shining, lips parted, hair streaming in the wind, a faint colour tinging her brown cheeks. Sur<»ly she was a nymph, a faun, a creature of the woods. Unknown to*her. another stood there, wondering, gazing at the picture she made in the dusk. Oh, to paint this child with the lonely eyes! The moon rose . . . and upon Ketitah. watching, never missing a detail of its glory, it cast a halo of shimmering silver. She stretched out her arms and let the moonbeams play between her fingers. The watcher moved . . . The wind stirred. Far below the water called insistently, but at the first sound of another presence, Ketitah turned and confronted the intruder with a frightened gaze. He was about to stay her. but without a word she was gone. “Perhaps she is dumb,” he thought, j But. afar in the dewy undergrowth. ! lay a quivering wild thing. “The water—oh, the water! it called to me, and he spoiled it all.” sobbed | Ketitah of the lonely eyes, j The artist, left alone, watched the I glory of the moon rise . . . and far below tlie water sang like ribbons in the wind. Harvest Moon (Alma Chamberlain).