Now the children, there, are not born as the children are born in worlds
nearer to the sun. For they arrive no one knows how. A maiden, walking
alone, hears a cry: for even there a cry is the first utterance; and
searching about, she findeth, under an overhanging rock, or within a
clump of bushes, or, it may be, betwixt gray stones on the side of a
hill, or in any other sheltered and unexpected spot, a little child.
This she taketh tenderly, and beareth home with joy, calling out,
"Mother, mother"--if so be that her mother lives--"I have got a baby--I
have found a child!" All the household gathers round to see;--"WHERE IS
IT? WHAT IS IT LIKE? WHERE DID YOU FIND IT?" and such-like questions,
abounding. And thereupon she relates the whole story of the discovery;
for by the circumstances, such as season of the year, time of the day,
condition of the air, and such like, and, especially, the peculiar and
never-repeated aspect of the heavens and earth at the time, and the
nature of the place of shelter wherein it is found, is determined, or at
least indicated, the nature of the child thus discovered. Therefore,
at certain seasons, and in certain states of the weather, according, in
part, to their own fancy, the young women go out to look for children.
They generally avoid seeking them, though they cannot help sometimes
finding them, in places and with circumstances uncongenial to their
peculiar likings. But no sooner is a child found, than its claim for
protection and nurture obliterates all feeling of choice in the matter.
Chiefly, however, in the season of summer, which lasts so long, coming
as it does after such long intervals; and mostly in the warm evenings,
about the middle of twilight; and principally in the woods and along
the river banks, do the maidens go looking for children just as children
look for flowers. And ever as the child grows, yea, more and more as he
advances in years, will his face indicate to those who understand the
spirit of Nature, and her utterances in the face of the world, the
nature of the place of his birth, and the other circumstances thereof;
whether a clear morning sun guided his mother to the nook whence issued
the boy's low cry; or at eve the lonely maiden (for the same woman never
finds a second, at least while the first lives) discovers the girl by
the glimmer of her white skin, lying in a nest like that of the lark,
amid long encircling grasses, and the upward-gazing eyes of the lowly
daisies; whether the storm bowed the forest trees around, or the still
frost fixed in silence the else flowing and babbling stream.