The Wigwam

Philip and I left the path and fought our way through the young trees, which seemed all tied together with honeysuckle. At last we paused to look around, and Philip sat down on some moss while I squatted beside him. “We'd better build our headquarters here,” he announced. “It's a good base for further excavations.”

Philip liked long words and sometimes read the newspaper in search of them, though he did not always understand them.

“How?” I inquired.

“Like a wigwam,” explained Philip. “Look, can you see that little mountain ash tree just there? That will be our center prop. Now, we'll collect branches and lean them up against the middle, close together. Then we'll tie them together with honeysuckle and just leave a little doorway to creep through. We'll have a floor of dead bracken and moss, very soft and comfortable. It will almost be like building a nest. Then at the back we'll dig a hole and line it with sticks and stones. We'll bury our supplies there and cover them with bracken so you won't be able to see anything. It will look just like a floor.”

I was thrilled and set to work immediately. We worked hard all morning, dragging dead boughs through the undergrowth and cutting long stakes with Philip's penknife. Before long we had the skeleton wigwam firmly fixed, with a little doorway just big enough to let a child through, though it was a tight squeeze even for Philip.

It took us some days to complete our wigwam. Every morning I rushed through my jobs and we headed off for the woods. Every morning the pile of dust under the carpet grew bigger and bigger, but as Aunt Margaret had done the spring cleaning, my laziness was not noticed.

Oh, those mornings in the woods! We seldom kept together. We both wandered off on our own trail, happy with our own dreams, returning to the base with armfuls of bracken and honeysuckle binding, each of us finding our own treasures and adventures and sharing them on our return.

Perhaps our best find lay in the beech tree just above our wigwam. One day, when I was quietly weaving the wall, I heard a rush of great wings. A brown owl swooped close past me. I was up the trunk in an instant, like an excited squirrel, pulling myself from branch to branch and searching every hollow and crevice for the nest. My search was rewarded, for there, in the topmost fork of the tree, cradled in straw and fluffy brown feathers, lay one pure white egg, hot from the mother's breast.

I climbed down a little way so as not to disturb the mother, and sat swinging my legs and looking about me. It was all so beautiful. I was so happy that it almost hurt. Then I saw Philip, looking very small, moving slowly through the trees, his arms full of bracken.

“Phil,” I called. “Come up here!”

He was up in a minute. Together we gazed in deep delight at the pure, precious thing. Then we caught sight of the mother sitting in the next beech tree, snapping her yellow eyes angrily, and we thought we had better go down. Immediately, she spread her great brown wings and dropped onto her nest. We slid down and discussed baby owls, lying on our tummies in the wigwam.

Everything went well for a week. Aunt Margaret seemed happy enough to let us go our own way. If ever I noticed her looking tired and overworked, I told myself it was not my business. My holidays were my own. I was going to spend them how I pleased, and in any case I wasn't very good at housework. So it was rather annoying to me one morning when my aunt stopped me, just as I was tearing out of the house, and asked me where I was going.

“Out with Philip,” I answered, wriggling as she held me. “I've done my jobs, honestly I have, Aunt Margaret. Please let me go. Phil's waiting for me.”

“Well,” replied my aunt quietly, “Philip must be content to go alone this morning. I need you, Ruth. I've got a big wash this morning, and you can help me. It's time you did a lot more than you do.”

I kicked the ground and looked just about as miserable as it's possible for a child to look. “But I especially wanted to go out today,” I whined.

“Well, you can just do what someone else wants for a change,” she replied. “And if you can't do as you're told cheerfully, you can stay in this afternoon as well. You are getting more lazy and selfish every day. The sooner you change your ways, the better.”

She marched off to the kitchen and I followed, scuffling my feet and scowling. I was furious. Why, the owl egg might hatch today, and I would miss it! It wasn't fair! I hated Aunt Margaret at that moment, and I made up my mind I wasn't going to help her. I'd be as naughty as I could and then she'd be sorry she'd ever asked me to stay.

My thoughts were interrupted by the back door being flung open and Philip's head appearing. He had been working for Uncle Peter in the garden, and he looked rather hot and untidy.

“Coming, Ruth?” he asked eagerly.

“No, she's not coming,” replied my aunt. “She's going to make herself useful for a change. You run and play by yourself this morning, Philip. Ruth can join you this afternoon if she behaves herself.”

We both had a miserable morning. I sighed and yawned and scuffled. I kicked the furniture and scowled at my aunt's back, but she was working hard at the washtub and pretended not to notice. She often pretended not to notice my tempers, and nothing annoyed me more. What was the good of being sulky when she would not even look at me? I grew crosser and crosser.

She noticed me all right in the end, however, because she told me to carry out a basket of clean handkerchiefs and hang them on the line. I did not really mean to drop them, but I was so busy slamming the back door and rattling the clothes pegs that the basket slipped from my hands and all the handkerchiefs were scattered in the yard. It had rained in the night and the yard was muddy.

My aunt was very angry indeed. I think she would have liked to slap me, for I saw her clasp her hands very tightly together.

She told me the truth about myself in a furious voice. She said I could go now, as I was more trouble than I was worth on a busy morning. But for a whole week I was to stay in every morning and work in the house, and by the end of that time she hoped I would have learned how to be a little less clumsy. She spoke about my selfishness and what a disappointment I should be to my mother. Then she took the basket of muddy handkerchiefs out of my hands and went into the house.

I stamped my foot, gulped back my tears, and marched out of the gate with my head in the air. I had lost my mornings for a week, but there was an hour left before dinner. I would go to meet Philip and walk home with him.

It was a very quiet morning, cloudy and hazy and warm after rain. All the world smelled sweet and fresh. Flowers lifted their heads again, birds sang happily, and I felt strangely out of place with my ugly, angry thoughts and my tear-stained face—so much so, that I even stopped to think about it, and looked about me. There were the trees, peacefully doing their work, each leaf unfolding perfectly. I couldn't have put it into words at the time, but that peace seemed to come inside me for a few minutes, and I stood thinking how perfect life would be if only I could be good.

I did not often want to be good, but I wanted it then—wanted with all my heart to be good and happy and useful. I even clasped my hands together and spoke aloud, because I wanted it so badly.

“I want to be good,” I whispered. “I don't want to lose my temper and be selfish. Why can't I be good?”

But my words seemed to float away into the empty air, for I knew nothing of Jesus, the one who longed to help and change me. To me He was nothing more than a person who had lived long ago. I shrugged my shoulders and went on.

“I never shall be,” I muttered. “I shall always be horrid and cross, and nobody will ever like me.”

I met Philip, jumping about with joy. He did not seem to have missed me at all!

“I watched the egg hatch,” he announced. “I went up and she flew off. When I looked, the shell was cracked and I could see the skin inside heaving up and down. I daren't stay in case it got cold and the owlet died. She's back now, brooding on it, but I shouldn't go up if I were you because she might peck you.”

There wasn't time to go up in any case, as it was time to go home to dinner. On the way I told Philip of my terrible morning. He was comforting and said how sorry he was, and I felt better, even though I knew perfectly well that I deserved no sympathy. Then, in his own thoughtful way, he stopped talking about the mornings and we spent the rest of our walk home planning the afternoons.