When I Was a Little Girl/Chapter 17

by Zona Gale

XVII

THE GREAT BLACK HUSH

On that special night, which somehow I remember with tenderness, I sometimes think now—all these years after—that I should like to have been with those solitary, sleepy little figures, trying so hard to get near to mystery. I should think that a Star Story must have come in anybody's head to tell them. Like this:—

Once, when it didn't matter to anybody whether you were late or early, or quick or slow, not only because there wasn't anybody and there wasn't any you, but because it was back in the beginning when there were no lates and earlies and quicks and slows, then things began to happen in the middle of the Great Black Hush which was all there was to everything.

The Great Black Hush reached all the way around the Universe and in directions without any names, and it was huge and humble and superior and helpless and mighty and in other ways it was very much indeed like a man. And as there was nothing to do, the Great Black Hush was bored past extinction and almost to creation. For there wasn't anything else about save only the Wind, and the Wind would have nothing whatever to do with him and always blew right by.

Now, inasmuch as everything that is now was then going to be created, it was all waiting somewhere to be created; and nothing is clearer than that. Lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and paints and planets and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all, were waiting to be created, and among them waited people. I cannot tell you where they waited, because there was no where; but they were waiting, as anybody can see, for time to be begun.

Among the people who were waiting about was one special baby, who was just big enough to reach out after everything and to try to put it in his mouth, and they had an awful time with him. He put his little hands on coloured things and on flame things and on air and on water and

“To see what running away is really like.”

on musics, and he wanted to know what they all were, and he tried to put them in his mouth. And his mother was perfectly distracted, and she told him so, openly.

“Special Baby,” she said to him openly, “I don't see why every hair in my head is not pure white. And if you don't stop making so much trouble, I'll run away.”

“Run away,” thought the Special Baby. “Now what thing is that?”

And he stretched out his little hand to see, but there wasn't anything there, and he couldn't put it in his mouth; so without letting anybody know, he started off all by himself to see what running away is really like.

He ran and he ran, past lines and colours and blocks and flame and music and paint and planets, all waiting about to begin, till he began to notice the Great Black Hush, where it lay all humble and important, and bored past extinction and almost to creation.

“What thing is that?” thought the Special Baby, and put out his little hand to get it and put it in his mouth.

So he touched the Great Black Hush, and under the little hand the Great Black Hush felt as never he had felt before. For the Special Baby's hand was soft and wandering and most clinging—any General Baby's hand will give you the idea if you care to try. And it made it seem as if there were something to do.

All through his huge, helpless, superior, and mighty being the Great Black Hush was stirred, and when the Special Baby was frightened and would have gone back, the Great Black Hush did the most astonishing things to try to keep him. He plaited the darkness up like a ruffle and waved it like a flag and opened it like a flower and shut it like a door and poured it about like water, all to keep the Special Baby amused. But though the Special Baby tried to put most of these and all the dark in his mouth, still on the whole he was badly frightened and wanted his mother, and he began to cry to show how much he wanted her. And then the Great Black Hush was at his wits' end.

“Now, who is there to be the mother of this Special Baby?” he cried in despair, for there wasn't anything else anywhere around, save only the Wind, and the Wind always blew right by. But the blowing by must have been because the Great Black Hush had never spoken before, for these were the first words that ever he had said; and the Wind, on hearing them, stopped still as a stone, and listened.

“Would I do?” the Wind asked, and the Great Black Hush was so astonished that he almost dropped the Special Baby.

“Would I do?” asked the Wind again, and made the dark like blown garments and like long, blown hair and tender motions, such as women make. And she took the Special Baby in her arms and rocked him as gently as boughs, so that he laughed with delight and tried to put the wind in his mouth and finally went to sleep, with his beads on.

“Now what'll we do?” said the Great Black Hush, hanging about, all helpless and mighty.

“We can get along without a cradle,” said the Wind, “because I will rock him to sleep in my arms.” (This was before time began and before they laid them down to go to sleep alone in a dark room.) “But we ought, we ought,” she added, “to have something for him to play with when he wakes up.” (This was before time began and before anybody ate. But they always played. That came first.)

“If he had something to play with, what would that look like?” asked the Great Black Hush, all helpless.

“It musn't have points like scissors, or ends like string, and the paint mustn't come off, I think,” said the Wind, “it ought to look like a shining ball.”

“By my distance,” said the Great Black Hush, all mighty, “that's what it shall look like.”

Then he began to make a plaything, and he worked all over him and all over everywhere at the fashioning. I don't know how he did it, because I wasn't there, and I can't reckon how long it took him, because there wasn't any time, but I know some things about it all, and one is that he finally got it done.

“Look!” the Great Black Hush cried to the Wind,—for she paid more attention to the Special Baby now than she did to him. And when she looked, there hung in the sky, a great, enormous, shining ball.

“That's big enough so he can't get it in his mouth,” she said approvingly. “It's really ginginatic.”

“You mean gigantic, dear,” said the Great Black Hush, all superior. But the Wind didn't care because words hadn't been used long enough to fit closely, and besides he had said “dear” and she knew what that meant. “Dear“ came before “gigantic.”

“Now wake him up,” said the Great Black Hush, “to play with it.”

But this the Wind would by no means do. She said the Special Baby must have his sleep out or he’d be cross. And the Great Black Hush wondered however she knew that, and he went away, all humble, and amused himself making more playthings till the baby woke up. And all the playthings looked like shining balls, because that was the only kind of plaything the Wind had told him to make and he didn't know whether anything else would do. So he made them by the thousands and started them all swinging because he thought the Special Baby would like them to do that.

By-and-by—there was always by-and-by before there was any time, and that is why so many people prefer it—when he couldn't stay any longer, he went back where the Wind waited, cuddling the Special Baby close.

“Sh-h-h-h,” said the Wind, but she was too late, and the Special Baby woke up, with wide eyes and a smile in them.

But he wasn't cross. For the minute he opened his eyes he saw all the thousands of shining balls hanging in the darkness and swinging, swinging, and he crowed with delight and stretched out his little hands for them, but they were so big he couldn't put them in his mouth and so he might reach out all he pleased.

“Ho,” said the Great Black Hush, “now everything is as it never was before.”

But the Wind sighed a little.

“I wish everything were more so,” she said. “I ought to have a place to take the Special Baby and make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his little back. Also, I want to learn a lullaby, and this is so public.”

Then the Great Black Hush thought and thought, and remembered that away back on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, there was a tidy little place that might be just the thing. It was not up to date, because there wasn't any date, but still he thought it might be just the thing.

“By the welkin,” he said, “ I know a place that is the place. I'll go and sweep it out.”

“Not so fast,” said the Wind, gently. “I go also. I want to be sure that there are enough closets—”or whatever would have corresponded to that before there was any Modern at all.

So the three went away together and groped about on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things, and there the Wind swept it out tidily and there they made their home. And when it was all done,—which took a great while because the Wind kept wanting additions put on,—they came out and sat at the door of the place, the Great Black Hush and the Wind and the Special Baby between.

And as they did that a wonderful thing was true. For now that the Great Black Hush had withdrawn to his new home, lo, all the swinging plaything balls were shining through space, and there was light. And the man and the woman and the child at the door of the first home looked in one another's faces. And the man and the woman were afraid of the light and their look clung each to the other's in that fear; but the Special Baby stretched out his little hands and tried to put the light in his mouth.

“Don't, dear,” said the woman, and her voice sounded quite natural.

“Pay attention to me and not to the Baby,” said the man, and his voice sounded quite natural, and very mighty, so that the woman obeyed—until the Special Baby wanted her again.

And that was when she made her lullaby, and it was the first song:—

WIND SONG

^[1]

Horn of the morning!
And the little night pipings fail.
The day is launched like a hollow ship
With the sun for a sail.
The way is wide and blue and lone
With all its miles inviolate
Save for the swinging stars we’ve sown
And a thistle of cloud remote and blown.
Oh, I passion for something nearer than these!
How shall I know that this live thing is I
With only the morning for proof and the sky?
I long for a music more soft to its keys,
For a touch that shall teach me the new sureties.
Give me some griefs and some loyalties
And a child’s mouth on my own!

Lullaby, lullaby,
Babe of the world, swing high,
Swing low.
I am a mother you never may know,
But oh
And oh, how long the wind will know you,
With lullabies for the dead night through.
Babe of the earth, as I blow . . .
Swing high,
To touch at the sky,
And at last lie low.
Lullaby. . . .

But meanwhile the Special Baby's real mother—the one who had told him about running away—was hunting and hunting and hunting for him and going nearly distracted and expecting every hair in her head to turn pure white. She went about among all the rest, asking and calling and wanting to know, and finally she made up her mind that she would not stay where she was, but that she would run away and hunt for him. And she did. And when all the things that were waiting to be born heard about it, there was no holding them back either. So out they came, lines and colours and musics and tops and blocks and flame and Noah’s arks and mechanical toys and mountains and planets and paints and air and water and alphabets and jumping-jacks, all, all came out in the wake of the lost Special Baby. And some came early and some came late, some hurried and some hung back. And among all these came people, and many and many of the to-be-born things were hidden in peoples' hearts and did not appear till long after; and this was true of some things which I have not mentioned at all, and of some that have not appeared even yet. But some people did not bring anything in their hearts, and they merely observed that it was a shameful waste, so many shining balls swinging about and only the Special Baby to play with them, and he evidently eternally lost.

But the Special Baby's real mother didn't say a word. She only ran and ran on, asking and calling and wanting to know. And at last she came to the Outermost Way and near the Wild Wing of Things, and the Special Baby heard her coming. And when he heard that, he made his choicest coo-noise in his throat and he stretched out his arms to his real mother that he was used to.

And when his real mother heard the coo-noise, she brushed aside the Wild Wing of Things and took him in her arms—and she never saw the Wind and the Great Black Hush at all, because they are that kind. So she carried the Special Baby off, kicking and crowing and catching at the swinging, shining balls—but they were too big to put in his mouth so there was no danger—and she hunted up a place where she could make his clothes and mend his socks and tie on his shoes and rub his little back. But about them all things were going on, and everybody else was doing the same thing, so nobody noticed.

Then, all alone before their home on the Outermost Way and beneath the Wild Wing of Things that was all brushed aside, the Great Black Hush and the Wind looked at each other. And their look clung, as when they had first found light, and they were afraid. For now all space was glowing and shining with swinging balls, and all the things were being born and making homes, and time was rushing by so fast that it awed them who had never seen such a thing before.

“What have we done?” demanded the Great Black Hush.

But the Wind was not so much concerned with that. She only grieved and grieved for the Special Baby. And the Great Black Hush comforted her, and I think he comforts her unto this day.

Only at night. Then, as you know, the Great Black Hush comes from the Outermost Way and fills the air, and with him often and often comes the Wind. And together they wander among all the shining balls—you will know this, if you listen, on many a night—and together they look for the Special Baby. But he has grown up, long and long ago, only he still stretches out his hands to everything, for he is the way he was made.

1. Reproduced by permission of The Craftsman.