third day she came crying into Meris's arms and wept heartbrokenly against her shoulder. Then her tears stopped, glistened on her cheeks a moment, and were gone. She squirmed out of Meris's embrace and trotted to the window. She pushed a chair up close to the wall, climbed up on it, pressed her forehead to the chilly glass and stared out into the late afternoon. Tad came over on his bike, bubbling over with the new idea of old cars. 'Why, there's parts of a whole bunch of these cars all over around here-' he cried, fluttering the tattered magazine at Mark. 'And have you seen how much they're asking for some of them! Why I could put myself through college on used parts out of our old dumps! And some of these vintage jobs are still running around here! Kiltie has a model A-you've seen it! He shines it like a new shoe every week! And there's an old Overland touring car out in back of our barn, just sitting there, falling apart-' Mark's silence got through to him then, and he asked, troubled, 'What's wrong? Are you mad at me for something?' Meris spoke into Mark's silence. 'No, Tad, it's nothing you've done-' She took him outside, ostensibly to help bring in wood to fill the woodbox and frilled him in on the events. When they returned, loaded down with firewood, he dumped his armload into the box and looked at Mark. 'Gee, whiz, Mr. Edwards. Uh-uh-gee whiz!' He gathered up his magazine and his hat and, shuffling his feet for a moment said, 'Well, 'bye now,' and left, grimacing back at Meris, wordless. Lala was still staring out the window. She hadn't moved or made a sound while Tad was there. Meris was frightened. 'Mark!' She shook his arm gently. 'Look at Lala. She's been like that for almost an hour. She pays no attention to me at all. Mark!' Mark's attention came slowly back to the cabin and to Meris. 'Thank goodness!' she cried. 'I was beginning to feel that I was the one that was missing!' At that moment, Lala plopped down from the chair and trotted off to the bathroom, a round red spot marking her forehead where she had leaned so long. 'Well!' Meris was pleased. 'It must be suppertime. Every one's gathering around again.' And she began the bustle of supper-getting. Lala trotted around with her, getting in the way, hindering with her help. 'No, Lala!' said Meris, 'I told you once already. Only three plates. Here, put the other one over there.' Lala took the plate, waited patiently until Meris turned to the stove, then, lifting both feet from the floor, put the plate back on the table. The soft click of the flatware as she patterned it around the plate, caught Meris's attention. 'Oh, Lala!' she cried, half-laughing, half-exasperated. 'Well, all right. If you can't count, okay. Four it will be.' She started convulsively and dropped a fork as a knock at the door roused even Mark. 'Hungry guest coming,' she laughed nervously as she picked up the fork. 'Well, stew stretches.' She started for the door, fear, bred of senseless violence, crisping along her spine, but Lala was ahead of her, fluttering like a bird, with excited bird cries against the door panels, her hands fumbling at the knob and the night chain Meris had insisted on installing. Meris unfastened and unlocked and opened the door. It was Johannan, anxious-eyed and worried, who slipped in and gathered up a shrieking Lala. When he had finally un-Englished her to a quiet, contented clinging, he turned to Meris. 'Lala called me back,' he said. 'I've found my Group. She told me Mark was sick-that bad things had happened.' 'Yes,' said Meris, stirring the stew and moving it to the back of the stove. 'The boys came while we were gone and ruined Mark's manuscript beyond salvage. And Mark-Mark is crushed. He lost all those months of labor through sense less, vindictive-' She turned away from Johannan's questioning face and stirred the stew again, blindly. 'But,' protested Johannan, 'if once it was written, he has it still. He can do it again.' 'Time is the factor:' Mark's voice, rusty and harsh, broke in on Johannan. 'And to rewrite from my notes-' He shook his head and sagged again. 'But-but-!' cried Johannan still puzzled, putting Lala to one side, where she hovered, sitting on air, crooning to Deeko, until she drifted slowly down to the floor. 'It's all there! It's been written! It's a whole thing! All you have to do is put it again on paper. Your word scriber-' 'I don't have total recall,' said Mark. 'Even if I did, just to put it on paper again-come see our 'word scriber.'' He smiled a small bent smile as Johannan poked fingers into the mechanism of the typewriter and clucked unhappily, sounding so like Lala that Meris almost laughed. 'Such slowness! Such complications!' Johannan looked at Mark. 'If you want, my People can help you get your manuscript back again.' 'It's finished,' said Mark. 'Why agonize over it any more?' He turned to the blank darkness of the window. 'Was it worth the effort of writing?' asked Johannan. 'I thought so,' said Mark. 'And others did, too.' 'Would it have served a useful purpose?' asked Johannan. 'Of course it would have!' Mark swung angrily from the window. 'It covered an area that needs to be covered. It was new-the first book in the field!' He turned again to the window. 'Then,' said Johannan simply, 'we will make it again. Have you paper enough?' Mark swung back, his eyes glittering. Meris stepped between his glare and Johannan. 'This summer I have come back from the dead,' she reminded. 'And you caught a baby for me, pulling her down from the sky by one ankle. Johannan went looking for his people through the treetops. And a three-year-old called him back by leaning against the window. If all these things could happen, why can't Johannan bring your manuscript back?' 'But if he tries and can't-' Mark began. 'Then we can let the dead past bury the dead,' said Meris sharply, 'which little item you have not been letting happen so far!' Mark stared at her, then flushed a deep, painful flush. 'Okay, then,' he said. 'Stir the bones again! Let him put meat back on them if he can!' The next few hours were busy with patterned confusion. Mark roared off through the gathering darkness to persuade Chip to open the store for typing paper. And people arrived. Just arrived, smiling, at the door, familiar friends before they spoke, and Meris, glancing out to see if the heavens them selves had split open from astonishment saw, hovering treetop high, a truly vintage car, an old pickup that clanked softly to itself, spinning a wheel against a branch as it waited. 'If Tad could see that!' she thought, with a bubble of laughter nudging her throat. She hurried back indoors further to make welcome the newcomers-Valancy, Karen, Davy, Jemmy. The women gathered Lala in with soft cries and shining eyes and she wept briefly upon them in response to their emotions, then leaped upon the fellows and nearly strangled them with her hugs. Johannan briefed the four in what had happened and what was needed. They discussed the situation, glanced at the few salvaged pages on the desk and sent, eyes closed briefly, for someone else. His name was Remy and he had a special 'Gift' for plans and diagrams. He arrived just before Mark got back, so the whole group of them confronted him when he flung the door open and stood there with his bundle of paper. He blinked, glanced at Meris, then, shifting his burden to one arm, held out a welcoming hand. 'I hadn't expected an invasion,' he smiled. 'To tell the truth, I didn't know what to expect.' He thumped the package down on the table and grinned at Meris. 'Chip's sure now that writers are psychos,' he said. 'Any normal person could wait till morning for paper or use flattened grocery bags!' He shrugged out of his jacket. 'Now.' Jemmy said, 'It's really quite simple. Since you wrote your book and have read it through several times, the thing exists as a whole in your memory, just as it was on paper. So all we have to do is put it on paper again.' He gestured. 'That's all?' Mark's hands went back through his hair. 'That's all? Man, that's all I had to do after my notes were organized, months ago! Maybe I should have settled for flattened grocery bags! Why, the sheer physical-' The light was draining out of his face. 'Wait-wait!' Jemmy's hand closed warmly over his sagging shoulder. 'Let me finish.' 'Davy, here, is our gadgeteer. He dreams up all kinds of knick-knacks and among other things, he has come forth with a word scriber. Even better'-he glanced at Johannan-'than the ones brought from the New Home. All you have to do is think and the scriber writes down your thoughts. Here– try it-' he said into Mark's very evident skepticism. Davy put a piece of paper on the table in front of Mark and, on it, a small gadget that looked vaguely like a small sanding block in that it was curved across the top and flat on the bottom. 'Go on,' urged Davy, 'think something. You don't even have to vocalize. I've keyed it to you. Karen sorted your setting for me.' Mark looked around at the interested, watching faces, at Meris's eyes, blurred with hesitant hope, and then
