And so, just after dawn, she left her beautiful home in the field and journeyed toward the ocean. She went to the edge of the meadow with a herd of deer daintily tripping after her. She turned and cried: “Goodbye, O deer! for probably I shall never see you again.” She kissed the ground of the meadow, and she wept to think that she was leaving it; but she knew that her love for the sea had become greater than her love for the meadow. And then she went away—sadly, yet happy at the prospect of a new and beautiful life by the foaming, churning rocks and the white-capped waves.
II
The Sea
Your flashing waves hold out their arms to me—
I entangle myself in their silver hair,
And ride with them to catch the wind.
The sun trails bright jewels in the water,
And laughs because I cannot touch them.
As Eepersip journeyed on, the meadow grew dimmer in her mind, and the memory of how the sea had looked grew brighter. She couldn’t see it now, for she was in a valley; but she knew that she was going in the right direction. The spring breeze was blowing; it was not cold, and the breeze stirred the air gently, so that it wasn’t hot. Occasional whiffs from the meadow came to Eepersip with that breeze; but when she had gone about two miles this fragrance ceased.
That afternoon she came into a great forest where strange, mysterious shadows passed back and forth in a frightening way. She hurried on as fast as she could, but she had to spend a night in it—one alarming, terrible night. The next day she came out, torn and bedraggled with fighting her way through the dense thickets. Several times she had to cross rivers—some of them without a bridge, though luckily none of these was over her depth. Another day had passed. Nightfall found her wearily climbing a very high hill. The reflection of the moon showed her where the ocean was. It seemed hardly any nearer than before!
The third morning she descended into a rich and fertile valley. A small brook was winding down it, and where the weeping willows dipped into the current it bubbled and sang. This valley was the broadest that Eepersip had yet gone through. But after a long time she came out of it against a high, precipitous cliff. Up the side of this she climbed, digging her toes into the cracks between the rocks. At last she got to the top; and a long, weary climb it had been. She was now on a grassy hill where bloomed daisies shining like stars, and little buttercups of gold. There were butterflies, too, with brilliant wings, and they hovered and fluttered over the flowers. And lo! there was the ocean, nearer now, with the sun shining on it; and Eepersip could see the surf rolling and foaming. Shrill cries pierced the air—the cries of birds, of seagulls swooping inland in wide circles. And as she went on through the waving grass she could smell the delicious salt air of the sea.
But, alas, she met with a hindrance. Between her and the coast there was a valley extending for miles, and poor Eepersip would have to clamber down a precipitous cliff, through the valley, and up another cliff. Down she went, rather unwillingly but knowing that she would get there sometime. At last she came to the bottom. It wasn’t so bad down there—there was a lovely lakelet at which she refreshed herself with a drink; it was grassy, and there were flowers. But it was stiflingly hot. There was a patch of pine woods here and there, but it was hot even in the shade of the great trees.
She stumbled on in the almost blinding heat, clambering up the other great precipice—the wall of the valley. From the top she looked down, and, seeing again that ponderous cliff, she wondered how she could ever have got up it. Then she lay down on the grass, and in a moment was asleep.
When she awoke, the strong wind was blowing again. It made her almost fly through the cold, salty air. Before her was the long-sought ocean, with the waves rolling and the gulls swooping, diving and screaming. She flew; her feet could not stay still. She was tired no longer—she didn’t feel the smallest effects of her wearisome journey.
Suddenly she heard a sound—the magical sound of the waves as they crashed on the rocks. In they would come, pounding, roaring, breaking upon the shore. The foam and spume would fly back and leap up into the air. Everything sounded strange—stranger than anything Eepersip had ever heard. No words can describe what she imagined. She never had had such a lot of emotions in her head at the same time. She tried to describe them to herself, but soon gave it up as useless. She thought: “Here I am; I see it; you don’t need to tell me about it!” And then she realized that she was alone, knowing in her own mind what it was like, yet unable to stop wishing that she could describe the hollow, ringing sound. Was she becoming homesick? No! it was sheer delight.
For a moment she paused. Then she bounded through the yellow sand, and, ever going faster and faster, she came to the edge of her sea. Her longing had been fulfilled.
This beach was almost overhung at one end by a great shelf of rock. The sand was glistening with shells
