The pictures swarmed past him as upon a boy returning to school after
the holidays, and each one had a background of sky with stars behind
it; the faces that he knew so well had starry eyes; Jimbo flung
handfuls of stars loose across the air, and Monkey caught them,
fastening them like golden pins into her hair. Glancing down, he saw a
long brown hair upon his sleeve. He picked it off and held his finger
and thumb outside the window till the wind took it away. Some Morning
Spider would ride it home--perhaps past his cousin's window while he
copied out that wonderful, great tale. But, instead--how in the world
could it happen in clear daylight?--a little hand shot down from above
and gathered it in towards the Pleiades.
The Pleiades--the Seven Sisters--that most exquisite cluster of the
eastern sky, soft, tender, lovely, clinging close together always like
a group of timid children, who hide a little dimly for fear of being
surprised by bolder stars upon their enormous journey--they now shone
down upon all he thought and remembered. They seemed always above the
horizon of his mind. They never set. In them lay souls of unborn
children, children waiting to be born. He could not imagine why this
particular constellation clung with such a haunting touch of beauty
about his mind, or why some passion of yearning unconfessed and
throbbing hid behind the musical name.
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