"Once I saw it when I was a boy, no older than you. Our
house looked out toward the hills, far away and at sunset
softly blue against the eastern sky. It was the day that we
laid my father to rest in the little burying-ground among the
cedar-trees. There was his father's grave, and his father's
father's grave, and there were the places for my mother and
for my two brothers and for my sister and for me. I counted
them all, when the others had gone back to the house. I paced
up and down alone, measuring the ground; there was
room enough for us all; and in the western corner where a
young elm-tree was growing,--that would be my place, for I was
the youngest. How tall would the elm-tree be then? I had
never thought of it before. It seemed to make me sad and
restless,--wishing for something, I knew not what,--longing to
see the world and to taste happiness before I must sleep
beneath the elm-tree. Then I looked off to the blue hills,
shadowy and dream-like, the boundary of the little world that
I knew. And there, in a cleft between the highest peaks I saw
a wondrous thing: for the place at which I was looking seemed
to come nearer and nearer to me; I saw the trees, the rocks,
the ferns, the white road winding before me; the enfolding
hills unclosed like leaves, and in the heart of them I saw a
Blue Flower, so bright, so beautiful that my eyes filled with
tears as I looked. It was like a face that smiled at me and
promised something. Then I heard a call, like the note of a
trumpet very far away, calling me to come. And as I listened
the flower faded into the dimness of the hills."

"Did you follow it," asked Ruamie, "and did you go away from
your home? How could you do that?"