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ON piCTURF
MAGAZINE L
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''Until we learn a reason for being," said Aunt Fanny, "then we generally dont like it."
"Well," I said, happily, "there's no reason at all that I can see for my being. My father died before I was born and my mother died as soon as she conveniently could afterward and ..."
"Marty!" protested Aunt Fanny, worriedly.
"I'm just I, Marty Mackenzie," I finished up.
Youth is always heartless. I'm a whole year older now by the calendar than I was then, and so very much older than that by a deeper thing than a calendar, and so I know that youth is heartless until love comes along and says, "Look, behold your heart!" And youth looks at love, and love says "I am Life."
I was sitting on our fence, fanning myself with Uncle Ebau's old straw hat, when the first of the great events took place. There was a huge humming at first. Then the buzzing stopped and some one walked toward me. "Have you some water?" asked a voice. It seemed to me, before I turned my sleepy head around, that I had heard that voice before. It had echoed in my dreams. When I was very lonely and life and color and roses and music seemed most far away, it echoed thru my heart. I almost felt I didn't need to answer. "I know," I whispered to my heart, "what kind of a face I am going to see when I turn around. I know ... I know . . ."
I turned . . . and there he was . . . complete The face that belonged to the voice . . . the voice that belonged to the face . . . the dream person of my dreams . . . the heart person of my heart.
Still, it did take away my breath.
"Oh!" I said.
He seemed sort of — well, short of speech, too. He stared at me. "This . • . ."he said, in sort of a gaspy way, "is . . . unexpected ..."
"I've been sittin' here all along," I said, "and you're not the least bit unexpected. I thought you were a bee."
"A "
"Bee. You — I mean your — your fivvcr buzzed so."
He laughed, very long and very loud. Down the road in his flivver, which I know now is his Rolls-nice, I saw a very grand lady indeed beckon him with a long arm. He didn't notice.
"I never saw such a girl !" he said.
"Didn't you," I asked, even in . . . dreams?"
"Well, I've seen girls ... in dreams . . . but ... ah • . . rather different ..."
I felt sad. As tho I'd fallen short. "How
. . different?" I asked.
Aunt Fanny was bending over me, waiting, so I opened t h e little trunk
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He waved his hand as tho in dismissal. "You were just born today," he said ; "how could I have dreamed of you ?"
"How could you ?" I repeated, and somehow I did not want to tell him that I had dreamed of him — of his voice and his eyes and his restless-looking hands.
"What do you do?" I asked him.
"I fly."
"You ... a birdman?"
"With such wings ..."
"Shining in the sun . . .oh, beautiful ..."
" 'To right a wrong . . . ' "
" 'Else wherefore born . . . ?' " I quoted after him.
Some one called from the great big car. It was like a rude hand shattering a web, gossamer fine. He thanked me for the water.
"Passers-by," he said, and paused. I thought his eyes looked tired. "If I dont come back ..." he said, and
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