The Wishing Moon — Context and Discussion

Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the library. Mother was dressing in her big corner room upstairs, with all the electric lights lighted. The little girl could see them, if she turned her head, but mother was very far away, in spite of that, for her door was locked, and you could not go in. You could not watch her brush her long, wonderful hair, or help her into her evening gown. Mother's evening gown was black this summer, with shiny spangles--a fairy gown. Mother had to be alone while she dressed, because she was going to the Everards'.

There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was old because his hair was white, and his wife, who wore even more beautiful clothes than mother. She had heard her father say that the Colonel had made the town, and she had heard Norah, the cook, say that he owned the town. She had an idea that these two things were not quite the same, though they sounded alike, for father was fond of the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any rate, he was president of the bank--father and Norah agreed about that--and he lived in a house at the edge of the town, in what used to be a part of Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflowering there, but now nobody could.

The house was ugly, with things sticking out all over it, towers and balconies and cupolas, and it was the little girl's twin. She was born the year the Everards settled in Green River.

"And you're marked with it," Norah said, in one of their serious talks, when Mollie, the second girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to themselves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and allowing her unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from the jar. "Marked with it, Miss Judy."

"That house, and what goes on in it."

"You'll know soon enough."

"I'm not marked with it. I've got a birthmark, but it's a strawberry, on my left side, like the princesses have in the fairy tales."

"You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy."

"Is that a bad thing to be, Nana?"

"It's a lonesome thing."

"My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will go away."

"It won't go away. What we're born to be, we will be, Miss Judy----. Bless your heart, you're crying, with the big eyes of you. What for, dear?"

"I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. I don't want to be lonesome. I hate the Everards."

"Well, there's many to say that now, and there'll be more to say it soon." Norah muttered this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You musn't hate anybody."

"I do. I hate the Everards."

Queer things came into your head to say when you were talking with Norah, who had an aunt with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith did not. The Everards gave Judith and no other little girl in town presents at Christmas, and invited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. They had a great deal to do with her trouble, her serious trouble, which she would not discuss even with Norah. But she did not really hate the Everards--certainly not to-night. She was too happy.

Judith was going out to hang May-baskets.

So was every other little girl in town who wanted to, and it was a wonderful thing to be doing to-night. It was really May night, by the weather as well as the calendar--the kind of night that Norah's fairies meant should come on the first of May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping into the air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as if there might really be fairies or ghosts about. It was still and clear. One star, that had just come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up into the sky out of the dark, clustering leaves of the tree.

This was the star that Judith usually wished on, but she could wish on the moon to-night; Norah had told her so; wish once instead of three nights running, and get her wish whether she thought of the red fox's tail or not. The new moon of May was a wishing moon.

A wishing moon! The small white figure on the steps cuddled itself into a smaller heap. Judith sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was going with the others. She had her wish already.