"I don"t finish," said Maria quietly, whereupon Tim, feeling that the original question was being shelved, made preparation to obliterate her--when Uncle Felix intervened with a longer observation of his own.
"It"s not such a bad idea," he said, glancing sideways at Maria with approval, "that circle business. Everything certainly goes _round_. The earth is round, and the sun is round, and, as Maria says, a circle never finishes." He paused, reflecting deeply.
"But who made the circle," demanded Tim.
"That _is_ the point," agreed Uncle Felix, nodding his head. "Some one must have made it--some day--mustn"t they?"
They stared at him, as probably the animals stared at Adam, wondering what their splendid names were going to be. The yearning in their eyes was enough to make a rock produce sweet-scented thyme. Even the looper steadied its pin-point head to listen. But nothing happened. Uncle Felix looked dumber than the clock. He looked hot, confused, and muddled too. He kept his eyes upon the gra.s.s. He fumbled in his pockets for a match. He spoke no word.
"What?" asked Tim abruptly, by way of a hint that something further was expected of him.
Uncle Felix looked up with a start. Like Proteus who changed his shape to save himself the trouble of prophesying, he swiftly changed the key to save himself providing accurate information that he didn"t possess.
"It wasn"t a circle, exactly," he said slowly; "it was a thought, a great, white, wonderful, shining thought. That"s what started the whole business first," and he looked round hopefully at the eager faces.
"Somebody thought it all," he went on, recklessly, "and it all came true that way. See?"
They waited in silence for particulars.
"Somebody thought it all out first," he elaborated, "and so it simply _had_ to happen."
There was an interval of some thirty seconds, and then Tim asked:
"But who thought _him_?" He said it with much emphasis.
Uncle Felix sat up with energy and lit his pipe. His listeners drew closer, with the exception of Maria, whose life seemed concentrated in her fixed and steady eyes.
"It"s like this, you see," the man explained between the puffs; "if you go into the schoolroom, you find a lot of things lying about everywhere--blocks, toys, engines, and all sorts of things--don"t you?"
"Yes," they agreed, without enthusiasm.
"Well," he continued, "what"s the good of them until you _think_ something about them--think them into something--some game or meaning or other? They"re nothing but a lot of useless stuff just lying untidily upon the floor. See what I mean?"
They nodded, but again without enthusiasm.
"With our End of the World place," he went on, seeing that they listened attentively, "it"s the same again. It was nothing but a rubbish-heap until we thought it into something wonderful--which, of course, it is," he hastened to add. "But by thinking about it, we discovered--we _created_ it!"
They nodded again. Somebody grunted. Maria watched the caterpillar crawling up his sleeve.
"The things--the place and the toys," he resumed hopefully, "were there all the time, but they meant nothing--they weren"t alive--until we thought about them." He blew a cloud of smoke. "So, you see," he continued with an effort, "if we could only _think out_ what everything meant, we could--er--find out what--what everything meant--and where it came from. Everything would be all right, don"t you see?"
Judy"s expression was distraught and puzzled. Maria"s eyes were closed so tightly that her entire face seemed closed. The pause drew out.
"Yes, but where does everything come from?" inquired Tim calmly.
He valued the lengthy explanation at just exactly--nothing!
"Because there simply must be a beginning somewhere," added Judy.
They were at the starting-point again. They had merely made a circle.
And Uncle Felix found himself in difficulties of his own creating.
Where everything came from puzzled him as much as it puzzled the children, or the looper caterpillar that was now crawling from his flannel collar to his neck and contemplating the thicket of his dense back hair. Why ask these terrible questions? he thought, as he looked around at the sunshine and the trees. Life would be no happier if he knew. Since everything was already here, going along quite pleasantly and usefully, it really couldn"t help matters much to know precisely where it all came from. Possibly not. But it would have helped him enormously in his relations with the children--his particular world at the moment--if he could have provided them with a satisfactory explanation. And he knew quite well what they expected from him. That dreadful "Some Day" hung in the balance between success and failure.
And it was then that a.s.sistance came from a most unlikely quarter--from Maria. There was no movement in the stolid head. The eyes merely rolled round like small blue moons upon the expanse of the expressionless face. But the lips parted and she spoke. She asked a question. And her question shifted the universe back upon its ultimate foundations. It set a problem deeper far than the mere origin of everything. It touched the _cause_.
"Why?" she inquired blandly.
It seemed a bomb-sh.e.l.l had fallen among them. Maria had closed her eyes again. Her face was calm as a cabbage, still as a mushroom in a storm.
She claimed the entire discussion somehow as her own. Yet she had merely exercised her prerogative of being herself. Having gone into the root of the matter with a monosyllable, she retired again into her eternal centre. She had nothing more to offer--at the moment.
_Why?_
They had never thought of Why there should be anything. It was far more interesting than Where. Why was a deeper question than whence. It made them feel more important, for one thing. Somebody--but Somebody who was not there--owed them a proper explanation about it. The burden of apology or excuse was lifted instantly from Uncle Felix"s shoulders, for, obviously, he had nothing to do with the reason for their being in the world.
Without a moment"s hesitation he flung his arms out, let the pipe fall from his lips, and--burst into song:
Why should there be anything?
Why should we be here?
It isn"t where we come from, But why should we appear?
It"s really inexplicable, Extr"ordinary, queer: Why _should_ we come and talk a bit, And then--just disappear?
"Why, why, why?" shouted the two elder children. The air was filled with flying "whys." They tried to sing the verse.
"Let"s dance it," cried Judy, leaping to her feet. "Give us the words again, please." She picked up the clock and plumped it down into Maria"s uncertain lap. "You beat time," she ordered. "It"s the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers.""
Maria, disinclined to budge unless obliged to, did nothing.
"It"s a beastly tune," Tim supported her. "I hate those Sunday hymn tunes. They"re not real a bit."
He watched Judy and his Uncle capering hand in hand among the flower-beds. He didn"t feel like dancing himself. He looked at the clock that, like Maria and himself, refused to go. He looked at Maria, fastened immovably upon the lawn. The clock lay glittering in the sunshine. Maria sat like a shining ball beside it. He felt the afternoon was a failure somewhere. Things weren"t going quite as he wanted, the clock wasn"t going either. And when they did go they went of their own accord, independent of himself, of his direction, guidance, wishes. He was out of it. This was _not_ the time to dance.
What was the meaning of it all? It had to do somehow with the clock that wouldn"t go. It had to do with Maria, who wouldn"t budge. The clock had stopped of its own accord. That lay at the bottom of it all, he felt. Some day things would be different, more satisfactory--more real.... Some day!
And strange, new ideas, very vague and dim, very far away, very queer, and very wonderful, poured through his searching, questioning little mind.
"Beat time!" shouted Judy to her motionless sister. "I told you to beat time. You"re doing nothing. You never do!"
Tim stood watching them, while the words rang on in his head: "You are doing nothing! You never do!" How wonderful it was! Maria never did anything, yet was always there _in_ everything. And the others--how funny they were, too! They looked like an elephant and a bird, he thought, for Judy hopped and fluttered, while his Uncle moved heavily, making holes in the soft lawn with his great feet. "Beat time, beat time!" cried Judy at intervals.
What a queer phrase it was--to _beat_ time. Why beat it? It wasn"t there unless it was beaten. Poor Time; and Maria refused to beat it.
His eye wandered from Maria to the dancers, and a kind of reverie stole over him. What was the use of dancing unless there was something to dance round? Maria was round; why didn"t they dance round her? His thoughts returned to Maria. How funny Maria was! She just sat there doing nothing at all. Maria was dull and unenterprising, yet somehow everything came round to her in the end. It was just because she waited, she never hurried. She was a sort of centre. Only it must be rather stupid just to be a centre. Then, suddenly, two ideas struck him at the same instant, scattering his dreamy state of reverie. The first was--Everything comes from a centre like Maria; _that"s_ where everything comes from! The second, bearing no apparent relation to it, found expression in words:
He cried out: "I know what! Let"s go to the End of the World and make a fire and burn things!"
And he looked at Maria as though he had discovered America.
"Beat time, oh, _do_ beat time," cried Judy breathlessly.
"We"re going to make a fire," he shouted; "there"s lots of things to burn." He looked about him as though to choose a place. But he couldn"t find one. He pointed vaguely, first at Maria, as though she was the thing to burn, and then at the landscape generally. "Then you can dance _round_ it," he added convincingly to clinch the matter.