Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 81: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE OTHER WING | 77 was knitting and reading at the same time—a wonderful thing the boy could never understand. She raised her head as he came in, pushed her glasses on to her forehead, and. held her arms out. He told her everything, ending up: with what his father said. 7 “You see, it’s zot Jackman, or Thompson, or any one like that,” he ex- claimed. “It’s some one real.” } “But nice,” she assured him, “some one who comes to take care of you and — see that you’re all safe and cozy.” ; “Oh, yes, I know that. But = : “I think your father’s right,” she added quickly. “It’s Sleep, I’m sure, who peps in round the door like that. Sleep Aas got wings, I’ve always heard.” “Then the other thing—the little ones?” he asked. “Are they just sorts of dozes, you think?” Mother did not answer for a moment. She turned down the page of her book, closed it slowly, put it on the table beside her. More slowly still she put her knitting away, arranging the wool and needles with some deliberation. - “Perhaps,” she said, drawing the boy closer to her and looking into his big eyes of wonder, “they’re dreams!” . Tim felt a thrill run through him as she said it. He stepped back a foot or so ' and clapped his hands softly. “Dreams!” he whispered with enthusiasm and - belief; “of course! I never thought of that.” His mother, having proved her sagacity, then made a mistake. She noted . her success, but instead of leaving it there, she elaborated and explained. As Tim expressed it she “went on about it.” Therefore he did not listen. He followed his train of thought alone. And presently, he interrupted her long . sentences with a conclusion of his own: “Then I know where She hides,” he announced with a touch of awe. “Where She lives, I mean.” And without waiting to be asked, he imparted the ‘nformation: “It’s in the Other Wing.” “Ah!” said his mother, taken by surprise. “How clever of you, Tim!”’—and hus confirmed it. Thenceforward this was established in his life—that Sleep and her attendant Dreams hid during the daytime in that unused portion of the great Elizabe- than mansion called the Other Wing. This other wing was unoccupied, its cor- ridors untrodden, its windows shuttered and its rooms all closed. At various places green baize doors led into it, but no one ever opened them. For many years this part had been shut up; and for the children, properly speaking, it was out of bounds. They never mentioned it as a possible place, at any rate; in hide-and-seek it was not considered, even; there was a hint of the inacces- sible about the Other Wing. Shadows, dust, and silence had it to themselves. F But Tim, having ideas of his own about everything, possessed special in- formation about the Other Wing. He believed it was inhabited. Who occupied the immense series of empty rooms, who trod the spacious corridors, who O_o EOMiIslOokkS. Conn