WHEN David looked about him he saw that it was neither day nor night, but just the twilight betwixt and between--that twilight in which the earth is all bathed in a soft, warm, milky whiteness, that makes everything look bright toward the east, but in which there is no shadow to make what we see look harsh and hard.
David and Hans Krout walked along the rocky path toward the village together. "Did you see the moon-garden? " said Hans Krout.
"Yes; I did," said David.
Hans Krout clucked his tongue behind his teeth. "Ah," said he, "I was never able to do that. I was too old."
"Yes," said David, "I suppose you were. I saw you one time and waved my hand to you," he added.
"Yes," said Hans Krout, "I remember. I saw you looking out of the window, and waved my hand to you, too."
"Yes," said David.
"And where were you for the ten years after that?" said Hans Krout.
"I was behind the Moon-Angel," said David.
"Ah! and did you get there?" said Hans Krout. "Well, I tried it and tried it, but never could get there. I would have given all of the world to have gotten there, but I couldn't."
"That is because you did try," said David. "The way to get there is not to try at all."
"I never thought of that before," said Hans Krout. "Oh, well, I shall get behind the MoonAngel some time."
"To be sure," said David, "we all of us do."
He did not tell Hans Krout whom he had seen and what he had done behind the Moon-Angel.
So they walked together through the twilight, until by and by they had come up over the hill, and there was the village beneath them. Lights were beginning to twinkle, and the geese were squawking, and, little children were playing, shouting, and calling with loud voices. There were the boats down upon the shore, and the moon sailing up in the sky like a great round bubble, and laying a wider and wider field of silver across the water. They went past the common, where the children were at play. How strangely familiar it all was--just as it had been eleven years ago. The children pointed at David and. Hans Krout, and jeered and laughed at them just as they used to do. "Moon-calf! Moon-calf!" they called; and--
"Hans Krout! Hans Krout! Your wits are out! Your wits are out!"
David burst out laughing. He did not know any of the children. How should he, seeing that he had been away from home eleven years
"Have they been calling after me then for all this time " he asked Hans Krout.
"Yes," said Hans Krout; and he looked upon David's face almost as though he were afraid of him.
There were some young men standing in front of the pot-house, and they grinned at the two as they passed. It seemed to David that he knew them. Yes; one of the men was Tom Stout. The young women they passed laughed at them, too. It seemed strange to David that they should be young women, for when he had left them they were but little girls.
So he walked down the street, and there was his old home. His mother was standing at the door, and her hair had grown as white as silver. He could see his father within the house. He was sitting over the fire, holding his crooked brown hands to the blaze. He had been out fishing and he had not yet got warm.
"Where have you been all this time, David " said his mother.
"I have been in the moon-house and in the moon-garden, and back of the Moon-Angel," said David.
"Aye, aye; poor boy, poor boy!" said his mother.
His father looked over his shoulder and grunted. "The same moon-calf as ever," said he.
"Yes," said David, "the same moon-calf as ever," and then again he burst out laughing.
There was not a single one in the whole village, from old Solomon Grundy to David's own father and mother (except Hans Krout), who knew that he had been away from home; still less that he had lived through the most wonderful, strange, incredible, ever-to-be-talked-of adventure that ever a hero faced to come forth from alive.
"And what are you going to do now, David?" said David's mother.
"I am going to wait," said David.
It seemed to her that David was very foolish.
So David sat down to wait.