for W. B. A.


    When the dishes are washed at night time and the cool of the evening 
has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit for the night in winter, 
then the fathers and mothers in the Rootabaga Country sometimes tell 
the young people the story of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy.
    The White Horse Girl grew up far in the west of the Rootabaga Country. 
All the years she grew up as a girl she liked to ride horses. Best of all things 
for her was to be straddle of a white horse loping with a loose bridle among 
the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country.
    She rode one horse white as snow, another horse white as new washed 
sheep wool, and another white as silver. And she could not tell because she 
did not know which of these three white horses she liked best.
    “Snow is beautiful enough for me any time,” she said, “new washed sheep 
wool, or silver out of a ribbon of the new moon, any or either is white enough 
for me. I like the white manes, the white flanks, the white noses, the white 
feet of all my ponies. I like the forelocks hanging down between the white 
ears of all three—my ponies.”
    And living neighbor to the White Horse Girl in the same prairie country, with 
the same black crows flying over their places, was the Blue Wind Boy. All the 
years he grew up as a boy he liked to walk with his feet in the dirt and the 
grass listening to the winds. Best of all things for him was to put on strong 
shoes and go hiking among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga 
Country, listening to the winds.
    There was a blue wind of day time, starting sometimes six o’clock on a 
summer morning or eight o’clock on a winter morning. And there was a night 
wind with blue of summer stars in summer and blue of winter stars in winter. 
And there was yet another, a blue wind of the times between night and day, a 
blue dawn and evening wind. All three of these winds he liked so well he could 
not say which he liked best.
    “The early morning wind is strong as the prairie and whatever I tell it I know
it believes and remembers,” he said, “and the night wind with the big dark 
curves of the night sky in it, the night wind gets inside of me and understands 
all my secrets. And the blue wind of the times between, in the dusk when it is
neither night nor day, this is the wind that asks me questions and tells me to 
wait and it will bring me whatever I want.”
    Of course, it happened as it had to happen, the White Horse Girl and the Blue 
Wind Boy met. She, straddling one of her white horses, and he, wearing his 
strong hiking shoes in the dirt and the grass, it had to happen they should 
meet among the hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country where 
they lived neighbors.
    And of course, she told him all about the snow white horse and the horse 
white as new washed sheep wool and the horse white as a silver ribbon of the 
new moon. And he told her all about the blue winds he liked listening to, the 
early morning wind, the night sky wind, and the wind of the dusk between,
 the wind that asked him questions and told him to wait.
    One day the two of them were gone. On the same day of the week the White
 Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy went away. And their fathers and mothers 
and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts wondered about them and 
talked about them, because they didn’t tell anybody beforehand they were 
going. Nobody at all knew beforehand or afterward why they were going 
away, the real honest why of it.
    They left a short letter. It read:

    To All Our Sweethearts, Old Folks and Young Folks:
         We have started to go where the white horses come 
         from and where the blue winds begin. Keep a corner 
         in your hearts for us while we are gone.
                                                                      The White Horse Girl.
                                                                      The Blue Wind Boy.

    That was all they had to guess by in the west Rootabaga Country, to guess 
and guess where two darlings had gone.
    Many years passed. One day there came riding across the Rootabaga 
Country a Gray Man on Horseback. He looked like he had come a long ways. 
So they asked him the question they always asked of any rider who looked 
like he had come a long ways, “Did you ever see the White Horse Girl and the 
Blue Wind Boy?”
    “Yes,” he answered, “I saw them.
    “It was a long, long ways from here I saw them,” he went on, “it would take 
years and years to ride to where they are. They were sitting together and talking 
to each other, sometimes singing, in a place where the land runs high and tough 
rocks reach up. And they were looking out across water, blue water as far as
 the eye could see. And away far off the blue waters met the blue sky.
    “‘Look!’ said the Boy, ‘that’s where the blue winds begin.’
    “And far out on the blue waters, just a little this side of where the blue winds 
begin, there were white manes, white flanks, white noses, white galloping feet.
    “‘Look!’ said the Girl, ‘that’s where the white horses come from.’
    “And then nearer to the land came thousands in an hour, millions in a day, 
white horses, some white as snow, some like new washed sheep wool, some 
white as silver ribbons of the new moon.
    “I asked them, ‘Whose place is this?’ They answered, ‘It belongs to us; this 
is what we started for; this is where the white horses come from; this is where 
the blue winds begin.’”
    And that was all the Gray Man on Horseback would tell the people of the 
west Rootabaga Country. That was all he knew, he said, and if there was any 
more he would tell it.
    And the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts 
of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy wondered and talked often about 
whether the Gray Man on Horseback made up the story out of his head or whether 
it happened just like he told it.
    Anyhow this is the story they tell sometimes to the young people of the west 
Rootabaga Country when the dishes are washed at night and the cool of the 
evening has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit for the night in winter.