Through the Ivory Gate

Breeze filtered through shuffling leafage, the June morning sunlight
came in at the open window by the boy's bed, under the green shades,
across the shadowy, white room, and danced a noiseless dance of youth
and freshness and springtime against the wall opposite. The boy's head
stirred on his pillow. He spoke a quick word from out of his dream.
"The key?" he said inquiringly, and the sound of his own voice awoke
him. Dark, drowsy eyes opened, and he stared half-seeing, at the
picture that hung facing him. Was it the play of mischievous sunlight,
was it the dream that still held his brain? He knew the picture line
by line, and there was no such figure in it. It was a large photograph
of Fairfield, the southern home of his mother's people, and the boy
remembered it always hanging there, opposite his bed, the first sight
to meet his eyes every morning since his babyhood. So he was certain
there was no figure in it, more than all one so remarkable as this
strapping little chap in his queer clothes, his dress of conspicuous
plaid with large black velvet squares sewed on it, who stood now in
front of the old manor house. Could it be only a dream? Could it be
that a little ghost, wandering childlike in dim, heavenly fields, had
joined the gay troop of his boyish visions and slipped in with them
through the ivory gate of pleasant dreams? The boy put his fists to
his eyes and rubbed them and looked again. The little fellow was still
there, standing with sturdy legs wide apart as if owning the scene; he
laughed as he held toward the boy a key--a small key tied with a
scarlet ribbon. There was no doubt in the boy's mind that the key was
for him, and out of the dim world of sleep he stretched his young arm
for it; to reach it he sat up in bed. Then he was awake and knew
himself alone in the peace of his own little room, and laughed
shamefacedly at the reality of the vision which had followed him from
dreamland into the very boundaries of consciousness, which held him
even now with gentle tenacity, which drew him back through the day,
from his studies, from his play, into the strong current of its
fascination.