Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Page 25
XXV
ROSES OF JOY
The day before Rebecca started for the South with Miss Maxwell she wasin the library with Emma Jane and Huldah, consulting dictionaries andencyclopaedias. As they were leaving they passed the locked casescontaining the library of fiction, open to the teachers andtownspeople, but forbidden to the students.
They looked longingly through the glass, getting some little comfortfrom the titles of the volumes, as hungry children imbibe emotionalnourishment from the pies and tarts inside a confectioner's window.Rebecca's eyes fell upon a new book in the corner, and she read thename aloud with delight: "_The Rose of Joy_. Listen, girls; isn't thatlovely? _The Rose of Joy_. It looks beautiful, and it sounds beautiful.What does it mean, I wonder?"
"I guess everybody has a different rose," said Huldah shrewdly. "I knowwhat mine would be, and I'm not ashamed to own it. I'd like a year in acity, with just as much money as I wanted to spend, horses and splendidclothes and amusements every minute of the day; and I'd like aboveeverything to live with people that wear low necks." (Poor Huldah nevertook off her dress without bewailing the fact that her lot was cast inRiverboro, where her pretty white shoulders could never be seen.)
"That would be fun, for a while anyway," Emma Jane remarked. "Butwouldn't that be pleasure more than joy? Oh, I've got an idea!"
"Don't shriek so!" said the startled Huldah. "I thought it was a mouse."
"I don't have them very often," apologized Emma Jane,--"ideas, I mean;this one shook me like a stroke of lightning. Rebecca, couldn't it besuccess?"
"That's good," mused Rebecca; "I can see that success would be a joy,but it doesn't seem to me like a rose, somehow. I was wondering if itcould be love?"
"I wish we could have a peep at the book! It must be perfectlyelergant!" said Emma Jane. "But now you say it is love, I think that'sthe best guess yet."
All day long the four words haunted and possessed Rebecca; she saidthem over to herself continually. Even the prosaic Emma Jane wasaffected by them, for in the evening she said, "I don't expect you tobelieve it, but I have another idea,--that's two in one day; I had itwhile I was putting cologne on your head. The rose of joy might behelpfulness."
"If it is, then it is always blooming in your dear little heart, youdarlingest, kind Emmie, taking such good care of your troublesomeBecky!"
"Don't dare to call yourself troublesome! You're--you're--you're myrose of joy, that's what you are!" And the two girls hugged each otheraffectionately.
In the middle of the night Rebecca touched Emma Jane on the shouldersoftly. "Are you very fast asleep, Emmie?" she whispered.
"Not so very," answered Emma Jane drowsily.
"I've thought of something new. If you sang or painted or wrote,--not alittle, but beautifully, you know,--wouldn't the doing of it, just asmuch as you wanted, give you the rose of joy?"
"It might if it was a real talent," answered Emma Jane, "though I don'tlike it so well as love. If you have another thought, Becky, keep ittill morning."
"I did have one more inspiration," said Rebecca when they were dressingnext morning, "but I didn't wake you. I wondered if the rose of joycould be sacrifice? But I think sacrifice would be a lily, not a rose;don't you?"
The journey southward, the first glimpse of the ocean, the strange newscenes, the ease and delicious freedom, the intimacy with Miss Maxwell,almost intoxicated Rebecca. In three days she was not only herselfagain, she was another self, thrilling with delight, anticipation, andrealization. She had always had such eager hunger for knowledge, suchthirst for love, such passionate longing for the music, the beauty, thepoetry of existence! She had always been straining to make the outwardworld conform to her inward dreams, and now life had grown all at oncerich and sweet, wide and full. She was using all her natural, God-givenoutlets; and Emily Maxwell marveled daily at the inexhaustible way inwhich the girl poured out and gathered in the treasures of thought andexperience that belonged to her. She was a lifegiver, altering thewhole scheme of any picture she made a part of, by contributing newvalues. Have you never seen the dull blues and greens of a roomchanged, transfigured by a burst of sunshine? That seemed to MissMaxwell the effect of Rebecca on the groups of people with whom theynow and then mingled; but they were commonly alone, reading to eachother and having quiet talks. The prize essay was very much onRebecca's mind. Secretly she thought she could never be happy unlessshe won it. She cared nothing for the value of it, and in this casealmost nothing for the honor; she wanted to please Mr. Aladdin andjustify his belief in her.
"If I ever succeed in choosing a subject, I must ask if you think I canwrite well on it; and then I suppose I must work in silence and secret,never even reading the essay to you, nor talking about it."
Miss Maxwell and Rebecca were sitting by a little brook on a sunnyspring day. They had been in a stretch of wood by the sea sincebreakfast, going every now and then for a bask on the warm white sand,and returning to their shady solitude when tired of the sun's glare.
"The subject is very important," said Miss Maxwell, "but I do not darechoose for you. Have you decided on anything yet?"
"No," Rebecca answered; "I plan a new essay every night. I've begun oneon What is Failure? and another on He and She. That would be a dialoguebetween a boy and girl just as they were leaving school, and would telltheir ideals of life. Then do you remember you said to me one day,'Follow your Saint'? I'd love to write about that. I didn't have asingle thought in Wareham, and now I have a new one every minute, so Imust try and write the essay here; think it out, at any rate, while Iam so happy and free and rested. Look at the pebbles in the bottom ofthe pool, Miss Emily, so round and smooth and shining."
"Yes, but where did they get that beautiful polish, that satin skin,that lovely shape, Rebecca? Not in the still pool lying on the sands.It was never there that their angles were rubbed off and their roughsurfaces polished, but in the strife and warfare of running waters.They have jostled against other pebbles, dashed against sharp rocks,and now we look at them and call them beautiful."
"If Fate had not made somebody a teacher, She might have been, oh! such a splendid preacher!"
rhymed Rebecca. "Oh! if I could only think and speak as you do!" shesighed. "I am so afraid I shall never get education enough to make agood writer."
"You could worry about plenty of other things to better advantage,"said Miss Maxwell, a little scornfully. "Be afraid, for instance, thatyou won't understand human nature; that you won't realize the beauty ofthe outer world; that you may lack sympathy, and thus never be able toread a heart; that your faculty of expression may not keep pace withyour ideas,--a thousand things, every one of them more important to thewriter than the knowledge that is found in books. AEsop was a Greekslave who could not even write down his wonderful fables; yet all theworld reads them."
"I didn't know that," said Rebecca, with a half sob. "I didn't knowanything until I met you!"
"You will only have had a high school course, but the most famousuniversities do not always succeed in making men and women. When I longto go abroad and study, I always remember that there were three greatschools in Athens and two in Jerusalem, but the Teacher of all teacherscame out of Nazareth, a little village hidden away from the bigger,busier world."
"Mr. Ladd says that you are almost wasted on Wareham," said Rebeccathoughtfully.
"He is wrong; my talent is not a great one, but no talent is whollywasted unless its owner chooses to hide it in a napkin. Remember thatof your own gifts, Rebecca; they may not be praised of men, but theymay cheer, console, inspire, perhaps, when and where you least expect.The brimming glass that overflows its own rim moistens the earth aboutit."
"Did you ever hear of The Rose of Joy?" asked Rebecca, after a longsilence.
"Yes, of course; where did you see it?"
"On the outside of a book in the library."
"I saw it on the inside of a book in the library," smiled Miss Maxwell."It is from Emerson, but I'm afraid you haven't quite grown up to it,Rebecca
, and it is one of the things impossible to explain."
"Oh, try me, dear Miss Maxwell!" pleaded Rebecca. "Perhaps by thinkinghard I can guess a little bit what it means."
"'In the actual--this painful kingdom of time and chance--are Care,Canker, and Sorrow; with thought, with the Ideal, is immortalhilarity--the rose of Joy; round it all the Muses sing,'" quoted MissMaxwell.
Rebecca repeated it over and over again until she had learned it byheart; then she said, "I don't want to be conceited, but I almostbelieve I do understand it, Miss Maxwell. Not altogether, perhaps,because it is puzzling and difficult; but a little, enough to go onwith. It's as if a splendid shape galloped past you on horseback; youare so surprised and your eyes move so slowly you cannot half see it,but you just catch a glimpse as it whisks by, and you know it isbeautiful. It's all settled. My essay is going to be called The Rose ofJoy. I've just decided. It hasn't any beginning, nor any middle, butthere will be a thrilling ending, something like this: let me see; joy,boy, toy, ahoy, decoy, alloy:--
Then come what will of weal or woe (Since all gold hath alloy), Thou 'lt bloom unwithered in this heart, My Rose of Joy!
Now I'm going to tuck you up in the shawl and give you the fir pillow,and while you sleep I am going down on the shore and write a fairystory for you. It's one of our 'supposing' kind; it flies far, far intothe future, and makes beautiful things happen that may never really allcome to pass; but some of them will,--you'll see! and then you'll takeout the little fairy story from your desk and remember Rebecca."
"I wonder why these young things always choose subjects that would taxthe powers of a great essayist!" thought Miss Maxwell, as she tried tosleep. "Are they dazzled, captivated, taken possession of, by thesplendor of the theme, and do they fancy they can write up to it? Poorlittle innocents, hitching their toy wagons to the stars! How prettythis particular innocent looks under her new sunshade!"
Adam Ladd had been driving through Boston streets on a cold spring daywhen nature and the fashion-mongers were holding out promises whichseemed far from performance. Suddenly his vision was assailed by thesight of a rose-colored parasol gayly unfurled in a shop window,signaling the passer-by and setting him to dream of summer sunshine. Itreminded Adam of a New England apple-tree in full bloom, the outercovering of deep pink shining through the thin white lining, and afluffy, fringe-like edge of mingled rose and cream dropping over thegreen handle. All at once he remembered one of Rebecca's earlyconfidences,--the little pink sunshade that had given her the only peepinto the gay world of fashion that her childhood had ever known; heradoration of the flimsy bit of finery and its tragic and sacrificialend. He entered the shop, bought the extravagant bauble, and expressedit to Wareham at once, not a single doubt of its appropriatenesscrossing the darkness of his masculine mind. He thought only of the joyin Rebecca's eyes; of the poise of her head under the apple-blossomcanopy. It was a trifle embarrassing to return an hour later and buy ablue parasol for Emma Jane Perkins, but it seemed increasinglydifficult, as the years went on, to remember her existence at all theproper times and seasons.
This is Rebecca's fairy story, copied the next day and given to EmilyMaxwell just as she was going to her room for the night. She read itwith tears in her eyes and then sent it to Adam Ladd, thinking he hadearned a share in it, and that he deserved a glimpse of the girl'sbudding imagination, as well as of her grateful young heart.
A FAIRY STORY
There was once a tired and rather poverty-stricken Princess who dweltin a cottage on the great highway between two cities. She was not asunhappy as thousands of others; indeed, she had much to be gratefulfor, but the life she lived and the work she did were full hard for onewho was fashioned slenderly.
Now the cottage stood by the edge of a great green forest where thewind was always singing in the branches and the sunshine filteringthrough the leaves.
And one day when the Princess was sitting by the wayside quite spent byher labor in the fields, she saw a golden chariot rolling down theKing's Highway, and in it a person who could be none other thansomebody's Fairy Godmother on her way to the Court. The chariot haltedat her door, and though the Princess had read of such beneficentpersonages, she never dreamed for an instant that one of them couldever alight at her cottage.
"If you are tired, poor little Princess, why do you not go into thecool green forest and rest?" asked the Fairy Godmother.
"Because I have no time," she answered. "I must go back to my plough."
"Is that your plough leaning by the tree, and is it not too heavy?"
"It is heavy," answered the Princess, "but I love to turn the hardearth into soft furrows and know that I am making good soil wherein myseeds may grow. When I feel the weight too much, I try to think of theharvest."
The golden chariot passed on, and the two talked no more together thatday; nevertheless the King's messengers were busy, for they whisperedone word into the ear of the Fairy Godmother and another into the earof the Princess, though so faintly that neither of them realized thatthe King had spoken.
The next morning a strong man knocked at the cottage door, and doffinghis hat to the Princess said: "A golden chariot passed me yesterday,and one within it flung me a purse of ducats, saying: 'Go out into theKing's Highway and search until you find a cottage and a heavy ploughleaning against a tree near by. Enter and say to the Princess whom youwill find there: "I will guide the plough and you must go and rest, orwalk in the cool green forest; for this is the command of your FairyGodmother."'"
And the same thing happened every day, and every day the tired Princesswalked in the green wood. Many times she caught the glitter of thechariot and ran into the Highway to give thanks to the Fairy Godmother;but she was never fleet enough to reach the spot. She could only standwith eager eyes and longing heart as the chariot passed by. Yet shenever failed to catch a smile, and sometimes a word or two floated backto her, words that sounded like: "I would not be thanked. We are allchildren of the same King, and I am only his messenger."
Now as the Princess walked daily in the green forest, hearing the windsinging in the branches and seeing the sunlight filter through thelattice-work of green leaves, there came unto her thoughts that hadlain asleep in the stifling air of the cottage and the weariness ofguiding the plough. And by and by she took a needle from her girdle andpricked the thoughts on the leaves of the trees and sent them into theair to float hither and thither. And it came to pass that people beganto pick them up, and holding them against the sun, to read what waswritten on them, and this was because the simple little words on theleaves were only, after all, a part of one of the King's messages, suchas the Fairy Godmother dropped continually from her golden chariot.
But the miracle of the story lies deeper than all this.
Whenever the Princess pricked the words upon the leaves she added athought of her Fairy Godmother, and folding it close within, sent theleaf out on the breeze to float hither and thither and fall where itwould. And many other little Princesses felt the same impulse and didthe same thing. And as nothing is ever lost in the King's Dominion, sothese thoughts and wishes and hopes, being full of love and gratitude,had no power to die, but took unto themselves other shapes and lived onforever. They cannot be seen, our vision is too weak; nor heard, ourhearing is too dull; but they can sometimes be felt, and we know notwhat force is stirring our hearts to nobler aims.
The end of the story is not come, but it may be that some day when theFairy Godmother has a message to deliver in person straight to theKing, he will say: "Your face I know; your voice, your thoughts, andyour heart. I have heard the rumble of your chariot wheels on the greatHighway, and I knew that you were on the King's business. Here in myhand is a sheaf of messages from every quarter of my kingdom. They weredelivered by weary and footsore travelers, who said that they couldnever have reached the gate in safety had it not been for your help andinspiration. Read them, that you may know when and where and how yousped the King's service."
And when the Fairy Godmothe
r reads them, it may be that sweet odorswill rise from the pages, and half-forgotten memories will stir theair; but in the gladness of the moment nothing will be half so lovelyas the voice of the King when he said: "Read, and know how you sped theKing's service."
Rebecca Rowena Randall