MORE MEASLES.
It seemed to Betty that that night would never end. It was after
midnight before the house grew quiet. Then, whenever she closed her
eyes, she could see those ghostly figures dancing before her in a long,
white wavering line. After awhile she gave up the attempt to sleep, and
lay with her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness, alert, and
quivering at the slightest sound.
"I don't know what makes me so nervous," she thought. "I feel as if I
should fly, and the dark seems so horrible, as if it was full of creepy,
crawling things, with horns and claws."
A beetle boomed against the window, striking the pane with a heavy thud.
She drew the sheet over her head and shivered. "Maybe if I'd read awhile
it would make me sleepy," she thought, and, slipping softly out of bed,
she groped her way across the room in the dark to the dressing-table.
Lighting a candle in one of the crystal candlesticks that always
reminded her of twisted icicles, she put it on a stand beside her bed.
The light flickered unsteadily, but she piled the pillows up behind her
and settled herself to read.
It was a new book that she was greatly interested in, and before long
she was so deep in the story that she never noticed how the time was
flying. Instead of bringing sleep to her eyes, it seemed to drive it
farther and farther away. The candle burned lower and lower, but she
never noticed it, and read on by its unsteady light until she heard the
hall clock strike four. The candle was flickering in its socket, and the
June dawn was beginning to streak the sky. Her eyes smarted and burned,
and ached with a dull throbbing pain.
She turned over and went to sleep then, and slept so heavily that she
did not hear the noises of the awakening household. Once Mrs. Sherman
came to the door and peeped in, but, finding her asleep, tiptoed out
again. It was nearly noon when she awoke, feeling as tired as when she
went to bed. She dressed languidly and went down-stairs, but was so
unlike her usually sunny self, that Mrs. Sherman watched her anxiously.
Late in the afternoon she sent for Doctor Fuller, and a general wail
went up when he announced what was the matter with her.
"More measles, Mrs. Sherman," he said, cheerfully. "Well, this is the
most extraordinary house party I ever heard of. You seem to be
exceedingly partial to this one line of amusements."
"It isn't fair for Betty to have it," exclaimed Joyce, "when she
wouldn't go to the camp, and she's had it before! It's just too bad!"
"We'll all have to be mighty good to her," said the Little Colonel, "for
she was so sweet about amusing us. We'll take turns reading to her and
entertaining her, for she stayed hours with us in that dark room when
she could have been outdoors enjoying herself."
"That is probably the reason she is laid up now," answered the doctor.
"She should have kept entirely away from you."
"But she had had one case," explained Mrs. Sherman, "and we never
dreamed of her having another. Poor little thing! I hope this will be
light. She had a hard time before, so we must make a regular frolic of
this, girls."
"Well, no, madam, at least not for several days," said the doctor,
gravely, "And you must be extremely careful about her eyes. They seem to
be badly affected, and I must warn you that they are really in danger."
They told Betty that afterward, thinking it would stop her crying, when
everything else failed to do so, if she realised how necessary it was
for her not to inflame them with her tears. Usually she was a sensible
little body, obedient to the slightest suggestion, but now she lay
curled up in a disconsolate little heap in bed, sobbing as if her heart
would break.
"Oh, I don't want to have the measles!" she sobbed, catching her breath
in great gasps. "Oh, I don't _want_ to!"
"My dear little girl, don't let it distress you so!" begged Mrs.
Sherman, leaning over and tenderly wiping the flushed little face.
"It will not be any worse for you than for the other girls, and in a few
days when you feel better we are going to have all sorts of sport out of
it. The girls are planning now what they shall do to make up to you for
this disappointment. They feel as if they are to blame for bringing this
illness upon you by their disobedience, and you cannot imagine how bad
it makes them feel to have you take it to heart so bitterly."
But even that failed to stop her tears, and presently Mrs. Sherman went
out into the hall, where the girls were waiting for her.
"There is some reason for all this distress that I am unable to
discover," she said. "Joyce, maybe if you would go in and talk to her
you might find out."
"She must be lots worse than we were," whispered Eugenia to Lloyd, as
the high, shrill voice, so unlike Betty's usual tones, went on
complainingly in the next room.
"Hush!" warned Lloyd. "She's telling Joyce what the matter is." The
words came out to them distinctly. She was speaking with a nervous
quickness as if her fever had almost reached delirium.
"I was trying to dig one of those roads," wailed Betty, in a high,
querulous voice. "One that would last for ever, don't you know? like the
one they built for Tusitala. You _do_ know, don't you?" she insisted,
feverishly, but Joyce had to acknowledge that she had never heard of it,
and Betty cried again, because she felt too nervous and ill to explain.
"There, there! never mind!" said Joyce, soothingly, thinking that
Betty's mind was wandering. "You can tell me all about it when you get
well."
"But I want you to know _now_!" sobbed Betty, with all the unreasoning
impatience of a sick child. "It is all in my 'Good times book.' I cut it
out of an old _Youth's Companion_, just after I came, and the piece is
inside the cover of that little white and gold book in the
writing-desk. Read it, won't you? Then you will understand."
Joyce took the slip of paper to the window, and glanced rapidly along
the lines.
"No, read it aloud!" demanded Betty, fretfully. "I want to hear it, too.
It is such a sweet story, and I read it over every day to help me
remember."
Mrs. Sherman and the girls, sitting outside the door, leaned forward to
listen, as Joyce read aloud the newspaper clipping that Betty counted
among her chief treasures. This is what they heard:
"THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART."[1]
"Remembering the great love of his highness, Tusitala, and his
loving care when we were in prison and sore distressed, we have
prepared him an enduring present, this road which we have dug for
ever."
* * * * *
In a far-off island, thousands of miles from the mainland, and
unconnected with the world by cable, stands this inscription. It
was set up at the corner of a new road, cut through a tropical
jungle, and bears at its head the title of this article, signed by
the names of ten prominent chiefs. This is the story of the road,
and why it was built:
Some years ago a Scotchman, broken in health and expecting an early
death, sought out this lonely spot, because here the climate was
favourable to the disease from which he suffered. He settled here
for what remained to him of life.
He bought an estate of several hundred acres, and threw himself
earnestly into the life of the natives of the island. There was
great division among the many chiefs, and prolonged warfare. Very
soon the chiefs found that this alien from a strange land was their
best friend. They began coming to him for counsel, and invited him
to their most important conferences.
Though he did not bear that name, he became a missionary to them.
He was their hero, and they loved and trusted him because he tried
to lead them aright. They had never had such a friend. And so it
came about that when the wars ceased, the chiefs of both sides
called him by a name of their own, and made him one of their own
number, thus conferring upon him the highest honour within their
power.
But many of the chiefs were still in prison, because of their
political views or deeds, and in constant danger of being put to
death. Their sole friend was the Scotchman, whom they called
Tusitala. He visited them, comforted them, repeated passages from
the history of Christ to them, and busied himself incessantly to
effect their release.
At length he obtained their freedom, and then, glowing with
gratitude, in despite of age, decrepitude, and loss of strength,
they started directly for the estate of their benefactor, and
there, in the terrible heat, they laboured for weeks in building
him a road which they knew he had long desired. Love conquered
weakness, and they did not cease their toil until their handiwork,
which they called "The Road of the Loving Heart," was finished.
Not long after this the white chief suddenly died. At the news the
native chiefs flocked from all parts of the island to the house,
and took charge of the body. They kissed his hand as they came in,
and all night sat in silence about him. One of them, a feeble old
man, threw himself on his knees beside the body of his benefactor,
and cried out between his sobs:
"I am only a poor black man, and ignorant. Yet I am not afraid to
come and take the last look of my dead friend's face. Behold,
Tusitala is dead. We were in prison and he cared for us. The day
was no longer than his kindness. Who is there so great as Tusitala?
Who is there more loving-compassionate? What is your love to his
love?"
So the chiefs took their friend to the top of a steep mountain
which he had loved, and there buried him. It was a mighty task.
The civilised world mourns the great author. The name of Robert
Louis Stevenson is lastingly inwrought into English literature. But
the Samoans mourn in his loss a brother, who outdid all others in
loving-kindness, and so long as the island in the Pacific exists,
Tusitala will be gratefully remembered, not because he was so
greatly gifted, but because he was a good man.
The phrase, "The Road of the Loving Heart," is a gospel in itself.
"The day is not longer than his kindness" is a new beatitude. Fame
dies, and honours perish, but "loving-kindness" is immortal.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Editorial in old copy of _Youth's Companion_.]
Joyce finished and looked up inquiringly. She still did not see what
connection the road could have with Betty's distress over the measles.
"Now, don't you see?" asked Betty, tremulously, "It is for godmother
that I wanted to build that road, for ever since I came she has been
like Tusitala to me. 'The day is no longer than her kindness.' Oh,
Joyce, nobody knows how good she has been to me!" Then between her sobs
she told Joyce again the story of the gold beads, and the many things
her godmother had done to make her visit a continual delight. Mrs.
Sherman, outside the door, felt her eyes grow dim and her cheeks wet, as
the child babbled on, reciting a long list of little kindnesses that she
had treasured in her memory, and that her godmother had either done
unconsciously, or had forgotten long ago.
It showed how hungry the poor little heart had been, that such trifles
could make it brim over with gratitude. She wiped her eyes more than
once as the voice went on.
"Of course I couldn't dig a road like those chiefs did, and she wouldn't
have wanted one, even if I could; but I thought maybe I could leave a
memory behind me when this beautiful visit is done, that would be like a
smooth, white road. You know remembering things is like looking back
over a road. At least it always seemed that way to me, and the
unpleasant things that have happened are like the stones and rocks that
we stumble over. But if there haven't been any unpleasant things to
remember, then we can look back and see it stretched out behind us, all
smooth and white and shining.
"So I tried from the very first of my visit to leave nothing behind me
for her memory to stumble over; not a frown, a cross word, or a single
disobedience. That's why I wouldn't go with you that day to have my
fortune told. It would have spoiled my 'Road of the Loving Heart,' and
put a stone in it that would always have made godmother sorry when she
thought of my visit.
"That's why I came back from the picnic at the old mill and missed the
charades. It would have spoiled the road if I hadn't kept my
promise,--kept it to the utmost. And now after all the days I have tried
so hard, it is going to be spoiled because I've gone and got sick. I'll
be so much care and trouble that the Memory Road will be all spoiled--my
'Road of the Loving Heart!'"
Betty was so exhausted by this time, that she was not crying any longer;
but now and then a long sob shook the little body from head to foot.
Joyce, not knowing what to say, slipped away and went out into the hall.
"So that is the cause of the child's distress," whispered Mrs. Sherman.
"Bless her little heart, now I've found out what is the matter, maybe I
can succeed in quieting her."
What she said to comfort her the girls never knew, for the door closed
behind her and they stole away to their own rooms.
But presently they heard the "White Seal's Lullaby" sung softly within.
She had taken Betty in her arms, and was rocking her as tenderly as she
had rocked the Little Colonel, while she sang, "Oh, hush thee, my baby,
the night is behind us."
When Betty fell asleep it was in the embrace of something far more
comforting and restful than the "arms of the slow-swinging seas." For
the first time in her life since she could remember, she felt what it
was to be folded fast in the mother-love that she had always longed
for.