"THE ROAD OF THE LOVING HEART."
Joyce sat with her elbows on her dressing-table and her chin in her
hands, gazing thoughtfully into the mirror. She had just come from
Betty's room, and the child's patient cheerfulness, in the face of the
dark future that threatened her, had brought the tears to her eyes.
"Dear little Betty!" she said to her reflection in the mirror. "What a
beautiful memory of her we will all carry away with us! There isn't a
single thing I would want to forget about her. She will be leaving each
one of us a Road of the Loving Heart to look back on. And it's like the
work of the old Samoan chiefs, too! Built to last for ever. It frightens
me to think that what I've done is going to be remembered for ever and
ever and ever; but that is what Mrs. Sherman said: '_The memories we dig
into our souls will go with us into eternity_.'
"If I should die right now, what a lot of things I would want people to
forget about me; especially the family. I've been so mean to Jack and
so selfish with Mary. I'm going to begin the minute I get back to the
little brown house to start to make a memory road for everybody, that I
need not be ashamed of when I lie a-dying."
Then she gave a shamefaced little glance at her reflection in the
mirror. "No, that's putting it off too long. That is one of my worst
habits. I'll begin this minute and write that letter to mamma that I
have been putting off all week. And I'll take time to make it
interesting, and write all the little things that I know she wants to
hear about. And I'll not be so snappish with Eugenia, and make her feel
that she was most to blame about our getting the measles. I've taken a
mean sort of pleasure in doing it before. Poor thing, she seems to feel
dreadfully bad about it, and there's no use my adding anything to her
distress." And Joyce, jumping up, took out her writing materials, and
sat down at her desk.
At the same moment the Little Colonel was hanging around the door
waiting for Mrs. Sherman, who sat in the room until Betty fell asleep.
There was a lingering tenderness in Lloyd's kiss as she threw her arms
around her mother's neck, and, though no word was spoken, Mrs. Sherman
knew that Lloyd had taken Betty's little sermon to heart.
"Where is Eugenia, dear?" she asked.
"She has gone to her room, I think."
"I want to have a little talk with her. She has seemed so miserable and
unhappy, since all this happened. The poor child has nearly made herself
ill worrying about it."
Across the hall Eugenia had thrown herself down on her bed, and was
staring out of the windows. She saw nothing of the summer skies outside,
or any of all that outdoor brightness. Her gaze was turned inward on
herself.
"I wish I could begin at the beginning and do it all over,--all my
life!" she thought. "Somehow I've always thought it rather smart to say
and do exactly as I pleased; to be the ringleader in all the mischief
and make the teachers dread me, and have the girls afraid of me. But
Betty makes you look at things so differently. I'd give anything I've
got to have people remember me as they will her. What must papa think of
me? I'm all he's got, and he is so good to me! Oh, it would have been
better if I had never been born! Every day I've lived I've left a whole
road full of stones for somebody to jolt over. Poor old Eliot can't
think of me as anything else than an imp of selfishness, for I'm always
making it hard for her, and she's a stranger in a strange land,' and I
ought to have remembered that she has feelings as well as I have, even
if she is a servant. And now Betty's eyes--"
She turned over on the bed, face downward, and began to cry. It was just
then that Mrs. Sherman tapped at the door. For almost an hour Lloyd
could hear the low murmur of voices going on inside the room, and knew
that Eugenia was hearing now what she had always most sorely needed, a
sympathetic, motherly talk. If she could have had that loving advice,
those straightforward words of warning, long ago, how much they might
have done for the motherless child. As it was, that hour opened
Eugenia's eyes to many things, and awakened a desire to grow more like
the gentle woman beside her, sweet and sincere, unselfish and helpful.
Great was Mr. Forbes's surprise one day, when he opened a letter from
Eugenia in the dining-room at the Waldorf, to find that it covered eight
pages, and was blistered in several places, as if she had dropped a tear
or two as she wrote. Usually she had a favour to ask when she wrote, and
scrawled only a page or two; but this told the story of Betty's
blindness, her own part in the affair, and all that she had learned
about the Road of the Loving Heart. The newspaper clipping that Betty
had treasured was enclosed, that he might read for himself the story of
Tusitala that had left such an impression on her.
The letter touched him as nothing had done for years, and he read it a
second time while he was going up to his office on the elevated. Then at
lunch-time, while he waited in his club-room, for lunch to be served, he
took it out and read it again. All that busy day between the demands
that business made on him, and once even in the midst of dictating to
his typewriter, his thoughts kept turning to that far-away island in the
Southern seas, where Tusitala's road gleams white under the tropic sun.
He had met Robert Louis Stevenson once, the tale-teller of Eugenia's
story, and he well understood the influence of that noble life over the
old chiefs who called him "brother."
The words that Eugenia had quoted in her letter rang in his ears all
day, every way he turned: "_Fame dies and honours perish, but
loving-kindness is immortal._" He seemed to hear them when a poor woman
came into his office, asking for a position for her son. They stopped
the curt refusal on his lips, and caused him to take half an hour of his
precious time to help her.
He heard them again when a case was reported to him of a man living in
one of his tenement-houses, who could not pay his rent because he was
too ill to work, and could not hope to recover in his present
surroundings. The stifling heat of the crowded tenement was killing him.
In his weakened condition he was slowly sinking under his burden of debt
and worry, and the thought that his helpless family was almost starving
and would be left uncared for when he died.
Mr. Forbes turned away with an impatient frown from his collector's
report, but that voice from far Samoa seemed to speak again. It was
Tusitala's, and again he saw the road dug to last for ever, in the white
light of the tropic skies. He sat with his head on his hand a moment,
and then, slowly reaching for his check-book filled out a blank, signed
it, and sealed it in an envelope.
Pushing it toward his astonished collector, he said: "Here, Miller, take
that down to Wiggins, and tell him I said to pick up himself and family,
and go down to the seashore for a couple of weeks. It will put them all
on their feet again to get out of that place into the salt air, and,
wait a minute, Miller,"--as the collector moved off,--"take him a
receipt for two months' rent."
Miller walked away, speechless with astonishment, but he had found his
tongue by the time he got back. He went into the private office, hat in
hand, and waited patiently until Mr. Forbes looked up.
"Well?"
"Wiggins says to tell you, sir, that he will write to you to-morrow, but
if you'll excuse me, sir, for meddling in what is none of my business,
I'd like you to know before then what a little heaven on earth you have
made in that tenement-house. Wiggins was so weak he could hardly sit up,
and he cried for pure joy, at the thought of getting away. He says he
knows it will save his life. He kept wringing my hand, over and over,
and saying, 'It isn't just the money and all that it will do for me in
the way of unloading me of that debt and getting my strength back, but
it's the kindness of it, Miller, the heavenly kindness of it! Doing all
this for me as if he had been my brother!'"
"Thank you, Miller," said Mr. Forbes, waving him hastily aside and
turning again to his letters. He seemed impatient, but there was a glow
in his heart that made the world seem pleasanter all day.
On his way home he stopped at a jeweller's, and selected a little ring.
It was only a simple twist of gold tied in a lover's knot, but inside he
had them engrave the word, _"Tusitala,"_ and ordered it sent to the
hotel that evening.
Late that night it was brought up to his room, where he sat writing a
letter to Eugenia. He had just finished the paragraph: "I am sending you
by this mail a sort of talisman. Maybe the daily sight of it on your
finger will be a helpful reminder of that noble life that shall never be
forgotten, while the Road of the Loving Heart endures. It is so easy to
forget to take time to be kind. I find it so in my daily rush of
business. I shall carry your letter with me as a reminder. Tell your
little friend Betty so. The ripple she started will circle farther than
she ever dreamed."
"How queer for me to be saying anything like that to Eugenia," he
thought. "How much she must have changed to be able to write me the
letter she did." He opened the box and took out the little ring. As he
turned it around on the tip of his finger, he remembered that it was
almost time for her to be coming home. The house party would soon be at
an end.
"Hardly worth while to send it to her," he thought. "She will be coming
home so soon. When we are down at the seashore, I will give it to her."
The letter she had written him lay open on the table before him. That
letter, blotted with penitent tears, had brought a new tenderness into
his heart for her. It had revealed a different Eugenia from the one he
had been accustomed to thinking of as his little daughter. Somehow she
seemed nearer and dearer than she had ever done before, and he wanted to
take her in his arms and tell her so. The next instant the thought
flashed across his mind, "Well, why not? This is the time I have
arranged to take my vacation, and there is nothing to hinder my going
down to Kentucky after her. Jack Sherman is always urging me to visit
Locust, and I'll give the child a surprise. She dislikes to travel with
only Eliot."
Eugenia knew nothing of the telegram her Cousin Elizabeth received next
morning, so several days later she could hardly believe her eyes, when
she saw her father spring out of the carriage in front of the house, and
come bounding up the steps, between the white pillars of the
vine-covered porch. Tall, handsome, smiling, he came toward her, his
arms outstretched, and, after one amazed glance, she ran into them,
crying, "Oh, papa! papa! I'm so glad!"
"I couldn't do without my little girl any longer," he said. "I had to
come for her."
Mrs. Sherman came out just then with the warmest of welcomes, and
Eugenia rushed up-stairs for a moment, to tell Betty about her surprise
and to hurry Joyce and Lloyd down to greet her father.
"I am going to begin all over again now," she said to herself, as she
went up the stairs. "I'll be as good, and sweet to him as he deserves.
I'll let him see how proud I am of him, too. It's queer, but somehow I
really love him better since I have thought so much about Betty's Memory
roads. Well, I shall certainly try my best from now on to leave a happy
one behind for him."
He gave her the ring that night, the little golden lover's knot with the
name of Tusitala engraved inside, to remind her always of the Road of
the Loving Heart, that she might leave in the world after her. With her
head on his shoulder and his arm around her, they talked long, and
freely together, as they had never done before.
Once he looked at her with a quizzical little smile. "I never realised
until to-night," he said, "how old you are, or how companionable you can
be. But we'll always be good chums after this, won't we?"
"Yes," she answered, giving his ear a playful tweak, and mischievously
imitating his tone and manner. "And I never realised until to-night how
young you are, or how companionable _you_ can be. I believe that if
you'd been at this house party from the beginning, you'd have been
playing with us by this time, like Bobby and the other boys.
"I must show this ring to the girls," she said, presently, when they
heard Mrs. Sherman coming back. Then she hesitated, her eyes sparkling
with the pleasure of a sudden thought.
"Oh, papa, I'd like to give Lloyd and Joyce and Betty each a ring like
mine, to help them remember, you know, and as a souvenir of the house
party. Don't you think that would be nice? I have scarcely touched my
allowance this month. Couldn't we go to the city to-morrow and get
them?"
"Yes, I think so," answered her father. "We'll ask Cousin Elizabeth
about the trains."
Early next morning Mr. Forbes and Eugenia went into the city on their
little excursion, and scarcely had they gone when a telegram arrived
from Mr. Sherman, saying he would be home on the noon train. The Little
Colonel went dashing around the house, from one room to another, calling
out the news in the greatest excitement.
"Have you heard it? Papa Jack's comin'! Grandfathah is goin' to stay
several weeks longah, but Papa Jack's comin' on the noon train to-day!"
Some one else came on that noon train, some one whom Doctor Fuller met
in his buggy and took immediately up to Locust. It was the oculist who
had been there before. Lloyd was so excited over her father's arrival
that she scarcely noticed they were in the house, and she never knew
when they gravely made their examination of Betty's eyes and as gravely
went away again.
But late that afternoon, Eugenia and her father, driving up from the
station, were surprised to see a cloud of dust whirling rapidly down the
road toward them. As they came nearer they saw that Tarbaby was in the
centre of it, and on his bare back perched the Little Colonel, the hot
June sun beating down on her bare head and red face. As she came within
calling distance, she waved her arms frantically to stop the carriage,
and shrieked out, at the top of her voice: "Papa Jack's home, and, oh,
Eugenia, _Betty can see_!"
The carriage stopped, and Eugenia leaned out eagerly.
"I couldn't wait for you to get home," cried the Little Colonel. "As
soon as I heard the train whistle I jumped on Tarbaby without a saddle
or anything, and just _toah_ down heah to tell you. Of co'se she can't
use her eyes much fo' a long time, and will have to weah a shade fo'
weeks, but when they tested her eyes she _saw_! And she isn't goin' to
be blind!"
Eugenia gave a great, deep sigh of thankfulness, and leaned limply back
in the carriage. "Oh, papa," she exclaimed, "you can't imagine what a
relief it is to hear that! I felt so much to blame, that now it seems as
if a great weight had been lifted off from me."
They were having a jubilee in Betty's room when Eugenia and her father
reached the house. Mrs. Sherman told them so, from the head of the
stairs and called them to come on up and join in it.
It was a very quiet jubilee. The doctor had insisted on that; but the
unspoken joy of the little face on the pillow made happiness in every
heart. It was the first time that Mr. Forbes had seen Betty. She was
lying with her brown curls tossed back on the pillows, her eyes still
bandaged; but the smile on the little mouth was one of the sweetest,
gladdest things he had ever seen. Involuntarily he stooped and kissed
her softly on the forehead.
"Who is it?" asked Betty, reaching out a wondering little hand,
"Eugenia's father?"
"Lloyd calls me Cousin Carl," answered Mr. Forbes, taking the groping
fingers in his, "and I think that the little Betty that everybody is so
fond of might call me that, too."
"I'll be glad to--Cousin Carl," said the child, bashfully, and that was
the beginning of a warm and steadfast friendship.
Eugenia waited until later, when her father and Mrs. Sherman had left
the room, before she opened her packages.
"Hold fast all I give you!" she exclaimed, gaily, tossing a tiny white
box into Joyce's lap and another into Lloyd's. But the third one she
opened, and, taking out the ring it held, slipped it on Betty's finger.
"They are all like the one papa gave me," she said, "and have Tusitala's
name inside to help me remember the Memory roads that Betty told us
about."
"It will remind me of more than that," said Betty gratefully, when she
and the girls had expressed their thanks in a chorus of delighted
exclamations. "It will remind me of the happiest day in my life. This is
the first ring I ever owned," she added, turning it proudly on her
finger. "I wish I could see it." Then, with a gladness in her voice that
thrilled her listeners,--"But I _shall_ see it some day! Oh, girls, you
couldn't know, you couldn't possibly imagine how much that means to me,
unless you'd been shut up as I have in this awful darkness."
There was silence for a moment, and then Eugenia stooped over and gave
her a quick, impulsive kiss. "Well, your blindness did some good,
Betty," she said, speaking hurriedly and with very red cheeks. "It made
me see how hateful and selfish I've always been, and I'm never going to
be so mean again to anybody as I was to you. I'm trying to dig a road
like Tusitala's and I never would have thought of it, if it hadn't been
for you."
With that she turned hastily, and, running across the hall to her own
room, shut the door behind her with a bang.