time that day a wave of memory and feeling swept over her, and in one
exquisite moment she found the lost treasure! For the heart that leaped
and throbbed faster at sight of the violet was the heart of a little
child.
* * * * *
It was past the middle of the afternoon. The wind had died down to a
mere occasional whisper, the birds chirped more softly, and there seemed
to be a hush and a pause, as if all the creatures of the wood felt the
languorous spell of the hour. Miranda looked about for a resting place.
She was standing near the main path in a partly cleared space, a sort of
fairy ring, in the center of which was a giant tree that had suffered a
lingering death from a stroke of lightning. Lithe and graceful, with the
sap of a new life coursing through their veins, its comrades were waving
and beckoning to each other and welcoming the birds to leafy shelters,
while, stark and stiff with decay, the stricken one stood like the
skeleton at the feast, stretching its helpless arms skyward as if
imploring Nature to raise it from the dead. All around it were the kings
of the forest, the fruitful walnut and hickory whose leaves smell like
the "close-bit thyme" on the downs of Sussex by the sea; the tasseled
oak, and the elm more graceful than any graveyard willow; but moved by
some hidden impulse, this girl whose youth was almost gone chose the
dead tree for her own. The ground was littered with strips of bark that
the electric storm had torn from the trunk. She gathered these and laid
them at the root for protection from the damp earth. Then, seating
herself, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree and drew a long,
sighing breath of deep content. Through the woods on the other side of
the path she could see the field of young wheat, and she had a vague,
dreamy thought of the summer's heat that would ripen the grain and of
the harvest with its terrible toil for the women of the farm. The heat
of summer and the cold of winter were alike hateful to her, but no
thought of either could break this blissful calm. Like an evil dream the
winter was gone, and like an evil dream the summer too would go, and
both would be forgotten. What mattered heat or cold? Every winter had
its spring; every summer its autumn; and the heart need remember only
its springs and autumns. She looked upward into the depths of pale blue
ether, and followed the course of the white, drifting clouds. O, ecstasy
of ecstasies! To live on such an earth with such a sky above! Looking at
the sky was like looking into a vast crystal. Farther and farther into
space her gaze seemed to penetrate, and presently her soul began to
follow her gaze. Something in that boundless space seemed to be drawing
her out of the body. Her breath was so light it would hardly have moved
a gossamer; her eyelids drooped slowly and heavily, and she slept a
sleep too deep for dreams.
An hour passed, and still the mystery of sleep enfolded her. A bee
hummed noisily about her head, a catbird sang in a tree near by, but she
was too far away to be disturbed by any sound of earth.
"Ye are not bound!
The soul of things is sweet,
The heart of being is celestial rest--"
All this the sleeper knew. She had broken the chains of habit that
mortals forge for themselves and bind on themselves; in the freedom of
that spring day her soul had tasted the sweetness that lies at the "soul
of things", and now in sleep she had found the "celestial rest" that
lies at "the heart of being."
Was that a human footstep or was it a rabbit rustling the underbrush?
Was it a human voice or the note of a bird? Along the fresh path between
the two roads came a man, walking with a glad, free stride and whistling
softly under his breath. The joy of the season was in his face, and he
was at home in the woods, for when a redbird called to its mate, the man
whistled a reply and smiled to hear the bird's instant response.
Suddenly he caught sight of the sleeping girl at the foot of the tree;
the whistle and the smile died on his lips and he stopped short, amazed
and bewildered. A woman asleep in the forest! Wonder of wonders! The
sunshine flecked her face and her hair, and in the sweet placidity of
sleep he hardly recognized the girl he had often seen in the country
church on Sundays. What was she doing here alone and unprotected?
Surprise and wonder vanished as he realized the situation, and his face
crimsoned like a bashful girl's. For the moment the whole wood seemed
to belong to the sleeper at whom he was gazing, and he felt the
confusion of one who accidentally invades the privacy of a maiden's
room. Here was no fairy princess to be wakened with a kiss, but a
helpless woman who must be guarded as long as she slept, and he was a
knight in homespun appointed to keep the watch. He knew, though no poet
had ever told him, that sleep is "a holy thing." If it had been
possible, he would have silenced the songs of the birds, and he held his
breath as he turned and tiptoed softly away, looking timidly back now
and then to see if she still slept. When he had gone a few rods, he
stepped out of the path and took his place behind the trunk of a tree.
Here he could watch and see that no other intruder passed by, and when
she wakened he would be ready to follow her homeward flight. There were
tasks at home awaiting his hand, but here was a work more important than
any labor of farm or fireside. Steadfastly he watched and listened,
while the sun sank lower, and the woods were filled with a golden glow
like the radiance of many candles lighted in some great temple.
Sleep is a mystery, and so is our awakening from sleep. Who can tell
where the soul goes, when the body lies motionless, unseeing,
unhearing, and who can tell what calls it back from those far and
unremembered lands?
It may have been the chill of the coming night as the sun went down, or
the cry of a bird that summoned Miranda again to earth. She opened her
eyes with a long, sighing breath. How heavenly to waken out of doors and
see the blue sky and the swaying limbs of the trees instead of the
cracked ceiling of her bedroom! Then, as full consciousness came back to
her with memory of the day just passed, she saw that the sun was nearly
down. Night was at hand; the birds were seeking their nests, and she
must return to her home. With the thought of home came the thought of
duty, of the undone work she had left behind her that morning, and her
mother toiling in the gloomy kitchen. She sprang up, every sense alert,
turned her face in the direction of home, and took the nearest path
through the underbrush.
The watcher by the tree heard her flying steps and breathed a sigh of
relief. He moved cautiously around the trunk of the oak and waited till
he was sure she was out of the wood. Then he followed her trail and
caught sight of her half-way across the plowed field. He watched till
she was safe inside the pasture and then retraced his steps to the dead
tree. Had he been living in a dream? No, for here were the withered
violets lying on the ground witnessing to the reality of the last few
hours. He gathered up the poor, limp flowers, placed them carefully in
his waistcoat pocket and walked rapidly homeward.
The sun was just on the horizon line, when Miranda reached the garden
gate, and the splendor of light all around made her pause and look back
to the glowing West. Clouds were gathering for a storm; every cloud was
a mount of transfiguration, golden-hued or rose-colored, and the evening
sky was pierced by long arrows of light that grew brighter and more
far-reaching as the great central light sank lower behind the little
hills. The wind was blowing across the fields, carrying with it the
fragrance that night draws from the heart of the forest. One moment the
sad magnificence of dying day held her spellbound, then conscience spoke
again, and she hurried into the kitchen. The golden light was streaming
into the room, bringing out all its ugliness and disorder, and her
mother was standing by the table just where Miranda had left her that
morning.
"This is a pretty time of day for you to come home. Where have you been
all this time?" She looked at her daughter with cold displeasure, but
under the displeasure Miranda saw the expression of despair and
weariness that comes of unrecompensed toil, and a pang of remorse went
through her heart. She took her mother by the shoulders and gently
pushed her away from the table.
"Go out and sit on the porch, Mother, and look at the sky. I'll get
supper, and to-morrow I'll begin the house cleaning."
There was something in the girl's voice that checked the rising anger in
her mother's heart and stilled the upbraiding words that were on her
lips. She looked searchingly at her daughter and then turned silently
away. Miranda went to work with a willingness that surprised herself.
All the weariness and disgust of the morning were gone. She had
voluntarily resumed the shackles of duty, but as she worked she looked
out of the window to catch glimpses of the fading splendor that was
rounding out her flawless day, and in her heart she resolved that as
long as she lived, no spring should pass without a day in the woods. She
had eaten nothing since morning, but the mood of exaltation was still
upon her, and even the odor of the food she cooked roused no sense of
hunger. She thought of a Bible text learned when she was a child: "Man
doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God." Perhaps all the splendor of color and light, all the
opulence of perfume and warmth and music that make spring are words of
God. All day she had been living by those words, and she knew the
meaning of another occult saying of Christ: "I have meat to eat that ye
know not of."
She placed the evening meal on the table, called the family, and served
them more cheerfully than ever before; and when they had eaten, she
cleared the table and washed the dishes, while her mother rested again
on the porch. Her hands moved mechanically over the work. She could hear
the voices of her father and brothers; they were talking about crops and
the weather, and the planting that must be done that week. Now and then
her mother put in a word of querulous complaining over the hardship of
the day just passed and of all those that were to come. She heard it as
in a dream for still "the holy spirit of the spring" possessed her, and
it seemed strange and unbelievable that people could be troubled over
such trifles as sweeping and cleaning and cooking, when there were the
woods and the great, deep peace of the woods in which all such cares
might be forgotten.
After she had set the table for breakfast, she went out on the porch.
Her mother and the boys had gone up-stairs to bed, and her father was
knocking the ashes from his pipe and yawning loudly. She sat down on the
bench beside him and laid her hand on his knee. Such a thing as a caress
had not passed between father and daughter since the latter had outgrown
her childhood, and the man turned in surprise and peered through the
gloom at the face of the girl, as if seeking an explanation of that
familiar touch.
"Your mother says you been roamin' around in the woods all day,
Mirandy," he said awkwardly. "That ain't safe for a girl. Don't you know
that?"
"I wasn't afraid," she answered; "and, Father, I want to ask a favor of
you." Her voice had the eager pleading of a child's. "I want you to go
walkin' with me in the woods next Sunday, just like we used to do when I
was a little girl." Something in her voice and the words "when I was a
little girl" touched a chord of memory that had not vibrated for many a
year. Perhaps the tired, hard-worked man had a glimpse of the meagerness
of his child's life, for he laid his rough hand over hers and spoke with
the voice she remembered he had used when she was "a little girl."
"Why, that's a curious notion, Mirandy," he said. "What'll the preacher
say, if he hears we've gone walkin' in the woods on Sunday instead of
goin' to church? But I'll go just to please you, provided the weather's
suitable. Now, le's shut up the house and go to bed. It's time everybody
was asleep."
They went in together, and while her father closed the doors and put
down the windows in anticipation of the coming rain, Miranda lighted her
lamp in the kitchen and went softly up-stairs. She still felt the
delicious sleepiness that comes from breathing outdoor air all day, and
her nap in the woods seemed only to have given her a longing for more
sleep.
At the head of the stairs were the soap and water still waiting to be
used, but she could look at them now without any of the irritation she
had felt that morning, for she knew the hidden meaning of the work that
lay before her. Was not Nature cleaning the whole earth, purifying it
with her sunshine and her wind, and washing it with her dew and rain? If
men and women could only live in the wind and sun with no shelter but
the branches of the trees! But since they must have houses, these, too,
must know the wholesome touch of wind, sun, and water. Lovely pictures
of clouds, trees, fields, birds, and flowers filled her brain and made
more apparent the ugliness of her room. Her sense of smell, sharpened by
breathing forest air, took instant note of the musty odors that came
from walls, floors, and clothing. She pushed the bedstead near the
window so that she might feel the night air blowing over her face as she
slept and resolved that the next night should find that room as like to
a nook in the woods as she could make it; and when the scrubbing and
whitewashing were over, she would go again and again to the woods and
gather the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn to sweeten the air of
the old house. As she blew out the lamp, there was a rumble of thunder
from the west; a wind with the smell of rain swept through the dark
room, and, laying her head on the pillow, she smiled to think how the
creatures of the forest would look and feel in the scented night and the
falling rain. All the spring landscape on which she had gazed that day
seemed imprinted on her brain, and when she closed her eyes, it passed
like a panorama before her inner vision: wind-swept trees whose leafy
branches waved against the pale blue sky; tremulous shadows on the fresh
greensward; flowers of the garden and flowers of the forest flushing,
purpling, paling, flaming, glowing in orderly beds or in wild forest
nooks; long grey fences outlining farms and roads; sunlight glinting on
the wings of flying birds; misty hills and little valleys sloping down
to the level of the fertile fields; glory of midday and greater glory of
sunset softening into the quiet, star-lit evening skies.
What need of the painter's canvas and brush when the soul can thus
imprint on its records Beauty's every line and every color to be
recalled instantly from the shadows of time by Memory's magic art?
The thunder muttered fitfully, and presently the rain came, dashing
against the roof like a rattle of musketry, then quieting to a steady
downpour that promised to last all night. She lay still, listening
drowsily to the music of the storm and seeing through her closed eyelids
the flashes of lightning. She was not tired, only sleepy and happy. The
same calm that enveloped her in the forest was around her now, and soon
she was sleeping as deeply and sweetly as she had slept in the
afternoon. And while she slept, the man who had guarded her forest
slumber sat in the darkness, dreaming, and gazing at a picture that
would never fade from his brain: In the midst of the living forest a
dead tree, and at its foot a sleeping girl holding a bunch of withered
violets.
Ah, well! The perfect day was over and never again would come another
like it. To-morrow the sleeper and the dreamer would wake and rise to
the old, dull routine of daily toil and daily weariness, but though the
day was gone, its grace would abide forever, and life could never be
quite the same to the one who had met face to face with the True
Romance, and to the other who had lived, for a few charmed hours, the
life of the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field.
* * * * *
_By the author of "The Land of Long Ago."_
AUNT JANE OF KENTUCKY
_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
Illustrated by Beulah Strong. 12mo. Cloth. $1.30 _net_
Aunt Jane is perfectly delightful.--_The Outlook_, New York.
A book that plays on the heart strings.--_St. Louis Post-Despatch._
What Mrs. Gaskill did in "Cranford" this author does for
Kentucky.--_Syracuse Herald._
A prose idyl. Nothing more charming has appeared in recent
fiction.--MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
These pages have in them much of the stuff that makes genuine
literature.--_Louisville Courier Journal._
Where so many have made caricatures of old-time country folk, Eliza
Calvert Hall has caught at once the real charm, the real spirit, the
real people, and the real joy of living which was theirs.--_New York
Times._
Have you read that charming little book written by one of your clever
Kentucky women--"Aunt Jane of Kentucky"--by Eliza Calvert Hall? It is
very wholesome and attractive. Be sure that you read it.--THEODORE
ROOSEVELT.
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS 34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
* * * * *
_By the Author of "Aunt Jane of Kentucky"_
THE LAND OF LONG AGO
_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
Illustrated by G. Patrick Nelson and Beulah Strong 12mo. Cloth. $1.30
_net_
The book is an inspiration.--_Boston Globe._
Without qualification one of the worthiest publications of the
year.--_Pittsburg Post._
Aunt Jane has become a real personage in American literature.--_Hartford
Courant._
A philosophy sweet and wholesome flows from the lips of "Aunt
Jane."--_Chicago Evening Post._
The sweetness and sincerity of Aunt Jane's recollections have the same
unfailing charm found in "Cranford."--_Philadelphia Press._
To a greater degree than her previous work it touches the heart by its
wholesome, quaint human appeal.-_Boston Transcript._
The stories are prose idyls; the illuminations of a lovely spirit
shine upon them, and their literary quality is as rare as
beautiful.--_Baltimore Sun._
MARGARET E. SANGSTER says: "It is not often that an author competes with
herself, but Eliza Calvert Hall has done so successfully, for her second
volume centred about Aunt Jane is more fascinating than her first."
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
* * * * *
_By the author of "Aunt Jane of Kentucky"_
TO LOVE AND TO CHERISH
_By_ ELIZA CALVERT HALL
Author of "The Land of Long Ago," "Sally Ann's Experience," etc.
Illustrated by J. V. McFall. $1.00 _net_
A story of vital human quality.--_Boston Transcript._
A Kentucky idyl, pure, sweet, fragrant.--_Los Angeles Herald._
Her work has a quality all its own, bespeaking a deep and spiritual
individuality in the author.--_Philadelphia Press._
A simple, sweet, wholesome idyl dealing with some of the great issues of
life in a spirit of love and sacrifice.... Another instance where
simplicity is strength and beauty.--_Detroit Free Press._
It is a story which flows as limpidly as a mountain brook, and leaves a
peculiar sense of clear impressions behind it that is a tribute to its
good art.--_Christian Science Monitor._
Lofty of sentiment and as uplifting a tale of modern chivalry as any
tale that the old romancers have evolved. In a word, it is an artistic
gem.--_Springfield Union._
LITTLE, BROWN, & CO., PUBLISHERS
34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's Clover and Blue Grass, by Eliza Calvert Hall