The Birthday Prism
The Towncrier, passing along the street on an early morning trip to the
bakery, stopped at the door of the antique shop, for a word with Mrs.
Yates, the lady who kept it. She wanted him to "cry" an especial bargain
sale of old lamps later in the week. That is how he happened to be
standing in the front door when the crash came in the rear of the shop,
and it was because he was standing there that the crash came.
Because Mrs. Yates was talking to him she couldn't be at the back door
when the fish-boy came with the fish, and nobody being there to take it
the instant he knocked, the boy looked in and threw it down on the table
nearest the door. And because the fish was left to lie there a moment
while Mrs. Yates finished her conversation, the cat, stretched out on the
high window ledge above the table, decided to have his breakfast without
waiting to be called. He was an enormous cat by the name of "Grandpa,"
and because he was old and ponderous, and no longer light on his feet,
when he leaped from the windowsill he came down clumsily in the middle of
the very table _full_ of the old lamps which were set aside for the
bargain sale.
Of course, it was the biggest and fanciest lamp in the lot that was
broken--a tall one with a frosted glass shade and a row of crystal prisms
dangling around the bowl of it. It toppled over on to a pair of old brass
andirons, smashing into a thousand pieces. Bits of glass flew in every
direction, and "Grandpa," his fur electrified by his fright until he
looked twice his natural size, shot through the door as if fired from a
cannon, and was seen no more that morning.
Naturally, Mrs. Yates hurried to the back of the store to see what had
happened, and Mr. Darcy, following, picked up from the wreck the only
piece of the lamp not shattered to bits by the fall. It was one of the
prisms, which in some miraculous way had survived the crash, a beautiful
crystal pendant without a single nick or crack.
He picked it up and rubbed his coat sleeve down each of its three sides,
and when he held it up to the light it sent a ripple of rainbows dancing
across the shop. He watched them, pleased as a child; and when Mrs.
Yates, loud in her complaints of Grandpa, came with broom and dustpan to
sweep up the litter, he bargained with her for the prism.
That is how he happened to have an offering for Georgina's birthday when
he reached the house a couple of hours later, not knowing that it was her
birthday. Nobody had remembered it, Barby being gone.
It seemed to Georgina the forlornest day she had ever opened her eyes
upon. The very fact that it was gloriously sunny with a delicious summer
breeze ruffling the harbor and sending the white sails scudding along
like wings, made her feel all the more desolate. She was trying her best
to forget what day it was, but there wasn't much to keep her mind off the
subject. Even opportunities for helping Tippy were taken away, for Belle
had come to stay during Barby's absence, and she insisted on doing what
Georgina otherwise would have done.
If Barby had been at home there would have been no piano practice on such
a gala occasion as a tenth birthday. There would have been no time for it
in the program of joyful happenings. But because time dragged, Georgina
went to her scales and five-finger exercises as usual. With the hour-
glass on the piano beside her, she practised not only her accustomed
time, till the sand had run half through, but until all but a quarter of
it had slipped down. Then she sauntered listlessly out into the dining-
room and stood by one of the open windows, looking out through the wire
screen into the garden.
On any other day she would have found entertainment in the kitchen
listening to Belle and Mrs. Triplett. Belle seemed doubly interesting now
that she had heard of the unused wedding dress and the sorrow that would
"blight her whole life." But Georgina did not want anyone to see how
bitterly she was disappointed.
Just outside, so close to the window that she could have reached out and
touched it had it not been for the screen, stood the holiday tree. It had
held out its laden arms to her on so many festal occasions that Georgina
had grown to feel that it took a human interest in all her celebrations.
To see it standing bare now, like any ordinary tree, made her feel that
her last friend was indifferent. Nobody cared. Nobody was glad that she
was in the world. In spite of all she could do to check them, two big
tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks; then another and another. She
lifted up the hem of her dress to wipe them away, and as she did so Uncle
Darcy came around the hoase.
He looked in at the open window, then asked: "Weather a bit squally, hey?
Better put into port and tie up till storm's over. Let your Uncle Darcy
have a hand at the helm. Come out here, Barby, and let's talk it over on
the door-step."
There was something so heartening in the cheery voice that Georgina made
one more dab at her eyes with the hem of her dress skirt, then dropped it
and went out through the screen door to join him on the steps which led
down into the garden. At first she was loath to confess the cause of her
tears. She felt ashamed of being caught crying simply because no one had
remembered the date. It wasn't that she wanted presents, she sobbed. It
was that she wanted someone to be glad that she'd been born and it was so
lonesome without Barby--
In the midst of her reluctant confession Mr. Darcy bethought himself of
the prism in his pocket.
"Here," he said, drawing it out. "Take this and put a rainbow around your
troubles. It's a sort of magic glass. When you look through it, it shows
you things you can't see with your ordinary eyes. Look what it does to
the holiday tree."
There was a long-drawn breath of amazement from Georgina as she held the
prism to her eyes and looked through it at the tree.
"Oh! Oh! It does put a rainbow around every branch and every little tuft
of green needles. It's even lovelier than the colored lanterns were.
Isn't it wonderful? It puts a rainbow around the whole outdoors."
Her gaze went from the grape arbor to the back garden gate. Then she
jumped up and started around the house, the old man following, and
smiling over each enthusiastic "oh" she uttered, as the prism showed her
new beauty at every step. He was pleased to have been the source of her
new pleasure.
"It's like looking into a different world," she cried, as she reached the
kitchen door, and eagerly turned the prism from one object to another.
Mrs. Triplett was scowling intently over the task of trying to turn the
lid of a glass jar which refused to budge.
"Oh, it even puts a rainbow around Tippy's frown," Georgina cried
excitedly. Then she ran to hold the prism over Belle's eyes.
"Look what Uncle Darcy brought me for my birthday. See how it puts a
rainbow around every blessed thing, even the old black pots and pans!"
In showing it to Tippy she discovered a tiny hole in the end of the prism
by which it had been hung from the lamp, and she ran upstairs to find a
piece of ribbon to run through it. When she came down again, the prism
hanging from her neck by a long pink ribbon, Uncle Darcy greeted her with
a new version of the Banbury Cross song:
"Rings on her fingers and ribbon of rose,
She shall have rainbows wherever she goes."
"That's even better than having music wherever you go," answered
Georgina, whirling around on her toes. Then she stopped in a listening
attitude, hearing the postman.
When she came back from the front door with only a magazine her
disappointment was keen, butl she said bravely:
"Of course, I _knew_ there couldn't be a letter from Barby this
soon. She couldn't get there till last night--but just for a minute I
couldn't help hoping--but I didn't mind it half so much, Uncle Darcy,
when I looked at the postman through the prism. Even his whiskers were
blue and red and yellow."
That afternoon a little boat went dipping up and down across the waves.
It was _The Betsey_, with Uncle Darcy pulling at the oars and
Georgina as passenger. Lifting the prism which still hung from her neck
by the pink ribbon, she looked out upon what seemed to be an enchanted
harbor. It was filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined
with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. Even the
gray wharves were tinged with magical color, and the water itself, to her
reverent thought, suggested the "sea of glass mingled with fire," which
is pictured as one of the glories of the New Jerusalem.
"Isn't it _wonderful,_ Uncle Darcy?" she asked in a hushed, awed
tone. "It's just like a miracle the way this bit of glass changes the
whole world. Isn't it?"
Before he could answer, a shrill whistle sounded near at hand. They were
passing the boathouse on the beach below the Green Stairs. Looking up
they saw Richard, hanging out of the open doors of the loft, waving to
them. Georgina stood up in the boat and beckoned, but he shook his head,
pointing backward with his thumb into the studio, and disconsolately
lately shrugged his shoulders.
"He wants to go _so_ bad!" exclaimed Georgina. "Seems as if his
father's a mighty slow painter. Maybe if you'd ask him the way you did
before, Uncle Darcy, he'd let Richard off this one more time--being my
birthday, you know."
She looked at him with the bewitching smile which he usually found
impossible to resist, but this time he shook his head.
"No, I don't want him along to-day. I've brought you out here to show you
something and have a little talk with you alone. Maybe I ought to wait
till you're older before I say what I want to say, but at my time of life
I'm liable to slip off without much warning, and I don't want to go till
I've said it to you."
Georgina put down her prism to stare at him in eager-eyed wonder. She was
curious to know what he could show her out here on the water, and what he
wanted to tell her that was as important as his solemn words implied.
"Wait till we come to it," he said, answering the unspoken question in
her eyes. And Georgina, who dearly loved dramatic effects in her own
story-telling, waited for something--she knew not what--to burst upon her
expectant sight.
They followed the line of the beach for some time, dodging in between
motor boats and launches, under the high railroad wharf and around the
smaller ones where the old fish-houses stood. Past groups of children,
playing in the sand they went, past artists sketching under their white
umbrellas, past gardens gay with bright masses of color, past drying nets
spread out on the shore.
Presently Uncle Darcy stopped rowing and pointed across a vacant strip of
beach between two houses, to one on the opposite side of the street.
"There it is," he announced. "That's what I wanted to show you."
Georgina followed the direction of his pointing finger.
"Oh, that!" she said in a disappointed tone. "I've seen that all my life.
It's nothing but the Figurehead House."
She was looking at a large white house with a portico over the front
door, on the roof of which portico was perched half of the wooden figure
of a woman. It was of heroic size, head thrown back as if looking off to
sea, and with a green wreath in its hands. Weather-beaten and discolored,
it was not an imposing object at first glance, and many a jibe and laugh
it had called forth from passing tourists.
Georgina's disappointment showed in her face.
"I know all about that," she remarked. "Mrs. Tupman told me herself. She
calls it the Lady of Mystery. She said that years and years ago a
schooner put out from this town on a whaling cruise, and was gone more
than a year. When it was crossing the equator, headed for home, the look-
out at the masthead saw a strange object in the water that looked like a
woman afloat. The Captain gave orders to lower the boats, and when they
did so they found this figurehead. She said it must have come from the
prow of some great clipper in the East India trade. They were in the
Indian Ocean, you know.
"There had been some frightful storms and afterwards they heard of many
wrecks. This figurehead was so long they had to cut it in two to get it
into the hold of the vessel. They brought it home and set it up there
over the front door, and they call it the Lady of Mystery, because they
said 'from whence that ship came, what was its fate and what was its
destination will always be shrouded in mystery.' And Mrs. Tupman said
that a famous artist looked at it once and said it was probably the work
of a Spanish artist, and that from the pose of its head and the wreath in
its hands he was sure it was intended to represent Hope. Was _that_
what you were going to tell me?"
The old man had rested on his oars while she hurried through this tale,
with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, as if she thought she was
forestalling him. Now he picked them up again and began rowing out into
the harbor.
"That was a part of it," he admitted, "but that's only the part that the
whole town knows. That old figurehead has a meaning for me that nobody
else that's living knows about. That's what I want to pass on to you."
He rowed several minutes more before he said slowly, with a wistful
tenderness coming into his dim old eyes as he looked at her:
"Georgina, I don't suppose anybody's ever told you about the troubles
I've had. They wouldn't talk about such things to a child like you. Maybe
I shouldn't, now; but when I saw how disappointed you were this morning,
I said to myself, 'If she's old enough to feel trouble that way, she's
old enough to understand and to be helped by hearing about mine.'"
It seemed hard for him to go on, for again he paused, looking off toward
the lighthouse in the distance. Then he said slowly, in a voice that
shook at times:
"Once--I had a boy--that I set all my hopes on--just as a man puts all
his cargo into one vessel; and nobody was ever prouder than I was, when
that little craft went sailing along with the best of them. I used to
look at him and think, _'Danny'll_ weather the seas no matter how
rough they are, and he'll bring up in the harbor I'm hoping he'll reach,
with all flags flying.' And then--something went wrong--"
The tremulous voice broke. "My little ship went down--all my precious
cargo lost--"
Another and a longer pause. In it Georgina seemed to hear Cousin
Mehitable's husky voice, half whispering:
_"And the lamp threw a shadow on the yellow blind, plain as a
photograph. The shadow of an old man sitting with his arms flung out
across the table and his head bowed on-them. And he was groaning, 'Oh, my
Danny! My Danny! If you could only have gone that way.'"_
For a moment Georgina felt the cruel hurt of his grief as if the pain had
stabbed her own heart. The old man went on:
"If it had only been any other kind of a load, anything but
_disgrace_, I could have carried it without flinching. But that, it
seemed I just couldn't face. Only the good Lord knows how I lived through
those first few weeks. Then your grandfather Huntingdon came to me. He
was always a good friend. And he asked me to row him out here on the
water. When we passed the Figurehead House he pointed up at that head. It
was all white and fair in those days, before the paint wore off. And he
said, 'Dan'l Darcy, _as long as a man keeps Hope at the prow he keeps
afloat_. As soon as he drops it he goes to pieces and down to the
bottom, the way that ship did when it lost its figurehead. You mustn't
let go, Dan'l. You _must_ keep Hope at the prow.
"'Somewhere in God's universe either in this world or another your boy is
alive and still your son. You've got to go on hoping that if he's
innocent his name will be cleared of this disgrace, and if he's guilty
he'll wipe out the old score against him some way and make good.'
"And then he gave me a line to live by. A line he said that had been
written by a man who was stone blind, and hadn't anything to look forward
to all the rest of his life but groping in the dark. He said he'd not
"'Bate a jot
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
Right onward.'
"At first it didn't seem to mean anything to me, but he made me say it
after him as if it were a sort of promise, and I've been saying it every
day of every year since then. I'd said it to myself first, when I met
people on the street that I knew were thinking of Danny's disgrace, and I
didn't see how I was going to get up courage to pass 'em. And I said it
when I was lying on my bed at night with my heart so sore and heavy I
couldn't sleep, and after a while it did begin to put courage into me, so
that I could hope in earnest. And when I did _that,_ little lass--"
He leaned over to smile into her eyes, now full of tears, he had so
wrought upon her tender sympathies--
"When I did that, it put a rainbow around my trouble just as that prism
did around your empty holiday tree. It changed the looks of the whole
world for me.
"_That's_ what I brought you out here to tell you, Georgina. I want
to give you the same thing that your grandfather Huntingdon gave me--that
line to live by. Because troubles come to everybody. They'll come to you,
too, but I want you to know this, Baby, they can't hurt you as long as
you keep Hope at the prow, because Hope is a magic glass that makes
rainbows of our tears. Now you won't forget that, will you? Even after
Uncle Darcy is dead and gone, you'll remember that he brought you out
here on your birthday to give you that good word--_'still bear up and
steer right onward,'_ no matter what happens. And to tell you that in
all the long, hard years he's lived through, he's proved it was good."
Georgina, awed and touched of soul, could only nod her assent. But
because Childhood sometimes has no answer to make to the confidences of
Age is no reason that they are not taken to heart and stowed away there
for the years to build upon. In the unbroken silence with which they
rowed back to shore, Georgina might have claimed three score years
besides her own ten, so perfect was the feeling of comradeship between
them.
As they passed the pier back of the antique shop, a great gray cat rose
and stretched itself, then walked ponderously down to the water's edge.
It was "Grandpa." Georgina, laughing a little shakily because of recent
tears, raised her prism to put a rainbow around the cat's tail, unknowing
that but for him the crystal pendant would now be hanging from an antique
lamp instead of from the ribbon around her neck.