THE CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE.
The burning of the house completely prostrated Mrs. Clementine
Churchill Chadwick Greenwood, who, it is true, had the actual shock of
the conflagration to upset her nervous system, though she suffered no
financial loss.
Mr. Greenwood was heard to remark that he wished he could have foreseen
that the house would burn down, for now he should have to move anyway,
and if he had known that a few months before, why--
Here the sentence always ended mysteriously, and the neighbors finished
it as they liked.
The calamity affected Polly, on the other hand, very much like a tonic.
She felt the necessity of "bracing" to meet the fresh responsibilities
that seemed waiting for her in the near future; and night and day, in
sleeping and waking, resting and working, a plan was formulating itself
in the brain just roused from its six months' apathy,--a novel,
astonishing, enchanting, revolutionary plan, which she bided her time
to disclose.
The opportunity came one evening after dinner, when Mrs. Bird, and her
brother, Edgar and herself, were gathered in the library.
The library was a good place in which to disclose plans, or ask advice,
or whisper confidences. The great carved oak mantel held on the broad
space above the blazing logs the graven motto, "Esse Quod Opto." The
walls were lined with books from floor half-way to ceiling, and from
the tops of the cases Plato, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, and the Sage of
Concord looked down with benignant wisdom. The table in the centre was
covered with a methodical litter of pamphlets and magazines, and a soft
light came from the fire and from two tall, shaded lamps.
Mr. Bird, as was his wont, leaned back in his leather chair, puffing
delicate rings of smoke into the air. Edgar sat by the centre table,
idly playing with a paper-knife. Mrs. Bird sat in her low
rocking-chair with a bit of fancy-work, and Polly, on the hearth rug,
leaned cosily back against her Fairy Godmother's knees.
The clinging tendrils in Polly's nature, left hanging so helplessly
when her mother was torn away, reached out more and more to wind
themselves about lovely Mrs. Bird, who, notwithstanding her three manly
sons, had a place in her heart left sadly vacant by the loss of her
only daughter.
Polly broke one of the pleasant silences. An open fire makes such
delightful silences, if you ever noticed. When you sit in a room
without it, the gaps in the conversation make everybody seem dull; the
last comer rises with embarrassment and thinks he must be going, and
you wish that some one would say the next thing and keep the ball
rolling. The open fire arranges all these little matters with a
perfect tact and grace all its own. It is acknowledged to be the
centre of attraction, and the people gathered about it are only
supernumeraries. It blazes and crackles and snaps cheerily, the logs
break and fall, the coals glow and fade and glow again, and the dull
man can always poke the fire if his wit desert him. Who ever feels
like telling a precious secret over a steam-heater?
Polly looked away from everybody and gazed straight into the blaze.
"I have been thinking over a plan for my future work," she said, "and I
want to tell it to you and see if you all approve and think me equal to
it. It used to come to me in flashes, after this Fairy Godmother of
mine opened an avenue for my surplus energy by sending me out as a
story-teller; but lately I have n't had any heart for it. Work grew
monotonous and disagreeable and hopeless, and I 'm afraid I had no wish
to be useful or helpful to myself or to anybody else. But now
everything is different. I am not so rich as I was (I wish, Mr. Bird,
you would not smile so provokingly when I mention my riches!), and I
must not be idle any longer; so this is my plan, I want to be a
story-teller by profession. Perhaps you will say that nobody has ever
done it; but surely that is an advantage; I should have the field to
myself for a while, at least. I have dear Mrs. Bird's little poor
children as a foundation. Now, I would like to get groups of other
children together in somebody's parlor twice a week and tell them
stories,--the older children one day in the week and the younger ones
another. Of course I have n't thought out all the details, because I
hoped my Fairy Godmother would help me there, if she approved of my
plan; but I have ever so many afternoons all arranged, and enough
stories and songs at my tongue's end for three months. Do you think it
impossible or nonsensical, Mr. Bird?"
"No," said he thoughtfully, after a moment's pause. "It seems on the
first hearing to be perfectly feasible. In fact, in one sense it will
not be an experiment at all. You have tried your powers, gained
self-possession and command of your natural resources; developed your
ingenuity, learned the technicalities of your art, so to speak,
already. You propose now, as I understand, to extend your usefulness,
widen your sphere of action, address yourself to a larger public, and
make a profession out of what was before only a side issue in your
life. It's a new field, and it 's a noble one, taken in its highest
aspect, as you have always taken it. My motto for you, Polly, is
Goethe's couplet:--
"'What you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'"
"Make way for the story-teller!" cried Edgar. "I will buy season
tickets for both your groups, if you will only make your limit of age
include me. I am only five feet ten, and I 'll sit very low if you 'll
admit me to the charmed circle. Shall you have a stage name? I would
suggest 'The Seraphic Sapphira.'"
"Now, don't tease," said Polly, with dignity; "this is in sober
earnest. What do you think, Fairy Godmother? I 've written to my dear
Miss Mary Denison in Santa Barbara, and she likes the idea."
"I think it is charming. In fact, I can hardly wait to begin. I will
be your business manager, my Pollykins, and we 'll make it a success,
if it is possible. If you 'll take me into your confidence and tell me
what you mean to do, I will plan the hows and whens and wheres."
"You see, dear people," continued Polly, "it is really the only thing
that I know how to do; and I have had several months' experience, so
that I 'm not entirely untrained. I 'm not afraid any more, so long as
it is only children; though the presence of one grown person makes me
tongue-tied. Grown-up people never know how to listen, somehow, and
they make you more conscious of yourself. But when the children gaze
up at you with their shining eyes and their parted lips,--the smiles
just longing to be smiled and the tear-drops just waiting to
glisten,--I don't know what there is about it, but it makes you wish
you could go on forever and never break the spell. And it makes you
tremble, too, for fear you should say anything wrong. You seem so
close to children when you are telling them stories; just as if a
little, little silken thread spun itself out from one side of your
heart through each of theirs, until it came back to be fastened in your
own again; and it holds so tight, so tight, when you have done your
best and the children are pleased and grateful."
For days after this discussion Polly felt as if she were dwelling on a
mysterious height from which she could see all the kingdoms of the
earth. She said little and thought much (oh, that this should come to
be written of Polly Oliver!). The past which she had regretted with
such passionate fervor still fought for a place among present plans and
future hopes. But she was almost convinced in these days that a
benevolent Power might after all be helping her to work out her own
salvation in an appointed way, with occasional weariness and tears,
like the rest of the world.
It was in such a softened mood that she sat alone in church one Sunday
afternoon at vespers. She had chosen a place where she was sure of
sitting quietly by herself, and where the rumble of the organ and the
words of the service would come to her soothingly. The late afternoon
sun shone through the stained-glass windows, bringing out the tender
blue on the Madonna's gown, the white on the wings of angels and robes
of newborn innocents, the glow of rose and carmine, with here and there
a glorious gleam of Tyrian purple. Then her eyes fell on a memorial
window opposite her. A mother bowed with grief was seated on some
steps of rough-hewn stones. The glory of her hair swept about her
knees. Her arms were empty; her hands locked; her head bent. Above
stood a little child, with hand just extended to open a great door,
which was about to unclose and admit him. He reached up his hand
fearlessly ("and that is faith," thought Polly), and at the same time
he glanced down at his weeping mother, as if to say, "Look up, mother
dear! I am safely in."
Just then the choir burst into a grand hymn which was new to Polly, and
which came to her with the force of a personal message:--
"The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain;
His blood-red banner streams afar--
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe,
Triumphant over pain,
Who patient bears his cross below,
He follows in His train."
Verse after verse rang in splendid strength through the solemn aisles
of the church, ending with the lines:--
"O God, to us may strength be given
To follow in His train!"
Dr. George's voice came to Polly as it sounded that gray October
afternoon beside the sea; "When the sun of one's happiness is set, one
lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides one's footsteps by that."
She leaned her head on the pew in front of her, and breathed a prayer.
The minister was praying for the rest of the people, but she needed to
utter her own thought just then.
"Father in heaven, I will try to follow; I have lighted my little
candle, help me to keep it burning! I shall stumble often in the
darkness, I know, for it was all so clear when I could walk by my
darling mother's light, which was like the sun, so bright, so pure, so
strong! Help me to keep the little candle steady, so that it may throw
its beams farther and farther into the pathway that now looks so dim."
* * * * *
Polly sank to sleep that night in her white bed in the Pilgrim Chamber;
and the name of the chamber was Peace indeed, for she had a smile on
her lips,--a smile that looked as if the little candle had in truth
been lighted in her soul, and was shining through her face as though it
were a window.