It would have seemed that this was the climax of wonders and delights—to
know that they had escaped forever from Aunt Matilda’s world, that they
were not to be parted from John Holt, that they were to be like his
children, living with him, sharing his great house, and learning all
they could want to learn. All this, even when it was spoken of as
possible, seemed more than could be believed, but it seemed almost more
unbelievable day by day, as the truth began to realize itself in detail.
What a marvellous thing it was to find out that they were not lonely,
uncared-for creatures any more, but that they belonged to a man who
seemed to hold all power in his hands! When John Holt took them to the
big stores and bought them all they needed, new clothes and new trunks
and new comforts, and luxuries such as they had never thought of as
belonging to them, they felt almost aghast. He was so practical, and
seemed to know so well how to do everything, that each hour convinced
them more and more that everything was possible to him. And he seemed to
like so much to be with them. Day after day he took them to their City
Beautiful, and enjoyed with them every treasure in it. And they had so
much time before them, they could see it all at rapturous leisure and
ease. No more hungry hours, no more straining of tired bodies and
spurring of weary feet, because there was so much to see and so little
time to see it in, because there was so little money to be spent. There
was time to loiter through palaces and linger before pictures and
marvellous things. And John Holt could explain them all. No more limited
and vague imaginings. There was time to hear everything, and Meg could
tell fairy stories by the hour if she was in the mood. She told them in
tropical bowers; she told them as they floated on the lagoon; she read
them in strange, savage, or oriental faces.
“I shall have enough to last all my life, John Holt,” she would say. “I
see a new one every half-hour. If you like, I will tell them all to you
and Robin when you have nothing else to do.”
“It will be like the ‘Arabian Nights,’” said Robin. “Meg, do you
remember that old book we had where all the leaves we wanted most were
torn out, and we had to make the rest up ourselves?”
There was one story Meg found John Holt liked better than all the rest.
It was the one about the City Beautiful, into which she used to follow
Christian in the days when she and Robin lay in the Straw Parlor. It had
grown so real to her that she made it very real and near in the telling.
John Holt liked the way she had of filling it with people and things she
knew quite well. Meg was very simple about it all, but she told that
story well and often, when they were resting in some beautiful place
alone. John Holt would lead her back to it, and sit beside her,
listening, with a singular expression in his eyes. Ah, those were
wonderful days!
Ben and his mother shared them, though they were not always with John
Holt and Robin and Meg. John Holt made comfortable plans for them, and
let them wander about and look their fill.
“It’s a great thing for _him_, Mr. Holt,” said the poor woman once, with
a side glance at Ben. “Seems like he’s been born over again. The way he
talks, when we go home at night, is as if he’d never be tired again as
long as he lives. And a month ago I used to think he’d wear himself out,
fretting. Seemed like I could see him getting thinner and peakeder every
day. My, it’s a wonderful thing!”
And John Holt’s kindness did not end there, though it was some time
before Meg and Robin heard all he had done. One day, when they had left
the grounds earlier than usual, because they were tired, he spent the
evening in searching out Ben’s disreputable father, and giving him what
he called “a straight talk.”
“Look here,” he said, “I’m going to keep my eye on that boy of yours and
your wife. I intend to make the house decent, and see that the boy has a
chance to learn something, and take care they’re not too hard run. But
I’m going to keep my eye on you too—at least, I shall see that some one
else does—and if you make things uncomfortable you’ll be made pretty
uncomfortable yourself, that’s all. I’d advise you to try the new
recreation of going to work. It’ll be good for your health. Sort of
athletics.”
And he kept his word.
It was a marvel of a holiday. It is not possible that among all the
holiday-makers there were two others who were nearer the rapture of
Paradise than these two little Pilgrims.
When it was at an end they went home with John Holt. It was a wonderful
home-going. The house was a wonderful house. It was one of the
remarkable places that some self-made western men have built and
furnished, with the aid of unlimited fortunes and the unlimited shrewd
good sense which has taught most of those of them whose lives have been
spent in work and bold ventures that it is more practical to buy taste
and experience than to spend money without it. John Holt had also had
the aid and taste of a wonderful little woman, whose life had been
easier and whose world had been broader than his own. Together they had
built a beautiful and lovable home to live in. It contained things from
many countries, and its charm and luxury might well have been the result
of a far older civilization.
“Don’t you think, Robin,” said Meg, in a low voice, the first evening,
as they sat in a deep-cushioned window-seat in the library together,
“don’t you think you know what She was like?”
They had spoken together of her often, and somehow it was always in a
rather low voice, and they always called her “She.”
Robin looked up from the book he held on his knee. It was a beautiful
volume She had been fond of.
“I know why you say that,” he said. “You mean that somehow the house is
like her. Yes, I’m sure it is, just as Aunt Matilda’s house is like her.
People’s houses are always like them.”
“This one is full of her,” said Meg. “I should think John Holt would
feel as if she must be in it, and she might speak to him any moment. I
feel as if she might speak to me. And it isn’t only the pictures of her
everywhere, with her eyes laughing at you from the wall and the tables
and the mantels. It’s _herself_. Perhaps it is because she helped John
Holt to choose things, and was so happy here.”
“Perhaps it is,” said Robin; and he added, softly, “this was her book.”
They went once more to Aunt Matilda’s world. They did it because John
Holt wanted to see the Straw Parlor, and they wanted to show it to him
and bid it good-by.
Aunt Matilda treated them with curious consideration. It almost seemed
as if she had begun to regard them with respect. It seemed to her that
any business-like person would respect two penniless children who had
made themselves attractive to a man with the biggest farm in Illinois,
and other resources still larger. They went out to the barn in their old
way, when no one knew where they were going, and when no one was about
to see them place their ladder against the stack, and climb up to the
top. The roof seemed more like a dark tent than ever, and they saw the
old birds’ nests, which by this time were empty.
“Meg,” said Robin, “do you remember the day we lay in the straw and told
each other we had got work? And do you remember the afternoon I climbed
up with the old coffee-pot, to boil the eggs in?”
“And when we counted the Treasure?” said Meg.
“And when we talked about miracles?” said Robin.
“And when it made me think human beings could do anything if they tried
hard enough?” said Meg.
“And when you read the ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’?” said John Holt.
“And the first afternoon when we listened to Jones and Jerry, and you
said there _was_ a City Beautiful?” said Meg.
“And there _was_,” said Robin, “and we’ve been there.”
“It was just this time in the afternoon,” said Meg, looking about her;
“the red light was dying away, for I could not see to read any more.”
And for a little while they sat in the Straw Parlor, while the red light
waned; and afterwards, when they spoke of it, they found they were all
thinking of the same thing, and it was of the last day they had spent at
the Enchanted City, when they had gone about together in a strange,
tender, half-sad mood, loitering through the white palaces, lingering
about the clear pools of green sea water, where strange creatures swam
lazily or darted to and fro, looking their last at pictures and stories
in marble, and listening to the tinkle of water plashing under great
tropical leaves and over strange mosses, strolling through temples and
past savage huts, and gazing in final questioning at mysterious,
barbarous faces; and at last passing through the stately archway and
being borne away on the waters of the great lake.
As they had been carried away farther and farther, and the white wonder
had begun to lose itself and fade into a white spirit of a strange and
lovely thing, Meg had felt the familiar throb at her heart and the
familiar lump in her throat. And she had broken into a piteous little
cry.
“Oh, John Holt,” she said, “it is going, it is going, and we shall never
see it again! For it will vanish away, it will vanish away!” And the
tears rushed down her cheeks, and she hid her face on his arm.
But though he had laughed his short laugh, John Holt had made her lift
up her head.
“No,” he said, “it won’t vanish away. It’s not one of the things that
vanish. Things don’t vanish away that a million or so of people have
seen as they’ve seen this. They stay where they’re not forgotten, and
time doesn’t change them. They’re put where they can be passed on, and
passed on again. And thoughts that grow out of them bring other ones.
And what things may grow out of it that never would have been, and where
the end is, the Lord only knows, for no human being can tell. It won’t
vanish away.”
Dear little children and big ones, this is a Fairy Story. And why not?
There are not many people who believe it, but fairy stories are
happening every day. There are beautiful things in the world; there are
many people with kind and generous hearts; there are those who do their
work well, giving what is theirs to give, and being glad in the giving;
there are birds in the skies, and flowers and leaves in the woods—and
Spring comes every year. These make the fairy stories. Every fairy story
has a moral, and this one has two. They are these:
The human creature is a strong thing—when it is a brave one.
Nature never made a human hand without putting into it _something_ to
give.
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