"Shall we have to wait until all these folks have been taken?" asked
Marjorie, looking from the crowd of people who thronged the fashionable
photograph-gallery to her mother, who was threading her way slowly
through the press to the cashier's desk.
"Yes, dear, I 'm afraid so. But we must be patient and not fret, else
we shall not get a pleasant picture; and that would never do."
While she paid the clerk for the photographs and made her arrangements
with him as to the desired size and style, Marjorie busied herself with
looking around and scanning the different faces she saw.
"There!" she thought; "what for, do you s'pose, have I got to wait for
that baby to have its picture taken? Nothing but an ugly mite of a
thing, anyway! I should n't guess it was more than a day old, from the
way it wiggles its eyes about. I wonder if its mother thinks it's a
nice baby? Anyhow, I should think I might have my picture taken first.
And that hump-backed boy! Guess I have a right to go in before him!
He 's not pretty one bit. What a lovely frock that young lady has
on,--all fluffy and white, with lace and things! She keeps looking in
the glass all the time, so I guess she knows she 's pretty. When I am
a young lady I 'll be prettier than she is, though, for my hair is
goldener than hers, and my eyes are brown, and hers are nothing, but
plain blue. I heard a gentleman say the other day I had 'a rare style
of beauty,' he did n't know I heard (he was talking to Mamma, and he
thought I had gone away, but I had n't). I 'm glad I have 'a rare
style of beauty,' and I 'm glad my father 's rich, so I can have lovely
clothes and-- Seems to me any one ought to see that I 'm prettier than
that old lady over there; she 's all bent over and wrinkled, and when
she talks her voice is all kind of trembly, and her eyes are as dim--
But she 'll go in before me just the same, and I 'll get tireder and
tireder, until I-- Mamma, won't you come over to that sofa, and put
your arm around me so I can rest? I 'm as sleepy as I can be; and by
the time all these folks get done being _taken_, I 'll be dead, I
s'pose. _Do_ come!"
Her mother permitted herself to be led to the opposite side of the
room, where a large lounge stood, and seating herself upon it, took her
little daughter within the circle of her arm; whereupon Marjorie
commenced complaining of the injustice of these "homely" people being
given the advantage over her pretty self.
"Oh, Marjorie, Marjorie!" whispered her mother, "what a very foolish
little girl you are! I think it would take a miracle to make you see
aright. Don't you know that that dear baby is very, very sick, and
that probably its sad little mother has brought it here to have its
picture taken, so that if it should be called away from her, she might
have something to gaze at that looked like her precious little one?
And that poor crippled boy! He has a lovely face, with its large,
patient eyes and sensitive mouth. How much better he is to look at
than that young woman you admire so much, whose beauty does not come
from her soul at all, and will disappear as soon as her rosy cheeks
fade and her hair grows gray! Now, that sweet old lady over there is
just a picture of goodness; and her dear old eyes have a look of love
in them that is more beautiful than any shimmer or shine you could show
me in those of your friend Miss Peacock."
"Why do you call her 'Miss Peacock'? You don't know her, do you?"
queried Marjorie.
"No, I don't know her in one sense, but in another I do. She is vain
and proud, and the reason I called her Miss Peacock was because of the
way in which she struts back and forth before that pier-glass,--just
like the silly bird itself. But I should not have called her names.
It was not a kind thing to do, even though she _is_ so foolish; and I
beg her pardon and yours, little daughter."
Marjorie did not ask why her mother apologized to her. She had a dim
sort of an idea that it was because she had set her an example that she
would be sorry to have her follow. Instead, she inquired suddenly,--
"How do they take pictures, Mamma? I mean, what does the man do, when
he goes behind that queer machine thing and sticks his head under the
cloth, and then after a while claps in something that looks like my
tracing-slate and then pops it out again? What makes the picture?"
"The sun makes the picture. It is so strong and clear that though it
is such a long distance away it shines down upon the object that is to
be photographed and reflects its image through a lens in the camera
upon a plate which is _sensitized_ (that is, coated with a sort of
gelatine that is so sensitive that it holds the impression cast upon it
until by the aid of certain acids and processes it can be made
permanent, that is, lasting). I am afraid I have not succeeded in
explaining so you understand very clearly; have I, Sweetheart?"
Marjorie nodded her head. "Ye-es," she replied listlessly. "I guess I
know now. You said--the sun--did--it; the sun took our pictures. It's
very strange--to think--the sun--does--it."
"Come, Marjorie! Want to go travelling?" asked a voice.
"No, thank you; not just now," replied Marjorie, slowly. "I am going
to have my photograph taken in a little while,--just as soon as all
these stupid folks get theirs done. I should n't have time to go
anywhere hardly; and besides it 'd tire me, and I want to look all
fresh and neat, so the picture will be pretty."
"But suppose we promised, honor bright--"
"Begging your pardon," broke in another voice, "that's understood in
any case,--a foregone conclusion, you know. Our honor would _have_ to
be bright."
"Suppose we promised faithfully," continued the first voice, pretending
not to notice the interruption, "to bring you back in time to go in
when your turn comes, would n't you rather take a journey with us and
see any number of wonderful things than just to sit here leaning
against your mother's arm and watching these people that you think so
'stupid'?"
"Of course," assented Marjorie, at once. "It 's awful tiresome,--this;
it makes me feel just as sleepy as can be. But what 's the use of
talking? I can't leave here or I 'd lose my chance, and besides Mamma
never lets me go out with strangers."
"We 're not strangers," asserted the voice, calmly; "we are as familiar
to you as your shadow,--in fact, more so, come to think of it. You
have always known us, and so has your mother. She 'd trust you to us,
never fear! Will you come?"
Marjorie considered a moment, and then said: "Well, if you're perfectly
sure you 'll take care of me, and that you 'll bring me back in time, I
guess I will."
No sooner had she spoken than she felt herself raised from her place
and borne away out of the crowded room in which she was,--out, out into
the world, as free as the air itself, and being carried along as though
she were a piece of light thistle-down on the back of a summer breeze.
That she was travelling very fast, she could see by the way in which
she out-stripped the clouds hurrying noiselessly across the sky. One
thing she knew,--whatever progress she was making was due, not to
herself (for she was making absolutely no effort at all, seeming to be
merely reclining at ease), but was the result of some other exertion
than her own. She was not frightened in the least, but, as she grew
accustomed to the peculiar mode of locomotion, became more and more
curious to discover the source of it.
She looked about her, but nothing was visible save the azure sky above
her and the green earth beneath. She seemed to be quite alone. The
sense of her solitude began to fill her with a deep awe, and she grew
strangely uneasy: as she thought of herself, a frail little girl, amid
the vastness of the big world.
How weak and helpless she was,--scarcely more important than one of the
wild-flowers she had used to tread on when she was n't being hurried
through space by the means of--she knew not what. To be sure, she was
pretty; but then they had been pretty too, and she had stepped on them,
and they had died, and she had gone away and no one had ever known.
"Oh, dear!" she thought, "it would be the easiest thing in the world
for me to be killed (even if I _am_ pretty), and no one would know it
at all. I wonder what is going to happen? I wish I had n't come."
"Don't be afraid!" said the familiar voice, suddenly. "We promised to
take care of you. We are truth itself. Don't be afraid!"
"But I _am_ afraid," insisted Marjorie, in a petulant way, "and I 'm
getting afraider every minute. I don't know where I 'm going, nor how
I 'm being taken there, and I don't like it one bit. Who are you,
anyway?"
For a moment she received no reply; but then the voice said: "Hush!
don't speak so irreverently. You are talking to the emissaries of a
great sovereign,--his Majesty the Sun."
"Is _he_ carrying me along?" inquired Marjorie presently, with deep
respect.
"Oh, dear, no," responded the voice; "we are doing that. We are his
vassals,--you call us beams. He never condescends to leave his
place,--he could not; if he were to desert his throne for the smallest
fraction of a second, one could not imagine the amount of disaster that
would ensue. But we do his bidding, and hasten north and south and
east and west, just as he commands. It is a very magnificent thing to
be a king--"
"Of course," interrupted Marjorie; "one can wear such elegant clothes,
that shine and sparkle like everything with gold and jewels, and have
lots of servants and--"
"No, no," corrected the beam, warmly. "Where did you get such a wrong
idea of things? That is not at all where the splendor of being a king
exists. It does not lie in the mere fact of one 's being born to a
title and able to command. That would be very little if that were all.
It is not in the gold and jewels and precious stuffs that go to adorn a
king that his grandeur lies, but in the things which these things
represent. We give a king the rarest and the most costly, because it
is fitting that the king should have the best,--that he is worthy of
the best; that only the best will serve one who is so great and
glorious. They mean nothing in themselves; they only describe his
greatness. The things that one sees are not of importance; it is the
things that they are put there to represent. Do you understand? I
don't believe you do. I 'll try to make it more clear to you, like a
true sunbeam. Look at one of your earth-kings, for instance. He is
nothing but a man just like the rest of you; but what makes him great
is that he is supposed to have more truth, more wisdom, more justice
and power. If he has not these things, then he would better never have
been a king; for that only places him where every one can see how
unworthy he is,--makes his lacks only more conspicuous. Your word
_king_ comes from another word, _könning_; which comes from still
another word, _canning_, that means _ableman_. If he is not really an
ableman, it were better he had never worn ermine. And there, too;
ermine is only a fur, you know. It is nothing in itself but fur; but
you have come to think of it as an emblem of royalty because kings use
it. So you see, Marjorie, a thing is not of any worth really except as
it represents something that is great and noble, something _true_."
Marjorie was very silent for a little; she was trying to understand
what the sunbeam meant, and found it rather difficult. After a while
she gave it up and said,--
"Will you tell me how you are carrying me, and where we are going, and
all about it?"
"Certainly," replied the beam, brightly. "You are in a sort of
hammock made out of threads of sunshine. We sunbeams can weave one in
less than no time, and it is no trouble at all to swing a little mortal
like you way out into the clearness and the light, so that a bit of it
can make its way into your dark little soul, and make you not quite so
blind as you were."
"Why, I 'm not blind at all," said Marjorie, with a surprised pout. "I
can see as well as anything. Did you think I couldn't?"
"I _know_ you can't," replied the beam, calmly. "That is, you can't
see any farther than the outside part of things, and that is almost
worse than seeing none of them at all. But here we are nearing the
court of the king. Now don't expect to see _him_, for that is
impossible. He is altogether too radiant for you; your eyes could not
bear so much glory. It would be just as if you took one of your own
little moles or bats (creatures that are used to the dark) and put them
in the full glare of a noonday sun. The sun would be there, but they
could not see it, because their eyes would be too weak and dim. Even
yourself,--have n't you often tried to look the sun full in the face?
Yes; and you have had to give it up and turn your face away because it
hurt your eyes. Well, his Majesty only lets the world have a glimpse
of his glory. But here we are at our journey's end."
With these words Marjorie felt herself brought to a gentle halt, and
found herself in a place most wondrously clear and light and high, from
which she could look off,--far, far across and over and down to where
something that looked like a dim ball was whirling rapidly.
"That is your earth," whispered the sunbeam in her ear,--"the earth
that you have just left."
Marjorie was so astounded that for a time she was unable to say a word.
Then she managed to falter out: "But it always looked so big and
bright, and now it is nothing but a horrid dark speck--"
"That is just it, Marjorie,--just what I said. When you look at the
world simply as a planet, it is small and dark enough, not nearly so
large as some of the others you see about you; but when you look at it
as a place on which God has put his people to be good and noble, to
work out a beautiful purpose, then-- But wait a moment."
Marjorie felt a strange thrill pass through her; across her eyes swept
something that felt like a caressing hand, and when she looked again
everything was changed, and she seemed gazing at a wonderful sort of
panorama that shifted and changed every moment, showing more lovely
impressions each instant.
"What is it?" she gasped, scarcely able to speak for delight and
breathless with amazement.
"Only pictures of your world as it really is. Pictures taken by his
Highness the Sun, who does not stop at the mere outer form of things,
but reveals the true inwardness of them,--what they are actually. He
does not stop with the likeness of the surface of things; he makes
portraits of their hearts as well, and he always gets exact
likenesses,--he never fails."
Marjorie felt a sudden fear steal over her at these words; she did not
precisely know why, but she had a dim sort of feeling that if the sun
took photographs of more than the outside of things (of the hearts as
well), some of the pictures he got might not be so pretty, perhaps.
But she said nothing, and watched the scroll as it unrolled before her
with a great thrill of wonderment.
With her new vision the world was more beautiful than anything she had
ever imagined. She could see everything upon its surface, even to the
tiniest flower; but nothing was as it had seemed to her when she had
been one of its inhabitants herself. Each blade of grass, each tree
and rock and brook, was something more than a mere blade or tree or
rock or brook,--something so much more strange and beautiful that it
almost made her tremble with ecstasy to see.
"Now you can see," said the voice; "before you were blind. Now you
understand what I meant when I said the objects one sees are of
themselves nothing; it is what they represent that is grand and
glorious and beautiful. A flower is lovely, but it is not half so
lovely as the thing it suggests--but I can't expect you to understand
_that_. Even when you were blind you used to love the ocean. Now that
you can see, do you know why? It is because it is an emblem of God's
love, deep and mighty and strong and beautiful beyond words. And so
with the mountains, and so with the smallest weed that grows. But we
must look at other things before you go back--"
"Oh, dear!" faltered Marjorie, "when I go back shall I be blind again?
How does one see clear when one goes back?"
"Through truth," answered the beam, briefly.
But just then Marjorie found herself looking at some new sights. "What
are these?" she whispered tremblingly.
"The _proofs_ of some pictures you will remember to have half seen,"
replied the beam.
And sure enough! with a start of amaze and wonder she saw before her
eyes the people who had sat in the crowded gallery with her before she
had left it to journey here with her sunbeam guide; but, oh! with such
a difference.
The baby she had thought so ugly was in reality a white-winged angel,
mild-eyed and pitying; while the hump-backed boy represented a patience
so tender that it beautified everything upon which it shone. She
thought she recognized in one of the pictures a frock of filmy lace
that she remembered to have seen before; but the form it encased was
strange to her, so ill-shapen and unlovely it looked; while the face
was so repulsive that she shrank from it with horror.
"Is that what I thought was the pretty girl?" she murmured tremulously.
"Yes," replied the beam, simply.
The next portrait was that of the silver-haired old lady whom Marjorie
had thought so crooked and bowed. She saw now why her shoulders were
bent. It was because of the mass of memories she carried,--memories
gathered through a long and useful life. Her silver hair made a halo
about her head.
"The next is yours," breathed the voice at her side, softly. "Will you
look?"
Marjorie gave a quick start, and her voice quivered sadly as she
cried,--
"Oh, blessed sunbeam, don't force me to see it! Let me go back and try
to be better before I see my likeness. I am afraid now. The outside
prettiness is n't anything, unless one's spirit is lovely too; and I--I
could not look, for I know--I know how hateful mine would be. I have
learned about it now, and it's like a book; if the story the book tells
is not beautiful, the pictures won't be good to see. I have learned
about it now, and I know better than I did. May I--oh, may I try
again?"
She waited in an agony of suspense for the answer; and when it came,
and the voice said gently, "It is your turn next," she cried aloud,--
"Not yet, oh, not yet! Let me wait. Let me try again."
And there she was, with her cheeks all flushed and tear-stained, her
hair in loose, damp curls about her temples, and her frock all rumpled
and crushed in her mother's arms; and her mother was saying,--
"Bad dreams, sweetheart? You have had a fine, long nap; but it is your
turn next, and I have had to wake you. Come, dear! Now we must see if
we cannot get a good likeness of you,--just as you really are."