DREAMS AND REALITIES.
The following Friday Gretta and Winnifred were dismissed at recess, the
Friday afternoon privilege of those who had had perfect marks for the
week. As they passed out through the yard together, Gretta said:
"I'm going to church to practice my organ lesson. Come go with me, Win."
Winnifred hesitated. "If I had spoken to mamma about it this morning--"
"Well, let's go and ask her now."
"No, she won't be at home. She was going out to Walnut Hills to make
several calls."
"Then I don't see what's to keep you from going with me. No one will
know whether you are with me or at school."
Winnie knew very well that she had no right to be away without anyone
at home knowing where she was, but she hesitated--and was lost. The
temptation was too great; and beside, she reasoned, "What difference can
it possibly make whether I am at school or at the church? If I had not
had good marks I couldn't have gone home, anyway."
So the two girls passed on up the street together. Winnifred soon forgot
her scruples, and laughed and chattered away as usual. She had been
reading Grimm's story of the boy who could not understand what it was
to shiver. She had thought it very amusing, and now she narrated it at
length to Gretta as they went along, so that they reached the church
before Gretta had stopped laughing at the absurd climax.
They went up the flight of steep stone steps and tried the side door
that led to the choir gallery, but it was locked, and Gretta said,
"We'll have to go the back way; come on, Win." So they descended the
stairs again and went through the narrow side yard at the right of the
church.
At the back were two rooms which at this time were occupied by the
janitor and his wife. Gretta knocked, and when the door was opened by
a smiling woman, walked in with an I-have-a-right-to manner, simply
saying, "I've come to practice." Winnifred followed somewhat bashfully,
but recovered her sense of being herself when the door of the little
living-room closed upon them. The two girls crossed a narrow passage and
opened a door leading to a stairway. It was very dark here, but Gretta
had traveled up and down these stairs so many times that she went
swiftly now, while Winnifred, unaccustomed to them, groped her way along
through the darkness very slowly.
When she reached the top Gretta opened another door which led into the
church itself, always filled with people when Winnifred had seen it
before, but now empty and mysterious, with the light dimmed and deepened
and transformed as it made its way through the stained-glass windows.
She breathed a little heavily as she glanced up at the pulpit on the
left, and almost felt as if she would hear a voice rise from the empty
air and chide them for their boldness in entering so sacred a place
on workaday business. But Gretta, entirely accustomed to independent
errands connected with musical matters, passed on up the narrow side
aisle, Winnifred following slowly.
Then came another narrow staircase leading to the choir gallery, which
faced the pulpit. When they reached the top they found the shades all
down and the place quite dark except for a long, narrow beam of light
which streamed through a crevice in one of the blinds. Winnifred stopped
on the threshold with something like fear, which was yet pleasing
because of the sense of mystery and romance which was blended with it in
her imaginative young mind. Gretta, however, stepped in at once and went
quickly toward the back of the gallery. Here she suddenly pulled up a
shade, and Winnifred saw numbers of music books piled up on one of the
long benches.
Gretta opened the organ and sat down. She reached the pedals with some
difficulty, being obliged to stretch her legs somewhat in order to do
so; but this, like everything else with her, was a part of the musical
education which was the chief business of her life and of all the
lives nearest to her. She began to play a voluntary, softly, slowly and
reverently, yet clearly, and with wonderful appreciation for a child
just entering her teens.
Winnifred climbed into the darkest corner she could find and gave
herself up to enjoyment of the music and all the unusual surroundings.
Forgetting all else, she began to weave herself and Gretta into a little
story of a world separate and apart from the world she had always known:
a world filled with visionary forms and faces, and in which there was no
sound but that of music.
"Over there in that pew just under the stained-glass window," she
thought, "is a little girl who cannot see, but who has never missed her
eyesight, because she does not need it. She lives only in this world,
where there is nothing but sweet sounds. She will grow up some day and
go out into the other world where Gretta and I lived yesterday, but she
will be a poet like Milton, whose picture, when he was such a beautiful
boy, I saw yesterday; but she will not be sad like him, because she
knows only the world of poetry and music.
"Over in that other pew," Winnie's dreams ran on, "is that poor, little,
blind beggar girl I saw on the street yesterday afternoon. She isn't
hungry now, for this is the fairyland of music where people do not need
to eat. The music has gone straight to her heart--and see! she creeps
softly over to the opposite pew--how did she know that the other little
blind girl was there?--she creeps softly to the other pew, and they
clasp hands and feel as happy as if they had looked into each other's
eyes.
"And who is that sweet-faced girl in the pew just in front of the
pulpit? She is beautiful. She looks like Nydia, the blind girl in 'The
Last Days of Pompeii,' but she can't be Nydia, for Nydia lived and died
hundreds of years ago. But she listens to the music just as Nydia might
do if she were here now. It is not so sad to be blind in a world of
music. And yet--how would I know where they were sitting if I were
blind, too?"
And Winnie closed her eyes to try how it would seem not to be able to
see. The music floated out upon the air; it grew softer and softer and
sounded farther and farther away, and at last Winnie ceased to hear it,
for the darkness and the gentle sounds had so soothed her senses that
she went straight from day-dreamland to slumberland.
Gretta all unconsciously played on until she had finished her allotted
task, forgetting the existence of Winnifred as completely as the latter
had forgotten hers. But by and by she had finished the last bar, and
jumped up from her seat with a feeling of satisfaction. She looked
around in surprise for a moment when she realized that Winnifred had
gone to sleep. The next thing the latter knew Gretta was shouting into
her ear: "Wake up! Wake up, Winnie! I'm all through my practice and
ready to go home. Let's hurry! It must be late."
They gathered up their school books, the sense of haste taking away all
the feeling of mystery and romance. When they looked at the clock in
the little room downstairs on their way out, Winnifred was dismayed and
realized suddenly that she ought to have been at home an hour ago. She
had a very uncomfortable walk home, particularly after she had parted
from Gretta, but, as it happened, her mother had not yet returned and
her absence had been unnoticed.
She told her mother about it in the evening--of how sweetly Gretta
had played, and how she had imagined a world made on purpose for blind
people.
Mrs. Burton only said, "I am glad you had such a nice afternoon, dear.
It is one you will always remember. You were fortunate that nothing
happened to spoil the pleasure of it. I am glad I was not at home,
however, for I fear I would have been very uneasy about you."