"It is the flowering land, it is the music land. You go to it through
every moment and incident and encounter of the day. You read, and it is
behind the words. You think, and it smiles through. It is the Higher Us
that resolves the discords and reaps the fields. Experience it once, and
it is miracle and wonder; experience it twice, and you say, 'Columbus
was not the only discoverer!' Experience it thrice, and you work for it
day and night! You yourself, drawing yourself out of the old man and the
old house. Read 'The Chambered Nautilus.'"
"It is religion--"
"It always has been Religion."
"And the gloom and storm of our day?"
"It is _not_ gloom, it is _not_ storm. It is the pains of growth. Feel
the epic and voyage that it is!... Every proper and general noun in all
dictionaries now and to come is my name, as it is yours. Every verb is
my doing, as it is yours. The use of language, use and _dis_-use, is
mine as it is yours--"
They were walking in the orchard beneath the apple trees, whose leaves
were slow to fall. There had been, this morning, a heavy frost. The
garden flowers were going, the creeper over Mimy's house had shed its
scarlet leaves, but held its dark-blue berries. The heavens hung a blue
crystal. The air had the cool of mountain water.
It was the day when Anna Darcy must leave Sweet Rocket. After dinner
Daniel and the phaeton and Marget would take her to Alder to the
north-going train. Now, with Marget, she went the round of the place,
saying good-by. They had been to Mimy's, and had talked to Mancy at the
barn. "Come again!" said Mancy. "But you ain't really going, you know!
Sweet Rocket will hold you, and you'll hold Sweet Rocket."
They came by the kitchen. Mimy was singing:
"Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home--"
"You gwine back inter the troubled world?" said Mimy. "They say hit's
awful! But, Lord! there ain't any bars ter trouble! I've seen a lot."
They walked up the river to the overseer's house, where they were made
welcome by Mary Carter and small Roger, and by old Mr. Morrowcombe, who
was staying over from Sunday, which was yesterday. He said, much as
Mancy had said: "I'm sorry you are going! But thar! You ain't going in
the old, harsh ways."
Marget, sitting beside him on the step of the porch, rested her arm
upon his knee. Her brown, slender hand touched his great horny one.
"Grandfather Morrowcombe!" she said. He answered her: "I see you as a
nine-year-old, Marget, and I see you as a woman in Sweet Rocket Valley,
and I see you as something that stands above child and woman. It isn't
any more big than it is subtle-fine. It's puzzling to find words. But
when I look at you and think of you I seem to hear the air stirring over
the whole world. All kinds of things that I had forgotten, and all kinds
of things that I have read...."
She and Anna sat for five minutes under the sycamore by the water.
Returning then to Sweet Rocket, they walked in the garden that was
making ready for winter. As it happened, Mrs. Cliff came this day down
mountain to borrow some sugar. She sat on the steps of the back porch,
in the violet light of November. "Howdy!" she said to Miss Darcy. "I'm
glad you stayed on. When I come here I want to stay on, too. But thar! I
take the memory of it up to my home. You wouldn't think how often thar
I'm here, too!"
To-day she had a braided rug to sell, and Marget bought it. Mrs. Cliff's
long, wrinkled hand put the money in her pocket. "Times isn't betterin'
any, Miss Marget."