THEO'S HAVEN
'Oh, mother, mother, it's too hard for me! You have asked too much,
and I have failed, miserably failed!'
The wind from the sea was blowing fresh and free over the village, and
beyond it to the little churchyard, the God's acre of Northbourne.
Kneeling beside one of the grassy mounds therein was Theo Carnegy,
tears rolling down her earnest face. The girl was overwrought by
home-worries, for Theo was none of the crying sort, as a rule. But
there are times in the lives of each of us when all things seem too
difficult for our feeble hands to smooth out; the knots, the
difficulties, become hopelessly entangled; we sit down dismayed in
stony despair, or we weep helplessly, according to our several
temperaments. From the beginning of the sorrow that shaded her young
days, Theo had a trick, in times when harassing troubles crowded upon
her, of secretly slipping away to the churchyard, and whispering her
trials to that grassy mound, the most sacred spot of earth to the girl.
It was so still, so unutterably peaceful, in the hallowed enclosure,
where the green grass grew tangled among the grey headstones that
elbowed each other in the cramped space. During the week the little
churchyard was deserted. On Sundays the simple fisher-folk wandered in
and out among the Northbourne sleepers, talking softly of their old
neighbours; but it never occurred to them to do anything towards
keeping the graves neat and straight. Theo's loving care kept the
quiet corner where her mother slept in perfect order; but for the rest
an air of dreary neglect prevailed.
Bewildered and harassed by her brothers' mad outbreak, Theo had sought
her usual consolation, and was sitting leaning her cheek against the
stone that told the last chapter in the life-history of the gentle
mother who had risen at the Master's call to go up higher. And as she
so sat, a peace, born of the surrounding silence, brooded down over her
troubled soul. Her anger at the boys' mutiny died out. Somehow, among
the silent sleepers round about her, it seemed small and paltry to fume
over the wranglings of the schoolroom. The wind that stole up from the
bay dried the tears on Theo's cheek. New resolves stirred her heart.
She would pluck up courage and try, once again, to move Alick's
stubborn will. Not that she had much hope of inducing him to apologise
to his justly offended tutor. She knew that Philip Price had created
an insurmountable rock in the path of reconciliation by his insistence
on such a thing.
'I don't blame him, of course not,' she said half aloud. 'It's due to
him that the boys should apologise. Dear old Geoff is already willing
to do it; but Alick never will!'
'Who is you talking to, Theo?' A sweet, shrill voice made Theo jump,
and turn quickly.
'Queenie! Oh, my deary, how did you know where to find me?' she cried
in her surprise.
'Oh, I could find you nowhere, Theo. I asked everybody, even father.
Then I knewed you must have gone to see mother, and so I comed too.'
Queenie, armed as usual with a couple of dolls, proceeded to seat
herself and them on the other side of the green mound. 'Tell me about
mother an' me, Theo, when I was a very little girl, will you?' she
soberly begged, when she had established herself and her infants to her
satisfaction.
In this little one there was an utter lack of dread of death. Nobody
had filled her childish mind with vague fears of the unknown life
beyond. Her simple faith was that unlimited trustful belief that our
Lord alluded to when He said, 'Except ye be converted and become as
little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.'
The mother whom Queenie only knew by hearsay had gone home first--gone
to Paradise beyond the blue skies. Theo said so. This dear mother
would be waiting, with wistful welcomes, for each one of her dear ones
when they, too, went to that other far-off home. Theo said so.
Queenie, therefore, came, with happy, childish trust, to her mother's
quiet resting-place much as she would have trotted into that mother's
room, had God not called His meek servant away out of her earthly home.
'I don't think I could tell you stories to-day, dear.' Theo rose
slowly from the grass, and looked down upon the fair little face under
its straw hat. 'I am too troubled.'
'Is it the horrid figures, Theo?' Queenie asked, half-sympathetically,
half-absently, her attention being attracted by a bold thrush hopping
across the graves.
'No, it's worse than figures; it's the boys,' mournfully rejoined Theo.
'The boys are going shrimping this evening, with Ned,' said Queenie
importantly. 'I wish you and I was boys, Theo!' the little one
plaintively added. Queenie was beginning to discover the fact that
dolls were not, perhaps, the highest joys of life.
Going out shrimping with Ned! Theo started. Then things were hopeless
indeed. There would be no evening preparation. Perhaps even Geoff had
changed his mind, and would refuse to say he was sorry.
'I must take you home now, at once, deary. Come! I have to go and see
old Goody Dempster before tea. Say good-bye, and come.'
Queenie's fresh little mouth was pressed against the grey headstone,
and she softly whispered, 'Good-bye, mother darlin'!'
Theo stooped and did the same. The touching little ceremony was never
omitted by either. Then hand in hand they soberly left the quiet
resting-place, the missel-thrush peering out of its bold eye at their
retreating figures.