STELLA WHEELWRIGHT.
One afternoon two men were digging post-holes and setting in redwood
posts on the side of one of the main roads in Orangeville. Everything
had been exceedingly quiet, not a team was seen since dinner. Nothing in
the way of excitement had happened to relieve the monotony of their
work. They were interested and delighted when they heard a noise, and,
looking down the road, saw a vehicle coming, but it was not near enough
to tell whose it was. When it got a little nearer one of the men said:
"Why, Alfred, it is the old man Wheelwright and his girl Stella."
Alfred replied to James, the man who has just spoken: "Stella was to
school at San Jose, and her father has been to Roseland to meet the
train which arrived this morning and bring her home."
"How she has grown," remarked James, "since she went away. She has
improved in her looks very much."
"Yes," said Alfred, "I think she will make a fine woman, for she has a
bright, intelligent eye, and they say she is real smart in her studies,
away ahead of most of the girls round here. She seems so different to
them. She comes of good stock; her mother is the brightest and best
woman in Orangeville, and her father is a well-posted man."
"You must be kind of stuck on her and her folks," replied his companion.
"I don't go so much myself on girls who have their heads in books all
the time. What does a fellow want with such a girl as that? She may be
all right to be a school marm, or woman's rights talker, but I don't
want any of them. I say to hell with book women. Give me a girl like
Nance Slater. She is round and plump, don't care much for books or
papers, but is bright and laughing all the day. She is the girl to have
lots of fun with, and when it comes to making a man a good wife, why,
she is the best cook in Orangeville. I was over to Slater's on an errand
the other morning about ten o'clock, and Nance was looking as pretty as
a picture; her cheeks had the blush of the peach on them; her eyes were
sparkling bright, her lips red, and when she laughed, her teeth looked
like the best and whitest ivory you ever saw. She had on such a pretty,
light, calico wrapper, and a white apron with a bib, and was busy taking
out of the oven some mince pies and just putting in some apple pies. She
had a kettle of doughnuts a frying, and a whole lot of cookie paste
ready to cut out and bake. She said: 'James, you must sample my
doughnuts. Mother, give James a cup of coffee to go with them; there is
some hot on the stove.' Nance is a trump. She is straight goods. The
trouble with those Wheelwrights is they live awful close, and instead of
cooking good meals, spend their time in reading books. They starve in
the kitchen to sit in the parlor. The devil take the books, I say. I
wouldn't give a book girl barn room for all the good she would be to
me."
Alfred replied: "That's all right; every fellow to his own girl, I say.
It would not do for all to be after the same one. As for me, I like
Stella. She has some stability of character. There is something
interesting about a girl like that, and if she don't care about doing
all the cooking, why, I can help her, if she will only let me enjoy her
company."
The sun went down and the men went each to his own home, being content
in their mind that each man should have his own choice.
Stella was the only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright, she being the
only child they ever had had. At the time she returned from school she
was sixteen and would have one year more in school. She was very
precocious, a thorough student, and would allow nothing to divert her
from her studies. She was at that age when the intellectual part of her
nature predominated, though the spiritual was just beginning to tinge
her mind with its coloring. She possessed a strong individuality; she
was a born investigator; would accept no statements without examining
them, and rebelled against a great many of the customs and usages of
society. She did her own thinking, and nothing seemed to please her more
than to take her investigating axe and cut away some of the roots which
held her free spirit in bondage. Problems seemed to be crowding on her
mind thick and fast, and she could not take the time from her studies to
do the necessary amount of reading and thinking to resolve them, and she
was looking forward to the time when her last year would expire. During
this vacation she took much physical exercise, for she did not believe
in developing one side of her nature at the expense of the other. She
rode horseback and climbed the sides of steep mountains, mixed with the
young people in their recreations, such as camping parties, picnics, and
social entertainments. In company she was bright, witty, and
entertaining. She had no fear; was full of confidence, and was better
balanced than her companions in that she was not carried away by
pleasures and the company of the opposite sex.
When she was not away from home on camping or picnic excursions, she
would find time to visit the cabin of an old man who lived alone, and
had sore eyes so that he could not see to read. She would read to him
whatever he liked, cheer him up by her bright, happy talk, and when she
left the old man often thought to himself that her comings were like
angels' visits, for she seemed to lift him up completely out of himself
into a new world. When she laid her head on her pillow at night, after
having spent the evening with old Andrews, she thought how much greater
a satisfaction she derived from hearing that old man say, on her leaving
him: "God bless you, Stella, you always bring sunshine to me," than she
did from even the most enjoyable pleasure excursion.
She bestowed the attractions and charm of her social and intellectual
nature less on those outside than those inside her home. You saw her at
her best when talking to her father and mother.
Some parents let their children outgrow them intellectually, so that
there is a great gulf fixed between parents and children, the latter
having nothing in common with the former. Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright tried
as much as possible to keep themselves in advance of their daughter's
intellectual growth, so that they might always command her respect for
their opinions, and that she might realize that in them she found two
interesting, intelligent companions, whom she could love and confide in.
The relationship between many parents and their grown children is very
unsatisfactory; for being on the material plane, there is nothing very
permanent in their relationship. The grown son and his father have only
in common business and social interests; that is their world; outside of
that neither one has any life that he realizes.
It is the same with the grown daughters and their mother. Their life is
mainly in the social and domestic world. Outside of that they apparently
have no existence; but the true ideal parents and children are those
whose life is in the intellectual and spiritual world. They cease to
exist in each other's minds as parents and children, and realize a
stronger and more permanent tie, and intellectual and spiritual union,
which is blessed, glorious, and eternal. They realize daily that "In Him
they live, and breathe, and have their being"; that they are immersed in
an ocean of Divine love, and that Divine love permeates them all through
and through; and that it is in that ocean of Divine love that they
realize that they are one. They feel a blessed nearness and dearness and
oneness to each other, though separated by oceans and continents, for
they have realized through sweet experience that the same intelligent
spiritual thought and love pulses through them all as if they were one
organism.