Marjorie, straightforwardly.
"I think it's rather impertinent, don't you?"
"Yes," considered Marjorie, "rather."
Miss Prudence was a fair vision in Marjorie's eyes and Marjorie was a
radiant vision in Miss Prudence's eyes. The radiant vision was not
clothed in gorgeous apparel; the radiance was in the face and voice and
in every motion; the apparel was simply a stiffly starched blue muslin,
that had once belonged to Linnet and had been "let down" for Marjorie,
and her head was crowned with a broad-brimmed straw hat, around the crown
of which was tied a somewhat faded blue ribbon, also a relic of Linnet's
summer days; her linen collar was fastened with an old-fashioned pin of
her mother's; her boots were new and neatly fitting, her father had made
them especially for herself.
Her sense of the fitness of things was sometimes outraged; one of the
reasons why she longed to grow up was that she might have things of her
own; things bought for her and made for her as they always were for
Linnet. But Linnet was pretty and good and was going away to school!
The fair vision was clothed in white, a soft white, that fell in folds
and had no kinship with starch. Marjorie had never seen this kind of
white dress before; it was a part of Miss Prudence's loveliness. The face
was oval and delicate, with little color in the lips and less in the
cheeks, smooth black hair was brushed away from the thoughtful forehead
and underneath the heavily pencilled black brows large, believing, gray
eyes looked unquestioningly out upon the world. Unlike Marjorie, Miss
Prudence's questions had been answered. She would have told Marjorie that
it was because she had asked her questions of One who knew how to answer.
She was swinging in her hammock on the back porch; this back porch looked
over towards the sea, a grass plat touched the edge of the porch and then
came the garden; it was a kitchen garden, and stretched down to the flat
rocks, and beyond the flat rocks were the sand and the sea.
Marjorie had walked two miles and a half this hot afternoon to spend two
or three hours with her friend, Miss Prudence. Miss Prudence was boarding
at Marjorie's grandfather's; this was the second summer that she had been
at this farmhouse by the sea. She was the lady of whom Marjorie had
caught a glimpse so long ago in church, and called her Mercy. Throwing
aside her hat, Marjorie dropped down on the floor of the porch, so near
the gently swaying hammock that she might touch the soft, white drapery,
and in a position to watch Miss Prudence's face.
"I don't see the use of learning somethings," Marjorie began; that is, if
she could be said to begin anything with Miss Prudence, the beginning of
all her questions had been so long ago. So long ago to Marjorie; long ago
to Miss Prudence was before Marjorie was born.
There were no books or papers in the hammock. Miss Prudence had settled
herself comfortably, so comfortably that she was not conscious of
inhabiting her body when Marjorie had unlatched the gate.
"Which one of the things, for instance?"
In the interested voice there was not one trace of the delicious reverie
she had been lost in.
"Punctuation," said Marjorie, promptly; "and Mr. Holmes says we must be
thorough in it. I can't see the use of anything beside periods, and, of
course, a comma once in a while."
A gleam of fun flashed into the gray eyes. Miss Prudence was a born
pedagogue.
"I'll show you something I learned when I was a little girl; and, after
this, if you don't confess that punctuation has its work in the world, I
have nothing more to say about it."
Marjorie had been fanning herself with her broad brim, she let it fall in
her eagerness and her eyes were two convincing arguments against the
truth of her own theory, for they were two emphasized exclamation points;
sometimes when she was very eager she doubled herself up and made an
interrogation point of herself.
"Up in my room on the table you will find paper and pencil; please bring
them to me."
Marjorie flew away and Miss Prudence gave herself up to her interrupted
reverie. To-day was one of Miss Prudence's hard-working days; that is, it
was followed by the effect of a hard-working day; the days in which she
felt too weak to do anything beside pray she counted the successful days
of her life. She said they were the only days in her life in which she
accomplished anything.
Marjorie was at home in every part of her grandfather's queer old house;
Miss Prudence's room was her especial delight. It was a low-studded
chamber, with three windows looking out to the sea, the wide fireplace
was open, filled with boughs of fragrant hemlock; the smooth yellow
floor with its coolness and sweet cleanliness invited you to enter; there
were round braided mats spread before the bureau and rude washstand, and
more pretentious ones in size and beauty were laid in front of the red,
high-posted bedstead and over the brick hearth. There were, beside, in
the apartment, two tables, an easy-chair with arms, its cushions covered
with red calico, a camp stool, three rush-bottomed chairs, a Saratoga
trunk, intruding itself with ugly modernness, also, hanging upon hooks,
several articles of clothing, conspicuously among them a gray flannel
bathing suit. The windows were draperied in dotted swiss, fastened back
with green cord; her grandmother would never have been guilty of those
curtains. Marjorie was sure they had intimate connection with the
Saratoga trunk. Sunshine, the salt-breath of the sea and the odor of pine
woods as well!
There were rollicking voices outside the window, Marjorie looked out and
spied her five little cousins playing in the sand. Three of them held in
their hands, half-eaten, the inevitable doughnut; morning, noon, and
night those children were to be found with doughnuts in their hands.
She laughed and turned again to the contemplation of the room; on the
high mantel was a yellow pitcher, that her grandmother knew was a hundred
years old, and in the centre of the mantel were arranged a sugar bowl and
a vinegar cruet that Miss Prudence had coaxed away from the old lady; her
city friends would rave over them, she said. The old lady had laughed,
remarking that "city folks" had ways of their own.
"I've given away a whole set of dishes to folks that come in the yachts,"
she said. "I should think you would rather have new dishes."
Miss Prudence never dusted her old possessions; she told Marjorie that
she had not the heart to disturb the dust of ages.
Marjorie was tempted to linger and linger; in winter this room was closed
and seemed always bare and cold when she peeped into it; there was no
temptation to stay one moment; and now she had to tear herself away. It
must be Miss Prudence's spirit that brooded over it and gave it sweetness
and sunshine. This was the way Marjorie put the thought to herself. The
child was very poetical when she lived alone with herself. Miss
Prudence's wicker work-basket with its dainty lining of rose-tinted silk,
its shining scissors and gold thimble, with its spools and sea-green silk
needlebook was a whole poem to the child; she thought the possession of
one could make any kind of sewing, even darning stockings, very
delightful work. "Stitch, stitch, stitch," would not seem dreadful, at
all.
How mysterious and charming it was to board by the seashore with
somebody's grandfather! And then, in winter, to go back to some
bewildering sort of a fairyland! To some kind of a world where people did
not talk all the time about "getting along" and "saving" and "doing
without" and "making both ends meet." How Marjorie's soul rebelled
against the constant repetition of those expressions! How she thought she
would never _let_ her little girls know what one of them meant! If she
and her little girls had to be saving and do without, how brave they
would be about it, and laugh over it, and never ding it into anybody's
ears! And she would never constantly be asking what things cost! Miss
Prudence never asked such questions. But she would like to know if that
gold pen cost so very much, and that glass inkstand shaped like a
pyramid, and all that cream note-paper with maple tassels and autumn
leaves and butterflies and ever so many cunning things painted in its
left corners. And there was a pile of foolscap on the table, and some
long, yellow envelopes, and some old books and some new books and an
ivory paper-cutter; all something apart from the commonplace world she
inhabited. Not apart from the world her thoughts and desires revelled
in; not her hopes, for she had not gotten so far as to hope to live in a
magical world like Miss Prudence. And yet when Miss Prudence did not wear
white she was robed in deep mourning; there was sorrow in Miss Prudence's
magical world.
It was some few moments before the roving eyes could settle themselves
upon the paper and pencil she had been sent for; she would have liked to
choose a sheet of the thick cream-paper with the autumn leaves painted on
it, but that was not for study, and Miss Prudence certainly intended
study, although there was fun in her eyes. She selected carefully a sheet
of foolscap and from among the pen oils a nicely sharpened Faber number
three. With the breath of the room about her, and the beauty and
restfulness of it making a glory in her eyes, she ran down to the broad,
airy hall.
Glancing into the sitting-room as she passed its partly opened door she
discovered her grandfather asleep in his arm-chair and her grandmother
sitting near him busy in slicing apples to be strung and hung up in the
kitchen to dry! With a shiver of foreboding the child passed the door on
tiptoe; suppose her grandmother _should_ call her in to string those
apples! The other children never strung them to suit her and she
"admired" Marjorie's way of doing them. Marjorie said once that she hated
apple blossoms because they turned into dried apples. But that was when
she had stuck the darning needle into her thumb.
I'm afraid you will think now that Marjorie is not as sweet as she used
to be.
She presented the paper, congratulating herself upon her escape, and Miss
Prudence lifted herself in the hammock and took the pencil, holding it in
her fingers while she meditated. What a little girl she was when her
whiteheaded old teacher had bidden her write this sentence on the
blackboard. She wrote it carefully, Marjorie's attentive eyes following
each movement of the pencil.
"The persons inside the coach were Mr Miller a clergyman his son a lawyer
Mr Angelo a foreigner his lady and a little child" In the entire sentence
there was not one punctuation mark.
"Read it, please."
Marjorie began to read, then stopped and laughed.
"I can't."
"You wouldn't enjoy a book very much written in that style, would you?"
"I couldn't enjoy it at all. I wouldn't read it"
"Well, if you can't read it, explain it to me. How many persons are in
the coach?"
"That's easy enough! There's Mr. Miller, that's one; there's the
clergyman, that's two!"
"Perhaps that is only one; Mr. Miller may be a clergyman."
"So he may. But how can I tell?" asked Marjorie, perplexed. "Well, then,
his son makes two."
"Whose son?"
"Why, Mr. Miller's!"
"Perhaps he was the clergyman's son," returned Miss Prudence seriously.
"Well, then," declared Marjorie, "I guess there were eight people! Mr.
Miller, the clergyman, the son, the lawyer, Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, a
lady, and a child!"
"Placing a comma after each there are eight persons," said Miss Prudence
making the commas.
"Yes," assented Marjorie, watching her.
Beneath it Miss Prudence wrote the sentence again, punctuating thus:
"The persons inside the conch were Mr. Miller, a clergyman; his son, a
lawyer; Mr. Angelo, a foreigner, his lady; and a little child."
"Now how many persons are there inside this coach?"
"Three gentlemen, a lady and child," laughed Marjorie--"five instead of
eight. Those little marks have caused three people to vanish."
"And to change occupations."
"Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has
become a foreigner."
The pencil was moving again and the amused, attentive eyes were
steadfastly following.
"The persons inside the coach were Mr. Miller; a clergyman, his son; a
lawyer, Mr. Angelo; a foreigner, his lady, and a little child."
Marjorie uttered an exclamation; it was so funny!
"Now, Mr. Miller's son is a clergyman instead of himself, Mr. Angelo is a
lawyer, and nobody knows whether he is a foreigner or not, and we don't
know the foreigner's name, and he has a wife and child."
Miss Prudence smiled over the young eagerness, and rewrote the sentence
once again causing Mr. Angelo to cease to be a lawyer and giving the
foreigner a wife but no little child.
"O, Miss Prudence, you've made the little thing an orphan all alone in a
stage-coach all through the change of a comma to be a semi-colon!"
exclaimed Marjorie in comical earnestness. "I think punctuation means
ever so much; it isn't dry one bit," she added, enthusiastically.
"You couldn't enjoy Mrs. Browning very well without it," smiled Miss
Prudence.
"I never would know what the 'Cry of the Children' meant, or anything
about Cowper's grave, would I? And if I punctuated it myself, I might
not get all _she_ meant. I might make a meaning of my own, and that would
be sad."
"I think you do," said Miss Prudence; "when I read it to you and the
children, there were tears in your eyes, but the others said all they
liked was my voice."
"Yes," said Marjorie, "but if somebody had stumbled over every line I
shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying
elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My
son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen
tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess
punctuation helps elocution, too."
"I shouldn't wonder," replied Miss Prudence, smiling at Marjorie's air of
having discovered something. "Now, I'll give you something to do while I
close my eyes and think awhile."
"Am I interrupting you?" inquired Marjorie in consternation. "I didn't
know how I could any more than I can interrupt--"
"God" was in her thought, but she did not give it utterance.
"I shall not allow you," returned Miss Prudence, quietly. "You will work
awhile, and I will think and when I open my eyes you may talk to me about
anything you please. You are a great rest to me, child."
"Thank you," said the child, simply.
"You may take the paper and change the number of people, or relationship,
or professions again. I know it may be done."
"I don't see how."
"Then it will give you really something to do."
Seating herself again on the yellow floor of the porch, within range of
Miss Prudence's vision, but not near enough to disturb her, Marjorie bit
the unsharpened end of her pencil and looked long at the puzzling
sentences on the foolscap. With the attitude of attentiveness she was not
always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and
that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to
"succeed." She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a
parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks!
But the sense was not changed; there was nobody new in the stage-coach
and nobody did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little
child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father
and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak
English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a
brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow
depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for
the child, a little girl, of course--Corrinne would do, or it might be a
boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael
Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Tasso
and--did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio
Pellico,--wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not
the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of
the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a
story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the
churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm?
And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter?
And wasn't it queer--why how had she got there? But it _was_ queer for
the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so--that water
couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny
for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the butter was
"spoiled," just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard
and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry
Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and
pure, like an angel's; and angels _were_ like young men, for at the
resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other
time? And how do you spell _resurrection_? Was that the word that had one
_s_ and two _r's_ in it? And how would you write two _r's?_ Would
punctuation teach you that? Was _B_ a word and could you spell it?
"Well, Marjorie?"
"Oh, dear me!" exclaimed Marjorie. "I've been away off! I always do go
away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never
shall be concentrated," she sighed. "I believe I could go right on and
think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing
else."
"And some day," rebuked Miss Prudence, "when you must concentrate your
thoughts you will find that you have spoiled yourself."
"I have found it out now," acknowledged Marjorie humbly.
"I have to be very severe with myself."
"I ought to be," Marjorie confessed with a rueful face, "for it spoils my
prayers so often. I wouldn't dare tell you all the things I find myself
thinking of. Why, last night--you know at the missionary meeting they
asked us to pray for China and so I thought I'd begin last night, and I
had hardly begun when it flashed into my mind--suppose somebody should
make me Empress of China, and give me supreme power, of course. And I
began to make plans as to how I should make them all Christians. I
thought I wouldn't _force_ them or destroy their temples, but I'd have
all my officers real Christians; Americans, of course; and I thought I
_would_ compel them to send the children to Christian schools. I'd have
such grand schools. I had you as principal for the grandest one. And I'd
have the Bible and all our best books, and all our best Sunday School
books translated into Chinese and I _would_ make the Sabbath a holy day
all over the land. I didn't know what I would do about that room in every
large house called the Hall of Ancestors. You know they worship their
grandparents and great-great-grandparents there. I think I should have to
let them read the old books. Isn't it queer that one of the proverbs
should be like the Bible? 'God hates the proud and is kind to the
humble.' Do you know all about Buddha?"
"Is that as far as you got in your prayer?" asked Miss Prudence, gravely.
"About as far. And then I was so contrite that I began to pray for myself
as hard as I could, and forgot all about China."
"Do you wander off in reading the Bible, too?"
"Oh, no; I can keep my attention on that. I read Genesis and Exodus last
Sunday. It is the loveliest story-book I know. I've begun to read it
through. Uncle James said once, that when he was a sea-captain, he
brought a passenger from Germany and he used to sit up all night and read
the Bible. He told me last Sunday because he thought I read so long. I
told him I didn't wonder. Miss Prudence," fixing her innocent,
questioning eyes upon Miss Prudence's face, "why did a lady tell mother
once that she didn't want her little girl to read the Bible through until
she was grown up? It was Mrs. Grey,--and she told mother she ought not to
let me begin and read right through."
"What did your mother say?"
"She said she was glad I wanted to do it."
"I think Mrs. Grey meant that you might learn about some of the sin there
is in the world. But if you live in the world, you will be kept from the
evil, because Christ prayed that his disciples might be thus kept; but
you must know the sin exists. And I would rather my little girl would
learn about the sins that God hates direct from his lips than from any
other source. As soon as you learn what sin is, you will learn to hate
it, and that is not sure if you learn it in any other way. I read the
Bible through when I was about your age, and I think there are some forms
of sin I never should have hated so intensely if I had not learned about
them in the way God thinks best to teach us his abhorrence of them. I
never read any book in which a sin was fully delineated that I did not
feel some of the excitement of the sin--some extenuation, perhaps, some
glossing over, some excuse for the sinner,--but in the record God gives I
always intensely hate the sin and feel how abominable it is in his sight.
The first book I ever cried over was the Bible and it was somebody's sin
that brought the tears. I would like to talk to Mrs. Grey!" cried Miss
Prudence, her eyes kindling with indignation. "To think that God does not
know what is good for his children."
"I wish you would," said Marjorie with enthusiasm, "for I don't know how
to say it. Mother knows a lady who will not read Esther on Sunday because
God isn't in it"
"The name of God, you mean," said Miss Prudence smiling. "I think Esther
and Mordecai and all the Jews thought God was in it."
"I will try not to build castles," promised Marjorie often a silent half
minute. "I've done it so much to please Linnet. After we go to bed at
night she says, 'Shut your eyes, Marjie, and tell me what you see,' Then
I shut my eyes and see things for us both. I see ourselves grown up and
having a splendid home and a real splendid husband, and we each have
three children. She has two boys and one girl, and I have two girls and
one boy. And we educate them and dress them so nice, and they do lovely
things. We travel all around the world with them, and I tell Linnet all
we see in Europe and Asia. Our husbands stay home and send us money. They
have to stay home and earn it, you know," Marjorie explained with a
shrewd little smile. "Would you give that all up?" she asked
disappointedly.
"Yes, I am sure I would. You are making a disappointment for yourself;
your life may not be at all like that. You may never marry, in the first
place, and you may marry a man who cannot send you to Europe, and I think
you are rather selfish to spend his money and not stay home and be a good
wife to him," said Miss Prudence, smiling.
"Oh. I write him splendid long letters!" said Marjorie quickly. "They are
so splendid that he thinks of making a book of them."
"I'm afraid they wouldn't take," returned Miss Prudence seriously, "books
of travel are too common nowadays."
"Is it wrong to build castles for any other reason than for making
disappointments?" Marjorie asked anxiously.
"Yes, you dwell only on pleasant things and thus you do not prepare
yourself, or rather un-prepare yourself for bearing trial. And why should
a little girl live in a woman's world?"
"Oh, because it's so nice!" cried Marjorie.
"And are you willing to lose your precious childhood and girlhood?"
"Why no," acknowledged the child, looking startled.
"I think you lose a part of it when you love best to look forward to
womanhood; I should think every day would be full enough for you to live
in."
"To-day is full enough; but some days nothing happens at all."
"Now is your study time; now is the time for you to be a perfect little
daughter and sister, a perfect friend, a perfect helper in every way that
a child may help. And when womanhood comes you will be ready to enjoy it
and to do its work. It would be very sad to look back upon a lost or
blighted or unsatisfying childhood."
"Yes," assented Marjorie, gravely.
"Perhaps you and Linnet have been reading story-books that were not
written for children."
"We read all the books in the school library."
"Does your mother look over them?"
"No, not always."
"They may harm you only in this way that I see. You are thinking of
things before the time. It would be a pity to spoil May by bringing
September into it."