QUIET DAYS
You may have seen a little leaf that has fallen into a stream and been
whirled along by the unresting current, torn and bruised and helpless,
then suddenly drift into a still and quiet pool and lie tranquil,
unvexed, while the stream, unable longer to clutch it, goes hurrying
by. So to Rose, after her troubled, changeful childhood, Farmdale was
the quiet pool, where she was to find a quiet, uneventful period.
Not that Rose ever thought of it as uneventful. To her school life
she brought an enthusiasm that never flagged; the school tests, the
class competitions, the school entertainments, the school games, and
even the school differences, she entered into them all heart and soul.
She studied hard, she took eager advantage of every opportunity, and
was none the less ready for every enjoyment with the keen zest of her
intense nature. Then outside the school was the village with all its
people and all their happenings, a little world of itself. “Some of the
girls call Farmdale dull and poky,” she repeated wonderingly to Miss
Silence. “I’m sure it isn’t dull to me—I don’t see how they can think
it is.”
The Blossom household quickly became home, and home folks to Rose. But
when Mrs. Blossom promised for her the same care she would have given
her own little Rachel, she included also, what she would have expected
of little Rachel had she lived, as she had of her other daughters,
the yielding of a ready, cheerful obedience. Mrs. Blossom’s law was
one Rose had known little of, the law of love, but none the less was
it law. Never in their girlhood, and hardly in their maturer years,
had Silence or Patience Blossom dreamed of acting in opposition to
their mother’s will—that reasonable, mild, but inflexible will. And
though Rose had not hesitated to face Mrs. Hagood’s fury, yet when
those clear, steadfast eyes looked into hers, and that kindly but
firm voice said, with its accent of decision, “Rose, you cannot!”
she instinctively realized that here was a force, the force of moral
strength, that impetuous willfulness would beat powerless against. Nor
was her affection for Mrs. Blossom any the less sincere because of the
obedient respect on which it was founded.
Great-Uncle Samuel had been rightly informed that the Farmdale high
school was a good one, and the lessons Rose learned within its walls
were to her of value; but no less so was the unconscious teaching of
the pure and unselfish lives that were open before her every day. Over
an ardent young life, full of dreams and plans and ambitions, all
centered in self, a happier influence could not well have fallen than
that of these gentle, kindly women, whose spirit of helpfulness and
sympathy was always as ready and unfailing as the flow of the fountain
itself.
Was any one in distress, in perplexity, in trouble; there was no
counselor so wise, discreet, trustworthy, as Mrs. Blossom, who held
half the village secrets, and had served as a peacemaker times without
number. Was there a bride to be dressed; no one could do it so well
as Miss Silence or Mrs. Patience. Was any one sick; no nurses were
as tender and skillful and tireless as they. Did the shadow of death
rest over a home; no voices could speak words of sweeter comfort to the
dying, no other’s presence was so unobtrusive, so helpful in the house
of bereavement. Indeed, few were the families in that little community
to whom they were not bound by the cords of a common sympathy in some
hour of joy or grief. And Rose was not the only one who often wondered
how with all the calls upon them they still managed to accomplish so
much, and with a manner so unhurried.
“I don’t see how you ever do it,” Rose exclaimed one day.
“It’s the busy people who find not only the most time but the most
happiness,” was Silence Blossom’s cheery answer.
And realizing, as she well did, how much more of real happiness there
was in the modest Blossom home than in the big Fifield house, where no
one ever thought of going to ask a service, and every life was wholly
self-centered, Rose could not but admit that this was true.
“I don’t see what happiness you could find in sitting up all night
with Aunt Polly Brown,” she protested. “I’m sure I never want to go
where there’s sick people. I hope I’ll never be asked to.”
Already in that home where thoughtfulness for others was part of the
daily life, and interest in any who were suffering a matter of course,
it had come about naturally that Rose should be sent with a handful of
flowers, or some dainty for a sick neighbor, or was asked to call at
the door with a message of inquiry. So the next day she took it as a
matter of course when Miss Silence asked her to take a bowl of chicken
broth to Aunt Polly Brown.
“Take it right in to Aunt Polly,” said the young woman who opened the
door. “She’s in the bedroom right off the sitting-room.”
Rose hesitated. She would have refused if she had known exactly how to
do so. As it was, the bowl trembled a little as she walked through into
the bedroom, where on a high four-post bedstead, under a “blazing star”
quilt, Aunt Polly lay, a ruffled night cap surrounding her shrunken
face.
“Well, now,” as Rose told her errand, “it was reel kind of Silence
Blossom to send the broth. I was just thinkin’ that a taste o’ chicken
broth would relish. Sit down, won’t ye,” with a wistful accent, “and
tell me what’s goin’ on? Mary Jane never knows nothin’. Mebby I ain’t
goin’ to get well, but ’tany rate I like to know what folks is doin’.”
“I was standing on one foot wondering how quick I could get out,” Rose
said, relating it all to Miss Silence, on her return. “But when she
spoke that way I just thought that if I were old and sick I’d be glad
to have somebody come in; and I sat down and racked my brain to tell
everything I could think of. She seemed real cheered up when I came
away, and I promised her I’d come again.”
“I thought you never wanted to go where there were sick people,” and
Silence Blossom’s eyes twinkled.
“Well, it wasn’t so bad as I thought it was going to be, though her
hands are kind of skinny. And I don’t think I feel quite as I did about
sick folks now. Besides, it must be dreadful to lie in bed day after
day, and if I can make a little of the time pass, why I’m glad to.”
“There is where the gladness comes in,” said Mrs. Patience. “It is
making the hours of suffering a little brighter, a little easier. And
now you have learned this I think you will never forget it.”
“And I also remember that I promised to come down to Helen Green’s
to get out my Latin with her,” and gathering an armful of books Rose
hurried away.
“I am glad that Rose went in to see Aunt Polly; she is such a bit of
sunshine that she could not help but do her good. Besides, she has
always had such a morbid dread of a sick room,” Silence remarked as she
watched her away.
“I am glad, too,” agreed Mrs. Blossom, “for Rose can gain as well as
give. Of course I would not want her to go where there was any danger,
but her exuberant young nature will be made the deeper and richer for
being stirred and lifted out of itself.”
So among the threads of interest running from the Blossom home Rose
knit her threads. The people of Farmdale became her friends, and
because they were her friends she loved them, and so it was not strange
that she won love in return. With the Fifields her relations through
the years continued of the friendliest. On her part the painfulness of
being falsely accused had faded away; and on their part the fact that
it had been an unjust charge had not only made them one and all feel
that they owed her something in return, but had awakened an interest
in her that otherwise they might never have felt. Miss Eudora regarded
her in the light of a romance; Miss Jane Fifield commended the fact
that she was neither vain, nor, as she was pleased to put it, “silly”;
while Mr. Nathan, in his pride at Rose’s persistence, and the quality
he called her “grit,” went so far as to freshen up the languages of his
college days, that he might the more help her.
At their time of life it was not to be expected that the Fifield nature
would greatly change; still their friendship for Rose, inexperienced
young girl though she was, brought a new and wholesome atmosphere into
the old house. Her flitting in and out, bright, breezy, vivacious, was
a welcome break in their old formality. A part of Rose’s nature was her
overflowing enthusiasm on the subject then in mind; her studies, her
school pleasures, whatever part was hers in the life of the village,
was all shared with her friends. So when she came in beaming with
excitement over the prettiness of the newest Banby baby, Miss Fifield
and Miss Eudora became conscious that Mrs. Banby was a neighbor. Or
if it were anxiety how little Mrs. Mather, whose husband had just
died and left her with five children, was ever going to get through
the winter; or rejoicing that Fanny Barber, who had been so low with
inflammatory rheumatism was really improving, almost before they were
aware, they would find themselves becoming interested, an interest that
could easily take the form of a bundle of warm clothing for the widow,
or a glass of Miss Fifield’s famous quince jelly for the invalid. And
so by the slight touches of Rose’s hands they found themselves drawn
gradually from their cold isolation, and nearer to those about them.