“But you surely do not believe in”—she halted, ashamed of the ancient
word for an instant, then bravely put it at me—“miracles”?
“I have _seen_ miracles.”
And I told her of some that I had seen.
Do you suppose that I would cast a shadow of doubt upon so precious a
heritage? A believer in miracles! I thanked God after I had heard the
end of her story that I need not. Don’t _you_ believe in miracles? Don’t
we all constantly expect the impossible? And if we do not believe in
miracles, how can we expect that? And doesn’t the impossible often
happen? Well then!
“I wouldn’t like to tell you if you would laugh.”
“I am more likely to cry,” I said.
Alas! I fear that she did not quite trust my hyperbole. She continued
carefully:
“Well—then—comes the—mystery. There was no way except to pray for it.
You know people—especially women—believed more in the efficacy of prayer
then than they do now—they used to think of that first. And my heart was
almost broken, for I had spent nearly all my money, and that was my only
hope for a trousseau—and, of course, no girl can be married without
one—her husband would have no respect for her. At least that is what was
thought then. So every night I prayed, but no miracle happened. Then one
night I slipped out of bed, where I could do nothing but think of it,
and came downstairs to pray so that I would not disturb sis. As I prayed
I heard coin rattle into the old teapot! I lit a candle (I had been in
the dark) and ran in to look. (It was only in the closet in the next
room.) I could not lift the teapot down—it was so heavy. At last, when I
got it off the shelf, it slipped out of my hands, and was only saved
from destruction by falling on the thick rug at the hearth. It was then
that it was cracked. But the gold pieces fell and rolled about in a
veritable shower. My candle went out. I let them all lie, and rushed up
to wake sis. It was hard to do—she was sleeping so soundly. But when I
could make her understand, she was as surprised and happy as I was.
“We lit another candle and stole down and closed the shutters and locked
the doors and gathered them all up. There were exactly one hundred
twenty-dollar gold pieces. Only think! And all were stamped 1836.
“‘Oh, sis,’ I said, ‘some one has stolen _your_ money!’
“‘If any one went to the trouble to steal my money, he would keep it,
not present it to you, never fear! Mine is safe at the bank.’
“And sure enough, when she went down to see, the next morning early—for
she was very anxious—it was all there, quite safe, drawing its seven per
cent. For sis had put hers there from the first, and used only the
interest. And at that time a hundred and forty dollars a year was enough
for a girl to live on very well. But I had spent my all in what Hiliary
called riotous living.
“I thought, at first, we ought to make it known through the paper. But
sis said that if any one had been robbed of that money, _he_ would be
the person to make it known, as he certainly would, and that to talk of
it in that way was to doubt that it was a miracle.
“I have never doubted that. But I did watch the paper for a long time.”
VII
THAT WAS A GREAT TIME FOR KISSING
“You have seen my poor old trousseau. But it was the finest that could
be had here in those days. Sis and I did most of the sewing—or rather
sis did it. That was the custom then. And she cried more than I did over
it, and was more pale and shaky at the ceremony. She was my bridesmaid.
But we all lived happily together afterward. I think sis was more happy
than either Hiliary or me. And she was more of a wife to him than I was;
more of a mother to my babies than I was. It seemed more her vocation
than mine. The only unhappy thing about it—the only terrible thing in
all our lives—was when we came home so happy, with a miniature of us
that we had painted in Philadelphia for her, to have sis led out of the
dark parlor with a black bandage over her eyes and to be told that she
was—blind!
“_Blind!_ I remember now how she put her hands all over my face and said
that she could _feel_ the happiness—and not to cry. But she didn’t want
to touch Hiliary. He had come in laughing and calling for her first.
For, as I told you, she had been the happy one—not I!
“When _he_ saw her, he just held her hands as if he had turned to stone,
and the tears ran down his face—the first I had ever seen him shed. And
then he kissed her. He had never kissed her before, though I wouldn’t
have minded it. Those were greater times for kissing than these.
“‘She must never go away from us,’ he said to me in an entire change of
voice. In fact, whenever he spoke to her after that it was so. ‘And
nothing must ever mar her happiness. She is ours.’
“Of course we were all crying, no one could speak another word—so that
there was nothing to do but put our arms about her—and keep her—and make
her happy—which we did—didn’t we, sis?”
“Yes,” whispered the blind one.
Then fell a long pause in which three minds travelled back to that
beautiful old time and lived its happiness over again.
“It is very funny—what the blind can do if they like. Sis would darn the
stockings, nurse the babies, teach them their lessons, tie Hiliary’s
stock better than he could, or I, feel in his pocket to see whether he
had always a handkerchief, do _everything_ for him—and let _me_ go
gadding. It was the very luckiest thing for Hiliary that she never
married. For it took both of us to be a wife to him—and sis was more
than her share of her.
“And,” ended the frail one, “we are very thankful—for we have had
everything we wanted. Only, when Hiliary died, my heart would have
broken except for sis, for you know sis is brave, oh, sis is _very_
brave—braver than I!”
“Yes,” I echoed, “sis is very brave—braver than you!”
I looked at the blind one; and I am sure that she knew what I was
thinking. Her face was still turned to her plate. But high on the cheeks
a flush mounted, as I looked, which might be guilt—or something else.
And I fancied a tear under each eyelid which she dare not shed nor wipe
away. Poor sis!
And the face of the other one was flushed, too. But I knew very
certainly that meant joy. For her beautiful dark eyes looked straightly
and happily into mine. Yet—there were tears there, too!
And so you see that the saying of the dear old lady is once more proven
true. People cry for joy.
I reached across the table, scattering the teacups as I went, and took a
hand of each.
“A beautiful story,” I said.
“It is the first time,” said she, happily, who had told it so badly. “I
didn’t think I could tell a story. But somehow I was just carried
along.”
“It shall never be told again,” I said, “unless you permit it.”
But I pressed the hand of the blind one, slowly, gently, until her head
drooped a little further and she responded:
“Not until we are both dead.”
I have kept the faith. They are both dead.
And I will not put into printed words the thoughts of my mind. I will
not spoil the story of the dear old ladies by making it orderly and
conventional. For fifty years the frail one had believed in the mystery
of it—had even seen God in it. A miracle! How unquestioning was faith
then! How simple was she!
But I may tell you what I see, here, as I write.
First, that other one, with sudden understanding turning the coin, like
an accomplished palmist! Then again, stealing down the stairs in her
white night garments, after her sister, and hearing that prayer of
agony—then back—for that money—all prepared—because of the earlier
prayers—but halting—then, finally, to bed, like a wraith, pretending
sleep, having made the supreme sacrifice of her small life.
And I can see her the next day, swearing that prim-faced old banker, in
his dusty office, to eternal silence and untruth—an oath he kept with
faith.
I wish I might _not_ see her putting aside forever that trousseau—the
wedding journey—the little hoard. For these meant that _she_ had been
_sure_ of Hiliary. And, perhaps, that she and her sister were afterward
to part for _her_ wedded happiness. Was it not best as it happened?
And those sobs—I do not like to hear them—so terrible as to deprive her
of her sight. The while she had to think of _them_ in the light and she
forever in the dark. And alone! Alone! But it is good to know—is it
not?—that they truly lived happy ever after—that the end of all was joy?
That she lived with him she loved and who loved her all the rest of his
life—in the sound of his voice—in the touch of his hands—in all the
gentleness of him—all the more intimately in that she was blind? For she
might touch him then as she pleased—and it was his duty to protect
her—sometimes he might kiss her. For you will remember that the other
one did not mind. And that those were greater times for kissing than
these.
And do you think that she darned even his stockings—something that
touched his living body—without leaving on them a kiss or a caress? I do
not. And wasn’t it splendid to live in the only happiness there was for
her—or ever could be—by reason of that one great sacrifice! That she
might rear his children, who was to be mother to none! That she might be
almost a wife to him—who was to be wife to no one! That she was to have
the very comradeship her soul desired because she was blind—not
otherwise!
And, best and greatest and sweetest of all, that she for whom it all
was—the sorrow—the penance—the sacrifice—would never know till she
should reach that Heaven where her knowledge would only be blotted out
by the greater joy it would bring—there, where there is neither marrying
nor giving in marriage, but where the Lamb is the one bridegroom!
VIII
WHAT MAY BE SEEN ON A DOORSTEP
When the last one—the frail one—died, the teapots were sent to me in the
city. (Had they, do you think, known of my covetousness all the while?)
The one is wrapped in some soft, old, yellowed tissue which might have
been with the trousseau. It smells faintly of dead rose-leaves. The
little crack is neatly filled with fresh putty. Two of the worst
chippings have been carefully built up and modelled with the same
material. The other is resplendent in its original cotton wool and rests
in its box.
Only a little while ago I was passing a man’s back door. On the step was
a patent teapot. It was not splendid, but like a person in evil
circumstances. And I am sorry to say that I was glad—as I ought _not_ to
be in the case of a _person_ in evil circumstances. He was pressing upon
an air piston and expelling kerosene to fill a lamp.
I stopped, and smiled, and said: “‘Eureka?’”
“‘Eureka!’” he echoed, smiling also.
“It seems good—for kerosene,” I said.
“It is very good—for kerosene,” he replied.
“But not for dear old ladies,” I thought, as I passed on.
And so I tell this little story—or the old ladies do—because I wish that
no one may ever again buy a new teapot for old ladies. They may have an
old one with a story. But in case any one unthinkingly should, I have
provided a better use for it—or the man on his back doorstep has. I have
always wished that I had met him—on his doorstep—earlier.
THOR’S EMERALD
I THE SHIBBOLETH OF LIBERTY
Far out, toward the eternal ice cap, there was once a spot of earth so
glowing with delicate verdure that it was called Thor’s Emerald. One can
scarce imagine how it came there, unless, indeed, it dropped, by some
celestial mischance, from a Titanic diadem. It lay bedded between the
sea and mountain, and overlooked by the glacier. Yet, these enemies were
kept at bay by a south wind rifled from an inconstant current which
visited the fjord. Fair to the eye, it was a Dead Sea apple. One might
grind one’s heel into the soil and find the primeval shingle left by the
receding waters. And, always, there had been the threat of the glacier.
For, when the inconstant current should cease, at the bar itself was
making before the mouth of the fjord, the glacier would come down.
It was scarce fivescore acres. Yet it has its little history, whose
beginning no man knows, whose end it is mine to relate.
In the dim past some castaways had here found a good refuge from the icy
waters, and, having no hope of another country, had here set up their
households. Their names perished. But their descendants, bound to the
soil by an heredity stronger than either will or circumstance, kept
their graves on the mountain side, which outnumbered many times the
living.
For, each year, the sea and the glacier claimed their several victims.
The narrow strip of beach which led out to the south had been wider in
the time of the castaways. Yet none had cared to pass by it into the
better world that lay beyond—nor did they sail to it across the sea
which had been so deadly to them all.
Thus the sum of their lives had been compassed in the Emerald of Thor.
The sum of their necessities had ever been to keep life within and
covering without their bodies. And these simple things had been hard to
accomplish always. For the glacier encroached when the bar and the ice
kept the warm current away, and the fish went with the current.
That duress of fear, which held the castaways, had passed upon their
children. They coveted no more of the world than they saw about them. I
think they scarce knew, in the passage of time, that there was else to
the world than what they had.
In time this became patriotism. It was their unwritten treason to wish
for another country.
This life, too, isolated in the deep heart of nature, had bred a
habitude as simple as nature itself. They were true because they knew no
falsehood. They were good because for them there was no evil. Wrong was
the simple negation of right and needed no defining for the simple. Each
had the obsession of it.
More and more precarious had their life become. In the last winter the
ice had hung over them with an ominous menace. The current which was to
bring their little summer was delayed very long, the fish were gone, and
hunger come, so that they had begun to look each other in the eyes and
ask:
“Brother in the Lord, is it now?”
For this was with them always—this certainty of their blotting out.
But suddenly, almost in an hour, the summer came. The fish returned with
opulence. The ice receded with muttered curses. The streams fell down
from it, the harvest grew, and there was a song on every happy lip.
It was their last harvest. For, when it was gathered, and the winds were
become chill, they hastened into the boats and out to sea, that they
might have their winter’s fish before the glacier came back.
All went who could, but Christof and Christine, who, though yearning to
go, were commanded to remain and care for blind Agra and simple Lars,
the old and the maimed and the little children.
“For, Brother in the Lord,” said the priest, when he had doffed his
vestments and put on his smock, “we may not return, and thy charge is,
therefore, greater than ours. Behold, I adjure thee, that thou care for
them well.”
And Christof answered that he would. Whereupon the priest put his arms
about his shoulders and kissed his forehead, in their simple way, and
said:
“As thou doest unto them, so will the Lord to thee. We trust in thee.”
Christof again answered with assent. For always on their going forth was
this charge committed to some one.
But there was something greater yet.
“And, more than all,” charged the priest, with solemn affection, “we
leave thee and Christine, that there may be successors in our land; that
the graves may be kept; that until, in the time of God, this land shall
be blotted from the earth by the ice, there shall be lips to praise Him,
and souls to pray to Him. Life is a hard thing here, yea! But it would
not be so if God had not so ordained it. Therefore are we God’s
children, therefore do we obey him. For had He no purpose in keeping us
here, He would have found for us another land. Dost thou believe this?”
“All this I believe,” said Christof.
“Thou art the bravest, and Christine the most splendid, our little race
has yet produced. We see in thee, again, all that our fathers were who
lived amidst the ice, when the world was new. For that we save and keep
thee, that the issue of your loins may be the noblest in our little
world. But in thee we see ofttimes, with sorrow, the spirit of unrest.
Thou hast said that thou wouldst wish to try thy brawn out in that world
we know lies yonder. Thou hast said that thou art great as any there.
That much is true. Yet be not deceived. There is no world for thee but
this. There never can be. God in His thought designed it so. Thou canst
not escape God’s purposes. Dost thou believe this, too?”
And Christof bowed his head.
“Wilt thou, then, obey the law, and keep and do all this which I have
charged?”
And Christof answered:
“Yea.”
“If thou dost not,” the priest said, “I do fear the things that will
come upon thee and our land. Yet I am sure thou wilt. I go forth with an
even heart. And all—all of thy brethren—go forth with peace in their
hearts because of thee. And, now, farewell, and all the grace of God
Almighty stay with thee,—so, farewell.”
He kissed the head of Christof.
And Christof answered, as the custom was:
“Fare thee all well, my Brother in the Lord,” and kissed his head.
“Fare thee all well,” the priest said again. “If we return no more, thou
wilt be governor and priest, and father and mother to thy country—to the
old and young, the simple and the maimed. And so, again, beloved Brother
in the Lord, be faithful—and fare thee all well.”
So they went forth to fish, and the sea rose mightily between them and
the land, so that they came not back for many days. And, even then,
their wrecked boats came in before them, wherefore, like a tender
message in advance of death, Christof and Christine knew.
Yet, all came back, each one, as if at the end they would not be denied
their land.
But on each face the purple hue of death had long since passed. And
Christof and Christine, and Simple Olaf and blind Agra, and the little
children, dug their graves on the mountain side.
II
WHEN THE SUMMER CAME AGAIN
Now, when the little fickle summer came again,—and the next year it was
splendid,—two young gentlemen sauntered up the sea road to Thor’s
Emerald and inquired, in something very like their language, for food
and a guide into the mountain and the glacier.
They got food, such as it was,—goat’s milk and flad bröd,—from
Christine’s hands, and Christof was their guide—there was none else. And
there could be none better. For his childhood had been spent on the
glacier and the mountain. He had begot a legend for each crag his
fathers had neglected to provide with one.
So he led the daring young gentlemen from the south up into the most
sacred of his caves and eyries, and, in the doing, found a wondrous
pleasure. They were his age and he loved them; they loved him.
He was the Viking to them—archaic as if born a thousand years before.
Upon the mountain he was the animal snuffing rare air. Upon the glacier
he was untamed liberty—unassailable as the nature in which it grew.
Precisely these were the young travellers to him. For they filled the
camp at twilight, and, long after it, the fantastic embers, with the
magnificent ghosts of the world from which they came—of which Christof
heard now first—treasuring every word.
One evening as he came into camp with the wood he had hardly gathered
for their evening fire, the rocks were echoing for the first time in
their hoary existence “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The Norseman did not
understand the song, but he caught the spirit of the singers. The fire
was not made. He leaned, rapt, against a crag, with bared head, while
they sang it for him in his own language. After that they sang it often
together so that he learned it. And, now and then, it came back to them
in his almost terrible Norsk words, where he shouted it to the listening
mountains. It had taken an almost religious hold upon the guide’s fancy.
It was exactly a week when they returned. They ate once more of the
little store of flad bröd, were blessed by the blind Agra, and went,
singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” back along the sea road, as they had
come, loath to leave the young Viking who had stepped out of the tenth
century for them.
He watched them out of sight and then choked in his throat. For, at the
waving of their hands, where the road was lost to view, all that largess
of which they had communed was gone. He thought to run and follow them,
but he heard a song—yet turned and strode the beach with a great
exultation. The song came nearer, but not more rapidly than his
resolution crystallized. And when she who sang came in sight of him, he
was looking obliviously out upon the booming ocean, his hand above his
eyes, as if trying to pierce the misty horizon which baffled his vision,
and where lay that exulting world of liberty.
And she who sung was glad to see him thus. For he was the goodliest
being she had ever had in her heart. His tunic was a black wolf’s
skin—his legs were swathed in other skins—the fur turned in—and gartered
with strips of furred hide—about his neck was a string of wolf’s
teeth—on his feet were huge shoes of skin such as his robe—his hair was
fair and long—his head was never covered.
She ceased her song and came before him. Yet he gazed.
“Soul of my soul, what seest thou?” she asked.
He came back with a sigh and smile for her.
“‘The Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.’”
“Nay, for that thou wouldst look at thy feet. For thou standest on the
land of the brave. And the home of the free is yonder.”
“The land of a despot,” he laughed, “asking all, giving naught.”
“Then thou art its despot—for it is thy land—thou art its king. Oh, it
is small I grant! But it is ours. No other land can ever be. Our fathers
dying gave it to us.”
“See!” he cried, turning what the travellers had given him into a
prodigal golden shower from his scrip upon the ground.
“What is it?” asked the girl.
“Money. Gold! Enough to take me to their land. They said so.”
“To their land? You?”
At once great fear fell on her.
“It is naught. A little journey by the sea road—a week—and one is there!
They come and go each summer. They will come again the next.”
“But thou—thou wilt not go?”
“I will,” he nodded.
“Forsake thy country?”
“Yea.”
“That was our fathers’ basest treason.”
He laughed.
“And thou hast sworn to the priest—”
He laughed again.
“But evil will come from the breach of thy solemn oath—it must. God is
not mocked.”
“I have not said that I will break my oath, nor do a treason, beloved
one,” he said. “Can one not go and see this wondrous land?”
“Yea. But temptation is in thine eyes.”
He laughed and sighed and answered:
“Yea!”—fingering the strange coins.
Then, tempting her also, he said:
“Come with me thence?”
“I?”
The one little word told him how impossible that was.
“Yea, there are the old and blind and simple to be cared for. I forgot.”
“I covet not that land, my Christof,” said she, “nor any other land than
this.”
“Beloved,” said he, solemnly, “our fate draws so near that I can see it.
The ice can little longer be held back. And that is death to us and to
our small land.”
“Yea,” said she, almost happily.
“Thou dost not wish to live?”
“I? I would live forever, asking but one thing—thy love. Yet, I will die
here willingly, because all that I know is here—all life—all death—all
joy—all hope and fear. Why, it is not hard, dear love. We have been born
to it. Each morning we look first up at the glacier to read if we shall
live that day.”
“Our fathers have done ill to keep us here. Ill to stay themselves. What
is there here?”
He swept the air with his hand. The sun was setting on the glacier. The
mountain seemed all gold. The sea was saffron.
She saw all this and said:
“The very beauty of the Lord is here!”
“A glacier to bury us. Beloved, in a little time the ice will be where
we stand. There will be no harvests. No fish. What then? This has been
threatened us for many years. But now it comes soon. All creatures but
us have fled. And I must find ye first another land, then must ye all
fly with me. And I will find it in this rich, this just, this righteous
America. That is not wrong.”
She hung her head and sighed.
“What is it in thy mind?” he asked.
All her body flushed in blushes as she answered:
“Thou didst say that when the harvest was taken thou wouldst marry me.”
“Yea,” he cried, touching her, “and that is now! Come to Agra. And when
we are married, thou thyself shalt send me forth to seek a home for thee
and them that hang on us—in this new land.”
She was not glad for this, yet all her heart sung at being his wife.