This is not going to be an easy story to write. Its theme is precisely
that which I have chosen for my title; and naturally its positive
significance is not obvious. But I must somehow get the thing into
words. The spiritual value which I found in the experience may come home
to some reader. At any rate, it is good for us all to stop now and then
and challenge the conventional standards of our lives.
To begin with, I presume that there are few sympathetic students of
humanity who will not agree with me that the strain of mysticism which
sometimes appears in the New England character is one of the most
interesting and touching of all the manifestations of our human nature.
It is so unexpected! The delicate pearl in the rough oyster is not more
apparently incongruous, rarer, or more priceless. Nay, it is more than
that. The development is so impossible as to be always a miracle,
freshly wrought by the finger of God.
There are all sorts of elements in it which do not appear in other kinds
of mysticism: humor (that unfailing New England salt!), reserve, and a
paradoxical mixture of independence and deference. It knows how
inexplicable it must seem to its environment, how it must fret its
oyster; so it effaces itself as much as possible. But it yields not one
jot of its integrity. It holds a hidden, solitary place apart--like a
rare orchid in the woods, like a hermit thrush. Even to those who love
it, it will not lightly or often reveal itself. But when it does--well,
I would take a weary, barefoot pilgrimage for the sake of the
experience which I had last summer. And here I may as well begin my
narrative.
I
I sat behind her in the little country church; and when I had studied
her profile for a few moments, I was glad of a chance to rise and sing
the Doxology. She was a woman of fifty-odd, a typical Vermonter, with
the angular frame and features peculiar to her class. Her mouth was
large, her cheek-bones high; her thin, dark hair, streaked with gray,
was drawn smoothly down behind her ears. But her expression!--that gave
her away. Not flagrantly, of course. To discover her one had to be
temperamentally on the watch for her. Apparently, like all the rest of
us, she was looking at the flowers before the pulpit; but I was sure
that her wide blue eyes were really intent on something behind and
beyond. Her mouth brooded, her forehead dreamed, her whole face pondered
grave and delectable matters. I am afraid that I did not hear much of
the sermon that morning.
When church was over, I followed her out, and waited to see in what
direction she turned her homeward steps. Then I made up my mind to
devote the next week to taking walks in that same direction. The
minister's wife saw me looking after her, and approached me with a smile
which I understood. She was about to say, 'That is one of our native
oddities, a real character. I see that she interests you. Shall I take
you to see her? You will find her a curious and amusing study.' But I
headed her off by letting the wind blow my handkerchief away. Nobody
should tell me anything about my mystic--not even what her name was, or
where she lived!
I was fully prepared not to find her for several days. I went forth in
quest of her in the spirit in which I always start out to find a hermit
thrush--ready to be disappointed, to wait, humbly aware that the best
rewards demand and deserve patience. But she was not so securely hidden
as the thrush. Her little house gave her away to my seeking, as her
expression, the day before, had given her away to my sympathy.
It was just the house for her: low and white, under a big tree, on the
side of a brook-threaded hill, a little apart from the village. I
recognized it the instant I saw it; and when I had read the
name--'Hesper Sherwood'--on the mailbox by the side of the road, I
confidently turned in at the gate.
She was working in her garden, clad in a blue-checked gingham apron and
a blue sunbonnet. When she heard my footsteps, she looked up slowly,
turning in my direction, and, for the first time, I saw her full face.
It was even better than her profile. Oh! when human features can be
moulded to such quietness and confidence, what an inexplicable pity it
is that they ever learn the trick of fretfulness! In Hesper Sherwood,
humanity for once looked like a child of God.
I was not sure at first that she saw me distinctly. Perhaps the sun
dazzled her shaded eyes. Her expectant expression held itself poised a
little uncertainly, as if she were doubtful of the exact requirements of
the situation. But when I said something--commonplace enough and yet
heartful--about the beauty of the view from her gate, her face lighted
and she came forward.
'It's better from the house,' she said, shyly, yet eagerly. 'Won't you
come up and see?'
It was indeed as fair a prospect as threshold ever opened out upon.
Close at hand was the green hillside, dropping down to the smiling
summer valley; and beyond were the mountains, big and blue, with their
heads in the brilliant sky and with cloud-shadows trailing slowly over
them. Directly across the way, they were massive; in the distance, where
the valley opened out to the south, they were hazy and tender. One of
them loomed above the little house, and held it in its hand. Everywhere,
they were commanding presences; and it was clear that the house had
taken up its position wholly on their account.
Plain enough in itself it was, that house. Its three small rooms were
meagrely furnished; and its windows were curtainless, inviting the eyes
beyond themselves. It was utterly restful. It made me want to go home
and burn up half the things I possess. Later, as I came to know it and
its owner better, I understood what perfect counterparts they were. She,
too, invited the gaze beyond herself.
It is, of course, not my intention to trace the development of our
friendship. Though we trusted each other from the beginning, we took the
whole summer to feel our way into each other's lives. It was a beautiful
experience. I would not have hurried it. But now I want to proceed at
once to the conversation in which she finally told me explicitly what
had not happened to her. It was but the definite statement of what I had
known all along: that here was a life which God had permitted Himself
the luxury of keeping apart for his own delectation.
We were sitting out on the front steps, in the face of the mountains and
valley; and we had said nothing for a long time. Our silence had brought
us so close that when she began to speak, my ear ignored the uttered
words and I felt as if my thoughts were reading hers.
'It's queer about folks' lives isn't it?' she said thoughtfully--though
I am not sure that she was any more aware of her lips than I was of my
ears. 'How they follow one line; how the same things keep happening to
them, over and over. I suppose it's what people call Fate. There's no
getting away from it.
'Take my brother Silas. As a boy, he was always making the luckiest
trades; couldn't seem to help it. Then when he married and moved to his
new farm, he began to get rich; and now he couldn't stop his money if he
wanted to. He must be worth fifteen thousand dollars.
'Take my sister Persis. She's had eleven children.
'Take my uncle Rufus. He's been around the world three times, and is
just starting again.
'Take--'
She paused and hesitated.
'You,' I supplied softly.
'Well, yes, take me.' She turned and flashed a sudden smile at me. 'I've
always wanted everything, and I've had--nothing.'
She spoke the word as if it were the pot of gold at the foot of the
rainbow.
'It took me a long time to understand,' she went on quietly, as I made
no comment. 'I suppose that was natural. I was young; and I had never
happened to hear of a case like mine. At first, I thought that, just
because I wanted a thing, I was bound to have it. There was my mother.'
Again she paused, and a tender, glowing light appeared in her face, like
the quickening of a latent fire. It was eloquent of all sorts of
passionate, youthful, eager things.
'I guess I worshiped my mother,' she submitted simply. 'Maybe you think
that, anyway, I had her. But, no, I hadn't. She liked me well enough.
Mothers do. But we had a big family, and we lived in a big house, and
she was very busy. It bothered her to have me get in her way with my
huggings and kissings. Why in the world couldn't I wait until bedtime?
Poor mother! She never did seem to know what to make of my devotion.
People don't like to be loved too well; it embarrasses them.
'She died when I was fourteen. And I thought I'd die too.'
There was no shadow on Hesper's face as she remembered her young,
far-away anguish; rather, there was a strange deepening of peace. But
she was silent for two or three minutes; and I noticed that she put out
her hand and caressed an old-fashioned, crocheted tidy that lay on the
arm of a chair which she had brought out on the porch. When she resumed
her story, she spoke somewhat more rapidly.
'I was sick a long time. If I hadn't been, I think I might have gone
crazy. But pain took my attention, and weakness made me sleep a good
deal; and when I came to get up again, I was quieter. I spent lots of
time in the fields and woods. I had always loved them, and now they
seemed to help me more than anything else. There was something about
them so big that it was willing to let me love it as much as I wanted
to. That was comforting. When I was in the woods, I felt as if I had
hold of an endless thread. You know how it is?'
She appealed to me.
'Indeed, yes!' I answered her. And I quoted William Blake,--
'Only wind it into a ball,--
It will lead you in at heaven's gate,
Built in Jerusalem's wall.'
She nodded soberly, yet glowingly, and pondered the words for a moment.
Then, 'That's very good,' she said. 'Please say it again.
'Well, by and by,' she continued, touching her finger as if she were
half unconsciously enumerating the points of a discourse,--there was
something indescribably simple and downright in her manner of unfolding
her experience,--'by and by, somebody gave me a card to the village
library, and I began to read. Of course I had always gone to school, but
the pieces in the readers didn't interest me particularly, and I hadn't
followed them up. A reader isn't a book, anyway; it's a crazy quilt. I
guess I shan't ever forget that summer. I couldn't do anything but read.
I read stories and poems and books about travel and history and peoples'
lives. I had a hiding-place up in the woods, where I used to go and stay
for hours, sometimes whole days. My older sister couldn't get anything
out of me in the way of housework. It was wonderful.' Her voice rose a
little, and something of the old exultation came flooding back into her
face. 'Isn't it silly to talk of books as if they were just print and
paper, when they are really stars and seas and cities and pictures and
people and everything! There was nothing my books didn't give me that
summer; and yet, on the other hand, there was nothing they didn't make
me want. I wanted to travel, to go everywhere, to see and hear
everything; above all, by way of a beginning, I wanted to go to school.
'I was always an impatient child; and it did seem as if I couldn't wait
till autumn, when the schools opened. There's a good school at
Fieldsborough, over the mountain. I coaxed my father to let me go there;
and, after a while, he consented. On the day he wrote to enter my name,
I ran up in the woods and lay in a bed of ferns and cried for joy. I
hugged every tree that came in my way. I tried to hug the brook. Dear
me!' Again she broke off, and the light which had begun to burn in her
eyes softened into a smile. 'That's the way I was then. I was so
hot-hearted. I didn't understand.'
'But you went?' I inquired, my sympathetic eagerness suddenly breaking
bounds. It seemed to me that I could not stand it if she had been
disappointed. 'Oh! why not?' My voice faltered, for she shook her head.
'My eyes,' she said briefly. 'They had always bothered me; and, before
he let me go to school, father had them examined by a city doctor who
was boarding in the village. He said I'd surely be blind some day; and
that, of course, the more books I read, the sooner the end would come.'
She spoke as if she referred to the wearing out of an umbrella or a pair
of shoes; and, fortunately for us both, my distress kept me dumb.
'It was pretty hard at first--a real blow. But I was sixteen years old,
and I had suffered once. Then, too, I thought I had to make a choice,
and I needed all my wits about me. So I held on to myself, and went off
to the woods to think. Should I go to school, or should I keep my eyes
as long as I could? As soon as I had put my mind to it, however, I found
that there wasn't any real question there. Of course I'd got to keep my
eyes, and the school must go. There were all sorts of reasons. I wanted
to see the woods and mountains as long as possible. I didn't want to
become dependent on any one. My memory wasn't very good; and I knew,
most likely, if I went to school and stuffed my mind full that year, I'd
soon forget everything, and there I'd be--worse off than ever. So I gave
over thinking about it, and just lay in the ferns all the afternoon.
'Maybe you'll hardly believe me when I tell you that I was happy that
day. I don't know what it was. Something moved in the treetops and in
the shadows. I watched it closely; and, by and by, when I was just on
the point of seeing it, I realized that both my eyes were closed. If I
hadn't been so surprised by that discovery and so taken up with
wondering how I had happened to shut my eyes without knowing it, I
believe I'd have seen--'
Her voice trailed off into silence; and I presently found myself
wondering if she had left that sentence unfinished also without knowing
it.