The Singing Mouse came out. Quaintly and sweetly and with
wondrous clearness it began an old, old song I first heard long
ago. And as it sang, back with red electric thrill came the fine
blood of youth, and beat in pulse with the song:
"When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green,
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen.
"Then hey! for boot and saddle, lad,
And round the world away!
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day!"
And young blood began its course anew. Booted and spurred, into
the saddle again! Face toward the West! And off for round the
world away!
"There are green fields in Thrace," sighs the gladiator as he
dies. And here were green fields in the land before us. Only,
these were the inimitable and illimitable fields of Nature.
Sheets and waves and billows and tumbles of green; oceans
unswum, continents untracked, of thousandfold green. Then, on
beyond, the gray, the gray-brown, the purple-gray of the higher
plains; nearer than that, a broad slash of great golden yellow,
a band of the sturdy prairie sunflowers; and nearer than that,
swimming on the surface of the mysterious wave which constantly
passes but is never past on the prairies, bright red roses, and
strong larkspur, and at the bottom of this ever-shifting sea,
jewels in God's best blue enamel. You can not find this enamel
in the windows. One must send for it to the land of the unswum
sea.
A little higher and stronger piped the compelling melody. Why,
here are the mountains! God bless them! Nay, brother, God has
blessed them; blessed them with unbounded calm, with boundless
strength, with unspeakable peace. You can take your troubles to
the mountains. If you are Pueblo, Aztec, you can select some big
mountain and pray to it, as its top shows the red sentience of
the on-coming day. You can take your troubles to the sea; but
the sea has troubles of its own, and frets. There is commerce on
the sea, and the people who live near it are fretful, greedy,
grasping. The mountains have no troubles; they have no commerce.
The dwellers of the mountains are calm and unfretted.
And on the broad shoulders of the mountains once more was cast
the burden of the young man's troubles, and once more he walked
deep into the peace of the big hills. And the mountains smiled
not, neither wept, but gravely and kindly folded over, about,
behind, the gray mantle of the cañon walls, and locked fast
doors of adamant against all following, and swept a pitying hand
of shadow, and breathed that wondrous unsyllabled voice of
comfort which any mountain-goer knows. Ay! the goodness of such
strength! Up by the clean snow; over the big rocks; by the
lace-work stream where the trout are--why, it's all come again!
That was the clink made by a passing deer. That was the touch of
the green balsam--smell it, now! And there comes the mist,
folding down the top; and there is the crash of the thunder; and
this is the rush of the rain; and this is the warm yellow sun
over it all--O, Singing Mouse, Singing Mouse!...
[Illustration]
Back again, now, by some impulse of the dog which hasn't had any
day. It is winter now, I remember, Singing Mouse, and I am
walking by the shore of the great Inland Seas. There is snow on
the ground. The trees look black in contrast as you gaze up from
the beach against the high bank. It is cold. It is dark. There
is a shiver in the air. There are icicles in the sky. Something
is flying through the trees, but silent as if it came out of a
grave. I have been walking, I know. I have walked a million
miles, and I'm tired. My legs are stiff, and my legging has
frozen fast to my overshoe; I remember that. And so I sit
down--right here, you know--and look out over the lake--just
over there, you see. The ice reaches out from the shore into the
lake a long way; and it is covered with snow, and looks white.
I can follow that white glimmer in a long, long curve to the
right--twenty miles or more, maybe. Yes, it is cold. But ah!
what is that out there, and what is it doing? It is setting all
the long white curves of ice afire. It is throwing down hammered
silver in a broad path, out there on the water. Those are not
ripples. That is silver! There will be angels walking on that
pathway before long! That is not the moon coming up over the
lake! It is the swinging open, by some careless angel's
mischance, of the door of the White City of Rest!...
How old, how sore a man climbed up the steep bank! There were
white fields. In the distance a dog barked. Away across the
fields a bright and cheery light shone out from a window, and
as the moon rose higher, it showed the house which held the
light. It was not a large house, but it seemed to be a home.
Home!--what is that? I wondered; and I remember that I pulled at
the frozen legging, and moved, with pain, the limbs grown tired
and sore. And, as one looked at that twinkling, comfortable
light, how plainly the rest of the old song came back:
"When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown,
And all the sports are stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down,
"Creep home and take your place there,
The sick and maimed among.
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when you were young."
The light in the little house went out. I think it was a happy
home. May yours be so, always.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: The Little River]
[Illustration]