"Do you think, Luclarion," said Desire, feebly, as Luclarion came to
take away her bowl of chicken broth,--"that it is my _duty_ to go
with mamma?"
"I don't know," said Luclarion, standing with the little waiter in
her right hand, her elbow poised upon her hip,--"I've thought of
that, and I _don't_ know. There's most generally a stump, you see,
one way or another, and that settles it, but here there's one both
ways. I've kinder lost my road: come to two blazes, and can't tell
which. Only, it ain't my road, after all. It lays between the Lord
and you, and I suppose He means it shall. Don't you worry; there'll
be some sort of a sign, inside or out. That's His business, you've
just got to keep still, and get well."
Desire had asked her mother, before this, if she would care very
much,--no, she did not mean that,--if she would be disappointed, or
disapprove, that she should stay behind.
"Stay behind? Not go to Europe? Why, where _could_ you stay? What
would you do?"
"There would be things to do, and places to stay," Desire had
answered, constrainedly. "I could do like Dorris."
"Teach music!"
"No. I don't know music. But I might teach something I do know. Or I
could--rip," she said, with an odd smile, remembering something she
had said one day so long ago; the day the news came up to Z----
from Uncle Oldways. "And I might make out to put together for other
people, and for a real business. I never cared to do it just for
myself."
"It is perfectly absurd," said Mrs Ledwith. "You couldn't be left to
take care of yourself. And if you could, how it would look! No; of
course you must go with us."
"But do you _care_?"
"Why, if there were any proper way, and if you really hate so to
go,--but there isn't," said Mrs. Ledwith, not very grammatically or
connectedly.
"She _doesn't_ care," said Desire to herself, after her mother had
left her, turning her face to the pillow, upon which two tears ran
slowly down. "And that is my fault, too, I suppose. I have never
been _anything_!"
Lying there, she made up her mind to one thing. She would get Uncle
Titus to come, and she would talk to him.
"He won't encourage me in any notions," she said to herself. "And I
mean now, if I can find it out, to do the thing God means; and then
I suppose,--I _believe_,--the snarl will begin to unwind."
Meanwhile, Luclarion, when she had set a nice little bowl of
tea-muffins to rise, and had brought up a fresh pitcher of ice-water
into Desire's room, put on her bonnet and went over to Aspen Street
for an hour.
Down in the kitchen, at Mrs. Ripwinkley's, they were having a nice
time.
Their girl had gone. Since Luclarion left, they had fallen into that
Gulf-stream which nowadays runs through everybody's kitchen. Girls
came, and saw, and conquered in their fashion; they muddled up, and
went away.
The nice times were in the intervals when they _had_ gone away.
Mrs. Ripwinkley did not complain; it was only her end of the
"stump;" why should she expect to have a Luclarion Grapp to serve
her all her life?
This last girl had gone as soon as she found out that Sulie Praile
was "no relation, and didn't anyways belong there, but had been took
in." She "didn't go for to come to work in an _Insecution_. She had
always been used to first-class private families."
Girls will not stand any added numbers, voluntarily assumed, or even
involuntarily befalling; they will assist in taking up no new
responsibilities; to allow things to remain as they are, and cannot
help being, is the depth of their condescension,--the extent of what
they will put up with. There must be a family of some sort, of
course, or there would not be a "place;" that is what the family is
made for; but it must be established, no more to fluctuate; that is,
you may go away, some of you, if you like, or you may die; but
nobody must come home that has been away, and nobody must be born.
As to anybody being "took in!" Why, the girl defined it; it was not
being a family, but an _Insecution_.
So the three--Diana, and Hazel, and Sulie--were down in the kitchen;
Mrs. Ripwinkley was busy in the dining-room close by; there was a
berry-cake to be mixed up for an early tea. Diana was picking over
the berries, Hazel was chopping the butter into the flour, and Sulie
on a low cushioned seat in a corner--there was one kept ready for
her in every room in the house, and Hazel and Diana carried her
about in an "arm-chair," made of their own clasped hands and wrists,
wherever they all wanted to go,--Sulie was beating eggs.
Sulie did that so patiently; you see she had no temptation to jump
up and run off to anything else. The eggs turned, under her
fingers, into thick, creamy, golden froth, fine to the last possible
divisibility of the little air-bubbles.
They could not do without Sulie now. They had had her for "all
winter;" but in that winter she had grown into their home.
"Why," said Hazel to her mother, when they had the few words about
it that ended in there being no more words at all,--"that's the way
children are _born_ into houses, isn't it? They just come; and
they're new and strange at first, and seem so queer. And then after
a while you can't think how the places were, and they not in them.
Sulie belongs, mother!"
So Sulie beat eggs, and darned stockings, and painted her lovely
little flower-panels and racks and easels, and did everything that
could be done, sitting still in her round chair, or in the cushioned
corners made for her; and was always in the kitchen, above all, when
any pretty little cookery was going forward.
Vash ran in and out from the garden, and brought balsamine blossoms,
from which she pulled the little fairy slippers, and tried to match
them in pairs; and she picked off the "used-up and puckered-up"
morning glories, which she blew into at the tube-end, and "snapped"
on the back of her little brown hand.
Wasn't that being good for anything, while berry-cake was making?
The girls thought it was; as much as the balsamine blossoms were
good for anything, or the brown butterflies with golden spots on
their wings, that came and lived among them. The brown butterflies
were a "piece of the garden;" little brown Vash was a piece of the
house. Besides, she would eat some of the berry-cake when it was
made; wasn't that worth while? She would have a "little teenty one"
baked all for herself in a tin pepper-pot cover. Isn't that the
special pleasantness of making cakes where little children are?
Vash was always ready for an "Aaron," too; they could not do without
her, any more than without Sulie. Pretty soon, when Diana should
have left school, and Vash should be a little bigger, they meant to
"coöperate," as the Holabirds had done at Westover.
Of course, they knew a great deal about the Holabirds by this time.
Hazel had stayed a week with Dorris at Miss Waite's; and one of
Witch Hazel's weeks among "real folks" was like the days or hours in
fairy land, that were years on the other side. She found out so much
and grew so close to people.
Hazel and Ruth Holabird were warm friends. And Hazel was to be
Ruth's bridesmaid, by and by!
For Ruth Holabird was going to be married to Dakie Thayne.
"That seemed so funny," Hazel said. "Ruth didn't _look_ any older
than she did; and Mr. Dakie Thayne was such a nice boy!"
He was no less a man, either; he had graduated among the first three
at West Point; he was looking earnestly for the next thing that he
should do in life with his powers and responsibilities; he did not
count his marrying a _separate_ thing; that had grown up alongside
and with the rest; of course he could do nothing without Ruth; that
was just what he had told her; and she,--well Ruth was always a
sensible little thing, and it was just as plain to her as it was to
him. Of course she must help him think and plan; and when the plans
were made, it would take two to carry them out; why, yes, they must
be married. What other way would there be?
That wasn't what she _said_, but that was the quietly natural and
happy way in which it grew to be a recognized thing in her mind,
that pleasant summer after he came straight home to them with his
honors and his lieutenant's commission in the Engineers; and his
hearty, affectionate taking-for-granted; and it was no surprise or
question with her, only a sure and very beautiful "rightness," when
it came openly about.
Dakie Thayne was a man; the beginning of a very noble one; but it is
the noblest men that always keep a something of the boy. If you had
not seen anything more of Dakie Thayne until he should be forty
years old, you would then see something in him which would be
precisely the same that it was at Outledge, seven years ago, with
Leslie Goldthwaite, and among the Holabirds at Westover, in his
first furlough from West Point.
Luclarion came into the Ripwinkley kitchen just as the cakes--the
little pepper-pot one and all--were going triumphantly into the
oven, and Hazel was baring her little round arms to wash the dishes,
while Diana tended the pans.
Mrs. Ripwinkley heard her old friend's voice, and came out.
"That girl ought to be here with you; or somewheres else than where
she is, or is likely to be took," said Luclarion, as she looked
round and sat down, and untied her bonnet-strings.
Miss Grapp hated bonnet-strings; she never endured them a minute
longer than she could help.
"Desire?" asked Mrs. Ripwinkley, easily comprehending.
"Yes; Desire. I tell you she has a hard row to hoe, and she wants
comforting. She wants to know if it is her duty to go to Yourup with
her mother. Now it may be her duty to be _willing_ to go; but it
ain't anybody's else duty to let her. That's what came to me as I
was coming along. I couldn't tell _her_ so, you see, because it
would interfere with her part; and that's all in the tune as much as
any; only we've got to chime in with our parts at the right stroke,
the Lord being Leader. Ain't that about it, Mrs. Ripwinkley?"
"If we are sure of the score, and can catch the sign," said Mrs.
Ripwinkley, thoughtfully.
"Well, I've sung mine; it's only one note; I may have to keep
hammering on it; that's according to how many repeats there are to
be. Mr. Oldways, he ought to know, for one. Amongst us, we have got
to lay our heads together, and work it out. She's a kind of an odd
chicken in that brood; and my belief is she's like the ugly duck
Hazel used to read about. But she ought to have a chance; if she's a
swan, she oughtn't to be trapesed off among the weeds and on the dry
ground. 'Tisn't even ducks she's hatched with; they don't take to
the same element."
"I'll speak to Uncle Titus, and I will think," said Mrs. Ripwinkley.
But before she did that, that same afternoon by the six o'clock
penny post, a little note went to Mr. Oldways:--
"DEAR UNCLE TITUS,--
"I want to talk with you a little. If I were well, I should
come to see you in your study. Will you come up here, and see
me in my room?
"Yours sincerely, DESIRE LEDWITH."
Uncle Titus liked that. It counted upon something in him which few
had the faith to count upon; which, truly he gave few people reason
to expect to find.
He put his hat directly on, took up his thick brown stick, and
trudged off, up Borden Street to Shubarton Place.
When Luclarion let him in, he told her with some careful emphasis,
that he had come to see Desire.
"Ask her if I shall come up," he said. "I'll wait down here."
Helena was practicing in the drawing-room. Mrs. Ledwith lay, half
asleep, upon a sofa. The doors into the hall were shut,--Luclarion
had looked to that, lest the playing should disturb Desire.
Luclarion was only gone three minutes. Then she came back, and led
Mr. Oldways up three flights of stairs.
"It's a long climb, clear from the door," she said.
"I can climb," said Mr. Oldways, curtly.
"I didn't expect it was going to stump _you_," said Luclarion, just
as short in her turn. "But I thought I'd be polite enough to mention
it."
There came a queer little chuckling wheeze from somewhere, like a
whispered imitation of the first few short pants of a steam-engine:
that was Uncle Titus, laughing to himself.
Luclarion looked down behind her, out of the corner of her eyes, as
she turned the landing. Uncle Titus's head was dropped between his
shoulders, and his shoulders were shaking up and down. But he kept
his big stick clutched by the middle, in one hand, and the other
just touched the rail as he went up. Uncle Titus was not out of
breath. Not he. He could laugh and climb.
Desire was sitting up for a little while, before going to bed again
for the night. There was a low gas-light burning by the
dressing-table, ready to turn up when the twilight should be gone;
and a street lamp, just lighted, shone across into the room.
Luclarion had been sitting with her, and her gray knitting-work lay
upon the chair that she offered when she had picked it up, to Mr.
Oldways. Then she went away and left them to their talk.
"Mrs. Ripwinkley has been spry about it," she said to herself, going
softly down the stairs. "But she always was spry."
"You're getting well, I hope," said Uncle Titus, seating himself,
after he had given Desire his hand.
"I suppose so," said Desire, quietly. "That was why I wanted to see
you. I want to know what I ought to do when I am well."
"How can I tell?" asked Uncle Titus, bluntly.
"Better than anybody I can ask. The rest are all too sympathizing. I
am afraid they would tell me as I wish they should."
"And I don't sympathize? Well, I don't think I do much. I haven't
been used to it."
"You have been used to think what was right; and I believe you would
tell me truly. I want to know whether I ought to go to Europe with
my mother."
"Why not? Doesn't she want you to go?"--and Uncle Titus was sharp
this time.
"I suppose so; that is, I suppose she expects I will. But I don't
know that I should be much except a hindrance to her. And I think I
could stay and do something here, in some way. Uncle Titus, I hate
the thought of going to Europe! Now, don't you suppose I ought to
go?"
"_Why_ do you hate the thought of going to Europe?" asked Uncle
Titus, regarding her with keenness.
"Because I have never done anything real in all my life!" broke
forth Desire. "And this seems only plastering and patching what
can't be patched. I want to take hold of something. I don't want to
float round any more. What is there left of all we have ever tried
to do, all these years? Of all my poor father's work, what is there
to show for it now? It has all melted away as fast as it came, like
snow on pavements; and now his life has melted away; and I feel as
if we had never been anything real to each other! Uncle Titus, I
can't tell you _how_ I feel!"
Uncle Titus sat very still. His hat was in one hand, and both
together held his cane, planted on the floor between his feet. Over
hat and cane leaned his gray head, thoughtfully. If Desire could
have seen his eyes, she would have found in them an expression that
she had never supposed could be there at all.
She had not so much spoken _to_ Uncle Titus, in these last words of
hers, as she had irresistibly spoken _out_ that which was in her.
She wanted Uncle Titus's good common sense and sense of right to
help her decide; but the inward ache and doubt and want, out of
which grew her indecisions,--these showed themselves forth at that
moment simply because they must, with no expectation of a response
from him. It might have been a stone wall that she cried against;
she would have cried all the same.
Then it was over, and she was half ashamed, thinking it was of no
use, and he would not understand; perhaps that he would only set the
whole down to nerves and fidgets and contrariness, and give her no
common sense that she wanted, after all.
But Uncle Titus spoke, slowly; much as if he, too, were speaking out
involuntarily, without thought of his auditor. People do so speak,
when the deep things are stirred; they speak into the deep that
answereth unto itself,--the deep that reacheth through all souls,
and all living, whether souls feel into it and know of it or not.
"The real things are inside," he said. "The real world is the inside
world. _God_ is not up, nor down, but in the _midst_."
Then he looked up at Desire.
"What is real of your life is living inside you now. That is
something. Look at it and see what it is."
"Discontent. Misery. Failure."
"_Sense_ of failure. Well. Those are good things. The beginning of
better. Those are _live_ things, at any rate."
Desire had never thought of that.
Now _she_ sat still awhile.
Then she said,--"But we can't _be_ much, without doing it. I suppose
we are put into a world of outsides for something."
"Yes. To find out what it means. That's the inside of it. And to
help make the outside agree with the in, so that it will be easier
for other people to find out. That is the 'kingdom come and will be
done, on earth as it is in heaven.' Heaven is the inside,--the truth
of things."
"Why, I never knew"--began Desire, astonished. She had almost
finished aloud, as her mother had done in her own mind. She never
knew that Uncle Oldways was "pious."
"Never knew that was what it meant? What else can it mean? What do
you suppose the resurrection was, or is?"
Desire answered with a yet larger look of wonder, only in the dim
light it could not be wholly seen.
"The raising up of the dead; Christ coming up out of the tomb."
"The coming out of the tomb was a small part of it; just what could
not help being, if the rest was. Jesus Christ rose out of dead
_things_, I take it, into these very real ones that we are talking
of, and so lived in them. The resurrection is a man's soul coming
alive to the soul of creation--God's soul. _That_ is eternal life,
and what Jesus of Nazareth was born to show. Our coming to that is
our being 'raised with Him;' and it begins, or ought to, a long way
this side the tomb. If people would only read the New Testament,
expecting to get as much common sense and earnest there as they do
among the new lights and little 'progressive-thinkers' that are
trying to find it all out over again, they might spare these
gentlemen and themselves a great deal of their trouble."
The exclamation rose half-way to her lips again,--"I never knew you
thought like this. I never heard you talk of these things before!"
But she held it back, because she would not stop him by reminding
him that he _was_ talking. It was just the truth that was saying
itself. She must let it say on, while it would.
"Un--"
She stopped there, at the first syllable. She would not even call
him "Uncle Titus" again, for fear of recalling him to himself, and
hushing him up.
"There is something--isn't there--about those who _attain_ to that
resurrection; those who are _worthy_? I suppose there must be some
who are just born to this world, then, and never--'born again?'"
"It looks like it, sometimes; who can tell?"
"Uncle Oldways,"--it came out this time in her earnestness, and her
strong personal appeal,--"do you think there are some people--whole
families of people--who have no business in the reality of things
to be at all? Who are all a mistake in the world, and have nothing
to do with its meaning? I have got to feeling sometimes lately, as
if--_I_--had never had any business to be."
She spoke slowly--awe-fully. It was a strange speech for a girl in
her nineteenth year. But she was a girl in this nineteenth century,
also; and she had caught some of the thoughts and questions of it,
and mixed them up with her own doubts and unsatisfactions which they
could not answer.
"The world is full of mistakes; mistakes centuries long; but it is
full of salvation and setting to rights, also. 'The kingdom of
heaven is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal
till the whole was leavened.' You have been _allowed_ to be, Desire
Ledwith. And so was the man that was born blind. And I think there
is a colon put into the sentence about him, where a comma was meant
to be."
Desire did not ask him, then, what he meant; but she turned to the
story after he had gone, and found this:--
"Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works
of God should be manifest in him."
You can see, if you look also, where she took the colon out, and put
the comma in.
Were all the mistakes--the sins, even--for the very sake of the pure
blessedness and the more perfect knowledge of the setting right?
Desire began to think that Uncle Oldways' theology might help her.