"I think, Edward," said I, "that you'd better step round to Kline &
Co.'s, and ask if they've shipped B----'s goods yet. If not, we'll
request them to delay long enough in the morning to give us time to
sift the matter. If B----'s after a swindling game, we'll take a short
course, and save our goods."
"It's too late," answered my clerk. "B----called a little after one
o'clock, and gave notes for the amount of his bill. He was to leave
in the five o'clock line for Boston."
I turned my face a little aside, so that Edward might not see all
the anxiety that was pictured there.
"You look very sober, Mr. Mayflower," said my good wife, gazing at
me with eyes a little shaded by concern, as I sat with Arty's head
leaning against my bosom that evening; "as sober as baby looked this
morning, after his fruitless shadow chase."
"And for the same reason," said I, endeavoring to speak calmly and
firmly.
"Why, Mr. Mayflower!" Her face betrayed a rising anxiety. My assumed
calmness and firmness did not wholly disguise the troubled feelings
that lay, oppressively, about my heart.
"For the same reason," I repeated, steadying my voice, and trying to
speak bravely. "I have been chasing a shadow all day; a mere phantom
scheme of profit; and at night-fall I not only lose my shadow, but
find my feet far off from the right path, and bemired. I called Arty
a foolish child this morning. I laughed at his mistake. But, instead
of accepting the lesson it should have conveyed, I went forth and
wearied myself with shadow-hunting all day."
Mrs. Mayflower sighed gently. Her soft eyes drooped away from my
face, and rested for some moments on the floor.
"I am afraid we are all, more or less, in pursuit of shadows," she
said,--"of the unreal things, projected by thought on the canvas of a
too creative imagination. It is so with me; and I sigh, daily, over
some disappointment. Alas! if this were all. Too often both the
shadow-good and the real-good of to-day are lost. When night falls
our phantom good is dispersed, and we sigh for the real good we
might have enjoyed."
"Shall we never grow wiser?" I asked.
"We shall never grow happier unless we do," answered Mrs. Mayflower.
"Happiness!" I returned, as thought began to rise into clearer
perception; "is it not the shadow after which we are all chasing,
with such a blind and headlong speed?"
"Happiness is no shadow. It is a real thing," said Mrs. Mayflower.
"It does not project itself in advance of us; but exists in the
actual and the now, if it exists at all. We cannot catch it by
pursuit; that is only a cheating counterfeit, in guilt and tinsel,
which dazzles our eyes in the ever receding future. No; happiness is
a state of life; and it comes only to those who do each day's work
peaceful self-forgetfulness, and a calm trust in the Giver of all
good for the blessing that lies stored for each one prepared to
receive it in every hour of the coming time."
"Who so does each day's work in a peaceful self-forgetfulness and
patient trust in God?" I said, turning my eyes away from the now
tranquil face of Mrs. Mayflower.
"Few, if any, I fear," she answered; "and few, if any, are happy.
The common duties and common things of our to-days look so plain and
homely in their ungilded actualities, that we turn our thought and
interest away from them, and create ideal forms of use and beauty,
into which we can never enter with conscious life. We are always
losing the happiness of our to-days; and our to-morrows never come."
I sighed my response, and sat for a long time silent. When the tea
bell interrupted me from my reverie, Arty lay fast asleep on my
bosom. As I kissed him on his way to his mother's arms, I said,--
"Dear baby! may it be your first and last pursuit of a shadow."
"No--no! Not yet, my sweet one!" answered Mrs. Mayflower, hugging him
to her heart. "Not yet. We cannot spare you from our world of
shadows."