THE WIND AND THE SUN.
“Mother, can’t I take my music-lesson first?” said Agnes. It was on the
morning after her fruitless effort to be mistress instead of scholar.
Mrs. Dainty was in the middle of one of the most absorbing chapters
of the “Mysteries of Paris,” a book which she had read until
twelve o’clock on the night previous, and to which she had turned,
immediately after her late breakfast, with the eagerness of a mere
excitement-lover. She did not heed her daughter’s question. Only the
sound of a disturbing voice was perceived.
“Mother!” Agnes uttered her name in a loud, impatient tone, grasping
her arm as she spoke, and shaking it to attract attention.
“What do you want, you troublesome girl?” Mrs. Dainty turned angrily
toward her daughter.
“Can’t I take my music-lesson first?”
“I don’t care what lesson you take first! Go away, and don’t disturb
me!”
This was the mother’s thoughtless answer. Agnes glided away in
triumph, and Mrs. Dainty’s eyes fell back to the pages of her book,
unconscious of the meaning of her reply.
“I’m going to take my music-lesson first!” said Agnes, as she came into
the study-room, where Miss Harper was seated with George and Madeline.
And she tightened her lips firmly, elevated her chin, and tossed her
head jauntily, while from her clear, dark eyes looked out upon her
teacher a spirit of proud defiance.
“Very well,” replied Florence, in a voice that showed not the slightest
disturbance. “At twelve o’clock I will be ready to give the lesson.”
“I’m going to take it now,” said Agnes, drawing up her petite form
to its extreme height, and looking, or rather trying to look, very
imperious.
Miss Harper could scarcely help smiling; but she repressed all feeling,
and merely answered,—
“You can practise your scales for the next two hours, if you prefer
doing so, Agnes. At twelve I will give you a lesson.”
“I’ll go and tell mother that you won’t give me my music-lesson!” said
the baffled, indignant girl, flirting out of the room.
“Mother!” She had grasped the arm of her mother again.
“Go away, and don’t annoy me!” Mrs. Dainty threw out her arm, and
swept her daughter away from her side.
“Mother!” Agnes had pressed back again, determined that she would be
heard.
“What do you want?” Mrs. Dainty dropped her book from before her face,
and turned, with anger flashing in her eyes, upon her daughter.
“Miss Harper won’t give me my music-lesson!”
“Oh, dear! There’s to be nothing but trouble with that stuck-up girl!”
exclaimed Mrs. Dainty. “I saw it from the first.”
And, tossing her book from her, she started up, and went with quick
steps and a burning face to the room where Miss Harper sat with the two
children next younger than Agnes, who were leaning upon her and looking
up into her face, gathering intelligence from her eyes as well as her
fitly-spoken words.
“See here, miss!” exclaimed Mrs. Dainty, as she came sweeping into the
room, “I’m getting tired of this kind of work, and it must end! What do
you mean by refusing to give Agnes her music-lesson?”
“Do you wish her music to precede her French?” Very calmly, and with
a quiet dignity that rebuked the excited mother, was this question
asked; but Mrs. Dainty was partially blinded by anger, and, obeying an
ill-natured impulse, made answer,—
“I want no airs nor assumptions from such as you! I hired you to
instruct the children, not to set them by the ears. I saw from the
beginning that you wouldn’t suit this house,—that a little brief
authority would make a tyrant of you, as it does of all vulgar minds.”
Mrs. Dainty was losing herself entirely.
The face of Miss Harper flushed instantly, and for a moment or two
an indignant fire burned in her eyes. But right thoughts soon find
a controlling influence in all superior minds. The assailed young
governess regained, almost as quickly as it had been lost, her calmness
of exterior; nor was this calmness merely on the surface. She made
no further remark, until the stubble fire in Mrs. Dainty’s mind had
flashed up to its full height and then died down for want of solid
fuel. Then, in a voice that betrayed nothing of disturbed feeling, she
said,—
“If it is your wish, madam, that Agnes should take her music-lesson
first, I have no objection. My duty is to teach her, and I am trying to
do so faithfully. But things must be done in order. Establish any rules
you deem best, and I will adhere to them faithfully.”
“Give Agnes her music-lesson!” Mrs. Dainty spoke with an offensive
imperiousness, waving her hand toward the door.
Miss Harper did not move.
“Do you hear me?” exclaimed Mrs. Dainty. The fires had received a new
supply of stubble.
“Fool!”
Mrs. Dainty turned quickly, a shame-spot already on her cheek, and met
the angry eyes and contemptuous face of Uncle John, who had thrown his
voice into her ears alone.
“Fool!” His lips shaped the word for her eyes; and she saw it as
plainly as if it had been written in staring capitals.
Uncle John beckoned to her with his head, stepping back as he did so,
in order to prevent the other inmates of the room from seeing him.
Mrs. Dainty obeyed the signal, and, without venturing another remark,
retired from the study-room, and, sweeping past Uncle John, sought
refuge in her own chamber.
“A’n’t you going to give me my music-lesson, miss?”
If her mother had retired from the field, there was no disposition
whatever on the part of Agnes to follow her example.
“Certainly,” was the mild, evenly-spoken answer.
“Come along, then, and give it to me now.”
“I will be ready at twelve o’clock, Agnes.”
“Mother told you to give it to me now, and you’ve got to do so.”
“Oh, don’t talk so to Miss Harper, Aggy!” said Madeline, her voice
trembling and her eyes filling with tears.
The words came just in season. Miss Harper felt that all this was more
than she ought to bear; and outraged pride was about rising above
convictions of duty.
“Georgy and I love you. We will say our lessons.” The sweet child
lifted her large, beautiful eyes to the face of her governess.
“Tell us a story, won’t you, Miss Harper?”
It was George who made the request.
“As soon as you and Madeline have said your lessons, I will tell you a
nice little story.” And Florence won him to her will with a kiss.
The lesson-books were opened instantly, and, the light tasks set, the
little ones entered upon them with willing spirits.
“Come and give me my music-lesson!” broke in, discordantly, the voice
of Agnes.
“At twelve o’clock, Agnes.” There was not the smallest sign of
disturbed feeling in the manner of the governess.
“Mother will turn you out of the house! I heard her say so!”
A red spot painted itself on the brow of Miss Harper. But it faded as
quickly as it came.
Seeing that she was not to have her will with the governess, Agnes
flirted from the room, and sought the apartment to which her mother had
retired.
“Mother! mother! That upstart thing says she won’t give me my
music-lesson for you nor anybody else!”
Now Agnes went a step too far, and at the wrong moment. It was just
then dawning upon the mind of Mrs. Dainty that her daughter had
exaggerated the conduct of Miss Harper, and led her into an unladylike
exhibition of herself. The sting of mortification excited her quite
enough to make her turn with sharp acrimony upon this wilful daughter.
“I don’t believe a word of it!” she said, angrily. “All this trouble
has grown out of your bad conduct. Go off and say your lessons at the
right time. I won’t be annoyed in this way any longer.”
“But, mother——”
Mrs. Dainty took her by the arm and thrust her from the room, saying,
passionately,—
“Don’t let me see your face again to-day!”
For several minutes Agnes sat upon the stairs leading up to the
study-room, so disappointed and mortified that only anger kept her
from tears. Down from this room came the low murmur of voices; and
her ears recognised now that of Madeline or George, and now that of
Miss Harper. How musical was the latter, compared with the sound of
her mother’s rebuking tones that were still in her ears! In spite of
pride and self-will, her heart acknowledged the contrast; and, with
this acknowledgment, touches of shame were felt. Even with mean false
accusation on her side, self-will had failed to triumph. Success would
have blinded her to the quality of her own spirit; but failure made her
vision clearer.
All remained still in the mother’s chamber and still through the house,
as the mortified girl sat almost crouching on the stairs, and quiet was
only disturbed faintly by the muffled voices that were heard in the
study-room.
Agnes could not help but think, for passion was subsiding; and thought
dwelt naturally upon the persons and circumstances by which passion had
been aroused into turbulence. A contrast between the mother’s spirit
and the spirit thus far shown by Miss Harper forced itself upon her
mind, and she saw the beauty of the one and the deformity of the other.
In spite of her pride, a feeling of respect for Miss Harper was born;
and with this respect something of contempt for her weak, passionate
mother found an existence.
“Now tell us the story, won’t you, Miss Harper?”
It was the voice of George, ringing down from the study-room. The
lessons were over; and the promised story was to come.
Scarcely conscious of what she was doing, Agnes moved quietly up the
stairs, until she was near enough to the door of the study-room to hear
distinctly.
“There was once a little flower-bud.” Miss Harper began her story in a
low voice, and Agnes leaned forward, listening earnestly. “It was very
small, and two green leaves gathered their arms closely around it, for
there was a hidden treasure of sweetness in the heart of that bud. One
day the cold, angry wind came along, and wanted the bud to open her
beautiful pink leaves and give out from her heart the sweet perfumes
that were hidden there. He blew harshly upon her, throwing her little
head first on one side and then upon the other, and called angrily for
her to open, that her sweetness might breathe in his ugly face. But the
two green leaves only hugged their arms closer around the bud. Then he
dashed her head upon the ground, and tried to trample the life out of
her; for he did not love her at all: he only loved himself. The light
stem that held the bud did not break, but only bent down, and, when the
cruel wind was gone, raised up again from the ground and lifted the
bud into the warm sunshine that was coming abroad.
“It was very different when the gentle, loving sunshine came and asked
the two green leaves to unclasp themselves and let the bud grow into a
flower, that the sweetness might come out of its little heart. Greener
and softer grew these leaves, and they seemed almost to smile with
pleasure, as they gently fell back from the swelling bud, that opened
and opened in the face of the sunshine until it became a beautiful
flower, the perfume in its heart filling all the air around.”
Miss Harper paused.
“What a sweet story!” said Madeline, looking still into the face of her
governess, and with wondering eyes, for she felt, child as she was,
that the story had a signification.
“Love and kindness are always better than anger,” said Miss Harper,
answering the child’s eyes.
“The sunshine was love?” said Madeline.
“Yes; and the cold wind was anger.”
“And what was the flower?” asked the child.
“You and George are human flowers, dear;” and, from the swelling love
in her pure spirit, Miss Harper pressed a kiss on the lips of both the
children.
“Am I a flower?” asked George.
“I call you a little human flower,” answered the governess,—“a little
human flower, with love in your heart, hidden away there like sweetness
in the heart of the bud I was telling you about. Will you let me be
your sunshine?”
The wayward boy flung his arms around the neck of Florence and clasped
her tightly, but without speaking. He felt more than he could utter.
A tear dropped upon the hand of Agnes, as she sat upon the stairs near
the door of the study-room. It seemed to her as if heaven were in that
room, while she was on the outside. Never in her life had she felt so
strangely; never had such a sense of desolation oppressed her. That
lesson of the bud, the wind, and the sunshine,—how deeply it had sunk
into her heart! Acting from a sudden impulse, she started up, and,
going in where the young governess sat with an arm drawn around each
of the two children, she said, with burning eyes, and a voice unsteady
from emotion,—
“Be my sunshine also, Miss Harper! Oh, be my sunshine! I have long
enough been hurt by the angry wind!”
An appeal so unlooked for surprised Florence; but she did not hesitate.
Rising instantly, she took the extended hands of Agnes in both of hers,
and answered,—
“I have only sunshine to give, dear Agnes. Regard me no longer as an
enemy and an oppressor. I am your friend.”
“I know it, I know it, Miss Harper!”
“Your true friend,” added Florence, kissing her. “And now,” she added,
in a sweet, persuasive voice, “let us make this room sacred to peace,
order, and instruction, and open all its windows for love’s warm
sunshine to stream in upon us daily.”
“It shall be no fault of mine if otherwise,” was the low, earnest reply
of the young girl, whom love had conquered.