It seemed to her that it was all one with the coming of the springtime,
the budding of the flowers, and the westward wind--the miracle of the
baby. One was first one's own sentient self, bending to the wind with
the trees, breasting the curling waves of summer, and patiently
listening to the song of some ambitious bird, and, before you knew how,
a little thing had come nestling under your wing. The flowers had made
you sister, and the wind protected you, and the grass was careful lest
your foot should touch a stone. Whence did it come, the little life
that was delicate as the petal of the apple-blossom, soft as a little
bird asleep in a nest? In summer one felt it had come over the bending
grasses and between the gentle rains, and the robins did it reverence.
And in spring it was borne on the first generous, delicate wind, and
the trees nodded their highest, newest boughs. And in autumn the Brown
Woman of the Woods brought it, while the little chipmunks stared. In
winter it came with a shaft of the loud, aggressive sun. However?
Wherever? But one moment you were yourself, alone, with only your own
problems. And suddenly you had been trusted with something softer than
flowers, more precious than diamonds, a little molecule of life itself.
Such a trust!
Every woman had a little dream about her child. A woman of the
tenements might see in a little parcel of flesh and blood a one-day
president of her great republic. And another might see in him a
minister of God bearing a light to thousands. And a third would see in
a little daughter a voice that would gush forth in immense harmony.
And some who knew the bitter tooth of want would dream of their
children as powerful merchants, with great cars and yachts. Such rosy
stories do women think in their heads.
But all Berenice could imagine was the little daughter of fair tresses
in her small bed at the close of day, when the short Occidental
twilight hovered like a bird, and night came trudging westward with dun
feet. Below in their drawing-room people would be assembled for dinner
or for the playing of cards, laughter and candle-light, and the glow of
an open hearth, and tobacco sending up bluish-gray smoke from little
tubes. But Berenice would be alone with the fair child in the dim
nursery, putting her to sleep and teaching her the rhyme that is a
child's first prayer and, at the same time, a charm against evil
spirits; against great bulks in the darkness that make little children
scream; against strange gray women who take small humans from the warm
beds mothers put them in and whisk them to deep, underground burrows
where trolls and misshapen demons are, replacing them with wizened,
ill-natured changelings. Against all the powers of darkness the little
prayer was potent:
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take!"
And then, reverently:
"Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Guard the bed that I lie on!"
And when the small eyes were closed and the minute mouth had taken on
the sweet smile of sleeping, and the hands had relaxed into white,
starry flowers, she would steal downstairs to her guests, to the
gracious room where sleek, well-bred women and kindly, burly men were
gathered to dine in company or to play cards, where the bluish smoke
rose in whorls from the white tubes of tobacco, and there was soft
candle-light and tinkling glass. And she would feel happy there,
secure. There would be no apprehension in her. For above, at the four
corners of the bed where the minute humanity slept were four figures of
great power, four lumbering grizzled fisherman--Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John!