In Wild Rose Time

“Now, if there is anything you would like to ask me – anything that puzzles you” – and he reflected that most things might seem mysteries to their untrained brains.

They glanced at each other and drew long breaths, as if this was the golden opportunity they had long waited for. Then an irresistibly shy, sweet, beseeching expression crossed Bess’s face, as her eyes wandered from him to her sister.

“O Dil – you might ast him ’bout – you know” – hesitating with pitiful eagerness in her large eyes – “’bout goin’ to heaven, an’ how far it is.”

“Do you know where heaven is, mister?”

The question was asked with the good faith of utter ignorance; but there was an intense and puzzled anxiety in every line of the child’s countenance.

“Heaven!” He was struck with a strange mental helplessness. “Heaven!” he repeated.

“Don’t anybody know for true?” A despair quenched the sunshine in the brown eyes and made outer darkness.

“An’ how they get there?” continued Bess breathlessly. “That’s what we wanter know, ’cause Dil wants to go an’ take me. Is it very, very far?”

Travis glanced at Dil. Never in his life had he been more at loss. There was a line between her brows, and the wrinkled nose added to the weight of thoughtfulness. Never had he seen a few wrinkles express so much.

She felt as if he was questioning her.

“I went to the Mission School, you see,” she began to explain. “The teacher read about a woman who took her children an’ a girl who lived with her, an’ started for heaven. Then Owny took my shoes, ’cause ’twas wet an’ slushy ’n’ I couldn’t go, an’ so I didn’t hear if they got there. ’N’ when I went again, that teacher had gone away. I didn’t like the new wan. When I ast her she said it was a gory somethin’, an’ you didn’t go that way to heaven now.”

“An allegory, yes.”

“Then, what’s that?”

“A story of something that may happen, like every-day events.” Ah, how could he meet the comprehension of these innocent children?

“Well, did she get there?” with eager haste.

The sparrows went on with their cheerful, rather aggressive chirp. The fountain played, people passed to and fro, and wagons rumbled; but it seemed to John Travis as if there were only themselves in the wide world – and God. He did not understand God, but he knew then there was some supreme power above man.

“Yes,” with reverent gentleness, “yes, she found heaven.”

“Then, what’s to hinder us, Dil? ’Twouldn’t be any use to ast mother – she’d rather go to Cunny Island or Mis’ MacBride’s. If you only would tell us the way – ”

“Yes; if you could tell us the way,” said Dil wistfully, raising her entreating eyes.

Could he direct any one on the road to heaven? And then he admitted to himself that he had cast away the faint clew of years agone, and would not know what step to take first.

“You see,” explained Dil hurriedly, “I thought when we’d found just how to go, I’d take Bess some Sunday mornin’, an’ we’d go up by Cent’l Park and over by the river, ’cause they useter sing ‘One more river to cross.’ Then we’d get on a ferry-boat. Mother wouldn’t care much. She don’t care for Bess since she’s hurted, and won’t never be no good. But I could take care of her; an’ when we struck the right way, ’twould be just goin’ straight along. I could scrub an’ ’tend babies an’ sweep an’ earn some money. People was good to the woman in the story, an’ mebbe they’d be good to us when we were on the road an’ no mistake. If we could just get started.”

Oh, the eager, appealing desire in her face, the faith and fervor in her voice! A poor little pilgrim, not even knowing what the City of Destruction meant, longing with all her soul to set out for that better country, and take her poor little crippled sister. It moved him beyond anything he had ever known, and blurred the sunshine with a tremulous mistiness.

Dil was watching the varying expressions.

“O mister, ain’t there any heaven? Will we have to go on living in Barker’s Court forever ’n’ ever?”

The despair in Dil’s voice was heartrending. John Travis thought he had passed one hour of crucial anguish; but it was as nothing to this, inasmuch as the pang of the soul must exceed the purely physical pain. He drew a long, quivering breath.

“Oh, there ain’t any!”

He was on the witness stand. To destroy their hope would be a crueler murder than that of the innocents. No, he dared not deny God.

III – THE WAY TO HEAVEN

John Travis was like a good many young men in the tide of respectable church-going. His grandmother was an old-fashioned Christian, rather antiquated now; but he still enjoyed the old cottage and the orchard of long ago. His mother was a modern church member. They never confessed their experiences one to another in the fervent spiritual manner, but had clubs and guilds and societies to train the working-people. She was interested in charitable institutions, in homes, and the like; that is, she subscribed liberally and supervised them. Personally she was rather disgusted with the inmates and their woes, whose lives and duties were mapped out by rule, whether they fitted or not.

Then, he had two sisters who were nice, wholesome, attractive girls, who danced all winter in silks and laces, kept Lent rigorously with early services, sewing-classes, and historical lectures, and took their turns in visiting the slums. All summer there was pleasuring. The young women in their “set” were much alike, and he wondered who of them all could show these little waifs the way to heaven.

For himself, he had gone through college honorably. He was a moral young man, because a certain fine, clean instinct and artistic sense forbade any excesses. To be sure, he had read Strauss and Renan after his Darwin and Spencer, he had even dipped into the bitter fountains of Schopenhauer. He had a jaunty idea that the myths and miracles of the Bible were the fables and legends of the nations in the earlier stages of their development, quite outgrown in these later days of exact philosophical reasoning.

But as he sat there, with these children’s eyes fixed upon him with an intent life-and-death expression, uttering a strong, inward soul cry that reached his ears and would not be shut out, a certain assurance came to him. These tender little souls were waiting for the word that was to lead them in the way of life everlasting. “Whoso offendeth one of these little ones” – it was there in letters of fire.

What but heaven could compensate them for their dreary lives here! What but the love of God infold them when father and mother had failed. For surely they had not demanded any part in the struggle of life. Ah, if the dead rose not again – what refinement of cruelty to send human beings into the world to suffer like brutes, having a higher consciousness to intensify it ten-fold, and then be thrust into the terrible darkness of nothingness. Even he was not willing to come to a blank, purposeless end.

He had been sketching rapidly, but he saw the little faces changing with an uncomprehended dread. Dil’s sunshine was going out in sullen despair. Yes, he must bear witness – for to-day, for all time, for all human souls. In that moment he believed. A rejoicing, reverent consciousness was awakened within him; and the new man had been born, the man who desired to learn the way to heaven, even as these little children.

“Yes, there is a heaven.” He could feel the tremulousness in his voice, yet the assurance touched him with inexpressible sweetness, so new and strange was it. “There is a God who cares for us all, loves us all, and who has prepared a beautiful land of rest where there is no pain nor sorrow, where no one is sick or lonely or in any want, where the Lord Jesus gathers the sorrowing into his arms, and wipes away their tears, soothes them with his own great love, which is sweeter and tenderer than the best human love.”

“Oh,” cried Dil, as he paused, “are you jest certain sure? There was a little old lady who came and sang once ’bout a beautiful country, everlastin’ spring, an’ never with’rin’ flowers. I didn’t get the hang of it all, but it left a sort of sweetness in the air that you could almost feel, you know. Don’t you b’lieve she knew ’bout the truly heaven?”

Dil’s brown eyes were illumined again.

“Yes – that was heaven.” His grandmother sang that old hymn. He would go up there and learn it some day, and tell her that in the midst of the great city he had borne witness to the faith. The knowledge was so new and strange that it filled him with great humility, made him a little child like one of these.

“Oh,” cried Dil, with a long, restful sigh of satisfaction, while every line of her face was transfigured, “you must know, ’cause, you see, you’ve had chances. You can read books and all. And now I am quite sure – Bess an’ me,” placing her hand lovingly over the little white one. “An’ mebbe you c’n tell us just how to go. And when you come to the place, there’s a bridge or something that people get over, and go up beyond the sky – jest back of the blue sky,” with a certain confident, happy emphasis in the narrow, but rapt, vision.

“Couldn’t we start right away?” cried Bess with eager hopefulness, her wan little face in a glow of excitement. “What’s the good o’ goin’ back home? Me an’ Dil have talked it over an’ over. An’ there must be crowds an’ crowds goin’, – people who are strong and well, an’ can run. Why, I sh’d think they’d be in an awful hurry to get there. An’ you said no one would be sick. My head aches so when the babies cry, an’ my poor back is so tired an’ sore. Oh, if I had two good legs, so Dil wouldn’t have to push me an’ lift me out an’ in! O Dil, do let’s go!”

She was trembling with excitement, and her eyes were a luminous glow.

What could John Travis say to these eager pilgrims? He did not remember that he had ever known any one in a hurry to get to heaven. How strange it was! And how could he explain this great mystery of which he knew so little, – the walk that was by faith, not sight?

“You said you had been to the Mission School,” catching at that straw eagerly. “Did they not tell you – teach you” – and he paused in confusion.

“I ain’t been much. Mammy don’t b’lieve in thim. An’ I think they don’t know. One tells you one thing, an’ the nex’ one another. One woman said the sky was all stars through an’ through, an’ heaven was jest round you, an’ where you lived. Well, if it’s Barker’s Court,” and she made a strange, impressive pause, “’tain’t much like the place the woman set out for.”

“She left the City of Destruction. Her name was Christiana.”

“Oh, yes!” kindling anew with awakened memory. “Well, that’s Barker’s Court. There’s fightin’, an’ swearin’, an’ gettin’ drunk, an’ bein’ ’rested. Poor Bess hears ’em in the night when she can’t sleep. An’ the woman went away, an’ took her children. But mammy wouldn’t go, an’ we’ll have to start by our two selves. O mister! do you know anything ’bout prayin’? The teacher told me how, an’ I prayed ’bout Bess’s poor legs, an’ that mother’d let rum alone, an’ not go off into tantrums the way pop uster. An’ it didn’t do a bit o’ good.”

She looked up so perplexed. This was not scientific or philosophical ignorance, – he could find arguments to combat that; it was not unwillingness to try, but the utter innocent ignorance, with the boundary of certain literal experiences. But how could he explain? From the depths of his heart he cried for wisdom.

“It is a long journey, and the summer is almost gone,” he said, after some consideration. “The cold weather will be here presently, and you are both so little; suppose you wait until next spring? I will find you that book about Christiana, and you can learn a good many things – and be getting ready – ”

He knew he was paltering with a miserable subterfuge; but, oh! what could he say? Surely, ere violets bloomed again and buttercups were golden, Bess would have solved the great mystery. Ah, to think of her as well and rejoicing in heaven! It moved all one’s heart in gratitude.

Both children looked pitifully disappointed. Bess was first to recover. The tears shone in her eyes as she said, —