Marm Lisa

‘“We’re going to lose her, I feel it!” said Mrs. Sylvester.  “I feel it, and she alludes to it herself.  There ain’t but two ways of her classes losing her, death and marriage; and as she looks too healthy to die, it must be the other one.  She’s never accepted any special attentions till about a month ago, when the Improved Order of Red Men held their Great Council here.  You see she used to be Worthy Wenonah of Pocahontas Lodge years ago, when my husband was Great Keeper of the Wampum, but she hasn’t attended regularly; a woman is so handicapped, when it comes to any kind of public work, by her home and her children.—I do hope I shall live long enough to see all those kind of harassing duties performed in public, co-operative institutions.—She went to the Council to keep me company, mostly, but the very first evening I could see that William Burkhardt, of Bald Eagle No. 62, was struck with her; she lights up splendidly, Mrs. Grubb does.  He stayed with her every chance he got during the week: but I didn’t see her give him any encouragement, and I should never have thought of it again if she hadn’t come home late from one of the Council Fires at the Wigwam.  I was just shutting my bedroom blinds.  I tried not to listen, for I despise eavesdropping, of all things, but I couldn’t help hearing her say, “No, Mr. Burkhardt, you are only a Junior Sagamore, and I am ambitious.  When you are a Great Sachem, it will be time enough to consider the matter.”’

‘Mrs. Sylvester, Edith, and I agreed that this was most significant, but we may have been mistaken, according to her latest development.  The “passing away” so feelingly alluded to by Mrs. Sylvester is to be of a different sort.  She has spoken mysteriously to me before of her reasons for denying herself luxuries; of the goal she expected to reach through rigid denial of the body and training of the spirit; of her longing to come less in contact with the foul magnetism of the common herd, so detrimental to her growth; but she formally announced to me in strict confidence to-day her ambition to be a Mahatma.  Of course she has been so many things that there are comparatively few left; still, say whatever we like, she has the spirit of all the Argonauts, that woman!  She has been an Initiate for some time, and considers herself quite ready for the next step, which is to be a Chela.  It is unnecessary to state that she climbs the ladder of evolution much faster than the ordinary Theosophist, who is somewhat slow in his movements, and often deals in centuries, or even æons.

‘I did not know that there were female Mahatmas, reasoning unconsciously from the fact that an Adept is supposed to hold his peace for many years before he can even contemplate the possibility of being a Mahatma.  (The idea of Grubb o’ Dreams holding her peace is too absurd for argument.)  There are many grades of Adepts, it seems, ranging from the “topmost” Mahatmas down.  The highest of all, the Nirmanakayas, are self-conscious without the body, travelling hither and thither with but one object, that of helping humanity.  As we descend the scale, we find Adepts (and a few second-class Mahatmas) living in the body, for the wheel of Karma has not entirely revolved for them; but they have a key to their “prison” (that is what Mrs. Grubb calls her nice, pretty body!), and can emerge from it at pleasure.  That is, any really capable and energetic Adept can project his soul from its prison to any place that he pleases, with the rapidity of thought.  I may have my personal doubts as to the possibilities of this gymnastic feat, but Mrs. Grubb’s intellectual somersaults have been of such thoroughness and frequency that I am sure, if anybody can perform the gyration, she can!  Meantime, there are decades of retirement, meditation, and preparation necessary, and she can endure nothing of that sort in this present incarnation, so the parting does not seem imminent!

‘She came to consult me about Soul Haven for the twins.  I don’t think it a wholly bad plan.  The country is better for them than the city; we can manage occasional news of their welfare; it will tide to get over the brief interval of time needed by Mrs. Grubb for growing into a Chela; and in any event, they are sure to run away from the Haven as soon as they become at all conscious of their souls, a moment which I think will be considerably delayed.

‘Mrs. Grubb will not yield Lisa until she is certain that the Soul Haven colonists will accept the twins without a caretaker; but unless the matter is quietly settled by the new year I shall find some heroic means of changing her mind.  I have considered the matter earnestly for many months without knowing precisely how to find sufficient money for the undertaking.  My own income can be stretched to cover her maintenance, but it is not sufficient to give her the proper sort of education.  She is beyond my powers now, and perhaps—nay, of a certainty, if her health continue to improve—five years of skilful teaching will make her—what it will make her no one can prophesy, but it is sure to be something worth working for.  No doubt I can get the money by a public appeal, and if it were for a dozen children instead of one I would willingly do it, as indeed I have done it many times in the past.

‘That was a beautiful thought of Pastor Von Bodelschwingh, of the Colony of Mercy in Germany.  “Mr. Man” told me about him in one of the very few long talks we had together.  He had a home for adults and children of ailing mind and body, and when he wanted a new house for the little ones, and there was no money to build or equip it, he asked every parent in Germany for a thank-offering to the Lord of one penny for each well child.  Within a short fortnight four hundred thousand pennies flowed in—four hundred thousand thank-offerings for children strong and well.  The good pastor’s wish was realised, and his Baby Castle an accomplished fact.  Not only did the four hundred thousand pennies come, but the appeal for them stimulated a new sense of gratitude among all the parents who responded, so that there came pretty, touching messages from all sides, such as: “Four pennies for four living children; for a child in heaven, two.”  “Six pennies for a happy home.”  “One penny for the child we never had.”  “Five pennies for a good wife.”

‘Ah! never, surely, was a Baby Castle framed of such lovely timber as this!  It seems as if heaven’s sweet air must play about the towers, and heaven’s sunshine stream in at every window, of a house built from turret to foundation-stone of such royal material.  The Castle might look like other castles, but every enchanted brick and stone and block of wood, every grain of mortar, every bit of glass and marble, unlike all others of its kind, would be transformed by the thought it represented and thrilled with the message it bore.

‘Such an appeal I could make for my whole great family, but somehow this seems almost a private matter, and I am sensitive about giving it publicity.  My love and hope for Lisa are so great, I cannot bear to describe her “case,” nor paint her unhappy childhood in the hues it deserves, for the sake of gaining sympathy and aid.  I may have to do it, but would I were the little Croesus of a day!  Still, Christmas is coming, and who knows?

“Everywhere the Feast o’ the Babe,
Joy upon earth, peace and good-will to men!
We are baptized.”

Merry Christmas is coming.  Everybody’s hand-grasp is warmer because of it, though of course it is the children whose merriment rings truest.

‘There are just one or two things, grown up as I am, that I should like to find in the toe of my stocking on Christmas morning; only they are impalpable things that could neither be put in nor taken out of real stockings.

‘Old as we are, we are most of us mere children in this, that we go on hoping that next Christmas all the delicious happenings we have missed in other Christmases may descend upon us by the old and reliable chimney-route!  A Santa Claus that had any bowels of compassion would rush down the narrowest and sootiest chimney in the world to give me my simple wishes.  It isn’t as if I were petitioning nightly for a grand house, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a diamond necklace, and a particular man for a husband; but I don’t see that modesty finds any special favour with St. Nick.  Now and then I harbour a rascally suspicion that he is an indolent, time-serving person, who slips down the widest, cleanest chimneys to the people who clamour the loudest; but this abominable cynicism melts into thin air the moment that I look at his jolly visage on the cover of a picture-book.  Dear, fat, rosy, radiant Being!  Surely he is incapable of any but the highest motives!  I am twenty-eight years old, but age shall never make any difference in the number or extent of my absurdities.  I am going to write a letter and send it up the chimney!  It never used to fail in the long-ago; but ah! then there were two dear, faithful go-betweens to interpret my childish messages of longing to Santa Claus, and jog his memory at the critical time!’

XV

‘THE FEAST O’ THE BABE’

It was sure to be a green Christmas in that sunny land, but not the sort of ‘green Yule’ that makes the ‘fat kirkyard.’  If the New Englanders who had been transplanted to that shore of the Pacific ever longed for a bracing snowstorm, for frost pictures on the window-panes, for the breath of a crystal air blown over ice-fields—an air that nipped the ears, but sent the blood coursing through the veins, and made the turkey and cranberry sauce worth eating,—the happy children felt no lack, and basked contentedly in the soft December sunshine.  Still further south there were mothers who sighed even more for the sound of merry sleigh-bells, the snapping of logs on the hearth, the cosy snugness of a fire-lit room made all the snugger by the fierce wind without: that, if you like, was a place to hang a row of little red and brown woollen stockings!  And when the fortunate children on the eastern side of the Rockies, tired of resisting the Sand Man, had snuggled under the great down comforters and dropped off to sleep, they dreamed, of course, of the proper Christmas things—of the tiny feet of reindeer pattering over the frozen crust, the tinkle of silver bells on their collars, the real Santa Claus with icicles in his beard, with red cheeks, and a cold nose, and a powder of snow on his bearskin coat, and with big fur mittens never too clumsy to take the toys from his pack.

Here the air blew across orange groves and came laden with the sweetness of opening buds; here, if it were a sunny Christmas Day, as well it might be, the children came in to dinner tired with playing in the garden: but the same sort of joyous cries that rent the air three thousand miles away at sight of hot plum-pudding woke the echoes here because of fresh strawberries and loquats; and although, in the minds of the elders, who had been born in snowdrifts and bred upon icicles, this union of balmy air, singing birds, and fragrant bloom might strike a false note at Christmastide, it brought nothing but joy to the children.  After all, if it were not for old associations’ sake, it would seem that one might fitly celebrate the birthday of the Christ-child under sunshine as warm and skies of the same blue as those that sheltered the heavenly Babe in old Judea.

During the late days of October and the early days of November the long drought of summer had been broken, and it had rained steadily, copiously, refreshingly.  Since then there had been day after day of brilliant, cloudless sunshine, and the moist earth, warmed gratefully through to the marrow, stirred and trembled and pushed forth myriads of tender shoots from the seeds that were hidden in its bosom; and the tender shoots themselves looked up to the sun, and, with their roots nestled in sweet, fragrant beds of richness, thought only of growing tall and green, dreamed only of the time when pink pimpernels would bloom between their waving blades, and when tribes of laughing children would come to ramble over the hillsides.  The streets of the city were full of the fragrance of violets, for the flower-vendors had great baskets of them over their arms, and every corner tempted the passers-by with the big odorous purple bunches that offered a royal gift of sweetness for every penny invested.

Atlantic and Pacific Simonson had previously known little, and Marm Lisa less, of Christmas-time, but the whole month of December in Mistress Mary’s garden was a continual feast of the new-born Babe.  There was an almost oppressive atmosphere of secrecy abroad.  Each family of children, working in the retirement of its particular corner, would shriek, ‘Oh, don’t come!’ and hide small objects under pinafores and tables when Mary, Rhoda, Edith, or Helen appeared.  The neophyte in charge was always in the attitude of a surprised hen, extending her great apron to its utmost area as a screen to hide these wonderful preparations.  Edith’s group was slaving over Helen’s gift, Rhoda’s over Edith’s, and so on, while all the groups had some marvellous bit of co-operative work in hand for Mistress Mary.  At the afternoon council, the neophytes were obliged to labour conscientiously on presents destined for themselves, rubbing off stains, disentangling knots, joining threads, filling up wrong holes and punching right ones, surreptitiously getting the offerings of love into a condition where the energetic infants could work on them again.  It was somewhat difficult to glow and pale with surprise when they received these well-known and well-worn trophies of skill from the tree at the proper time, but they managed to achieve it.

Never at any other season was there such a scrubbing of paws, and in spite of the most devoted sacrifices to the Moloch of cleanliness the excited little hands grew first moist, and then grimy, nobody knew how.  ‘It must leak out of the inside of me,’ wailed Bobby Baxter when sent to the pump for the third time one morning; but he went more or less cheerfully, for his was the splendid honour of weaving a frame for Lisa’s picture, and he was not the man to grudge an inch or two of skin if thereby he might gain a glorious immortality.

The principal conversation during this festival time consisted of phrases like: ‘I know what you’re goin’ to have, Miss Edith, but I won’t tell!’  ‘Miss Mary, Sally ’most told Miss Rhoda what she was makin’ for her.’  ‘Miss Helen, Pat Higgins went right up to Miss Edith and asked her to help him mend the leg of his clay frog, and it’s his own Christmas present to her!’

The children could not for the life of them play birds, or butterflies, or carpenter, or scissors-grinder, for they wanted to shout the live-long day—

‘Christmas bells are ringing sweet,
We too the happy day must greet’;

or—

‘Under the holly, now,
Sing and be jolly, now,
Christmas has come and the children are glad’;

or—

‘Hurrah for Santa Claus!
Long may he live at his castle in Somewhere-land!’

There was much whispering and discussion about evergreens and garlands and wreaths that were soon to come, and much serious planning with regard to something to be made for mother, father, sister, brother, and the baby; something, too, now and then, for a grandpapa in Sweden, a grandmamma in Scotland, a Norwegian uncle, an Irish aunt, and an Italian cousin; but there was never by chance any cogitation as to what the little workers themselves might get.  In the happier homes among them, there was doubtless the usual legitimate speculation as to doll or drum, but here in this enchanted spot, this materialised Altruria, the talk was all of giving, when the Wonderful Tree bloomed in their midst—the Wonderful Tree they sang about every morning, with the sweet voice

‘telling its branches among
Of shepherd’s watch and of angel’s song,
Of lovely Babe in manger low,—
The beautiful story of long ago,
When a radiant star threw its beams so wide
To herald the earliest Christmastide.’

The Tree was coming—Mistress Mary said so; and bless my heart, you might possibly meddle with the revolution of the earth around the sun, or induce some weak-minded planet to go the wrong way, but you would be helpless to reverse one of Mistress Mary’s promises!  They were as fixed and as unchangeable as the laws of the Medes and Persians, and there was a record of their fulfilment indelibly written in the memories of two hundred small personages—personages in whom adult caprice and flexibility of conduct had bred a tendency to suspicion.

The Tree, therefore, had been coming for a fortnight, and on the 22nd it came!  Neither did it come alone, for it was accompanied by a forest of holly and mistletoe, and ropes of evergreen, and wreaths and garlands of laurel, and green stars by the dozen.  And in a great box, at present hidden from the children, were heaps of candles, silver and crystal baubles, powdered snowflakes, glass icicles, gilded nuts, parti-coloured spheres, cornucopias full of goodies, and, above all, two wonderful Christmas angels, and a snow-white dove!

Neither tree, nor garlands, nor box contained any hint of the donor, to the great disappointment of the neophytes.  Rhoda had an idea, for Cupid had ‘clapped her i’ the shoulder,’ and her intuitions were preternaturally keen just now.  Mary almost knew, though she had never been in love in her life, and her faculties were working only in their every-day fashion; but she was not in the least surprised when she drew a letter from under the white dove’s wing.  Seeing that it was addressed to her, she waited until everybody had gone, and sat under the pepper-tree in the deserted playground, where she might read it in solitude.

‘Dear Mistress Mary,’ it said, ‘do you care to hear of my life?

“Pas Ewig-Weibliche
Zieht uns hinan,”

and I am growing olives.  Do you remember what the Spanish monk said to the tree that he pruned, and that cried out under his hook? “It is not beauty that is wanted of you, nor shade, but olives.”  The sun is hot, and it has not rained for many a long week, it seems to me, but the dew of your influence falls ever sweet and fresh on the dust of my daily task.

‘Enclosed please find the wherewithal for Lisa’s next step higher.  As she needs more it will come.  I give it for sheer gratitude, as the good folk gave their pennies to Pastor Von Bodelschwingh.  Why am I grateful?  For your existence, to be sure!  I had lived my life haunted by the feeling that there was such a woman, and finally the mysterious wind of destiny blew me to her, “as the tempest brings the rose-tree to the pollard willow.”

‘Do not be troubled about me, little mother-of-many!  There was once upon a time a common mallow by the roadside, and being touched by Mohammed’s garment as he passed, it was changed at once into a geranium; and best of all, it remained a geranium for ever after.

    ‘Your Solitary.’

XVI

CLEANSING FIRES

It was the afternoon of the day before Christmas, and all the little people had gone home, leaving the room vacant for the decking of the Wonderful Tree.  Edith, Helen, and others were perched on step-ladders, festooning garlands and wreaths from window to window and post to post.  Mary and Rhoda were hanging burdens of joy among the green branches of the tree.

The room began to look more and more lovely as the evergreen stars were hung by scarlet ribbons in each of the twelve windows, and the picture-frames were crowned with holly branches.  Then Mistress Mary was elevated to a great height on a pyramid of tables and chairs, and suspended the two Christmas angels by invisible wires from the ceiling.  When the chorus of admiration had subsided, she took the white dove from Rhoda’s upstretched hands (and what a charming Christmas picture they made—the eager, upturned rosy face of the one, the gracious fairness of the other!), and laying its soft breast against her cheek for a moment, perched it on the topmost branch of waving green with a thought of ‘Mr. Man,’ and a hope that the blessed day might bring him a tithe of the cheer he had given them.  The effect of the dove and the angels was so electrical that all the fresh young voices burst into the chorus of the children’s hymn:

‘He was born upon this day
In David’s town so far away,
He the good and loving One,
Mary’s ever-blessèd Son.

Let us all our voices lend,