Polly Oliver's Problem Part 12

"No near ones, and none that she has ever seen. Still, she is not absolutely alone, as many girls would be under like circ.u.mstances. We would be only too glad to have her here; the Howards have telegraphed asking her to spend the winter with them in Cambridge; I am confident Dr. Wins.h.i.+p will do the same when the news of Mrs. Oliver's death reaches Europe; and Mrs. Bird seems to have const.i.tuted herself a sort of fairy G.o.dmother in chief. You see everybody loves Polly; and she will probably have no less than four homes open to her. The fact is, if you should put Polly on a desert island, the bees and the b.u.t.terflies and the birds would gather about her; she draws everything and everybody to her magically. Then, too, she is not penniless.

Rents are low, and she cannot hope to get quite as much for the house as before, but even counting repairs, taxes, and furnis.h.i.+ngs, we think she is reasonably certain of fifty dollars a month."

"She will never be idle, unless this sorrow makes a great change in her. Polly seems to have been created to 'become' by 'doing.'"

"Yet she does not in the least relish work, Edgar. I never knew a girl with a greater appet.i.te for luxury. One cannot always see the deepest reasons in G.o.d's providence as applied to one's own life and character; but it is often easy to understand them as one looks at other people and notes their growth and development. For instance, Polly's intense love for her invalid mother has kept her from being selfish. The straitened circ.u.mstances in which she has been compelled to live have prevented her from yielding to self-indulgence or frivolity. Even her hunger for the beautiful has been a discipline; for since beautiful things were never given to her ready-made, she has been forced to create them. Her lot in life, which she has always lamented, has given her a self-control, a courage, a power, which she never would have had in the world had she grown up in luxury. She is too young to see it, but it is very clear to me that Polly Oliver is a glorious product of circ.u.mstances."

"But," objected Edgar, "that is not fair. You are giving all the credit to circ.u.mstances, and none to Polly's own nature."

"Not at all. If there had not been the native force to develop, experience would have had nothing to work upon. As it is, her lovely childish possibilities have become probabilities, and I look to see the girlish probabilities blossom into womanly certainties."

Meanwhile Polly, it must be confessed, was not at the present time quite justifying the good opinion of her friends.

She had few of the pa.s.sive virtues. She could bear sharp stabs of misfortune, which fired her energy and pride, but she resented pin p.r.i.c.ks. She could carry heavy, splendid burdens cheerfully, but she fretted under humble cares. She could serve by daring, but not by waiting. She would have gone to the stake or the scaffold, I think, with tolerable grace; but she would probably have recanted any article of faith if she had been confronted with life-imprisonment.

Trouble that she took upon herself for the sake of others, and out of love, she accepted sweetly. Sorrows that she did not choose, which were laid upon her without her consent, and which were "just the ones she did _not_ want, and did _not_ need, and would _not_ have, and could _not_ bear,"--these sorrows found her unwilling, bitter, and impatient.

Yet if life is a school and we all have lessons to learn in it, the Great Teacher will be unlikely to set us tasks which we have already finished. Some review there must be, for certain things are specially hard to keep in mind, and have to be gone over and over, lest they fade into forgetfulness. But there must be continued progress in a life school. There is no parrot repet.i.tion, sing-song, meaningless, of words that have ceased to be vital. New lessons are to be learned as fast as the old ones are understood. Of what use to set Polly tasks to develop her bravery, when she was already brave?

Courage was one of the little jewels set in her fairy crown when she was born, but there was a round, empty s.p.a.ce beside it, where Patience should have been. Further along was Daring, making a brilliant show, but again there was a tiny vacancy waiting for Prudence.

The crown made a fine appearance, on the whole, because the large jewels were mostly in place, and the light of these blinded you to the lack of the others; but to the eye of the keen observer there was a want of symmetry and completeness.

Polly knew the unfinished state of her fairy crown as well as anybody else. She could not plead ignorance as an excuse; but though she would have gone on polis.h.i.+ng the great gems with a fiery zeal, she added the little jewels very slowly, and that only on compulsion.

There had been seven or eight weeks of partial unconsciousness, when the sorrow and the loneliness of life stole into her waking dreams only vaguely and at intervals; when she was unhappy, and could not remember why; and slept, to wake and wonder and sleep again.

Then there were days and weeks when the labor of living was all that the jaded body could accomplish; when memory was weak; when life began at the pillow, and ended at the foot of the bed, and the universe was bounded by the chamber windows.

But when her strength came back, and she stood in the middle of the floor, clothed and in her right mind, well enough to remember,--oh!

then indeed the deep waters of bitterness rolled over poor Polly's head and into her heart, and she sank beneath them without a wish or a struggle to rise.

"If it had been anything else!" she sobbed. "Why did G.o.d take away my most precious, my only one to live for, when I was trying to take care of her, trying to be good, trying to give back the strength that had been poured out on me,--miserable, worthless me! Surely, if a girl was willing to do without a father and sisters and brothers, without good times and riches, willing to work like a galley slave, willing to 'scrimp' and plan and save for ever and ever; surely 'they' might be willing that she should keep her mother!"

Poor Polly! Providence at this time seemed nothing more than a collection of demons which she cla.s.sified under the word "they," and which she felt certain were scourging her pitilessly and needlessly.

She could not see any reason or justification in "their"

cruelties,--for that was the only term she could apply to her afflictions.

Mrs. Bird had known sorrow, and she did her best to minister to the troubled and wrong little heart; but it was so torn that it could be healed only by the soft balm of Time.

Perhaps, a long while after such a grief,--it is always "perhaps" in a great crisis, though the certainty is ours if we will but grasp it,--perhaps the hidden meaning of the sorrow steals gently into our softened hearts. We see, as in a vision, a new light by which to work; we rise, cast off the out-grown sh.e.l.l, and build us a more stately mansion, in which to dwell till G.o.d makes that home also too small to hold the ever-growing soul!

CHAPTER XIII.

A GARDEN FLOWER, OR A BANIAN-TREE.

In August Mr. John Bird took Polly to the n.o.bles' ranch in Santa Barbara, in the hope that the old scenes and old friends might soothe her, and give her strength to take up the burden of life with something of her former suns.h.i.+ny spirit.

Edgar was a junior now, back at his work, sunburned and strong from his summer's outing. He had seen Polly twice after his return to San Francisco; but the first meeting was an utter failure, and the second nearly as trying. Neither of them could speak of the subject that absorbed their thoughts, nor had either courage enough to begin other topics of conversation. The mere sight of Edgar was painful to the girl now, it brought to mind so much that was dear, so much that was past and gone.

In the serenity of the ranch-life, the long drives with Margery and Philip, the quiet chats with Mrs. n.o.ble, Polly gained somewhat in strength; but the old "spring," vitality, and enthusiasm had vanished for the time, and the little circle of friends marveled at this Polly without her nonsense, her ready smiles, her dancing dimples, her extravagances of speech.

Once a week, at least, Dr. George would steal an hour or two, and saddle his horse to take Polly for a gallop over the hills, through the canons, or on the beach.

His half-grave, half-cheery talks on these rides did her much good. He sympathized and understood and helped, even when he chided, and Polly sometimes forgot her own troubles in wondering whether Dr. George had not suffered and overcome a good many of his own.

"You make one great error, my child," he once said, in response to one of Polly's outbursts of grief; "and it is an error young people very naturally fall into. You think that no one was ever chastened as you are. You say, with Jeremiah, 'No prophet is afflicted like unto this prophet!' Now you are simply bearing your own share of the world's trouble. How can you hope to escape the universal lot? There are dozens of people within sight of this height of land who have borne as much, and must bear as much again. I know this must seem a hard philosophy, and I should not preach it to any but a stout little spirit like yours, my Polly. These things come to all of us; they are stern facts; they are here, and they must be borne; but it makes all the difference in the world how we bear them. We can clench our fists, close our lips tightly, and say, 'Since I must, I can;' or we can look up and say cheerfully, 'I will!' The first method is philosophical and strong enough, but there is no sweetness in it. If you have this burden to carry, make it as light, not as heavy, as you can; if you have this grief to endure, you want at least to come out of it sweeter and stronger than ever before. It seems a pity to let it go for nothing. In the largest sense of the word, you can live for your mother now as truly as you did in the old times; you know very well how she would have had you live."

Polly felt a sense of shame steal over her as she looked at Dr.

George's sweet, strong smile and resolute mouth, and she said, with the hint of a new note in her voice:--

"I see, and I will try; but how does one ever learn to live without loving,--I mean the kind of loving I had in my life? I know I can live for my mother in the largest sense of the word, but to me all the comfort and sweetness seems to tuck itself under the word in its 'little' sense. I shall have to go on developing and developing until I am almost developed to death, and go on growing and growing in grace until I am ready to be caught up in a chariot of fire, before I can love my mother 'in the largest sense of the word.' I want to cuddle my head on her shoulder, that's what I want. Oh, Dr. George, how does one contrive to be good when one is not happy? How can one walk in the right path when there does n't seem to be any brightness to go by?"

"My dear little girl," and Dr. George looked soberly out on the ocean, dull and lifeless under the gray October sky, "when the sun of one's happiness is set, one lights a candle called 'Patience,' and guides one's footsteps by that!"

"If only I were not a rich heiress," said Polly next morning, "I dare say I should be better off; for then I simply could n't have gone to bed for two or three months, and idled about like this for another.

But there seems to be no end to my money. Edgar paid all the bills in San Francisco, and saved twenty out of our precious three hundred and twelve dollars. Then Mrs. Greenwood's rent-money has been acc.u.mulating four months, while I have been visiting you and Mrs. Bird; and the Greenwoods are willing to pay sixty dollars a month for the house still, even though times are dull; so I am hopelessly wealthy,--but on the whole I am very glad. The old desire to do something, and be something, seems to have faded out of my life with all the other beautiful things. I think I shall go to a girls' college and study, or find some other way of getting through the hateful, endless years that stretch out ahead! Why, I am only a little past seventeen, and I may live to be ninety! I do not see how I can ever stand this sort of thing for seventy-three years!"

Mrs. n.o.ble smiled in spite of herself. "Just apply yourself to getting through this year, Polly dear, and let the other seventy-two take care of themselves. They will bring their own cares and joys and responsibilities and problems, little as you realize it now. This year, grievous as it seems, will fade by and by, until you can look back at it with resignation and without tears."

"I don't want it to fade!" cried Polly pa.s.sionately. "I never want to look back at it without tears! I want to be faithful always; I want never to forget, and never to feel less sorrow than I do this minute!"

"Take that blue-covered Emerson on the table, Polly; open it at the essay on 'Compensation,' and read the page marked with the orange leaf."

The tears were streaming down Polly's cheeks, but she opened the book, and read with a faltering voice:--

"We cannot part with our f--fr--friends. We cannot let our angels go.

[Sob.] We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in. . . . We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or re-create that beautiful yesterday. [Sob.] We linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had shelter. . . . We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. [Sob.] But we sit and weep in vain. We cannot stay amid the ruins. The voice of the Almighty saith, 'Up and onward for evermore!' . . . The sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all sorrow. . . . The man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden flower, with no room for its roots and too much suns.h.i.+ne for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She opened the book and read."]

"Do you see, Polly?"

"Yes, I see; but oh, I was so happy being a garden flower with the suns.h.i.+ne on my head, and I can't seem to care the least little bit for being a banian-tree!"

"Well," said Mrs. n.o.ble, smiling through her own tears, "I fear that G.o.d will never insist on your 'yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men' unless you desire it. Not all sunny garden flowers become banian-trees by the falling of the walls. Some of them are crushed beneath the ruins, and never send any more color or fragrance into the world."

"The garden flower had happiness before the walls fell," said Polly.

"It is happiness I want."

"The banian-tree had blessedness after the walls fell, and it is blessedness I want; but then, I am forty-seven, and you are seventeen!"

sighed Mrs. n.o.ble, as they walked through the orange orchard to the house.