Marm Lisa Part 8

He obeyed orders, though not in a very alert fas.h.i.+on, but showed a sense of humour in choosing the ninety-eight rather than the two, and Mary left him on the corner with a pleasant word of thanks and a cheery remark.

The next morning he appeared at the garden gate, and asked if he might come in and sit a while. He was made welcome; but it was a busy morning, and he was so silent a visitor that everybody forgot his existence.

He made a curious impression, which can hardly be described, save that any student of human nature would say at once, 'He is out of relation with the world.' He had something of the expression one sees in a recluse or a hermit. If you have ever wandered up a mountain side, you may have come suddenly upon a hut, a rude bed within it, and in the door a man reading, or smoking, or gazing into vacancy. You remember the look you met in that man's eyes. He has tasted life and found it bitter; has sounded the world and found it hollow; has known man or woman and found them false. Friends.h.i.+p to him is without savour, and love without hope.

After watching the children for an hour, the stranger slipped out quietly. Mistress Mary followed him to the door, abashed at her unintentional discourtesy in allowing him to go without a good morning. She saw him stand at the foot of the steps, look first up, then down the street, then walk aimlessly to the corner. There, with hands in pockets, he paused again, glancing four ways; then, with a shrug and a gait that seemed to say, 'It makes no difference,' he slouched away.

'He is simply a stranger in a strange city, pining for his home,'

thought Mary, 'or else he is a stranger in every city, and has nowhere a home.'

He came again a few days later, and then again, apologising for the frequency of his visits, but giving no special reason for them. The neophytes called him 'the Solitary,' but the children christened him after a fas.h.i.+on of their own, and began to ask small favours of him.

'Thread my needle, please, Mr. Man!' 'More beads,' or 'More paper, Mr. Man, please.'

It is impossible to keep out of relation with little children. One of these mites of humanity would make a man out of your mountain hermit, resist as he might. They set up a claim on one whether it exists or not, and one has to allow it, and respond to it at least in some perfunctory fas.h.i.+on. More than once, as Mr. Man sat silently near the circle, the chubby Baker baby would fall over his feet, and he would involuntarily stoop to pick her up, straighten her dress, and soothe her woe. There was no hearty pleasure in his service even now. n.o.body was certain that he felt any pleasure at all. His helpfulness was not spontaneous; it seemed a kind of reflex action, a survival of some former state of mind or heart; for he did his favours in a dream, nor heard any thanks: yet the elixir was working in his veins.

'He is dreadfully in the way,' grumbled Edith; 'he is more ever- present than my ardent Russian.'

'So long as he insists on coming, let us make him supply the paternal element,' suggested Rhoda. 'It may be a degrading confession, but we could afford to part with several women here if we could only secure a really fatherly man. The Solitary cannot indulge in any day-dreams or trances, if we accept him as the patriarch of the inst.i.tution.'

Whereupon they boldly asked him, on his subsequent visits, to go upon errands, and open barrels of apples, and order intoxicated gentlemen off the steps, and mend locks and window-fastenings, and sharpen lead-pencils, and put on coal, and tell the lady in the rear that her parrot interfered with their morning prayers by shrieking the hymns in impossible keys. He accepted these tasks without protest, and performed them conscientiously, save in the parrot difficulty, in which case he gave one look at the lady, and fled without opening the subject.

It could not be said that he appeared more cheerful, the sole sign of any increased exhilaration of spirits being the occasional straightening of his cravat and the smoothing of his hair-- refinements of toilet that had heretofore been much neglected, though he always looked unmistakably the gentleman.

He seemed more attracted by Lisa than by any of the smaller children; but that may have been because Mary had told him her story, thinking that other people's stories were a useful sort of thing to tell people who had possible stories of their own.

Lisa was now developing a curious and unexpected facility and talent in the musical games. She played the tambourine, the triangle, the drum, as n.o.body else could, and in accompanying the marches she invented all sorts of unusual beats and accents. It grew to be the natural thing to give her difficult parts in the little dramas of child life: the c.o.c.k that crowed in the morn to wake the sleeping birds and babies, the mother-bird in the nest, the spreading willow- tree in the pond where the frogs congregated,--these roles she delighted in and played with all her soul.

It would have been laughable, had it not been pathetic, to watch her drag Mr. Man into the games, and to see him succ.u.mb to her persuasions with his face hanging out flaming signals of embarra.s.sment. In the 'Carrier Doves' the little pigeons flew with an imaginary letter to him, and this meant that he was to stand and read it aloud, as Mary and Edith had done before him.

'It seems to be a letter from a child,' he faltered, and then began stammeringly, '"My dear Mr. Man"'--there was a sudden stop. That there was a letter in his mind n.o.body could doubt, but he was too greatly moved to read it. Rhoda quickly reached out her hand for the paper, covering his discomfiture by exclaiming, 'The pigeons have brought Mr. Man a letter from some children in his fatherland! Yes'

(reading), 'they hope that we will be good to him, because he is far away from home, and they send their love to all Mistress Mary's children. Wasn't it pretty of the doves to remember that Mr. Man is a stranger here?'

The Solitary appeared for the last time a week before Thanksgiving Day, and he opened the door on a scene of jollity that warmed him to the heart.

In the middle of the floor was a mimic boat, crowded from stem to stern with little Pilgrim fathers and mothers trying to land on Plymouth Rock, in a high state of excitement and an equally high sea.

Pat Higgins was a chieftain commanding a large force of tolerably peaceful Indians on the sh.o.r.e, and Ma.s.sasoit himself never exhibited more dignity; while Marm Lisa was the proud mother of the baby Ocea.n.u.s born on the eventful voyage of the Mayflower.

Then Mistress Mary told the story of the festival very simply and sweetly, and all the tiny Pilgrims sang a hymn of thanksgiving. The Solitary listened, with his heart in his eyes and a sob in his throat; then, Heaven knows under the inspiration of what memory, he brushed Edith from the piano-stool, and, seating himself in her place, played as if he were impelled by some irresistible force. The hand of a master had never swept those keys before, and he held his hearers spellbound.

There was a silence that could be felt. The major part of the audience were not of an age to appreciate high art, but the youngsters were awed by the strange spectacle of Mr. Man at the piano, and with gaping mouth and strained ear listened to the divine harmonies he evoked. On and on he played, weaving the story of his past into the music, so it seemed to Mistress Mary. The theme came brokenly and uncertainly at first, as his thoughts strove for expression. Then out of the bitterness and gall, the suffering and the struggle--and was it remorse?--was born a sweet, resolute, triumphant strain that carried the listeners from height to height of sympathy and emotion. It had not a hint of serenity; it was new-born courage, aspiration, and self-mastery the song of 'him that overcometh.'

When he paused, there was a deep-drawn breath, a sigh from hearts surcharged with feeling, and Lisa, who had drawn closer and closer to the piano, stood there now, one hand leaning on Mr. Man's shoulder and the tears chasing one another down her cheeks.

'It hurts me here,' she sighed, pressing her hand to her heart.

He rose presently and left the room without a word, while the children prepared for home-going with a subdued air of having a.s.sisted at some solemn rite.

When Mistress Mary went out on the steps, a little later, he was still there.

'It is the last time! Auf wiedersehen!' he said.

'Auf wiedersehen,' she answered gently, giving him her hand.

'Have you no Thanksgiving sermon for me?' he asked, holding her fingers lingeringly. 'No child in all your flock needs it so much.'

'Yes,' said Mary, her eyes falling, for a moment, beneath his earnest gaze; but suddenly she lifted them again as she said bravely, 'I have a sermon, but it is one with a trumpet-call, and little balm in it.

"Unto whomsoever anything is given, of him something shall be required."'

When he reached the corner of the street he stopped, but instead of glancing four ways, as usual, he looked back at the porch where Mistress Mary stood. She carried Jenny Baker, a rosy sprig of babyhood, in the lovely curve of her arm; Bobby Baxter clasped her neck from behind in a strangling embrace; Johnny, and Meg, and Billy were tugging at her ap.r.o.n; and Marm Lisa was standing on tiptoe trying to put a rose in her hair. Then the Solitary pa.s.sed into the crowd, and they saw him in the old places no more.

CHAPTER XIII--LEAVES FROM MISTRESS MARY'S GARDEN

'We have an unknown benefactor. A fortnight ago came three bushels of flowers: two hundred tiny nosegays marked "For the children,"

half a dozen knots of pink roses for the "little mothers," a dozen scarlet carnations for Lisa, while one great bunch of white lilies bore the inscription, "For the Mother Superior." Last week a barrel of apples and another of oranges appeared mysteriously, and to-day comes a note, written in a hand we do not recognise, saying we are not to buy holly, mistletoe, evergreens, Christmas tree, or baubles of any kind, as they will be sent to us on December 22. We have inquired of our friends, but have no clue as yet, further than it must be somebody who knows our needs and desires very thoroughly. We have certainly entertained an angel unawares, but which among the crowd of visitors is it most likely to be? The Solitary, I wonder?

I should never have thought it, were it not for the memory of that last day, the scene at the piano, the "song of him that overcometh,"

and the backward glance from the corner as he sprang, absolutely sprang, on the car. There was purpose in it, or I am greatly mistaken. Mr. Man's eyes would be worth looking into, if one could find purpose in their brown depths! Moreover, though I am too notorious a dreamer of dreams to be trusted, I cannot help fancying he went BACK to something; it was not a mere forward move, not a sudden determination to find some new duty to do that life might grow n.o.bler and sweeter, but a return to an old duty grown hateful. That was what I saw in his face as he stood on the crossing, with the noon suns.h.i.+ne caught in his tawny hair and beard. Rhoda, Edith, and I have each made a story about him, and each of us would vouch for the truth of her particular version. I will not tell mine, but this is Rhoda's; and while it differs from my own in several important particulars, it yet bears an astonis.h.i.+ng resemblance to it. It is rather romantic, but if one is to make any sort of story out of the Solitary it must be a romantic one, for he suggests no other.

'Rhoda began her tale with a thrilling introduction that set us all laughing (we smile here when still the tears are close at hand; indeed, we must smile, or we could not live): the prelude being something about a lonely castle in the heart of the Hartz Mountains, and a prattling golden-haired babe stretching its arms across a ruined moat in the direction of its absent father. This was in the nature of an absurd prologue, but when she finally came to the Solitary she grew serious; for she made him in the bygone days a sensitive child and a dreamy, impetuous youth, with a domineering, ill-tempered father who was utterly unable and unwilling to understand or to sympathise with him. His younger brother (for Rhoda insists on a younger brother) lived at home, while he, the elder, spent, or misspent, his youth and early manhood in a German university. As the years went on, the relations between himself and his father grew more and more strained. Do as the son might, he could never please, either in his line of thought and study or in his practical pursuits. The father hated his books, his music, his poetry, and his artist friends, while he on his part found nothing to stimulate or content him in his father's tasks and manner of life.

His mother pined and died in the effort to keep peace between them, but the younger brother's schemes were quite in an opposite direction. At this time, Mr. Man flung himself into a foolish marriage, one that promised little in the shape of the happiness he craved so eagerly. (Rhoda insists on this unhappy marriage; I am in doubt about it.) Finally his father died, and on being summoned home, as he supposed, to take his rightful place and a.s.sume the management of the estate, he found himself disinherited. He could have borne the loss of fortune and broad acres better than this convincing proof of his father's dislike and distrust, and he could have endured even that, had it not befallen him through the perfidy of his brother. When, therefore, he was met by his wife's bitter reproaches and persistent coldness he closed his heart against all the world, shook the dust of home from off his feet, left his own small fortune behind him, kissed his little son, and became a wanderer on the face of the earth.

'This is substantially Rhoda's story, but it does not satisfy her completely. She says, in her whimsical way, that it needs another villain to account properly for Mr. Man's expression.

'Would it not be strange if by any chance we have brought him to a happier frame of mind? Would it not be a lovely tribute to the secret power of this place, to the healing atmosphere of love that we try to create--that atmosphere in which we bathe our own tired spirits day by day, recreating ourselves with every new dawn? But whether our benefactor be the Solitary or not, some heart has been brought into new relation with us and with the world. It only confirms my opinion that everybody is at his or her best in the presence of children. In what does the magic of their influence consist? This morning I was riding down in the horse-cars, and a poor ragged Italian woman entered, a baby in her arms, and two other children following close behind. The girl was a mite of a thing, prematurely grave, serious, pretty, and she led a boy just old enough to toddle. She lifted him carefully up to the seat (she who should have been lifted herself!), took his hat, smoothed his damp, curly hair, and tucked his head down on her shoulder, a shoulder that had begun its life-work full early, poor tot! The boy was a feeble, frail, ill-nourished, dirty young urchin, who fell asleep as soon as his head touched her arm. His child-nurse, having made him comfortable, gave a sigh of relief, and looked up and down the car with a radiant smile of content. Presto, change! All the railroad magnates and clerks had been watching her over their newspapers, and in one instant she had captured the car. I saw tears in many eyes, and might have seen more had not my own been full. There was apparently no reason for the gay, winsome, enchanting smile that curved the red mouth, brought two dimples into the brown cheeks, and sunny gleams into two dark eyes. True, she was riding instead of walking, and her charge was sleeping instead of waking and wailing; but these surely were trifling matters on which to base such rare content. Yet there it was s.h.i.+ning in her face as she met a dozen pairs of eyes, and saw in each of them love for her sweet motherly little self, and love for the "eternal womanly" of which she was the visible expression. There was a general exodus at Brett Street, and every man furtively slipped a piece of silver into the child's lap as he left the car; each, I think, trying to hide his action from the others.

'It is of threads such as these that I weave the fabric of my daily happiness,--a happiness that my friends never seem able to comprehend; the blindest of them pity me, indeed, but I consider myself like Mary of old, "blessed among women."'

Another day.--'G.o.d means all sorts of things when he sends men and women into the world. That he means marriage, and that it is the chiefest good, I have no doubt, but it is the love forces in it that make it so. I may, perhaps, reach my highest point of development without marriage, but I can never do it unless I truly and deeply love somebody or something. I am not sure, but it seems to me G.o.d intends me for other people's children, not for my own. My heart is so entirely in my work that I fancy I have none left for a possible husband. If ever a man comes who is strong enough and determined enough to sweep things aside and make a place for himself w.i.l.l.y- nilly, I shall ask him to come in and rest; but that seems very unlikely. What man have I ever seen who would help me to be the woman my work helps me to be? Of course there are such, but the Lord keeps them safely away from my humble notice, lest I should die of love or be guilty of hero-wors.h.i.+p.

'Men are so dull, for the most part! They are often tender and often loyal, but they seldom put any spiritual leaven into their tenderness, and their loyalty is apt to be rather unimaginative.

Heigho! I wish we could make lovers as the book-writers do, by rolling the virtues and graces of two or three men into one! I'd almost like to be a man in this decade, a young, strong man, for there are such splendid giants to slay! To be sure, a woman can always buckle on the sword, and that is rather a delightful avocation, after all; but somehow there are comparatively few men nowadays who care greatly to wear swords or have them buckled on.

There is no inspiration in trying to buckle on the sword of a man who never saw one, and who uses it wrong end foremost, and falls down on it, and entangles his legs in it, and scratches his lady's hand with it whenever he kisses her! And therefore, these things, for aught I see, being unalterably so, I will take children's love, woman's love, and man's friends.h.i.+p; man's friends.h.i.+p, which, if it is not life's poetry, is credible prose, says George Meredith,--"a land of low undulations, instead of Alps, beyond the terrors and deceptions."

That will fill to overflowing my life, already so full, and in time I shall grow from everybody's Mistress Mary into everybody's Mother Mary, and that will be the end of me in my present state of being. I am happy, yes, I am blessedly happy in this prospect, and yet--'

Another day.--'My beloved work! How beautiful it is! Toniella has not brought little Nino this week. She says he is ill, but that he sits every day in the orchard, singing our songs and modelling birds from the lump of clay we sent him. When I heard that phrase "in the orchard," I felt a curious sensation, for I know they live in a tenement house; but I said nothing, and went to visit them.

'The orchard is a few plants in pots and pans on a projecting window- sill!

'My heart went down on its knees when I saw it. The divine spark is in those children; it will be a moving power, helping them to struggle out of their present environment into a wider, sunnier one-- the one of the real orchards. How fresh, how full of possibilities, is the world to the people who can keep the child heart, and above all to the people who are able to see orchards in window-boxes!'

Another day.--'Lisa's daily lesson is just finished. It was in arithmetic, and I should have lost patience had it not been for her musical achievements this morning. Edith played the airs of twenty or thirty games, and without a word of help from us she a.s.sociated the right memory with each, and ill.u.s.trated it with pantomime. In some cases, she invented gestures of her own that showed deeper intuition than ours; and when, last of all, the air of the Carrier Doves was played, a vision of our Solitary must have come before her mind. Her lip trembling, she held an imaginary letter in her fingers, and, brus.h.i.+ng back the hair from her forehead (his very gesture!), she pa.s.sed her hand across her eyes, laid the make-believe note in Rhoda's ap.r.o.n, and slipped out of the door without a word.

"'Mr. Man! Mr. Man! It is Mr. Man when he couldn't read his letter!" cried the children. "Why doesn't he come to see us any more, Miss Rhoda?"

'"He is doing some work for Miss Mary, I think," answered Rhoda, with a teasing look at me.