The Right Knock Part 3

"Just wait awhile. Many people can be heroic in great things, but are sadly deficient when it comes to the little things," said Grace, with her usual caution. "I believe I could be a heroine myself, if some grand opportunity came," she added, smiling.

"Oh, Grace, don't trifle so; you know this is a very serious matter with Mr. and Mrs. Hayden, and they are both doing n.o.bly," cried Kate, with tears in her eyes.

"Well, queen Katherine, I don't mean any harm, and you must not think anything of my brusque speeches. As you know, there is a tinge of skepticism in me which I can not help, and my ideals are so much higher than the realities of life, that I am always painfully conscious of the difference."

"Well, what would you wish Mrs. Hayden to be like, for instance, in order to come up to your ideal of the heroic woman?" asked Kate in a softened tone.

"Kate dear, I love Mrs. Hayden as much as you do, and would not for a moment disparage her virtues, but it strikes me as a philosophical fact that as a rule, human nature can and does display wonderful courage in great emergencies, but fails miserably in details, and this ought not to be so. Nothing would please me better than to see one life prove that I am wrong."

"That is all true, Gracie, about humanity in general, but she is lovely, and I am sorry for her having to be lame all her life. It's a perfect shame that she must lose even her health, for of course she will never be strong again."

"Another defect to be noted somewhere in the universal economy. It seems to me we are pretty helpless creatures, generally speaking, for it all appears to be a matter of chance whether we get well or not, when we _do_ get sick," mused Grace, bent upon drawing her own conclusions.

Poor girl! Life had been rather hard for her, and she judged it as it appeared, and there _did_ seem a great flaw somewhere which she was trying her best to solve by noting every phase of life as she found it.

Naturally bright, keenly intellectual and very independent, she was a philosopher as well as an artist, and always ready for a tilt with the world on its most petted opinions. Hers was a reasoning mind that observed all inconsistencies and discrepancies in anything she studied, and there was generally a little acidity in her judgment of the world and its bigoted ways.

"I can't see why Mrs. Hayden should not be cured completely," continued Kate, ignoring her companion's last shot, "for it wasn't so bad that anybody knew of until she got up."

"My dear madam," said Grace, striking an owlish att.i.tude, "you have not read the latest opinion expressed by one of the most learned professors in the Allopathic school of medicine in Paris. He stood before the cla.s.s of graduating students and said: 'Gentlemen, you have done me the honor to come here to listen to a lecture on the science of medicine. I must frankly confess I know nothing about it, and, moreover, know of no one who does. Any one who takes medicine is fortunate if it helps him, but more fortunate if it does not harm him.' Whether our friend is fortunate or unfortunate is a question hard to decide. I move we discuss another subject."

Kate laughed in spite of herself, and Grace got up to take another view of the "Modern Hypatia," which at last was growing into a visible creation under her skillful brush.

"Isn't that a woman for you?" she said, pointing to the picture admiringly, as she held it under the gas light.

"Yes, I like her better than Hebe. She has a look of reserved power about her that is captivating, but there is something in her face that makes me sad, something that is lacking."

"What is it? Tell me, for _I_ can see nothing!" Grace questioned impetuously.

"Wait a minute, perhaps I can define it. There! hold it so. Let me see,"

and Kate walked off a few paces.

"Yes, it is dissatisfaction, an incompleteness, as though she had not found what she sought."

"Can you see that, Kate? Then I am at the same time the most happy and unhappy creature alive," cried Grace, breathlessly dropping into a chair and holding the picture fondly near her face.

"Why?" said the astonished Kate.

"Don't you know I am forever putting myself into my pictures? And I've succeeded too admirably with this one. The poor thing has caught my unconscious fault of finding defects everywhere. Oh, I must get it out of her some way; how shall I, when to me she looks so perfect?"

"You better get it out of yourself first, if that is the trouble,"

replied Kate, with a great wave of pity in her voice.

"I wish I could. Oh, why do I have to see everything in the wrong way?

It seems to me life would be heavenly, if I could know only the good in everything." Grace put down the picture and gazed at it with stern, accusing eyes. "I shall leave this one and begin another to-morrow," she finally announced in a subdued tone.

"I am glad you won't rub this out, for she is too lovely," said Kate, softly, as she went about, gently putting things in order, picking up her music and arranging the books.

Grace sat there brooding over her life problems with a new thought in her mind. She dimly realized that a woman must have a genuine message herself before she tries to give it to the world. And alas, her message was sadly deficient, she found. Mechanically she took a book from the table and opening it at random, read:

"If the whole is ever to gladden thee, That whole in the smallest thing thou must see."

"That is not bad philosophy, whose is it?" she thought. She looked at the book. It was Goethe's poems, but she was not in the mood for reading, and she sat thinking till late at night. This was a new sentiment. She would digest it and test its practical truth.

CHAPTER V.

Take up the threads of life at home, Let not the st.i.tches drop; The busy world will know 'tis done Though ne'er it pause nor stop.

"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles."--_Emerson._

A year pa.s.sed away, and Mrs. Hayden grew no better. She was not as cheerful as she had been at first, and instead of growing into the brave, patient woman she longed to become, she had grown fretful and irritable, and was in many ways different from the Mrs. Hayden Kate and Grace had talked about so enthusiastically. None knew better than she, how miserably she had failed to live the life that was soul satisfying--the life that brought forth fruits. In all the years of her prosperity, in the midst of the gayeties and luxuries, she had secretly longed for something she never found, and in one sense it had not been hard for her to give up the life of ease and idleness, because she had hoped to find in the new duties a new peace and satisfaction, had hoped to live up to her ideal of a n.o.ble woman, and it was with her whole heart she had promised her husband her help and sympathy, but in all the eighteen months, she had been but a burden; even calm forbearance and cheerfulness had ceased to be virtues. The children, not having a nursery, must needs be anywhere and everywhere, and in spite of her efforts to the contrary, their noise annoyed her.

To-night she sat thinking it all over, in one of her most despondent moods, for be it said to her credit, things did not always appear as gloomy as she represented them to herself.

The ruddy firelight flickered over her in fitful gleams of light and shadow. The children were out romping in the twilight, enjoying the first snow of the season. Her husband had not yet returned from the store.

What was the use, anyway, pursued the relentless conscience--even the wish to be good was always choked by a complete forgetfulness; and before she could catch her breath the words were out, so, although she had believed nearly all her life that one might grow into goodness, she was quite rebellious to-night with the thought of its impossibility, and she felt bitter, too, to think of the long years of uselessness stretching out before her. Scarcely thirty-five and yet she felt like a cross, crabbed old woman, and shuddered to think of all the years to come, if they were to be like the past, and there seemed no help for it unless she could conquer herself. The doctor had done what he could to cure her dyspepsia but she was a veritable slave to her capricious stomach. She felt one of her oft-recurring sick headaches coming on and every thought grew blacker and more disconsolate. Oh! she wished supper were over and the children safe in bed, so she could be free from their noise, and here they come! she thought, as a great stamping and laughing was heard in the hall.

"Oh, mamma! such lovely snowflakes, just like a fairy's quilt, and they have been falling all over us till we're like people in frost land. Just look, mamma!" cried Mabel, who liked a romp as well as the boys, although she was thirteen. Three-year-old Jamie and five-year-old Fred came trooping in behind.

"Well, mamma, G.o.d has turned on the snow faucets," announced Fred, with characteristic importance.

"An' all 'e fevvers is tummin' down fum 'e 'ky," shouted Jamie at the top of his voice.

"And mamma, _can't_ we have a sled and go coasting this winter?" queried Mabel, not noticing in her eagerness that her mamma was very sick.

"Oh, _don't_ make so much noise. Take them away and keep quiet, Mabel. I can not endure so much confusion."

They went out clanging the door behind them in spite of their efforts to keep quiet, and as their voices grew fainter, she thought with another remorseful pang: "I have sent them away again. Why must I yield always to self instead of overcoming?" Presently, however, all attempts at thinking were lost in the efforts to get the camphor, bathe her head and find some comforting spot whereon to rest her aching temples.

A subdued family gathered around the table that evening and everyone felt the necessity of being quiet as possible. Even Fred and Jamie understood that they _must_ keep still, and managed to keep their voices down to something less than a shrill whisper.

Mrs. Hayden partook only of a small cup of tea and was then a.s.sisted to her room, where she expected to remain for at least two days--the usual time. Her husband spent the evening rubbing her head, bathing it with camphor and keeping the house quiet as possible.

The next day dawned cloudy and grey, with a faint mildness in the air, indicating a thaw. Mabel went to school, Fred and Jamie amused themselves in the back parlor until they were tired and then flattened their noses against the window, trying to see how many drops of melted snow fell from the porch roof.

"I want a snow man," wailed Jamie, suddenly remembering what papa said about the snow long ago.

"Well, you can't have it," said Fred, with great decision, who generally opposed anything on principle.

"Yes, we can. We can go out and make one," persisted Jamie.

"Jack Frost'll bite your fingers."

"No he won't."