Our Children Part 2

MARY

Little girls have a natural desire to gather flowers and stars. But stars won't let themselves be picked and so seem to teach little girls that in this world there are some desires that are destined never to be satisfied.

Miss Mary went out in the park, where she discovered a basket of hortensias. She knew that the flowers of hortensias are pretty, and so she picked one. It was very hard to pick too. She seized the plant in both hands, at great risk of sitting down hard when the stem broke. She was very pleased and proud at what she'd done. But her nurse saw her: and scolded and darted at Miss Mary, seizing her by the arm. To make her do penance she did not put her in the dark closet this time, but posted her underneath a great chestnut tree, in the shade of a big j.a.panese umbrella.

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There Miss Mary sits, surprised and astonished, and thinks it all over.

Her flower in her hand, with the stripes of the umbrella making rays around her, she looked like some queer little foreign idol.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LITTLE PENITENT, PERFECTLY STILL BENEATH HER s.h.i.+NING FRAME, LOOKS AROUND HER AT THE SKY AND THE EARTH. THEY ARE LARGE, THE EARTH AND SKY, AND CAN AMUSE A LITTLE GIRL FOR A WHILE. BUT THE HYDRANGEA INTERESTS HER MORE THAN ANYTHING.

_Printed in France_]

Her nurse said: "Mary, I forbid you to carry that flower in your mouth.

If you disobey me your little dog Toto will eat your ears up for you"--with which warning she departed.

The little penitent, perfectly still beneath her s.h.i.+ning frame, looks around her at the sky and the earth. They are large, the earth and sky, and can amuse a little girl for a while. But the hortensia flower interests her more than anything. She reflects: "A flower should smell good." And she raises nearer to her nose the beautiful rosy, blue tempered ball. She tries to smell it but can smell nothing. She is not clever at smelling perfumes. Not so very, very long ago she used to breathe over the roses instead of sniffing them in. We must not laugh at her for that: one can't learn everything at once. Besides, she might have had, like her mother, a very subtle sense of smell that could smell nothing. The flower of the hortensia has no odor. That is why one grows tired of it, in spite of its beauty. But Miss Mary thinks: "This flower is made of sugar, maybe." With that she opens her mouth wide, and starts to raise the flower to her lips.

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A cry recalls her. Yap!

It is the little dog Toto, who, darting round a border of geraniums, comes and sets himself, his ears straight up, before Miss Mary and looks at her warningly with his round bright eyes.

PAN PIPES

Three children of the same village, Peter, James and John, are standing up looking off at something. Ranged side by side they form together the outline of a Pan Pipes with three reeds. Peter, at the left, is a big boy; John, at the right, is small; James, between the two, may consider himself big or little, according as he regards his neighbor on the left or right. It is a situation upon which I invite you to meditate, for it is yours, as it is mine or any one in the world's. Each one of us, just like James, may consider himself great or small, according as his neighbor cuts a big or little figure in the world.

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That's why one can truthfully say that James is neither big nor little; that he is both big and little. It is as G.o.d wishes it to be. He is the last reed of all in our living Pan Pipes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THREE CHILDREN OF THE SAME VILLAGE, PETER, JAMES AND JOHN, ARE STANDING UP LOOKING OFF AT SOMETHING. RANGED SIDE BY SIDE THEY FORM TOGETHER THE OUTLINE OF A PAN PIPES WITH THREE REEDS.

_Printed in France_]

But what are his two comrades doing? They are gazing off into s.p.a.ce, all three of them. At what? At something which has disappeared below the horizon, something which they can't see any more but still see in their mind's eye, and which still dazzles them. Little John has forgotten his eel-skin whip with which just now he incessantly beat up his wooden shoes in the dusty road. Peter and James, their hands behind their backs, gaze stolidly.

What they saw, all three, was the wagon of a travelling peddler, a wagon drawn by his own arms, which had stopped in the village street.

The peddler pulled back the oilcloth that covered his wagon, and in a minute any quant.i.ty of knives, scissors, little guns, puppets, soldiers of wood and lead, cologne bottles, cakes of soap, pictures, a thousand dazzling things were exposed to the admiring view of all the men, women and children in the town. The servants from the farm and the mill were pale with longing; Peter and James were red with joy. Little John lost his tongue. Everything in the wagon seemed beautiful and precious to them. But the most desirable things of all were the unknown articles of which they could not guess either use or reason: as for example the bowls polished like mirrors that reflected your face comically deformed; paintings of Epinol, covered with faces more lively than reality; needle cases and mysterious boxes that contained unimaginable things.

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The women made purchases of guimpes and lace by the yard, and the peddler rolled the black oilcloth back again over the riches in his wagon, and putting himself in the traces once more started on his further way; and now the wagon and the waggoner have disappeared below the horizon.

ROGER'S STABLE

It's a great care to keep up a stable. The horse is a delicate animal and requires a thousand attentions. If you don't believe me ask Roger.

Just now he is grooming his beautiful chestnut, who would be the pearl of wooden horses, the flower of the Black Forest steeds, if he had not lost half his tail in battle. It's a matter of some moment with Roger to know if wooden horses' tails grow in again.

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Again having made believe groom his horses, Roger gives them some imaginary oats, for it is an understood thing that the little wooden animals on which small boys ride through the land of dreams are always fed in this way.

Behold Roger starting out for his ride. He has mounted his horse. Even though the poor beast has no more ears, and all his mane looks like an old broken comb, Roger loves him. Why?

[Ill.u.s.tration: JUST NOW HE IS GROOMING HIS BEAUTIFUL CHESTNUT, WHO WOULD BE THE PEARL OF WOODEN HORSES, THE FLOWER OF THE BLACK FOREST STUD, IF HE HAD NOT LOST HALF HIS TAIL IN BATTLE.

_Printed in France_]

It would be hard to say. This red horse was a present from a poor man, and maybe there is some secret grace in the gifts of the poor. Remember our Lord who blessed the widow's mite.

Roger is gone. He is quite far away. The flowers on the carpet already seem to him like flowers in tropical, distant countries. A pleasant journey, little Roger! May your hobby horse conduct you safely through the world. May you never have a hobby more dangerous. Little or great we all ride. Who has not his hobby?

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Men's hobbies ride like mad through all the ways of life; one makes a bid for glory, another for pleasure; many of them jump from high places and break their rider's necks. I hope when you are grown up, little Roger, you will bestride two hobby horses that will keep you always in the right path: one lively, the other quiet; both beautiful--courage and kindness.

COURAGE

Louisa and Frederick have gone to school along the village street. The sun is s.h.i.+ning and the two children sing. They sing like the nightingale because their hearts are gay. They sing an old song that their grandmothers sang when they were little girls and which one day their children's children will sing, for songs are frail immortals which fly from lip to lip throughout the ages. The lips that sing them lose their color and are silent one after the other, but the songs are always on the wing. There are songs that come down to us from a time when all the men were shepherds and all the women shepherdesses--which tell us of nothing but sheep and wolves.

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Louisa and Frederick sing, their mouths round as flowers, and their song rises shrill and clear on the morning air. But suddenly the sound catches in Frederick's wind pipe.

What power invisible has strangled the song in this schoolboy throat?