A Face Illumined Part 17

"I fear your wit is readier than your sword. The soldier that boasts how he would overwhelm some other foe than the one before him loses credit to the degree that he protests."

"You are more exacting, Miss Burton, than the lady who threw her glove down among the lions. What chance would Hercules himself have of lifting those twelve heavy females out of the dumps?"

"It's not what we do, but what we attempt, that shows our spirit."

"Then I shall expect to see you attempt great things."

"I'm only a woman."

"And I'm only a man."

"Only a man! what greater vantage-ground could one have than to be a man?"

"The advantage is not so uncommon that one need be unduly elated,"

state Stanton with a shrug. "I forget how many hundred millions of us there are. But I'm curious to see how you will set about rendering the hues of this leaden day prismatic."

"Only by being the innocent cause of your highly colored language, I imagine."

"Oh, dear," exclaimed a little boy petulantly, as he strolled through the hall and looked out at the steady downfall of rain. "Oh dear!

Why can't it stop raining?"

"There's the philosophy of our time for you in a nutsh.e.l.l," said Van Berg. "When a human atom wants anything, what business has the universe to stand in its way?"

"But you have no better philosophy to offer the disconsolate little fellow, Mr. Ban Berg?" Miss Burton asked.

"Now, Van, it's your turn. Remember, Miss Burton, he has the same vantage-ground that I have. Indeed he's half an inch taller."

"The world long ago learned better than to measure men by inches, Mr. Stanton."

"Alas, Miss Burton," said Van Berg; "the best philosophy I have is this: when it rains, let it rain."

"And thus I'm privileged to meet representatives of those two ancient and honorable schools, the Stoic and Epicurean, and you both think, I fear, that if Xanthippe had founded a school, my philosophy would also be defined. But perhaps you will think better of me if I tell that little fellow a story to pa.s.s the time for him. What's the matter, little folk?" she asked, for two or three more small clouded faces had gathered at the door.

"Matter enough," said the boy. "This horrid old rain keeps us in the house, where we can't do anything or stay anywhere. We mustn't play in the parlor, we mustn't make a noise in the halls, we mustn't run on the piazzas. I'd like to live in a world where there was some place for boys."

"Poor child," said Miss Burton; "this rain is as bad for you as the deluge to Noah's dove, it has left you no refuge for the sole of your foot. Will you come with me? No one has said you must not hear a jolly story."

"You won't tell me about any good little boys who died when they were as big as I am?"

"I'll keep my word--it shall be a jolly story."

"May we hear it too?" asked the other children.

"Yes, all of you."

"Where shall we go?"

"We won't disturb any one in the far corner of the parlor by the piano. If you know of any other little people, you can bring them there, too," and they each darted off in search of especial cronies.

"May we not hear the story also?" asked Stanton.

"No, indeed, I may be able to interest children, but not philosophers."

"Then we will go and meditate," said Van Berg.

"Yes," she added, "and in accordance with a New York custom of great antiquity, made familiar to you, no doubt, by that grave historian Diedrich Knickerbocker, who gives several graphic accounts of such cloudy ruminations on the part of your city's great-grandfathers."

"I fear you think that the wors.h.i.+pful Peter Stuyvensant's counsellors indulged in more tobacco than thought, and that the majority of them had as few ideas as one of Mr. Burleigh's chimneys," said Van Berg. "And you regard us as the direct descendants of these men, whose lives were crowned with smoke-wreaths only."

"Now, Mr. Van Berg, you prove yourself to be a philosopher of a modern school, you draw your inductions so far and wide from your diminutive premise."

"Well, Miss Burton, you stand in very favorable contrast with us poor mortals. We are going out to add to the clouds that lower over the world, while you are trying to banish them."

"And if, after helping the children towards the close of this dismal day, your heart should relent towards us," added Stanton, "you will find two worthy objects of your charity."

"Oh what a falling off is here!" she exclaimed, following the impatient children. "Knights at first, then philosophers, and now objects of charity."

Miss Burton evidently kept her word, and told a "jolly story," for the friends saw through the parlor windows that the circle around her grew larger and more hilarious continually. Then would follow moments of rapt and eager attention, showing that the tale gained in excitement and interest what it lost in humor. Young people, who did not like to be cla.s.sed with children, one by one yielded to the temptation. There was life and enjoyment in that corner and dulness elsewhere, and nothing is so attractive in the world as genuine and joyous life.

Even elderly ladies looked wistfully up at the occasional bursts of contagious merriment, and then sighed that they had lost the power of laughing so easily.

At last the marvelous legend came to an end amid a round of prolonged applause.

"Another, another!" was the general outcry.

But Miss Burton had observed that the ladies and gentlemen present seemed inclined to be friendly towards the young people's fun, and therefore she broached another scheme of pleasure that would vary the entertainment.

"Perhaps," she said, "your papas and mammas and the other good people will not object to an old-fas.h.i.+oned Virginia reel."

A shout of welcome greeted this proposition.

Miss Burton raised her finger so impressively that there was an instant hush. Indeed she seemed to have gained entire control of the large and miscellaneous group which surrounded her.

"We will draw up a pet.i.tion," she said; "for we best enjoy our own rights and pleasures when respecting those of others. This little boy and girl shall take the pet.i.tion around to all the ladies and gentlemen in the room, and this shall be the pet.i.tion:

"'Dear lady and kind sir: Please don't object to our dancing a Virginia reel in the parlor.'"

"All who wish to dance can sign it. Now we will go to the office and draw up the pet.i.tion." And away they all started, the younger children, wild with glee, capering in advance.

Stanton threw away his cigar and met her at the office register.

"Gentle shepherdess," he asked, "whither are you leading your flock?"

"How behind the age you are!" she replied. "Can you not see that the flock is leading me?"

"If I were a wolf I would not trouble the flock but would carry off the shepherdess--to a game of billiards."

"What, then, would become of the flock?"