A Man in the Open Part 23

Was he real, or had I imagined him? "My name is Kate," I answered. "My husband would be ever so pleased to make you welcome. But he's away."

"And are you lonely?"

"Not now." Somehow the pain and fear were gone as though they dared not stay in the serene presence of this dear old saint. "Are you sure," I ventured, "that you're not a--"

"Fairy? Believe me, dear lady, I'm a very commonplace little person.

"A humble admirer of yours, one Tearful George, has been kind enough to bring me here in his buck-board, which has complaining wheels, a creaky body, and such a wheezy horse. He, Tearful George I mean, contracted for seventy-five dollars to bring me to paradise and back; but as we creaked our pa.s.sage through that weird black forest, I feared my guide had taken the pathway which leads to the other place. I confess, the upper forest frightened me, and now, having come to paradise, I don't want to go back." He sighed. "George," he added, "is making camp up yonder. Mrs.

Smith, will you laugh at me very much if I tell you a fairy tale? It's quite a nice one."

"Oh, do!" I begged.

"Well," he began, "you know where the three birch trees are all using a single pool as their mirror?"

Of course these were the Three Graces. Mrs. O'Flynn and I had known for months past that the spot was haunted.

"Each of them," said my visitor, "seems to think the others quite superfluous."

That was true. I asked him if any one was there.

"A lady, yes."

"That's the minx," I whispered. "She's a fairy. But don't tell my husband. You know he laughs at me for being so superst.i.tious."

"Indeed. Fact is, Mrs. Smith, she was bathing, and George insisted, most stupidly I think, on watering his horse at that pool. I mounted guard, with my back turned, of course, and tried to persuade the good man to water his horse elsewhere. He couldn't see any sanguinary lady in the rosy pool, and you know the poor fellow has but a very meager choice of words. He reviled me, and my progenitors, and if you'll believe me, my dear mother was not at all the sort of person George described. He made me feel so plain, too, with his candor about my personal appearance. And all that time, while George made my flesh creep with his comments, the lady in the pool was splashing me. I'm still quite damp."

"Did the horse see?"

"Do horses wink, Mrs. Smith? Do they smile? Can they blush? The Graces shook their robes above our heads, the squirrels gossiped, the rippled pool caught glints from the rising sun, and a flight of humming-birds came whirring, as though they had been thrown in George's face. Them sanguinary birds, he said, was always getting in the ruddy way. As to the old horse, he kicked up his heels and pranced off sidewise down the glen, and the man followed, rumbling benedictions."

I explained that my dear husband can not see the minx, that my servant dare not look.

"I doubt," said Father Jared, with regret, "that very few fairies nowadays are superst.i.tious enough to believe in us poor mortals."

For that I could have kissed him.

"They used," the dear old man went on, "to believe in our forefathers, but there is a very general decline of faith. It is not for us to blame them. What fairy, for example, could be expected to believe in Tearful George? He chews tobacco."

"Oh, tell me more about her. Did she speak to you? She's fearfully dangerous. We had a ranch-hand here who went quite fey, possessed, I think. I'm frightened of her now."

"She thinks," he retorted, "that you're a wicked woman."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. She said you would run away, and you did. I am to tell you that's very unwise."

"Please tell the minx to mind her own business."

"What is her business?" he asked mildly.

"Being a fairy, I suppose. I'll never forgive her for what she did to Billy. Besides," I added, "she makes fun of us."

"No wonder, for we humans are so stupid."

"She's full of mischief."

"Of course." The old man's eyes twinkled and blinked as though--I can't set words to fit that puzzled memory. He had told me twice that he was not a fairy. "I am to tell you from my lady, that she is not the minx.

Winds, waves, and living things," he said, "are full of mischief and laughter. The sun has room to sparkle even in a tear, and Heaven touches our lips with every smile, for joy is holy. Spirits, angels, fairies, are only thoughts which have caught the light celestial, mirror-thoughts which shine in Heaven's glory. Children, and happy people see that light, which never shines on any clouded soul."

"My soul is clouded. Help me."

"I wonder," he smiled with his old kind eyes. "Have you a sense of humor? Ah,--there. Then you need never worry, or run away. As sunshine and rain are to the dear earth, so are laughter and tears to every living soul. Humor, dear, is the weather in which the spirit lives."

"But sorrow and tears?"

"Why, how can the sun make rainbows without rain?"

"You'll praise pain next!"

"That is a sacrament," he answered gravely, "the outward sign of inward grace. For how else can G.o.d reach through selfishness down to the soul in need?"

My pain had come back, but it was welcome now.

On the left were the solemn pines, and at their feet white flowers; on the right were my fair birch trees; and the glade between lay in warm sunshine.

"Lift up your hearts," whispered the priest, and I saw my trees, which in winter storm and summer sun alike show their brave faces to the changing sky.

"We lift them up unto the Lord," they seemed to answer.

"It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty," he responded, then looked as it seemed into my very soul.

I saw the dear priest's face through tears, but when I brushed them away the mist remained. He seemed remote, awful, and beautiful.

"There is a place," he said, "where souls awaiting incarnation, rest, and from that place they come, borne by messengers. A messenger was waiting in these woods, no evil spirit, my daughter, but one who came bearing a child to you. She stands august and lovely at your back, and in her arms the soul of a man-child, just on the verge of incarnation, waits at the boundary of the spirit land.

"'The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.'

"That light is all around you, and I must go. This very ground is holy.

Fare you well."

Two days had pa.s.sed since my dear Jesse left, then through the long day I waited in the house, and the blue gloom of night swept up the glowing cliff. It was then I heard the signal shot from the rim-rock, and told my baby David that his father was coming home.

CHAPTER XIV