Clover and Blue Grass Part 14

Surely we have severed some tie that once bound us to the Great Mother's heart or this outflow and inflow of life and beauty that we call spring would touch men and women too, and then would come the Golden Age.

Nature is kinder to her trees and flowers than she is to her sons and daughters. The girl who lifted her forehead to the sacrament of the rain should have received a blessing that would touch her face with the color of the rose and put the strength and grace of the young trees into her limbs. But how sad and strange she looked, flitting through the vernal freshness of the forest! Her faded calico gown hung limp over her thin body, and her hair and cheek were as faded as the gown. She should have been a nymph, but she was only a tired, worn daughter of the soil, and amid all this opulence of giving there was no gift for her except the ecstatic yearning that was welling up in her heart and leading her here and there in search of something she could not name.

How sweet the air was! She breathed deeply as she walked, and at every inspiration a burden seemed to fall from both body and soul. Just to be alive was good--to breathe, to walk through the sun-flecked forest paths, to feel the warmth of the sunshine on her shoulders, and to know that the world of the forest belonged to her as it belonged to the bird and the bee. She had almost reached the other side of the strip of woodland, and through the trees she caught glimpses of a wheat field stretching like a pale green sea from this strip of woodland to another that belonged to a neighboring farm. She thought of a hymn her mother often sang when the drudgery of the farm permitted her soul to rise on the wings of song:

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood Stand dressed in living green; So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between."

She lifted up her voice and sang the old hymn:

"There is a land of pure delight Where saints immortal reign; Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.

"There everlasting spring abides And never withering flowers: Death, like a narrow sea, divides This pleasant land from ours."

Alas! How strange and sad it sounded with the "careless rapture" of the birds. Never before had a song of death been sung in those forest aisles, and suddenly she stopped, silenced by a sense of the incongruity of such a hymn in the spring woods. Why should one sing of "sweet fields" and "pleasant lands" beyond the sea of death? Right here are pleasant lands and sweet fields, and our songs should be of the "pure delight" of this old earth. Better than such worship as ours the worship of the pagan, who went forth with music to meet the dawn and sang hymns in praise of seed-time and harvest.

It is not alone by "getting and spending" that we "lay waste our powers"

and loosen our hold on the possessions that Nature so freely offers us.

Perpetually she calls to us with her voice of many waters, her winds and bird songs. She opens and closes each day with cloudy splendors that transcend the art of poet or painter. She spends centuries making the columned sanctuaries of her forests more majestic than Solomon's temple, and lights them with the glory of the sun and stars. Life more abundant is in her air and sunshine. She offers to each soul the solitude of the wilderness, and the mountains, where Christ found rest and strength after the presence of crowds had drained him of his virtue. And we--we wrap ourselves in the mantle of Care; we build walls of stone to shut out from us all sweet influences of Nature; we sing of "an everlasting spring", and then let the fleeting hours of our earthly springs go by without once tasting their full sweetness; we look for a heaven beyond death, unmindful of the heaven within and around us; we deem the light that falls through a stained gla.s.s window more religious than the light of open day, and a waxen taper more sacred than a star; we shorten life by cutting it off from its source, and at last, worn out with sordid cares, we give our bodies back to earth without having known one hour of the real joy of life.

Vague, half-formed thoughts like these were in Miranda's mind as she paused and looked up in response to a voice from a neighboring oak: "Chic-o-ree! Chic-o-ree!" The syllables were clear and distinct as if spoken by a human voice, and from a tree across the path came the answer: "Chic-o-ree! Chic-o-ree!" All her consciousness had been merged in seeing, but now she was aware of a chorus of voices calling, chirping, whistling, trilling, fluting, warbling from far and near, the orchestra of May a.s.sembled a month in advance of its usual time.

"If we could only live outdoors!" she whispered to herself. All the high emotions that fill the heart of a poet in spring were stirring in the breast of the country girl, and finding no way of expression they could only change into poignant longings that she herself but half understood.

There was a puzzled, baffled look on her face as she stood hesitant, wondering what step to take next. So many remembered things she had found in the woods!--music, perfume, light winds and warmth and flowers and trees, but there was still something, nameless, elusive, that had once been hers, and she must find it before the day ended.

She stooped to gather a violet growing by a fallen tree, and the second time that day a wave of memory and feeling swept over her, and in one exquisite moment she found the lost treasure! For the heart that leaped and throbbed faster at sight of the violet was the heart of a little child.

It was past the middle of the afternoon. The wind had died down to a mere occasional whisper, the birds chirped more softly, and there seemed to be a hush and a pause, as if all the creatures of the wood felt the languorous spell of the hour. Miranda looked about for a resting place.

She was standing near the main path in a partly cleared s.p.a.ce, a sort of fairy ring, in the center of which was a giant tree that had suffered a lingering death from a stroke of lightning. Lithe and graceful, with the sap of a new life coursing through their veins, its comrades were waving and beckoning to each other and welcoming the birds to leafy shelters, while, stark and stiff with decay, the stricken one stood like the skeleton at the feast, stretching its helpless arms skyward as if imploring Nature to raise it from the dead. All around it were the kings of the forest, the fruitful walnut and hickory whose leaves smell like the "close-bit thyme" on the downs of Suss.e.x by the sea; the ta.s.seled oak, and the elm more graceful than any graveyard willow; but moved by some hidden impulse, this girl whose youth was almost gone chose the dead tree for her own. The ground was littered with strips of bark that the electric storm had torn from the trunk. She gathered these and laid them at the root for protection from the damp earth. Then, seating herself, she leaned back against the trunk of the tree and drew a long, sighing breath of deep content. Through the woods on the other side of the path she could see the field of young wheat, and she had a vague, dreamy thought of the summer's heat that would ripen the grain and of the harvest with its terrible toil for the women of the farm. The heat of summer and the cold of winter were alike hateful to her, but no thought of either could break this blissful calm. Like an evil dream the winter was gone, and like an evil dream the summer too would go, and both would be forgotten. What mattered heat or cold? Every winter had its spring; every summer its autumn; and the heart need remember only its springs and autumns. She looked upward into the depths of pale blue ether, and followed the course of the white, drifting clouds. O, ecstasy of ecstasies! To live on such an earth with such a sky above! Looking at the sky was like looking into a vast crystal. Farther and farther into s.p.a.ce her gaze seemed to penetrate, and presently her soul began to follow her gaze. Something in that boundless s.p.a.ce seemed to be drawing her out of the body. Her breath was so light it would hardly have moved a gossamer; her eyelids drooped slowly and heavily, and she slept a sleep too deep for dreams.

An hour pa.s.sed, and still the mystery of sleep enfolded her. A bee hummed noisily about her head, a catbird sang in a tree near by, but she was too far away to be disturbed by any sound of earth.

"Ye are not bound!

The soul of things is sweet, The heart of being is celestial rest--"

All this the sleeper knew. She had broken the chains of habit that mortals forge for themselves and bind on themselves; in the freedom of that spring day her soul had tasted the sweetness that lies at the "soul of things", and now in sleep she had found the "celestial rest" that lies at "the heart of being."

Was that a human footstep or was it a rabbit rustling the underbrush?

Was it a human voice or the note of a bird? Along the fresh path between the two roads came a man, walking with a glad, free stride and whistling softly under his breath. The joy of the season was in his face, and he was at home in the woods, for when a redbird called to its mate, the man whistled a reply and smiled to hear the bird's instant response.

Suddenly he caught sight of the sleeping girl at the foot of the tree; the whistle and the smile died on his lips and he stopped short, amazed and bewildered. A woman asleep in the forest! Wonder of wonders! The sunshine flecked her face and her hair, and in the sweet placidity of sleep he hardly recognized the girl he had often seen in the country church on Sundays. What was she doing here alone and unprotected?

Surprise and wonder vanished as he realized the situation, and his face crimsoned like a bashful girl's. For the moment the whole wood seemed to belong to the sleeper at whom he was gazing, and he felt the confusion of one who accidentally invades the privacy of a maiden's room. Here was no fairy princess to be wakened with a kiss, but a helpless woman who must be guarded as long as she slept, and he was a knight in homespun appointed to keep the watch. He knew, though no poet had ever told him, that sleep is "a holy thing." If it had been possible, he would have silenced the songs of the birds, and he held his breath as he turned and tiptoed softly away, looking timidly back now and then to see if she still slept. When he had gone a few rods, he stepped out of the path and took his place behind the trunk of a tree.

Here he could watch and see that no other intruder pa.s.sed by, and when she wakened he would be ready to follow her homeward flight. There were tasks at home awaiting his hand, but here was a work more important than any labor of farm or fireside. Steadfastly he watched and listened, while the sun sank lower, and the woods were filled with a golden glow like the radiance of many candles lighted in some great temple.

Sleep is a mystery, and so is our awakening from sleep. Who can tell where the soul goes, when the body lies motionless, unseeing, unhearing, and who can tell what calls it back from those far and unremembered lands?

It may have been the chill of the coming night as the sun went down, or the cry of a bird that summoned Miranda again to earth. She opened her eyes with a long, sighing breath. How heavenly to waken out of doors and see the blue sky and the swaying limbs of the trees instead of the cracked ceiling of her bedroom! Then, as full consciousness came back to her with memory of the day just pa.s.sed, she saw that the sun was nearly down. Night was at hand; the birds were seeking their nests, and she must return to her home. With the thought of home came the thought of duty, of the undone work she had left behind her that morning, and her mother toiling in the gloomy kitchen. She sprang up, every sense alert, turned her face in the direction of home, and took the nearest path through the underbrush.

The watcher by the tree heard her flying steps and breathed a sigh of relief. He moved cautiously around the trunk of the oak and waited till he was sure she was out of the wood. Then he followed her trail and caught sight of her half-way across the plowed field. He watched till she was safe inside the pasture and then retraced his steps to the dead tree. Had he been living in a dream? No, for here were the withered violets lying on the ground witnessing to the reality of the last few hours. He gathered up the poor, limp flowers, placed them carefully in his waistcoat pocket and walked rapidly homeward.

The sun was just on the horizon line, when Miranda reached the garden gate, and the splendor of light all around made her pause and look back to the glowing West. Clouds were gathering for a storm; every cloud was a mount of transfiguration, golden-hued or rose-colored, and the evening sky was pierced by long arrows of light that grew brighter and more far-reaching as the great central light sank lower behind the little hills. The wind was blowing across the fields, carrying with it the fragrance that night draws from the heart of the forest. One moment the sad magnificence of dying day held her spellbound, then conscience spoke again, and she hurried into the kitchen. The golden light was streaming into the room, bringing out all its ugliness and disorder, and her mother was standing by the table just where Miranda had left her that morning.

"This is a pretty time of day for you to come home. Where have you been all this time?" She looked at her daughter with cold displeasure, but under the displeasure Miranda saw the expression of despair and weariness that comes of unrecompensed toil, and a pang of remorse went through her heart. She took her mother by the shoulders and gently pushed her away from the table.

"Go out and sit on the porch, Mother, and look at the sky. I'll get supper, and to-morrow I'll begin the house cleaning."

There was something in the girl's voice that checked the rising anger in her mother's heart and stilled the upbraiding words that were on her lips. She looked searchingly at her daughter and then turned silently away. Miranda went to work with a willingness that surprised herself.

All the weariness and disgust of the morning were gone. She had voluntarily resumed the shackles of duty, but as she worked she looked out of the window to catch glimpses of the fading splendor that was rounding out her flawless day, and in her heart she resolved that as long as she lived, no spring should pa.s.s without a day in the woods. She had eaten nothing since morning, but the mood of exaltation was still upon her, and even the odor of the food she cooked roused no sense of hunger. She thought of a Bible text learned when she was a child: "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of G.o.d." Perhaps all the splendor of color and light, all the opulence of perfume and warmth and music that make spring are words of G.o.d. All day she had been living by those words, and she knew the meaning of another occult saying of Christ: "I have meat to eat that ye know not of."

She placed the evening meal on the table, called the family, and served them more cheerfully than ever before; and when they had eaten, she cleared the table and washed the dishes, while her mother rested again on the porch. Her hands moved mechanically over the work. She could hear the voices of her father and brothers; they were talking about crops and the weather, and the planting that must be done that week. Now and then her mother put in a word of querulous complaining over the hardship of the day just pa.s.sed and of all those that were to come. She heard it as in a dream for still "the holy spirit of the spring" possessed her, and it seemed strange and unbelievable that people could be troubled over such trifles as sweeping and cleaning and cooking, when there were the woods and the great, deep peace of the woods in which all such cares might be forgotten.

After she had set the table for breakfast, she went out on the porch.

Her mother and the boys had gone up-stairs to bed, and her father was knocking the ashes from his pipe and yawning loudly. She sat down on the bench beside him and laid her hand on his knee. Such a thing as a caress had not pa.s.sed between father and daughter since the latter had outgrown her childhood, and the man turned in surprise and peered through the gloom at the face of the girl, as if seeking an explanation of that familiar touch.

"Your mother says you been roamin' around in the woods all day, Mirandy," he said awkwardly. "That ain't safe for a girl. Don't you know that?"

"I wasn't afraid," she answered; "and, Father, I want to ask a favor of you." Her voice had the eager pleading of a child's. "I want you to go walkin' with me in the woods next Sunday, just like we used to do when I was a little girl." Something in her voice and the words "when I was a little girl" touched a chord of memory that had not vibrated for many a year. Perhaps the tired, hard-worked man had a glimpse of the meagerness of his child's life, for he laid his rough hand over hers and spoke with the voice she remembered he had used when she was "a little girl."

"Why, that's a curious notion, Mirandy," he said. "What'll the preacher say, if he hears we've gone walkin' in the woods on Sunday instead of goin' to church? But I'll go just to please you, provided the weather's suitable. Now, le's shut up the house and go to bed. It's time everybody was asleep."

They went in together, and while her father closed the doors and put down the windows in antic.i.p.ation of the coming rain, Miranda lighted her lamp in the kitchen and went softly up-stairs. She still felt the delicious sleepiness that comes from breathing outdoor air all day, and her nap in the woods seemed only to have given her a longing for more sleep.

At the head of the stairs were the soap and water still waiting to be used, but she could look at them now without any of the irritation she had felt that morning, for she knew the hidden meaning of the work that lay before her. Was not Nature cleaning the whole earth, purifying it with her sunshine and her wind, and washing it with her dew and rain? If men and women could only live in the wind and sun with no shelter but the branches of the trees! But since they must have houses, these, too, must know the wholesome touch of wind, sun, and water. Lovely pictures of clouds, trees, fields, birds, and flowers filled her brain and made more apparent the ugliness of her room. Her sense of smell, sharpened by breathing forest air, took instant note of the musty odors that came from walls, floors, and clothing. She pushed the bedstead near the window so that she might feel the night air blowing over her face as she slept and resolved that the next night should find that room as like to a nook in the woods as she could make it; and when the scrubbing and whitewashing were over, she would go again and again to the woods and gather the flowers of spring, summer, and autumn to sweeten the air of the old house. As she blew out the lamp, there was a rumble of thunder from the west; a wind with the smell of rain swept through the dark room, and, laying her head on the pillow, she smiled to think how the creatures of the forest would look and feel in the scented night and the falling rain. All the spring landscape on which she had gazed that day seemed imprinted on her brain, and when she closed her eyes, it pa.s.sed like a panorama before her inner vision: wind-swept trees whose leafy branches waved against the pale blue sky; tremulous shadows on the fresh greensward; flowers of the garden and flowers of the forest flushing, purpling, paling, flaming, glowing in orderly beds or in wild forest nooks; long grey fences outlining farms and roads; sunlight glinting on the wings of flying birds; misty hills and little valleys sloping down to the level of the fertile fields; glory of midday and greater glory of sunset softening into the quiet, star-lit evening skies.

What need of the painter's canvas and brush when the soul can thus imprint on its records Beauty's every line and every color to be recalled instantly from the shadows of time by Memory's magic art?

The thunder muttered fitfully, and presently the rain came, dashing against the roof like a rattle of musketry, then quieting to a steady downpour that promised to last all night. She lay still, listening drowsily to the music of the storm and seeing through her closed eyelids the flashes of lightning. She was not tired, only sleepy and happy. The same calm that enveloped her in the forest was around her now, and soon she was sleeping as deeply and sweetly as she had slept in the afternoon. And while she slept, the man who had guarded her forest slumber sat in the darkness, dreaming, and gazing at a picture that would never fade from his brain: In the midst of the living forest a dead tree, and at its foot a sleeping girl holding a bunch of withered violets.

Ah, well! The perfect day was over and never again would come another like it. To-morrow the sleeper and the dreamer would wake and rise to the old, dull routine of daily toil and daily weariness, but though the day was gone, its grace would abide forever, and life could never be quite the same to the one who had met face to face with the True Romance, and to the other who had lived, for a few charmed hours, the life of the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field.