Helen and Arthur Part 4

CHAPTER II.

----"with burnished neck of verdant gold, erect Amid his circling spires, that on the gra.s.s Floated redundant,--she busied heard the sound Of rustling leaves, but minded not, _at first_."--_Milton._

Helen recovered, and the agitation caused by her sickness having subsided, everything went on apparently as it did before. While she was sick, Mrs. Gleason resolved that she would keep her as much as possible from Miss Thusa's influence, and endeavor to counteract it by a closer, more confiding union with herself. But every one knows how quickly the resolutions, formed in the hour of danger, are forgotten in the moment of safety--and how difficult it is to break through daily habits of life. Even when the pulse beats high with health, and the heart glows with conscious energy, it is difficult. How much more so, when the whole head is sick, and the whole spirit is faint--when the lightest duty becomes a burden, and _rest_, nothing but _rest_, is the prayer of the weary soul!

The only perceptible change in the family arrangements was, that Miss Thusa carried her wheel at night into the nursery, and installed herself there as the guardian of Helen's slumbers. The little somnambulist, as she was supposed to be, required a watch, and when Miss Thusa offered to sit by the fire-side till the family retired to rest, Mrs. Gleason could not be so ungrateful as to refuse, though she ventured to reiterate the warning, breathed by the feverish couch of her child. This warning Miss Thusa endeavored to bear in mind, and illumined the gloomy grandeur of her legends by some lambent rays of fancy--but they were lightning flashes playing about ruins, suggesting ideas of desolation and decay.

Let it not be supposed that Helen's life was all shadow. Oh, no! In proportion as she shuddered at darkness, and trembled before the spectres her own imagination created, she rejoiced in sunshine, and revelled in the bright glories of creation. She was all darkness or all light. There was no twilight about her. Never had a child a more exquisite perception of the beautiful, and as at night she delineated to herself the most awful and appalling images that imagination can conceive, by day she beheld forms more lovely than ever visited the poet's dream. She could see angels cradled on the glowing bosom of the sunset clouds, angels braiding the rainbow of the sky. Light to her was peopled with angels, as darkness with phantoms. The brilliant-winged b.u.t.terflies were the angels of the flowers--the gales that fanned her cheeks the invisible angels of the trees. If Helen had lived in a world all of sunshine, she would have been the happiest being in the world.

Moonlight, too, she loved--it seemed like a dream of the sun. But it was only in the presence of others she loved it. She feared to be alone in it--it was so still and holy, and then it made such deep shadows where it did not shine! Yes! Helen would have been happy in a world of sunshine--but we are born for the shadow as well as the sunbeam, and they who cannot walk unfearing through the gloom, as well as the brightness, are ill-fitted for the pilgrimage of life.

Childhood is naturally p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion and fear. The intensity of suffering it endures from these sources is beyond description.

We remember, when a child, with what chillness of awe we used to listen to the wind sighing through the long branches of the elm trees, as they trailed against the window panes, for nursery legends had a.s.sociated the sound with the moaning of ghosts, and the flapping of invisible wings.

We remember having strange, indescribable dreams, when the mystery of our young existence seemed to press down upon us with the weight of iron, and fill us with nameless horror. When a something seemed swelling and expanding and rolling in our souls, like an immense, fiery globe _within us_, and yet we were carried around with it, and we felt it must forever be rolling and enlarging, and we must forever be rolling along with it. We remember having this dream night after night, and when we awakened, the first thought was _eternity_, and we thought if we went on dreaming, we should find out what eternity meant. We were afraid to tell the dream, from a vague fear that it was wrong, that it might be thought we were trying to pierce into the mystery of G.o.d, and it was wicked in a child thus to do.

Helen used to say, whenever she fell asleep in the day-time under a green tree, or on the shady bank of a stream, as she often did, that she had the brightest, most beautiful dreams--and she wished it was the _fashion_ for people to sleep by day instead of night.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly Mrs. Gleason's strength wasted away. She still kept her place at the family board, and continued her labors of love, but the short, dry, hacking cough a.s.sumed a more hollow, deeper sound, and every day the red spot on her cheek grew brighter, as the shades of night came on. Mittie heeded not the change in her mother, but the affectionate heart of Louis felt many a sad foreboding, as his subdued steps and hushed laugh plainly told. He was naturally joyous and gay, even to rudeness, always playing some good-natured but teasing prank on his little sister, and making the house ring with his merriment. Now, whenever that hollow cough rung in his ears, he would start as if a knife pierced him, and it would be a long time before his laugh would be heard again. He redoubled his filial attentions, and scarcely ever entered the house without bringing something which he thought would please her taste, or be grateful to her feelings.

"Mother, see what a nice string of fishes. I am sure you will like these."

"Oh! mother, here are the sweetest flowers you ever saw. Do smell of them, they are so reviving."

The tender smile, the fond caress which rewarded these love-offerings were very precious to the warm-hearted boy, though he often ran out of the house to hide the tears they forced into his eyes.

Helen knew that her mother was not well, for she now reclined a great deal on the sofa, and Doctor Sennar came to see her every day, and sometimes the young doctor accompanied him, and when he did, he always took a great deal of notice of her, and said something she could not help remembering. Perhaps it was the peculiar glance of his eye that fixed the impression, as the characters written in indelible ink are pale and illegible till exposed to a slow and gentle fire.

"You ought to do all you can for your mother," said he, while he held her in his lap, and Doctor Sennar counted her mother's pulse by the ticking of his large gold watch.

"I am too little to do any good," answered she, sighing at her own insignificance.

"You can be very still and gentle."

"But that isn't doing anything, is it?"

"When you are older," said the young doctor, "you will find it is harder to keep from doing wrong than to do what is right."

Helen did not understand the full force of what he said, but the saying remained in her memory.

The next day, and the bloom of early summer was on the plains, and its deep, blue glory on the sky, Helen thought again and again what she should do for her mother. At length she remembered that some one had said that the strawberries were ripe, and that her mother had longed exceedingly for a dish of strawberries and cream. This was something that even Louis had not done for her, and her heart throbbed with joy and exultation in antic.i.p.ation of the offering she could make.

With a bright tin bucket, that shone like burnished silver in the sunbeams, swinging on her arm, she stole out of the back door, and ran down a narrow lane, till she came to an open field, where the young corn was waving its silken ta.s.sels, and potato vines frolicking at its feet.

The long, shining leaves of the young corn threw off the sunlight like polished steel, and Helen thought she had never seen anything so beautiful in all her life. She stopped and pulled off the soft, tender, green silken ta.s.sels, hanging them over her ears, and twisting some in her hair, as if she were a mermaid, her "sea-green ringlets braiding."

Then springing from hillock to hillock, she reached the end of the field, and jumped over a fence that skirted a meadow, along which a clear, blue stream glided like an azure serpent in glittering coils, under the shade of innumerable hickory trees. Helen became so enchanted with the beauty of the landscape, that she forgot her mother and the strawberries, forgot there were such things as night and darkness in the universe. Taking off her shoes and tying them to the handle of her bucket, she went down to the edge of the stream, and dipping her feet in the cool water, waded along close to the bank, and the little wavelets curled round her ankles as if they loved to play with anything so smooth and white. Then she saw bright specks of mica shining on the sand, and she sprang out of the water to gather them, wondering if pearls and diamonds ever looked half so beautiful.

"How I wish strawberries grew under water," cried Helen, suddenly recollecting her filial mission. "How I wish they did not grow under the long gra.s.s!"

The light faded from her face, and the dimness of fear came over it. She had an unutterable dread of snakes, for they were the _heroes_ of some of Miss Thusa's awful legends, and she knew they lurked in the long gra.s.s, and were said to be especially fond of strawberries. Strange, in her eager desire to do something for her mother, she had forgotten the ambushed foe she most dreaded by day--now she wondered she had dared to think of coming.

"I will go back," thought she; "I dare not jump over that fence and wade about in gra.s.s as high as my head."

"You must do all you can for your mother," echoed in clear, silver accents in her memory; "Louis will gather them if I do not," continued she, "and she will never know how much I love her. All little children pick strawberries for themselves, and I never heard of one being bitten by a snake. If I pick them for my mother instead of myself, I don't believe G.o.d will let them hurt me."

While thus meditating, she had reached the fence, and stepping on the lower rails, she peeped over into the deep, green patch. As the wind waved the gra.s.s to and fro, she caught glimpses of the reddening berries, and her cheeks glowed with excitement. They were so thick, and looked so rich and delicious! She would keep very near the fence, and if a snake should crawl near her, she could get upon the topmost rails, and it could not reach her there. One jump, and the struggle was over. She plunged in a sea of verdure, while the strawberries glowed like coral beneath. They hung in large, thick cl.u.s.ters, touching each other, so that it would be an easy thing to fill her bucket before the sun went down. She would not pick the whole cl.u.s.ters, because some were green still, and she had heard her mother say, that it was a waste of G.o.d's bounty, and a robbery of those who came afterwards, to pluck and destroy unripe fruit. Several times she started, thinking she heard a rustling in the leaves, but it was only the wind whispering to them as it pa.s.sed.

She stained her cheeks and the palms of her hands with the crimson juice, thinking it would make her mother smile, resolving to look at herself in the water as she returned.

Her bucket, which was standing quietly on the ground, was almost full; she was stooping down, with her sun-bonnet pushed back from her glowing face, to secure the largest and best berries which she had yet seen, when she _did_ hear a rustling in the gra.s.s very near, and looking round, there was a large, long snake, winding slowly, carefully towards the bucket, with little gleaming eyes, that looked like burning gla.s.s set in emerald. It seemed to glow with all the colors of the rainbow, so radiant it was in yellow, green and gold, striped with the blackest jet.

For one moment, Helen stood stupefied with terror, fascinated by the terrible beauty of the object on which she was gazing. Then giving a loud, shrill shriek, she bounded to the fence, climbed over it, and jumped to the ground with a momentum so violent that she fell and rolled several paces on the earth. Something cold twined round her feet and ankles. With a gasp of despair, Helen gave herself up for lost, a.s.sured she was in the coils of the snake, and that its venom was penetrating through her whole frame.

"I shall die," thought she, "and mother will never know how I came here alone to gather strawberries, that she might eat and be well."

As she felt no sting, no pain, and the snake lay perfectly still, she ventured to steal a glance at her feet, and saw that it was a piece of a vine that she had caught in her flight, and which her fears had converted into the embrace of an adder. Springing up with the velocity of lightning, she darted along, regardless of the beauty of the stream, in whose limpid waters she had thought to behold her crimson-stained cheeks. She ran on, panting, glowing--the perspiration, hot as drops of molten lead, streaming down her face, looking furtively back, every now and then, to see if that gorgeous creature, with glittering coils and burning eyes were not gliding at her heels. At length, blinded and dizzy from the speed with which she had run, she fell against an opposing body just at the entrance of the lane.

"Why, Helen, what is the matter?" exclaimed a well-known voice, and she knew she was safe. It was the young doctor, who loved to walk on the banks of that beautiful stream, when the shadows of the tall hickories lengthened on the gra.s.s.

Helen was too breathless to speak, but he knew, by her clinging hold, that she sought protection from some real or imaginary danger. While he pitied her evident fright, he could not help smiling at her grotesque appearance. The perspiration, dripping from her forehead, had made channels through the crimson dye on her cheeks, and her chin, which had been buried in the ground when she fell, was all covered with mud. Her frock was soiled and torn, her bonnet twisted so that the strings hung dangling over her shoulder. A more forlorn, wild-looking little figure, can scarcely be imagined, and it is not strange that the young doctor found it difficult to suppress a laugh.

"And so you left your strawberries behind," said he, after hearing the history of her fright and flight. "It seems to me I would not have treated the snake so daintily. Suppose we go back and cheat him of his nice supper, after all."

"Oh! no--no--no," exclaimed Helen, emphatically. "I wouldn't go for all the strawberries in the whole world."

"Not when they would do your sick mother good?" said he, gravely.

"But the snake!" cried she, with a shudder.

"It is perfectly harmless. If you took it in your hand and played with it, it would not hurt you. Those beautiful, bright-striped creatures have no venom in them. Come, let us step down to the edge of the stream and wash the stains from your face and hands, and then you shall show me where your strawberries are waiting for us in the long gra.s.s."

He took her hand and attempted to draw her along, but she resisted with astonishing strength, planting her back against the railing that divided the lane from the corn-field.

"Helen, you _will_ come with me," said he, in the same tone, and with the same magnetic glance, with which he had once before subdued her.

She remained still a few moments, then the rigid muscles began to relax, and hanging down her head, she sobbed aloud.

"You will come," repeated he, leading her gently along towards the bank of the stream, "because you know I would not lead you into danger, and because if you do not try to conquer such fears, they will make you very unhappy through life. Don't you wish to be useful and do good to others, when you grow older?"

"Oh, yes," replied Helen, with animation--"but," added she, despondingly, "I never shall."

"It depends upon yourself," replied her friend; "some of the greatest men that ever lived, were once timid little children. They made themselves great by overcoming their fears, by having a strong will."

They were now close to the water, which, just where they stood, was as still and smooth as gla.s.s. Helen saw herself in the clear, blue mirror, and laughed aloud--then she blushed to think how strange and ugly she looked. Eagerly scooping up the water in the hollow of her hand, she bathed her face, and removed the disfiguring stains.

"You have no napkin," said the young doctor, taking a snowy linen handkerchief from his pocket, which emitted a sweet, faint, rose-like perfume. "Will this do?"

He wiped her face, which looked fairer than ever after the ablution, and then first one and then the other of her trembling hands, for they still trembled from nervous agitation.

"How kind, how good he is!" thought Helen, as his hand pa.s.sed gently over her brow, smoothing back the moist and tangled hair, then glided against her cheek, while he arranged the twisted bonnet and untied the dangling strings, which had tightened into a hard and obstinate knot. "I wonder what makes him so kind and good to me?"