The Magician's Show Box, and Other Stories Part 12

"That would be nice."

"Or to have had me swallowed by a shark, thousands of miles out of sight of land, and then you might have told the story for yourself."

"O, I did not mean to complain of your story; and I dare say if it had happened to one of us, it would have been the greatest event in our lives."

"Just like my night in the woods which f.a.n.n.y's starlight night reminded me of. I have been thinking of it ever since she came to that part."

"There, Linda! I knew you were thinking of something else than my story, and I believe that is the reason it began to sound so flat towards the end."

"But I should not have thought of it, if it had not been for what you were telling; so that it shows I really was interested, as you would believe, if you knew how much it was like that night of my own."

"Do tell us about it, Linda; were you out all night alone?"

"The whole night long. But I begin to think it was not so much of an event after-all; you girls are so critical. It seems to me sometimes we are like those stones which are full of caves, and grottoes of crystal inside, to ourselves, while to others we are only common paving stones."

"But you must remember it is just so with all, and not contrast the inside of your paving stone with the outside of others'," said Anna.

"I was thinking whether there was outside enough to my little adventure to make it worth telling. But if it is thinner than that of the rest, it will be easier to break open."

"There, Linda, you have let that stone roll long enough; now let it rest with me and gather moss."

"I understand you, Ella. You are off now on one of your fairy stories, and I shall have one listener the less. Well, I am glad of it, for I shall not have you looking at me in your calm way all the time, and thinking how much better you could tell the story."

"O Ella, let us have the fairy story, and call it the paving stone if you please. Never mind if it is not clear to you yet, but think as you go along," said f.a.n.n.y.

"No; leave me alone. Perhaps it is nothing, and I know too well that no story is good for any thing, unless one knows what it is going to be before one begins."

"I hate stories with morals; they are just like going in the cars, where all you think of is the end of your journey," said Kate.

"But unless you know where you are going, you would never go at all."

"But it is so pleasant to go off for a day's walk without knowing where you are going, and with nothing to do but to enjoy what you see."

"Exactly as I thought when I set out on the adventure which led to that eventful night. But you were about to say something, Ella."

"I was only going to say that things never look so well to me as when I have some place to go to, and see them on the way. But the adventure."

"O, I set out without knowing whither I was going, though I found something so like a moral before I was through with it, that my story would be nothing without it."

"That may be, but you will not tell it in the same way."

"No, for I know well enough where it leads to, and my only fear now is, that incidents on the way will not seem interesting enough to make it worth the telling."

"Leave that to us, Linda; and now for the adventure."

"You remember what a time I had with Madam Irving, three or four years ago; you were here, f.a.n.n.y, and you, Miss Revere--you remember, of course."

"When you ran away from school and frightened Madam Irving almost to death, and were so glad to get back again?" said f.a.n.n.y.

"Well, I will not dispute you."

"But do not look so resigned about it. If you could only have seen the contrast between yourself leaving the school room with the air of Queen Catharine leaving the court, and your first appearance on the morning after your return!"

"I suppose I did look rather cowed; but if you had gone through what I did! It was all very well the first night, though I slept on the floor of a miserable little hut,--well, I may as well compress it, for I see you know something about it,--in the bed, then, of that little ragged berry girl who lives up on the mountain. I slept on the floor at first, but it was so cold that I had to give in."

"You might have foreseen, then, how long you would hold out with Madam Irving."

"Now, f.a.n.n.y, you know I have always said--but it's no use. Well, girls, I lay awake most all that night arranging my plans for the next day. When I left the school, I had some vague idea of going home on foot,--three hundred miles, you know,--with nothing but that little bundle, (how long it took me to make up that bundle! I thought I never should get off;) but then I feared I should be sent back, and the idea of facing Madam Irving after taking leave of her as I had done--"

"Yes, it did come hard; I really pitied you."

"f.a.n.n.y, you are too bad. Well, my mind was made up that night, and every thing was clear before me for the next day's campaign. It seems that word made a great impression on that little, impertinent Jenny. She was here the other day at the door with her berry basket; and when she saw me, do you think, she looked up sidewise, with the smile those girls have, and said, in a subdued way, 'Campaign.' I wished she were in Guinea. To think of the solemn way in which I had talked to that girl about the importance of the step I was to take, and confided to her all the reasons for my leaving a society with which I could not agree, and giving up all the a.s.sociations in which I had been born, and which were at variance with my views of life, and living henceforth dependent upon no one but myself; for I was really quite eloquent, I a.s.sure you, and inspired her with such enthusiasm that she readily agreed to follow me, and share, as my servant, the fortunes of the new life which opened before me. Poor thing! She had nothing to lose, and every thing was gain to her. She had nothing to come down to, either; for with her bare feet she was as near the ground as she could be, and I had still a pair of shoes between me and the rough fields over which we rambled all that day, though I did think of taking them off at first, as I did not wish to have any advantage over her. I found, however, before night, the advantage was altogether on her side, for she made nothing of stones, and brambles, and bushes, that put me out of breath, and tore me all to pieces. What a sight I was that evening as we came to an overhanging rock on the mountain side, and chose it as our camp for the night. The sun was just setting over an immense tract of country, entirely new to me; and I might have been on the Cordilleras for any thing that I recognized in that scene. It occurred to me, that, although, when out on a ride or a walk before, I always took notice of every thing, here I had been a whole day, and had actually never thought of looking up from the ground. And even now, with all that splendid view and sunset before me, and the feeling of being fairly embarked on a new life, where school and civilization were already so distant that they were not to be thought of, yet I am ashamed to say, the great subject that occupied my thoughts was our supper. We had provided against that event, which we had looked forward to half the afternoon--a great store of blackberries, which I had conscientiously refrained from touching, though I was as hungry as a bear."

"What an expression for a young lady!" said Kate.

"I really believe we all should be bears if we lived out doors, as I did, for any length of time. Besides, any one who has seen you look at the baskets when we have a picnic!"

"Ah, yes! On the mountain when I'm tired of gazing at a great, vague view."

"You know I think as little of such things as any one when we are at home; but when we are out for the day, I declare a biscuit on a rock looks more picturesque than any thing in the landscape," said Kate.

"That's a confession!"

"I believe you would all say the same, if you would acknowledge the truth, except Leonora; and I suppose a tree or a rock looks just the same to her as a luncheon basket would to us."

"You are always talking about the picturesque, Kate, like every one else except Leonora. Now, once for all, what do you mean by it?" asked Anna.

"Leonora, you must answer for me, for I am sure you ought to know, if any one."

"I was thinking that you had already defined it as well, perhaps, as it could be. But if I should tell you all you have reminded me of by your comparison, we should never hear the end of Linda's story, in which I was becoming quite interested. I was thinking what a good sketch she would have made, sitting a little way down that mountain side with the ragged berry girl, and that great sunset before them.

So you must let me go on quietly with my drawing, and while Linda is finishing her adventure, I will be finding a point of view for my thoughts, which are just now rather indefinite. If I knew precisely what the picturesque is, perhaps I should not be sketching it; but if you must have a definition, perhaps this will do for the present--to say it is the look of home which things have in a strange place; and perhaps, to a party of hungry girls, a prettily-arranged lunch on a rock, in the shade of a beech tree, with the light glancing up under it from a bend of brook below, would be as near an approach to that look as the circ.u.mstances would permit."

"I wish you had been with me, Leonora, instead of that little imp of a berry girl. It was just that sense of not being at home that made that mountain life, at last, so unbearable to me. Yet home without that seemed so flat and lifeless, down on a dead level, with not a street or garden but could be counted and measured. I thought if I could only have a hut on the mountain side, with a goat or a dog, or something to give life to it."

"With a little girl or an old woman to do the work," said Effie.

"And some of us to come and take tea with you every other afternoon,"

said Kate, "out in front of the house, with that great view before us. Would it not be charming?"

"Would you believe it! I talked with that child as if she had been my dearest friend, and I should be afraid to tell you how near I crept to her side that night, as we slept under the shelf of rock. What I should have done without her I do not know. I knew the next night, as you shall hear; for, do you believe, that creature, after all I had done for her--"

"What had you done for her?" asked Kate.

"Why, I had--well, I had treated her like a friend, besides giving her fourpence for carrying my bundle, and another for her share of the blackberries, though I never thought of it till this moment, I believe she had picked them all. In the morning, after waking rather cold and with a feeling as if I had been jolted all night on a rough road, though nothing could be more different from travelling than that still rock,--how still it was, and every thing else too in that early dawn, every thing gray and unsocial!--I tried to call out to break the silence; but the sound of my voice frightened me. Just then the sun began to stream over the tops of the trees, and a blue-jay pierced the air with a scream, as if from the heart of the wilderness, and yet as if he had a right there which I had not--as if he was at home while I was only thinking of it. There was a harsh warmth in that single note, as if the sunlight was to him what a good fire would have been to me, which I believe I needed sadly, for it was at that time in the autumn, when the nights are cold, though the days are so warm. I said that the sense of not being at home was at last unbearable; I had not come to that point yet, and I resolved, come what might, that I would stay on the mountain till I should feel as much at home as the blue-jay, for I felt how really splendid such a life was, even though I had had no breakfast; for I forgot to say that, seeing a house at a distance, down the mountain, and having a little money left, after what I had given the day before to that ungrateful girl, I gave it all to her, to go down and buy something for us to eat. Just this once, I thought, and then we will live like the birds and the squirrels. Yes, said I to the distant house, as if it were the civilized world, I have now parted with the last link that binds me to thee, and repeated aloud, in the excitement of the moment, 'I have burned the ships behind me! I have cast the die, and pa.s.sed the Rubicon!' I must tell you that after I had given utterance to these words, I turned round involuntarily to see if there were not half a dozen of you girls behind me; and nothing can give a better idea of the solitude of the place than that you were not. My only auditor was a little striped squirrel, who disappeared with a chit, leaving an acorn with the marks of his teeth upon it, which I picked up, wondering if I could not also live upon acorns. I bit it, and found it could be eaten in case of necessity. Now, I thought, I can be entirely independent of all the unnecessary comforts of civilized life. Wherever I may be, I can earn my own living by adapting myself to the place, and a.s.similating to myself the fruit of every situation."

"The what?" said Effie.

"Well, I cannot remember exactly what I was philosophizing about. The other day I found in one of my old dresses that very acorn with the marks of my teeth and those of the squirrel upon it; I tried to bite it again, but it was so hard that I could make no impression upon it. Then it brought all that day's questioning back to me, and I thought if I had only finished and settled it then, while it was new and soft, I could have made it clear for my whole life perhaps, instead of letting it go as I did, till it is so hard now that I must leave it where it is, and go back to that girl, for whom I waited and waited until I was almost famished. Then I looked around, and there were the rocks all waiting so silently, and looking as if they had been waiting for ages, and could wait ages longer; and there was I, like that single blade of gra.s.s growing in the crevice of one of them, with only a summer to see and know them all. I could bear it no longer, and rushed wildly down the mountain in hopes to meet the girl; for any human face, even hers, would be better than that eternal silence. The motion restored my courage, and before I had gone far I felt ashamed of what seemed a retreat. I wonder if any of you ever feel so about any thing that you particularly dread, that if you do not meet it then and overcome it, it will come up again and again all your life, each time more fearful than before, and harder to conquer. I felt so then, and determined I would not give way; so I turned to retrace my steps; but I had rushed down at such a rate, that I could not remember the way, and taking, as I thought, the general direction, I went up and up, till I lost myself in a labyrinth of rocks, that grew higher and higher, and I saw that I had taken entirely the wrong way. But I was too tired to go farther, and finding some bushes covered with blackberries, which I suppose no one but myself had ever seen, I began to pick them for my late breakfast. When I had picked enough,--and if you ever want to know how good blackberries are, you must pick them, as I did, when there is nothing else to be had,--thinking I had time enough before me to find my way out, I sat down in the shade of a rock, and gradually lost myself in that great dream of a day. What a day it was! I wondered if they were always such on the mountains; it seemed to have an existence of its own, and I could understand how a day can be as a thousand years. The insects murmured, and buzzed, and chirped about me, as if they had such a sense of it, and were concentrating all life into their little existence, perhaps as long to them as my life to me, which I am sure would not be long enough to remember and tell all that I thought of in that day.