Chapter 2

"Nay!" cried the youngest; "but she holds out her arms, and makes a moan like the wind at night. Why may we not call her in?"

Then the Angel wept, for she had been a woman.

"Must I tell you?" she cried. "It is she who should have been your mother, and she would not."

The children gazed, with calm, bright eyes. "What is a mother?" they asked.

"Alas! alas!" said the Angel; and her tears fell down like rain.

"Alas! alas!" moaned the gray Shape at the gate, and beat the shadow that was her breast, and trailed away in the gathering dusk.

IF THIS SHOULD BE

II

When the Little Sister went away, it was in such haste that she left her convent robes behind; and this troubled her so that she spoke of it to the Angel at the Gate. "You see," she said, "I had no idea that I was coming; I fell asleep in my cell, and woke up in this beautiful homelike place. But these white garments are not suitable for me; could I find a black robe, do you think?"

"Oh no!" said the Angel; "we all wear white here, and it is so much prettier and more becoming. Besides, you must make haste, for they have been waiting long for you."

"Who have been waiting?" asked the Little Sister in wonder.

"The children, to be sure!" said the Angel. "See! there they come, running to meet you."

The Little Sister looked, and there came hastening toward her a lovely band, little children and older ones, with floating locks and starry eyes, and all the eyes fixed on her with looks of love, and all the arms stretched out to her with gestures of longing.

"Oh, the darling, darling children!" cried the Little Sister. "Oh, the little angels! Now I know that this is heaven indeed."

She fell on her knees, and the children clustered round her, caressing her, and murmuring sweet words in her ear; and all in a moment the hunger that had been at her heart through the years was stilled, and she opened her arms and gathered the children to her breast and wept; happy tears were those!

"Sweethearts," cried the Little Sister; "dear loves, tell me, whose light and joy and blessing are you?"

"Yours, of course!" answered the children.

THE FEAST

The little Prince was coming; and in the dim, rich house that was his, some children were making ready a feast for him. They strewed sweet flowers, and lighted the candles, and made ready the table, white and fair, with the gold and silver service.

"It should stand here!" said one.

"Nay!" said another; "this is the place for it; and the candles must be over yonder." And he moved them.

"That I will never consent to!" said the first. "Let me do things properly, while you go and change your dress for a suitable one."

"I shall not change my dress!" said the second child.

"Oh, shame!" said the first.

While they wrangled, the children of the wood peeped in at the door, ragged and rosy and bright-eyed, and laughed, and ran away.

"Let us make a feast too," they said, "even if we have no fine things."

They set them down under a great oak tree that grew beside the way, and one gathered acorn cups, and another pulled burdock leaves and laid them for a cloth, and a third plucked the wild strawberries that shone like rubies in the grass.

"Here is a fine feast!" cried the wood children.

Just then along came the little Prince, and they called to him, "Come and play with us, and share our feast!"

"With all my heart!" said the little Prince. "But are there not other children in the house yonder who would like to join us?"

"Nay, they are busy quarrelling!" said the wood children.

"Then we do not want them!" said the little Prince. He sat down with them under the oak tree, and they all ate and drank and were right merry.

But the children in the dim, rich house pulled the table this way and that, and moved the lights hither and yon, and looked at their delicate robes and sighed: "The little Prince is long in coming!" they said.

THE SPIRIT

A man was toiling, seeking, toiling, by hot sun and cold moon, with pickaxe and with spade; and as he toiled there came a bright Spirit, and looked him in the face, and smiled.

"Who are you, fair Spirit?" asked the man. And the other answered, "My name is Truth!"

Then the man threw down his pick and spade, and ran, and brought costly robes and wrapped the Spirit in them; and set him on a throne, and bound him fast with chains of gold, and covered his face with a veil of precious web, and fell down and worshipped him. Happy man was he!

Now by and by as he worshipped a traveller came by that way, and stopped to look.

"Fair answer to your prayers, brother!" said the traveller. "What God do you worship?"

And the man said, "The Spirit of Truth."

"Nay!" said the other; "how can that be? I met that spirit but now upon the road. Gipsying along he was, light-foot, light-clad, and over his shoulder pickaxe and spade."

Then the man cried out in terror, and ran to the throne, and pulled the veil away, and tore the robes apart: and lo! the veil holding empty air, and the great robes folded in upon themselves, and the gold chains binding them.

THE ROOTS

A child found in its garden a plant. Fair and stately it was, full of rosy buds, with green leaves strong and luminous. The child admired it greatly.

"How fair it is!" he said. "How full of light and fragrance! but how does it grow? One should know that."

He looked down, and saw that the plant came up out of the ground.

"This is strange!" he said. "How should so fair a thing come up out of this black and dirty soil? I must look to this!"

He dug away the soil, and found the roots of the plant, bare and twisted, clinging to the soil and dark with the touch of it.

"Ah!" said the child, "this is terrible. Has that fair crown of rose and green drawn its life from so foul a source as this? Oh, sorrow and shame!" and he wept, and wrung his hands.

As he sorrowed, the Angel of the Garden passed by, with her arms full of flowers and fruit.

"Little one," she said, "have you anything for me?"

"Alas!" said the child. "Look! I had this fair plant, the sweetest in the world, but I find that its life grows out of the black and ugly mould; its roots are black with it. Look! the flower begins to droop!"

"Yes," said the Angel. "Oh, the pity! you have killed it."

ALONG THE WAY

In the early morning, when the dew was bright on the grass, a child passed along the highway, and sang as he went. It was spring, and the ferns were unrolling their green bundles, and the hepatica showed purple under her gray fur. The child looked about him with eager, happy eyes, rejoicing in all he saw, and answering the birds' songs with notes as gay as their own. Now and then he dropped a seed here or there, for he had a handful of them; sometimes he threw one to the birds; again he dropped one for the squirrels; and still again he would toss one into the air for very play, for that was what he loved best.

Now it chanced that he passed by a spot where the earth lay bare, with no tree or plant to cover its brown breast.

"Oh!" said the child. "Poor place, will nothing grow in you? here is a seed for you, and now I will plant it properly."

So he planted the seed properly, and smoothed the earth over it, and went his way singing, and looking at the white clouds in the sky and at the green things unfolding around him.

It was a long, long journey the child had to go. Many perils beset his path, many toils he had to overpass, many wounds and bruises he got on the way. When he returned, one would hardly have known, to look at him, that he was still a child. The day had been cruelly hot, and still the afternoon sun beat fiercely down on the white road. His clothes were torn and dusty; he toiled on, and sighed as he went, longing for some spot of shade where he might sit down to rest.

Presently he saw in the distance a waving of green, and a cool shadow stretching across the white glowing road: and he drew near, and it was a tree, young and vigorous, spreading its arms abroad, mantled in green leaves that whispered and rustled.

Thankfully the child threw himself down in the pleasant shade, and rested from his weary journey; and as he rested, he raised his eyes to the green whispering curtain above him, and blessed the hand that planted the tree.

The little green leaves nodded and rustled, and whispered to one another:

"Yes! yes! it is himself he is blessing. But he does not know, and that is the best of all!"

THE GRAVE DIGGERS

A youth stood in the doorway of his house and looked out upon the road he was to travel.

"Alas!" he said. "It is a rough and stony road, and I am far from strong: also my feet are tender, and I cannot bear pain. How shall I take this hard journey?"

Then, as he sighed and looked, he was ware of two coming towards him with pick and mattock on their shoulders. Swiftly they came, and soon they were at his side, fawning on him, and speaking in soft, wheedling voices. Their faces were eager and servile, their eyes bright as flame.

"Dear youth," they said, "we are come to smooth the road for you. It is our trade; look, we have our tools with us! Give us but leave and we will work for you gladly, and ask no pay."

"What men are ye?" asked the youth.

"We are called Temptation and Opportunity," they answered; "but what matters this name or that? we seek but to serve you. Rest you still, and soon the way shall be clear before you."

So the youth went back into his house and set him down, and watched how all day long the two toiled apart with mattock and pick, smoothing and levelling, lifting stones out of the way, and hewing down brambles and tangled trees. But at night he laid him down and slept: and then those two ran speedily together, and with fierce looks and eager hands they dug and howked a grave in the earth. Deep it was, and lay straight across the road; yet so cunningly placed that it could not be seen till one was close upon it.

Morning came, and the youth stood at his door again, and saw the way clear and smooth before him, and the two bowing low, with smiling faces and fawning hands stretched out.

"Come, good Master!" they cried. "Come, dear youth, and let us bring you on your way!"

THE SICK CHILD

The sick child sat at his window and looked out on the summer world. He was sad at heart, for pain racked him, and weakness held him still; but yet he smiled, because that pleased his mother.

"I am of no use in the world," said the child to himself; "I am of less worth than yonder broken bough that lies on the ground, for that at least gives trouble to no one, and by and by it will make a fire to warm some poor soul. But still I must smile, lest my mother should be sad."

Presently the old field mouse who lived over the way came out of her house, with a tiny brown velvet bundle in her mouth. It was one of her eight young ones, and she was taking it to a new place, for the mole who was their landlord had turned them out. She had taken five of the little ones to the new house, but now she was weary, and her jaws ached sadly with holding the heavy little creatures.

"I cannot carry them all!" she said. "The rest must die, since it cannot be helped."

Just then she looked up, and saw the child smiling at the window.

"Look!" she said to herself. "That child has been watching me. He smiles with pleasure at the beauty of my young ones, but he has not seen the prettiest one yet. It will never do to give up now; I must try again, and let him see that there are eight, all the handsomest of their family."

So she tried again, and brought all the eight in safety to their new home.

By and by a horse came along the road, dragging a heavy load. He was old, and his bones ached, and the collar hurt his neck.

"Why should I not give up," he said to himself, "and refuse to go on? my master could only beat me, and he does that as it is. If I were dead, I should not feel the blows; why should I struggle further with this burden?"

Just then he happened to lift his eyes, and saw the child smiling at the window.

"Ah!" he said, "that child is smiling at me. He sees that I was once a fine animal; he knows good blood when he sees it. Ah! if he had seen me in my youth! But I can still show him something." And he arched his neck proudly, and stepped out bravely, tossing his head, and the load came more easily after him.

By and by a man passed by, walking slowly, with bent head and sorrowful look. He had lost the treasure of his heart, and the whole world was black about him. "Why should I live longer?" he said to himself. "I have nothing to live for in this world of misery. Let me lie down and die; in death I can at least forget my pain and the pain of others."

As he spoke, he lifted his eyes by chance, and saw the child smiling at the window.

"Come!" said the man. "There at least is one happy heart; and he smiles, as if he were glad to see me pass. He is a sick child, too, pale and thin; I must not cast a shadow on his cheerful day. And indeed, the sun is bright and warm, even if my joy be cold."

He smiled and nodded to the child, and the child nodded to him, and waved his hand, and the man went on, carrying the smile warm at his heart, and took up the burden of life again.

Now it was evening. The child was weary. His head drooped on his bosom, and his eyes closed. Then his mother came, and lifted him from his chair, and laid him in his little bed.

"God bless him!" she said softly. "He has had a happy day, for he is smiling even in his sleep."

AT LONG LAST

"Heart-of-mine, are you come at last?"

"At long, long last, Beloved!"

"Was it so long?"

"Long as grief, cold as the stone above your grave, empty as the noonday sky!"

"Oh! how was it empty, when I left the cup brimming over for you? Heart-of-mine, whom met you by the way?"

"Only a man, crippled in the mire, cursing as he struggled. I shut my ears against his foul speech and passed on."

"Oh! if it were my brother, whom you should have helped! whom else?"

"Only a woman, bowed under a burden; my own was more than I could bear, and I let her be."

"Alas! if it were my sister, and in her pack the balm that should have healed you! Whom else again?"

"None else, save children: they cried about my path, but how could I stay for them while you waited?"

"Alas! if among the children were those I might not bear to you! And fare you well, Heart-of-mine, for I must be gone, and now the time is long indeed."

"Oh! whither, Beloved of my soul, from my arms that clasp yet cannot hold you?"

"Heart-of-mine, where but back to earth, to do the work you left undone, to gather up, with patience and with toil, the sheaves you left behind!"

GILLYFLOWER GENTLEMAN

"Why do you play alone, dear," asked the Play Angel, "and look so sadly over your shoulder at the other children?"

"Because they are so selfish!" said the child. "They will not play with me."

"Oh, the pity!" said the Angel. "Tell me all about it."

"I want to play one game, and they all want to play another!" said the child. "It is very unkind of them."

"Did you ever play Gillyflower Gentleman?" asked the Angel.

"No!" said the child. "What is it?"

"You shall see!" said the Angel. "Let us ask the others if they know it."

The other children did not know it, but they were eager to learn, and soon they were all playing Gillyflower Gentleman; they played till all their breath was gone, and they had to sit down on the haycocks to rest.

"That was a great game!" said the first child. "I will play yours now, if you wish me to."

"We were just going to tell you that we would play yours!" said the other children. So they played both, and the Play Angel went back to her work.

THE JUDGMENT

"_Of judgment, because the Prince of this World is judged._"--

Now came the day when the Prince should be brought to judgment. Slowly he came, under the weight of his fetters, that clanged about his wrists and feet. His head was low on his breast, and his eyes heavy; so he stood before the judgment seat, and spoke not, nor raised his eyes.

The little Judge looked on him, and sighed, and spoke.

"It was you who saw me hungry and naked and cold, and drew your furs round you and passed by."

"Yea!" said the Prince.

"It was you who set me cruel tasks, and smote me when I fainted under them."

"Yea!" said the Prince.

"It was you who cast me into prison, into darkness and bitterness as of death."

"Yea!" said the Prince.

"Alas!" said the little Judge. "Poor soul, did you know no better?"

When the Prince heard that a great sob burst from him, and he fell on his face before the judgment seat, and his fetters clanged loud on the stone.

Oh! then came little feet pattering down the steps, and little hands lifted him, and he rose to his feet; but the chains lay where they fell.

"Come, Brother!" said the little Judge. "We will go back, and begin again together!"

THE BLIND CHILD

"Mother," said the blind child, "what a pity it is that everybody in this village, except you, is so ugly!"

"Bless your heart, my darling," said the mother; "why do you say that?"

"I was sitting by the fountain," said the blind child, "listening to the falling water, and the neighbors came to fill their pitchers, and I heard them talking. It was terrible! it seems that every one in the whole village is either bald or cross-eyed, wrinkled or misshapen. All save you, mother!"

"Bless your heart," said the mother; and she looked at her gray, worn face in the little glass that hung on the wall.

"They did not like to praise your beauty before me!" cried the blind child. "They spoke your name, and then said, 'Oh! hush, there is the child!' Was it not foolish of them, mother? as if I did not know!"

"Bless your heart!" said the mother.

THE CAKE

Once a Cake would go seek his fortune in the world, and he took his leave of the Pan he was baked in.

"I know my destiny," said the Cake. "I must be eaten, since to that end I was made; but I am a good cake, if I say it who should not, and I would fain choose the persons I am to benefit."

"I don't see what difference it makes to you!" said the Pan.

"But imagination is hardly your strong point!" said the Cake.

"Huh!" said the Pan.

The Cake went on his way, and soon he passed by a cottage door where sat a woman spinning, and her ten children playing about her.

"Oh!" said the woman, "what a beautiful cake!" and she put out her hand to take him.

"Be so good as to wait a moment!" said the Cake. "Will you kindly tell me what you would do with me if I should yield myself up to you?"

"I shall break you into ten pieces," said the woman, "and give one to each of my ten children. So you will give ten pleasures, and that is a good thing."

"Oh, that would be very nice, I am sure," said the Cake; "but if you will excuse me for mentioning it, your children seem rather dirty, especially their hands, and I confess I should like to keep my frosting unsullied, so I think I will go a little further."

"As you will!" said the woman. "After all, the brown loaf is better for the children."

So the Cake went further, and met a fair child, richly dressed, with coral lips and eyes like sunlit water. When the child saw the Cake, he said like the woman, "Oh, what a beautiful Cake!" and put out his hand to take it.

"I am sure I should be most happy!" said the Cake. "And you will not take it amiss, I am confident, if I ask with whom you will share me."

"I shall not share you with any one!" said the child. "I shall eat you myself, every crumb. What do you take me for?"

"Good gracious!" cried the Cake. "This will never do. Consider my size,--and yours! You would be very ill!"

"I don't care!" said the child. "I'd rather be ill than give any away." And he fixed greedy eyes on the Cake, and stretched forth his hand again.

"This is really terrible!" cried the Cake. "What is one's frosting to this? I will go back to the woman with the ten children."

He turned and ran back, leaving the child screaming with rage and disappointed greed. But as he ran, a hungry Puppy met him, and swallowed him at a gulp, and went on licking his chops and wagging his tail.

"Huh!" said the Pan.

THE SERMON

The minister had just finished his great sermon. The air still quivered with his burning words, and the people sat erect, disturbed, embarrassed; yet still he lingered a moment in his place.

"Is there," he asked, "one here in whose breast these words strike like a barbed arrow, for the truth that is in them?" and he sat down.

"That was hard on John," said old James; "but he deserves it, every word."

"A blow from the shoulder for James!" said old John; "time he got one too, if it is not too late."

"I wonder if either of those two old sinners will take his medicine and be helped by it," said old William.

But the little saint, the little saint, hurried home, and knelt by her little bed, and cried aloud in her anguish: "My God, my God, have mercy on me, and give me for this stone a heart of flesh!"

THE TANGLED SKEIN

"My dear child," said the Angel-who-attends-to-things, "why are you crying so very hard?"

"Oh dear! oh dear!" said the child. "No one ever had such a dreadful time before, I do believe, and it all comes of trying to be good. Oh dear! Oh dear! I wish I was bad; then I should not have all this trouble."

"Yes, you would," said the Angel; "a great deal worse. Now tell me what is the matter!"

"Look!" said the child. "Mother gave me this skein to wind, and I promised to do it. But then father sent me on an errand, and it was almost school-time, and I was studying my lesson and going on the errand and winding the skein, all at the same time, and now I have got all tangled up in the wool, and I cannot walk either forward or back, and oh! dear me, what ever _shall_ I do?"

"Sit down!" said the Angel.

"But it is school-time!" said the child.

"Sit down!" said the Angel.

"But father sent me on an errand!" said the child.

"SIT DOWN!" said the Angel; and he took the child by her shoulders and set her down.

"Now sit still!" he said, and he began patiently to wind up the skein. It was wofully tangled, and knotted about the child's hands and feet; it was a wonder she could move at all; but at last it was all clear, and the Angel handed her the ball.

"I thank you so very much!" said the child. "I was not naughty, was I?"

"Not naughty, only foolish; but that does just as much harm sometimes."

"But I was doing right things!" said the child.

"But you were doing them in the wrong way!" said the Angel. "It is good to do an errand, and it is good to go to school, but when you have a skein to wind you must sit still."

THE NURSLING

Yesterday, the kind nurse, Yesterday, the wise old woman, sat by the fire with her nursling on her knee.

"Still, my babe, be still!" she said. "Listen now, till I sing you a song!"

"Oh! I know all your songs," said the child. "I know them by heart, the sleepy bed-time songs. But the lovely lady yonder, who smiles at me from the doorway, sings a new song, new and strange, and sweet, sweet. If I listen to her, may be I shall learn it."

"Nay! listen not to her, the gipsy!" said Yesterday. "Bide here by the fire with me, my babe, and I will tell you a story shall do you good to hear."

"Oh! I know all your stories," said the child, "know them every word, and some of them are false, and all are dull. But the lovely lady who beckons me from the doorway murmurs strange words, in a new tongue, yet clear as light; if I go with her, may be I shall learn it."

"Child, child," said the old nurse, "listen not to her gipsy talk; it is full of peril, and these new words have wicked meanings. Come with me, my darling, and I will show you my garden, full of sweet flowers and delicate fruits and precious herbs. See! they have grown from all time, and I gathered them from the four ways of the world, and all for you."

The child laughed, and his laugh rang cruel clear, as when a bird sings loud and merry over a new-made grave.