Flower of the Dusk. Reed Myrtle

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СКАЧАТЬ fingers ached and the stitches blurred into mist before her eyes, some little brown book, much worn, had often given her the key to the House of Content.

      "Shall you always have to sew?" asked Roger. "Is there no way out?"

      Glad of Work

      "Not unless some fairy prince comes prancing up on a white charger," laughed Barbara, "and takes us all away with him to his palace. Don't pity me," she went on, her lips quivering a little, "for every day I'm glad I can do it and keep father from knowing we are poor.

      "Besides, I'm of use in the world, and I wouldn't want to live if I couldn't work. Aunt Miriam works, too. She does all the housework, takes care of me when I can't help myself, does the mending, many things for father, and makes the quilts, preserves, candied orange peel, and the other little things we sell. People are so kind to us. Last Summer the women at the hotel bought everything we had and left orders enough to keep me busy until long after Christmas."

      "Don't call people kind because they buy what they want."

      "Don't be so cynical. You wouldn't have them buy things they didn't want, would you?"

      "Sometimes they do."

      "Where?"

      "Well, at church fairs, for instance. They spend more than they can afford for things they do not want, in order to please people whom they do not like and help heathen who are much happier than they are."

      "I'm glad I'm not running a church fair," laughed Barbara. "And who told you that heathen are happier than we are? Are you a heathen?"

      "I don't know. Most of us are, I suppose, in one way or another. But how nice it would be if we could paint ourselves instead of wearing clothes, and go under a tree when it rained, and pick cocoanuts or bananas when we were hungry. It would save so much trouble and expense."

      "Paint is sticky," observed Barbara, "and the rain would come around the tree when the wind was blowing from all ways at once, as it does sometimes, and I do not like either cocoanuts or bananas. I'd rather sew. What went wrong to-day?" she asked, with a whimsical smile. "Everything?"

      "Almost," admitted Roger. "How did you know?"

      Unfailing Barometer

      "Because you want to be a heathen instead of the foremost lawyer of your time. Your ambition is an unfailing barometer."

      He laughed lightly. This sort of banter was very pleasing to him after a day with the law books and an hour or more with his mother. He had known Barbara since they were children and their comradeship dated back to the mud-pie days.

      "I don't know but what you're right," he said. "Whether I go to Congress or the Fiji Islands may depend, eventually, upon Judge Bascom's liver."

      "Don't let it depend upon him," cautioned Barbara. "Make your own destiny. It was Napoleon, wasn't it, who prided himself upon making his own circumstances? What would you do—or be—if you could have your choice?"

      Aspirations

      "The best lawyer in the State," he answered, promptly. "I'd never oppose the innocent nor defend the guilty. And I'd have money enough to be comfortable and to make those I love comfortable."

      "Would you marry?" she asked, thoughtfully.

      "Why—I suppose so. It would seem queer, though."

      "Roger," she said, abruptly, "you were born a year and more before I was, and yet you're fully ten or fifteen years younger."

      "Don't take me back too far, Barbara, for I hate milk. Please don't deprive me of my solid food. What would you do, if you could choose?"

      "I'd write a book."

      "What kind? Dictionary?"

      "No, just a little book. The sort that people who love each other would choose for a gift. Something that would be given to one who was going on a long or difficult journey. The one book a woman would take with her when she was tired and went away to rest. A book with laughter and tears in it and so much fine courage that it would be given to those who are in deep trouble. I'd soften the hard hearts, rest the weary ones, and give the despairing ones new strength to go on. Just a little book, but so brave and true and sweet and tender that it would bring the sun to every shady place."

      "Would you marry?"

      The Right Man

      "Of course, if the right man came. Otherwise not."

      "I wonder," mused Roger, "how a person could know the right one?"

      "Foolish child," she answered, "that's it—the knowing. When you don't know, it isn't it."

      "My dear Miss North," remarked Roger, "the heads of your argument are somewhat involved, but I think I grasp your meaning. When you know it is, then it is, but when you don't know that it is, then it isn't. Is that right?"

      "Exactly. Wonderfully intelligent for one so young."

      Barbara's blue eyes danced merrily and her red lips parted in a mocking smile. A long heavy braid of hair, "the colour of ripe corn," hung over either shoulder and into her lap. She was almost twenty-two, but she still clung to the childish fashion of dressing her hair, because the heavy braids and the hairpins made her head ache. All her gowns were white, either of wool or cotton, and were made to be washed. On Sundays, she sometimes wore blue ribbons on her braids.

      Simply Barbara

      To Roger, she was very fair. He never thought of her crutches because she had always been lame. She was simply Barbara, and Barbara needed crutches. It had never occurred to him that she might in any way be different, for he was not one of those restless souls who are forever making people over to fit their own patterns.

      "Why doesn't your father like to have me come here?" asked Roger, irrelevantly.

      "Why doesn't your mother like to have you come?" queried Barbara, quickly on the defensive.

      "No, but tell me. Please!"

      "Father always goes to bed early."

      "But not at eight o'clock. It was a quarter of eight when I came, and by eight he was gone."

      "It isn't you, Roger," she said, unwillingly; "it's anyone. I'm all he has, and if I talk much to other people he feels as if I were being taken away from him—that's all. It's natural, I suppose. You mustn't mind him."

      "But I wouldn't hurt him," returned Roger, softly; "you know that."

      "I know."

      "I wish you could make him understand that I come to see every one of you."

      Hard Work

      "It's the hardest work in the world," sighed Barbara, "to make people understand things."

      "Somebody said once that all the wars had been caused by one set of people trying to force their opinions upon another set, who did not desire to have their minds changed."

      "Very СКАЧАТЬ