Chapter XI: A Real Poem

There is always a sensation of surprise in returning to a familiar spot after an absence and finding it unchanged. The feeling was strong in Marcy when, in May, the Merricks went to their country-house after the winter that had so transformed her life.

The journey was very painful to her, not only because of the fatigue, which was lessened by all sorts of devices, but because she had grown so sensitive to the wondering eyes of strangers, that even in her closed litter she felt as though they were fixed upon her curiously. Merry made the journey in the litter with her little mistress, which was fortunate, for she was so firmly convinced that she was being borne to destruction, and mewed her woes so plaintively, that in trying to soothe her Marcy forgot some of her own discomfort.

For a few days after her arrival Marcy was not so well, but when she had rested, and grown accustomed to the bracing air, she gained strength daily, and by June was able to spend long hours in her couch-chair, tasting a little of her old joy in merely being alive.

One day she said to her mother:

“Mamma, I want to get on the grass so badly; it seems as though my flesh and bones were aching for it. Don’t you know how I always loved to get right down in it, and Norah used to scold me for getting all grass stains, and say I was worse than the little children? Well, it seems to me I shall fly into tiny pieces if you don’t help me get at the grass. Can’t you have a bed made on the ground, so I can at least run my fingers through it?”

“I’ll try,” her mother said, and after that every day there was a mattress carried out under a big tree, and there Marcy could lie watching the swaying boughs above her and running her thin fingers through the grass blades.

She soon discovered that the tree was a sort of village, where myriad little lives were living. Gray squirrels frisked up and down its trunk, and would run out on a limb close above her, and scold her well when they discovered she was there, and whisk back, only to return and peer at her with uncontrollable curiosity. Marcy began providing herself with crumbs, and soon the little fellows learned that she was quite harmless, and vouchsafed to come down and partake of the luncheons she spread for them. An oriole had built a nest on a limb directly above her, and she could watch the quietly clad mother bird swing and swing in the soft air, while her husband, like a big jewel, flashed back and forth, bringing her solid comfort in some delicious morsel, or cheering her with short bursts of liquid song that sounded like the scent of flowers and the beauty of June made audible. And one day, to Marcy’s infinite delight, a cat-bird, that naughty cousin of the mocking-bird, who can sing so exquisitely when he will, poised in the air about three feet above the tall grass gone to seed close by her head, and keeping himself up by rapid strokes of his wings, poured forth his soul in such glorious, joyous melody, that Marcy felt her eyes grow moist from the keen delight of its beauty, and gratitude that life could still be so sweet.

These pleasures were hers only when she was alone, which was seldom. The children could not be tempted from her long by all the attractions of the country, and no joy was perfect and no sorrow comforted without Marcy.

A collection of all sorts of treasures were always around her couch--fading flowers, queer stones, and everything the fields can yield--brought by the little brothers and sisters as an offering at the shrine of their household saint.

“They love me--oh, they really do love me, and they’re never happy without me now!” thought Marcy in deep content. “And how I used to drive them off just to be selfish, and try to do silly things which I thought were fine ones.”

And Marcy found consolation on those days when the brisk breeze drove swiftly over her tree-top the gray clouds, with curly edges showing dazzling white beneath, that though she could no longer run over the hill-tops with her kite faster than the boys, they now thought no one could untangle their snarled kite-tails as well as Marcy, and no one could do anything as well as she could.

“Auntie Stockton is coming up for a week, Marcy,” said Inez one morning. “She will be here this afternoon.”

“Oh, I’m glad!” cried Marcy joyfully.

“Auntie Stockton” was a sweet old lady, no relation to the children, but was the kind of old lady who was auntie to all the world, whose coming is hailed with delight by all little folk.

When she came Marcy was seated on the western piazza. It was sunset, and all the west was flaming with crimson and gold, and Norah had just brought Marcy out to see it. The blinds of the parlor were closed, and no one knew she was there.

Mrs. Merrick welcomed Auntie Stockton heartily, and at once the dear old lady said:

“How is my poor little Marcy? I long to see her, and I dread to, I am so afraid of crying over her.”

“Oh, you mustn’t,” Mrs. Merrick said quickly. “Marcy is getting stronger; the country has done wonders for her. I suppose, considering the nature of her injury, we could hardly have hoped she would do so well.”

“I know. I saw the doctor before I came up here,” said Auntie Stockton. “He said he thought she would be able to walk on crutches when she was twenty.”

Marcy turned pale, and bowed her face on her hands.

The words that sounded so hopeful to her mother and old friend, who had feared she could never walk, rang in her ears like a knell. Although she had made up her mind to being an invalid, she had looked forward to walking in a year at most. The tears fell fast through her fingers. When she was twenty! Eight--no seven full years more, for she would be thirteen in September, and then only to walk with crutches!

“Oh, I can’t, I can’t!” she sobbed under her breath.

Just then a little brown song sparrow, perched on the very tip of a little cedar-tree, and outlined in a tiny silhouette against the bright west, repeated his simple little song, so sweet, so clear, so pathetic, and yet so cheerful. “_Sweet_, _sweet_, _sweeter_, _sweeter_, _sweeter_, _sweet_,” he sang.

Marcy raised her tear-wet face, and smiled at the little bird.

“Bless you, birdie; you always sing when the sun goes down,” she said. “Perhaps I can if I try.” And she hastily dried her eyes, hearing some one coming.

“How is it with Marcy?” asked a gentle voice, as a tender hand was laid on her shining hair.

“Well, dear auntie,” said Marcy cheerily, receiving her kiss, and returning it with all her heart.

Auntie Stockton sat down by her and watched Marcy as she asked about her life, and what pleasure she contrived to get out of it.

“I’ll tell you, auntie, but I never told any one else what made me able to bear it,” said Marcy. And she told Auntie Stockton how impossible it had seemed to her to live, with all that made life worth having, and her dreams of doing noble things all ended. And how Father Glenn had told her that her life could be a poem, which was more than writing one, and how beautiful it would be to make the children love and lean on her; and she repeated the little allegory of the garden. “And do you know, auntie, what the little flower is that grew there and sweetened all the air?” Marcy asked. “Father Glenn said it was a little white blossom, but I think it is all purple and gold, like the altar on Passion Sunday, for I am finding the little blossom, auntie, and it is heartsease.”

Auntie Stockton could not reply, but just then Hugh ran up, crying:

“Marcy! Oh, Marcy, here you are! I was looking for you down by the tree, and couldn’t find you.”

“Did you want anything, Hughie?” asked Marcy, stroking the damp hair from his forehead.

“Nothing but you,” replied Hugh, balancing affectionately on the arm of her chair.

“What could you do without Marcy?” asked Auntie Stockton, watching the scene, well pleased, and beginning to think Marcy’s fall was rather cause for rejoicing than regret.

“We couldn’t do a thing without her,” answered Hugh promptly. “They used to say she was the genius of the family, and I never knew what it meant, but now I do, for she is just like the genius in the fairy-tale that makes everything come out right.”

“You mean _genii_, Hugh--not _genius_,” laughed Marcy.

“Oh, what’s the difference?” said Hugh, with supreme contempt for trifles. “That’s what you are, anyhow, and what’s the difference whether you stick on an _s_ or not?”

Auntie Stockton was given a chamber in the back of the house as the quietest.

“You won’t be afraid, auntie, though Mr. Merrick is not here,” said Mrs. Merrick. “There are so many of us, and there is a bell from my room into the coachman’s house; besides I have a revolver.”

“Dear me, no; I’m not afraid,” replied Auntie Stockton cheerfully.

But, nevertheless, Mrs. Merrick was wakened at what seemed to her the middle of the night by a tapping at her chamber-door.

“What is it?” she cried, and on Auntie Stockton’s voice responding tremblingly: “It’s I, Clara,” she sprang up to let her in.

“There is some one in the house,” whispered the old lady. “I heard him walking across the kitchen, and as I lay and listened to make sure, I distinctly heard a door shut and a window open.”

“Mercy upon us!” cried Mrs. Merrick, and ran trembling to her bureau drawer and took out the revolver; but Auntie Stockton threw up her hands imploringly.

“Clara, I beg you put it back,” she gasped. “I am more afraid of it than of any man.”

Inez and Grace had the room next their mother’s, and they appeared at this moment.

“Oh, mamma, is it burglars? Oh, mamma, what shall we do?” they sobbed.

The boys, too, sleeping at the end of the hall, had heard the voices, and came to ask what was happening. Bob was inclined to consider it good sport, but Hugh was panic-stricken.

“Now let us be calm, and think,” said Mrs. Merrick, forgetting all about the bell to the coachman’s house in the excitement. “Turn the gas up higher, Inez. We must do something.”

And to prove that she was perfectly calm and equal to the emergency, Mrs. Merrick went to the glass and put on a linen collar and necktie that lay on her bureau over her night-dress.

Bob giggled, and so did Inez, though she was dreadfully frightened, but Grace wept steadily, and Hugh tried to hide under the pillow. Mrs. Merrick, fortified by her fitting preparation to meet burglars, turned from the glass, saying:

“I am going down. We must not waken Marcy and Lulie. Children, you stay here. Auntie, I’ll take the revolver, and you can come with me if you like.”

“Clara Merrick, I will not stir one step if you touch that weapon,” said Auntie Stockton. “You mustn’t lay your finger on it. Your hands are shaking like a leaf, and you might kill these children.”

This awful suggestion, adding fear of his own mother to his other terror, caused Hugh to wail outright.

Suddenly Inez said:

“What time is it?”

Mrs. Merrick’s room was so darkened by heavy curtains and green shades that no one could guess the hour. Mrs. Merrick pulled her watch from under her pillow. “Six o’clock!”

With one accord Mrs. Merrick, Inez, and Bob ran to the head of the back stairs.

“Eliza, are you up?” “Eliza, are you down?” “Eliza, are you there?” cried all three together.

Eliza, the cook, was heard coming heavily across the floor, and opened the door at the foot of the stairs.

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied; “I’m building me fire.”

Bob sat down on the upper step and fairly howled with laughter, while Inez ran shrieking back to her mother’s room, crying:

“Why, auntie, auntie, the burglar is Eliza getting breakfast!”

It was Saturday, and Mr. Merrick came up that evening to spend Sunday with his family.

“A note from Father Glenn, Marcy,” he said, handing her one as he kissed her on his arrival. “This is the anniversary of your First Communion, and he remembered it.”

The note ran: “Just a line, dear child, to tell you how glad I am of the growth of the sweet little blossom, and that I pray every day the Good Gardener will tend it, and care for it, and long spare it to us to sweeten the lives of all who come into the garden.”

“A secret, Marcy?” said her mother, watching the smile and tears rise in the eyes of her darling.

“A little secret between Father Glenn and me, mamma dear,” replied Marcy, slipping the note in the folds of her wrapper.

“These dear little fingers used to try to do great deeds,” said Mr. Merrick, taking up Marcy’s hand. “What do you think, children? Do they do great things now?”

“I think they do everything I want done,” said Bob.

“I think Marcy’s just like the queen bee, and we’re the other bees,” said Grace, who had been much interested of late in reading of the wonderful ways of bees.

“I think she’s more like the honey pot if we are the bees,” said Hugh, giving her a hug that he had learned to make gentle as well as tight.

“I think she’s the comfort of her mother’s heart,” said Mrs. Merrick, kissing her.

“And the light of her father’s eyes,” added Mr. Merrick.

“And I say she’s just Marcy,” said Lucy.

“Yes, that’s the whole of it, Lulie; there’s only one Marcy,” cried Inez.

“At last our little genius has made her perfect poem, sung her perfect song, and painted her perfect picture,” said Auntie Stockton gently. “Yours was a fall upward, wasn’t it, Marcy?”

“They all spoil me,” Marcy said, with happy tears on the face grown beautiful in its sweetness and patience. “I think we’re the happiest family in the world, and when I fell I seemed to fall right into everybody’s heart.”

PRINTED BY BENZIGER BROTHERS, NEW YORK.

Transcriber’s Note:

Hyphenation and spelling have been retained as they appear in the original publication except as follows:

Page 21
W ell, I’m sorry she’s so big _changed to_
W-ell, I’m sorry she’s so big

Page 73
so easy keeping head there _changed to_
so easy keeping ahead there

Page 84
kind of an alle alleglory _changed to_
kind of an alle--alleglory