Gene Stratton-Porter

“ He lowered his voice as if a sea urchin might hear and tattle.
“What did you do about the wasp, Linda?” he whispered.
“I delicately erased the stinger, fluffed up a ruffle, and put the sketch under lock and key. I should have started a fire with it, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to let it go, yet.”
“Is she going to hold out?” asked Peter.
“She’ll hold out or get her neck wrung,” said Linda. “I truly think she has been redeemed. She has been born again. She has a new heart and a new soul and a new impulse and a right conception of life. Why, Peter, she has even got a new body. ”

“ You should have seen the light flame in her eyes, the red deepen on her cheeks, and the little curl of laughter that curved her lips.
"How interesting!" she cried. "I wonder now if you are not Little Sister."
"I am to Laddie and our folks," I said. "You are a stranger."
All the dancing lights went from her face. She looked as if she were going to cry unless she hurried up and swallowed it down hard and fast.
"That is quite true," she said. "I am a stranger. Do you know that being a stranger is the hardest thing that can happen to any one in all this world?" ”

“ On the day that dress was like to burst its waist seams, it was the same warm rosy pink that transformed Nancy Ellen from the disfiguration of dirt-brown to apple and peach bloom, wild roses and swamp mallow, a girl quite as pretty as a girl ever grows, and much prettier than any girl ever has any business to be. The instant Nancy Ellen held the chambray under her chin and in an oblique glance saw the face of the clerk, the material was hers no matter what the cost, which does not refer to the price, by any means. ”

“ You must remember there are painters, poets, musicians, workers in art along almost any line you could mention, and no one calls them feminine, but there is one good thing if I am. You need no longer fear me. If you should see me, muck covered, grubbing in the earth or on a raft washing roots in the lake, you would not consider me like a woman.”
“Would it be any discredit if I did? I think not. I merely meant that most men would not see or hear the blue bell at all——and as for the poem and prayer! If the woods make a man with such fibre in his soul, I must learn them if they half kill me.” ”

“ I'll take a day and get things started right before I leave you to come to work, like I'll have to. When I come at night, I'll carry your outdoors; why I'll take you down to the water and you can kick your feet in it, where it's nice and warm; all the time you can have as many flowers as your hands will hold; and such bird singing, why Lily Peaches O'Halloran, there are birds as red as blood, yes ma'am, and yellow as orange peel and light blue like this ribbon and dark blue like that—hold still 'til I fix you—and such singing!"
"Mickey, would you hold me?" wavered Peaches. ”

“ Which shall it be, Elnora?”
“You can never love me as you did her,” wailed Elnora.
“I am happy to say I cannot,” replied he. “I’ve cut my matrimonial teeth. I’m cured of wanting to swell in society. I’m over being proud of a woman for her looks alone. I have no further use for lavishing myself on a beautiful, elegantly dressed creature, who thinks only of self. I have learned that I am a common man. I admire beauty and beautiful clothing quite as much as I ever did; but, first, I want an understanding, deep as the lowest recess of my soul, with the woman I marry. ”

“ All the time God ever spent on you was wasted, an' your mother's had the same luck. I s'pose God's used to having creatures 'at He's made go wrong, but I pity your mother. Goodness knows a woman suffers an' works enough over her children, an' then to fetch a boy to man's estate an' have him, of his own free will an' accord, be a liar! Young man, truth is the cornerstone o' the temple o' character. Nobody can put up a good buildin' without a solid foundation; an' you can't do solid character buildin' with a lie at the base. Man 'at's a liar ain't fit for anything! ”

“ It seemed as if the blue flowers dearly loved to creep up to these white hives, to vine around them, to cling to them, to bloom above them. Alone, close to the back walk, Jamie noticed several big hives that stood by themselves where he would have to pass within the distance of a few feet when he made his first journey the length of the garden, out of the gate and across the strip of sand to where the ocean, in a great bay, came lapping up the shore and then slid back again, gently, softly, with only a low murmur song that would be the finest thing in the world to lull a tired man to sleep. ”

“ I knew there would be frozen brown earth, last year's dead leaves, caved-in apple and potato holes, the cabbage row almost gone, puddles of water and mud everywhere, and I would hear geese scream and hens sing. And yet that poem kept pulling and pulling, and I was happy as a queen—I wondered if they were for sure; mother had doubts—the day I was wrapped in shawls and might sit an hour in the sun on the top board of the back fence, where I could see the barn, orchard, the creek and the meadow, as you never could in summer because of the leaves. ”

“ And if I feel that I can muster the nerve to drive the runabout, it’s my car, it’s up to me.”
“Linda!” wailed Eileen, “how can you think of such a thing? You wouldn’t dare.”
“Because I haven’t dared till the present is no reason why I should deprive myself of every single pleasure in life,” said Linda. “You spend your days doing exactly what you please; driving that runabout for Father was my one soul-satisfying diversion. Why shouldn’t I do the thing I love most, if I can muster the nerve?” ”

“ He loves Mahala. He always has loved her. He is really hers and you should be hers. Oh, Baby, tell me what I must do!”
She was kneeling there in a sort of dull lethargy when Jason staggered back home, bowed by the weight of the crucifying revelation that Mahala always had loved him; that he had sacrificed her love; that he had thrown away the beauty of her soul and her body through his doubt of her.
As he stepped inside his door and saw Ellen kneeling beside the cradle, her unheeding head being rumpled and battered by the uncertain hands of the baby, he wondered for a moment. ”

“ We are all more interested in ourselves than in any one else in this world, until love comes; then we soon learn to a love man more than life, and when a child comes we learn another love, so clear, so high, so purifying, that we become of no moment at all, and live only for those we love."
"You speak for yourself, and a class of women like you," answered Kate gravely. "I'm very well acquainted with many women who have married and borne children, and who are possibly more selfish than before. ”

“ She's the prettiest lady, and the most joyous lady I ever saw."
"Prettier than the Nurse Lady?" asked Peaches.
"Well different," explained Mickey. "Nurse Lady is all gold like the end of Sunrise Alley at four o'clock in the morning. This lady has dark hair and eyes. Both of them are as pretty as women are made, but they are not the same. Nurse Lady is when the sun comes up, and warms and comforts the world; but the doll-lady is like all the stars twinkling in the moonlight on the park lake, and music playing, and everybody dancing. The doll-lady is joy, just the Joy Lady. ”

“ It is as much bigger, cleaner, and more wholesome than any feeling I ever had for Edith Carr, as you are bigger than she, when you stand before your classes and in calm dignity explain the marvels of the Almighty, while she stands on a ballroom floor and gives way to uncontrolled temper. Ye gods, Elnora, If you could look into my soul, you would see it leap and rejoice over my escape! Perhaps it isn't decent, but it's human, and I'm only a common human being. I'm the gladdest thing alive that I'm free! ”

“ If you came and weathered the storm and resolved that you could go on with what you call an open wound in your breast, I’ll promise you that I’ll not go over the rock. I’ll promise you that I’ll find my way back to the friends I left; that I’ll go home; that I’ll take up my work; that I’ll do the best I can.”
“That’s fine,” said Jamie, “as far as it goes. But it doesn’t go far enough to do you any more good than the good of saving your soul alive, because we don’t get life at our own volition in this world, and we have no right to give it up until the God who gave it says we have lived it. ”

“ The Harvester lifted a graven face, down which the sweat of agony rolled, and his lips parted in a twitching smile. “Then this is where love beats the doctors, Carey!” he said.
“It is where love has ventured what science dares not. Love didn't do all of this. In the name of the Almighty, what did you give her, David?”
“Life!” cried the Harvester. “Life! Come on, Ruth, come on! Out of the valley come to me! You are well now, Girl! It's all over! The last trace of fever is gone, the last of the dull ache. Can you swallow just two more drops of bottled sunshine, Ruth?” ”

“ She had all winter, all last summer, and no one but themselves knew how long before that, and where was there any other man like Laddie? Of course she loved him! Who so deserving of love? Who else had his dancing eyes of deep tender blue, cheeks so pink, teeth so white, such waving chestnut hair, and his height and breadth? There was no other man who could ride, swim, leap, and wrestle as he could. None who could sing the notes, do the queer sums with letters having little figures at the corners in the college books, read Latin as fast as English, and even the Greek Bible. ”

“ It was the joy of her life to be a perfect wife to Mahlon, to be a perfect pattern to her neighbours, but every year of her life made her task more difficult. The most difficult thing of all was the third task, which tried her more than either of the others—to be a perfect mother to Mahala. Pride might soar to undue heights where it concerned her husband or prestige; but the love of her small daughter cut to the very depths of her heart. Mahala was delighted over the bird. That was easy to be seen. But Junior Moreland was the son of the rich banker. ”

“ I haven’t a notion what she will say to me for what I did last night and what I am going to do in the future, but I have a definite idea as to what I am going to say to her.”
“Now, easy; ye go easy, lambie,” cautioned Katy.
“I wouldn’t regret it,” said Linda, “if I took Eileen by the shoulders and shook her till I shook the rouge off her cheek, and the brilliantine off her hair, and a million mean little subterfuges out of her soul. You know Eileen is lovely when she is natural, and if she would be straight-off-the-bat square, I would be proud to be her sister. ”

“ Love from us both, NANCY ELLEN.
Kate sat very still, holding this letter in her hand, when John Jardine came up and sat beside her. She looked at him closely. He was quite as good looking as his mother thought him, in a brawny masculine way; but Kate was not seeking the last word in mental or physical refinement. She was rather brawny herself, and perfectly aware of the fact. She wanted intensely to learn all she could, she disliked the idea that any woman should have more stored in her head than she, but she had no time to study minute social graces and customs. ”

“ As he touched the top she swung him to the ground, but he clung to her, clasping her tightly, sobbing with fear. Elnora helped him to the bridge, and sat with him in her arms. For a time his replies to her questions were indistinct, but at last he became quieter and she could understand.
He was a mite of a boy, nothing but skin-covered bones, his burned, freckled face in a mortar of tears and dust, his clothing unspeakably dirty, one great toe in a festering mass from a broken nail, and sores all over the visible portions of the small body. ”

“ Pryor was standing before I saw him rise. He said those awful words again, but between them he cried: "You're right! It's the truth! It's the eternal truth!"
"It IS the truth," said Laddie. "I've only to visit the offices, and examine the business of those of my family living by law, to KNOW that it's the truth. Of course there's another side! There are times when there are great opportunities to do good; I recognize that. To some these may seem to overbalance that to which I object. If they do, all right. I am merely deciding for myself. Once and for all, for me it is land. ”

“ It was several days yet until the time for Margaret Cameron to make her second inspection. The pad Jamie had removed that morning looked as fresh and clean as when it had been applied. The morning tomato juice, the afternoon orange juice, the soaking in the sea, the baking on the sands, the clean, dustless, salt-laden air, absorbing occupation, all day out-of-doors, a mind with something to dwell on that was holy, that was beautiful—what doctor need hope to compete with such a combination, such an exhibition of Nature’s powers for healing? ”

“ Can you?"
"I can think of two things," said Nancy Ellen. "I can think of a very pretty, confiding, little cat of a woman, who is desperately infatuated with my husband; and I can think of two children fathered by George Holt, who might possibly, just possibly, have enough of his blood in their veins to be like him, given opportunity. Alone for a week, there is barely a FAINT possibility that YOU might be needed. Alone for the same week, there is the faintest possibility that ROBERT is in a situation where I could help him."
Kate drew a deep breath.
"Isn't life the most amusing thing?" ”

“ I don't understand," commented Ammon.
"No wonder!" laughed Elnora. "They are my discovery. You know all trees whisper and talk during the summer, but there are two that have so much to say they keep on the whole winter, when the others are silent. The beeches and oaks so love to talk, they cling to their dead, dry leaves. In the winter the winds are stiffest and blow most, so these trees whisper, chatter, sob, laugh, and at times roar until the sound is deafening. They never cease until new leaves come out in the spring to push off the old ones. ”

“ Oh Man, why do you do it?”
“I thought it was about time to spring another 'why' on me,” said the Harvester. “Thank God, I am now in a position where I can tell you 'why'! I do it because you are the girl of my dream, my mate by every law of Heaven and earth. All men build as well as they know when the one woman of the universe lays her spell on them. I did all this for myself just as a kind of expression of what it would be in my heart to do if I could do what I'd like. Put on the easiest dress you can find and I will go and set out something to eat.” ”

“ Then Jamie answered back and said: “But how am I going to keep that promise? How am I going to marry a girl with such a noble face, with hair of silk, and hands of such assurance; how am I going to stand up and swear that I’ll love her and take care of her so long as we both shall live, and then not work for her, not wonder where she is, and what is happening to her, and whether I could not do more for her than to give her my name at a pinch?” ”

“ I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want something different from what life gives them. If you only could realize it, my girl, you are in college, and have been always. You are in the school of experience, and it has taught you to think, and given you a heart. God knows I envy the man who wins it! You have been in the college of the Limberlost all your life, and I never met a graduate from any other institution who could begin to compare with you in sanity, clarity, and interesting knowledge. ”

“ Fear had fled the face of Martin Moreland with the going of his reason. In still amazement the mob saw him swing over them the blood-stained banner and heard his voice, flat and toneless, begin a sort of chant in the exact words with which Rebecca had familiarized them through many long years: “Behold the emblem of purity! Clean hearts may pass under with God’s blessing. Come, ye workers of darkness, wash your hearts clean by passing under the white flag!”
Slowly the look of hate and of anger faded from the faces of the people. There is in the average mob at bottom a sense of justice. ”

“ He walked to his door and listened intently, but there was no sound; so he decided the Girl had not been awakened. In the midst of a whitening sheet of gold the Harvester dropped to his stoop and leaned his head against the broad casing. He broke a twig from a hawthorn bush beside him, and sat twisting it in his fingers as he stared down the line of the gold bridge. Never had it seemed so material, so like a path that might be trodden by mortal feet and lead them straight to Heaven. As on the hill top, night again surrounded him and the Harvester's soul drank deep wild draughts of a new joy. ”

“ She does love you, Elnora. Everybody does, honey. It’s just that she’s feeling so much, she can’t express herself. You be a patient girl and wait a little longer. After all, she’s your mother, and you’re all she’s got, but a memory, and it might do her good to let her know that she was fooled in that.”
“It would kill her!” cried the girl swiftly. “Uncle Wesley, it would kill her! What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” said Wesley Sinton soothingly. “Nothing, honey. That was just one of them fool things a man says, when he is trying his best to be wise. ”

“ He met them steadily, smiling encouragement.
“Hang on to each breath, dear heart!” he urged. “The fever is gone. The pain is over! Long life and the love you crave are for you. You've only to keep breathing a few more hours and the battle is yours. Glorious Girl! Noble! You are doing finely! Ruth, do you know me?”
Her lips moved.
“Don't try to speak,” said the Harvester. “Don't waste breath on a word. Save the good oxygen to strengthen your tired body. But if you do know me, maybe you could smile, Ruth!” ”

“ Elnora is very sensible, Mrs. Comstock. Hadn’t you better let her decide this?”
“The final decision rests with her, of course,” admitted Mrs. Comstock. “But look you one thing! She’s all I have. As Solomon says, ‘she is the one child, the only child of her mother.’ I’ve suffered enough in this world that I fight against any suffering which threatens her. So far as I know you’ve always been a man, and you may stay. But if you bring tears and heartache to her, don’t have the assurance to think I’ll bear it tamely. I’ll get right up and fight like a catamount, if things go wrong for Elnora!” ”

“ Life did not bring her joy. She was very tired. She used to say that after her soul had fled, if I would lay her here, perhaps the big roots would reach down and find her, and from her frail frame gather slight nourishment and then her body would live again in talking leaves that would shelter me in summer and whisper her love in winter. Of all Medicine Woods this is the dearest spot to me. Can you love it too, Ruth?”
“Oh I can!” cried the Girl; “I do now! Just to see the place and hear that is enough. I wish, oh to my soul I wish——”
“You wish what?” whispered the Harvester gently. ”

“ If Elnora Comstock had been like me, Phil would have come back to me. I can see how selfish I look to him, and how I appear to you, if you would admit it."
"Edith," said Henderson desperately, "there is no use to try to deceive you. You have known from the first that I found you wrong in this. But it's the first time in your life I ever thought you wrong about anything—and it's the only time I ever will. Understand, I think you the bravest, most beautiful woman on earth, the one most worth loving." ”

“ I’ve known Philip all my life. I’ve known him through boyhood, in college, and since. All men respect him. Where the rest of us confess our sins, he stands clean. You can go to his arms with nothing to forgive. Mark this thing! I have heard him say, ‘Edith is my slogan,’ and I have seen him march home strong in the strength of his love for you, in the face of temptations before which every other man of us fell. Before the gods! that ought to be worth something to a girl, if she really is the delicate, sensitive, refined thing she would have man believe. ”

“ Lately many things had pointed toward it, none more plainly than when Elnora, like a reincarnation of her father, had stood fearlessly before a large city audience and played with even greater skill than he, on what Mrs. Comstock felt very certain was his violin. But that little crawling creature of earth, crushed by her before its splendid yellow and lavender wings could spread and carry it into the mystery of night, had performed a miracle.
“We are nearer strangers to each other than we are with any of the neighbours,” she muttered. ”

“ Where’s the anguish, Wesley, that child can’t comprehend? Seeing what she’s seen of her mother hasn’t hardened her. She can understand any mother’s sorrow. Living life from the rough side has only broadened her. Where’s the girl or boy burning with shame, or struggling to find a way, that will cross Elnora’s path and not get a lift from her? She’s had the knocks, but there’ll never be any of the thing you call ‘false pride’ in her. I guess we better keep out. Maybe Kate Comstock knows what she’s doing. Sure as you live, Elnora has grown bigger on knocks than she would on love. ”

“ I am going to please myself about Billy. Hasn't she always done just as she chose so far as you know? Honest, Elnora!"
"Honest!" replied Elnora. "You are beautiful to all of us, Uncle Wesley; but Aunt Margaret won't like Billy. She won't want him in her home."
"In our home," corrected Sinton.
"What makes you want him?" marvelled Elnora.
"God only knows," said Sinton. "Billy ain't so beautiful, and he ain't so smart; I guess it's because he's so human. My heart goes out to him."
"So did mine," said Elnora. "I love him. I'd rather see him eat my lunch than have it myself any time." ”

“ Philip sat silently looking far away, with deep thought in his eyes.
“You are angry,” faltered Elnora.
His look came back to her as she knelt before him among the flowers and he gazed at her steadily.
“No doubt I should be,” he said, “but the fact is I am not. I cannot understand a life purely for personal pleasure myself. But she is only a girl, and this is her playtime. When she is a woman in her own home, then she will be different, will she not?”
Elnora never resembled her mother so closely as when she answered that question. ”

“ Edith Carr stood truly regal and filled with scorn. "You are mistaken! Nothing on earth could kill that!" she cried, and Elnora saw that the girl really believed what she said.
"You are very sure of yourself!" said Elnora.
"I have reason to be sure," answered Edith Carr. "We have lived and loved too long. I have had years with him to match against your days. He is mine! His work, his ambitions, his friends, his place in society are with me. You may have a summer charm for a sick man in the country; if he tried placing you in society, he soon would see you as others will. ”

“ Sixty young men and women, each of them dressed the best possible, followed her. There were manly, fine-looking men in that class which Elnora led. There were girls of beauty and grace, but not one of them was handsomer or clothed in better taste than she.
Billy thought the time never would come when Elnora would see him, but at last she met his eye, then Margaret and Wesley had faint signs of recognition in turn, but there was no softening of the girl’s face and no hint of a smile when she saw her mother. ”

“ Comstock.
"I won't need to, Kate!" said Sinton, his heart softening the instant the hard words were said. "You won't show it, but you do love Elnora! You can't help it! You must see how she needs things; come help us fix them, and be friends. Maggie and I couldn't live without her, and you couldn't either. You've got to love such a fine girl as she is; let it show a little!"
"You can hardly expect me to love her," said Mrs. Comstock coldly. "But for her a man would stand back to me now, who would beat the breath out of your sneaking body for the cowardly thing with which you threaten me. ”

“ Rather fierce temptations strike a man, every few days, in this world. I can keep decent, for a woman who cares for decency, but when I do, I’d like to have the fact recognized, by just enough of a show of appreciation that I could see it. I am tired of this one-sided business. After this, I want to get a little in return for what I give. Elnora, you have love, tenderness, and honest appreciation of the finest in life. Take what I offer, and give what I ask.”
“You do not ask much,” said Elnora.
“As for not loving you as I did Edith,” continued Philip, “as I said before, I hope not! ”