Georgia Wood Pangborn

“ Further likeness to a moth was carried out by a gray shawl which hung from her shoulders like folded gray wings. Like a moth, too, was the subtle shiver and quiver which shook her body and her voice as her lips twitched under their forlorn smile.
“I saw your light. I thought perhaps you were finding it dull, too. My little green man won’t sing with the rest. He is dying, I’m afraid.” She held the creature pitifully in her hand, and, upon entering, laid it in the circle of light under my reading-lamp. “I hate to see things die,” said she. ”

“ There were some men and women, however, who did not close their windows on the Wilderness side, and had not such a cultivated taste for sunsets that they were able to disregard the annoyances of the swamp. And they kept on listening and worrying, until they said, ‘This is unendurable! If the Wilderness is as old as the race, then it is older than it should he, and the race is too old to endure such folly any longer!’ and they went down, and drained swamps, and fought with beasts and worse, and saved little children, and let in light and air where men and women were working. ”

“ I looked around, and there was my body lying on the divan, as unconcerned as you please, eyes half opened and face turned toward the window, a pencil in one hand, and the other on my Greek prose book.”
Miss Einar’s dilated eyes focussed over my shoulder upon my window, as though she expected the blank face of the fog there to take on monstrous features. At the ceasing of her soft voice, the noise of the katydids broke forth in redoubled energy, and I was aware of the sorrowful drip from the leaves and the roof as though the vaporous giant out there were weeping human tears. ”

“ Some night I shall go and not come back. ...The kind spirit has done its best. Of all the little creatures I have tried to save from cruel deaths, not one ever lived. They have always stupidly died in my hands, so that I might as well have let the cat have them in the first place. And perhaps it’s like that when we once fall into the hands of those others—the good ones can’t help, no matter how hard they try.”
Abruptly her bead drooped. She sighed, relaxed, and slept. A cold wind blowing through the fog fluttered the flame of my lamp. ”

“ Molly and her mother laughed together with the disdain of the wise for a thing too foolish for serious discussion.
“And then when you came in, so wild with sudden pity for the things you had seen, I remembered poor Aunt Jenny at her prayers, and I hardly knew which would hurt me most, to see you in a coronet or a veil. But—oh, my dear—the woman’s way—the old, old woman’s way—it isn’t easy! Many, many days the burden of my life has been greater than it seemed I could bear. Do you realize that you were sick a good deal when you were a baby? ”

“ I had just been wondering what wretchedness could be like my own, and now smiled grimly at her naive selfishness; then on second thought recognized in my attitude the custom of the places and was ashamed.
“It is better to share such troubles,” I said, “when one can.”
At this she looked up with sudden directness, and her face showed fear enough, and anger, and bewilderment, but not, I thought, madness. An alienist would make little enough of my opinion, but, given for what it is worth, I thought her sane then, and did not change my mind through all the astonishment that followed. ”

“ When Harvey kissed me that afternoon I had supposed that nothing in or out of the world could be so lovely as our caring for each other—but this—
“All the happiness that ever was lay in that—hand—or whatever it was. There was no possibility of fatigue in it, or sickness or change. It could have carried me through a thousand years and I should never have grown tired. If I could tell you all that I saw—but there was too much of it, and it was too confused. Centuries went by in a flash, for we were in the place where there is no measure of time. ”

“ The people on the Hill used to have their washing done there; in fact, all the rough work of the Hill people was done there as a matter of course.
“‘Civilization,’ the Hill people said, ‘is without doubt the most important thing m the world; but naturally it takes a great deal of work to keep it up properly. That is what these Wilderness people are for. How, for instance, could we dress for dinner if nobody ironed our shirts? We work too; just as hard as they, but in a different way. We work with our heads instead of our hands—at least some of us do. ”

“ When Sidney had consulted her about the flowers, she had said that violets would go best with Molly’s eyes. She took off the wrappings and read Sidney’s card thoughtfully; then with an odd flicker of a smile she smelt of it. Disinfectants are terribly penetrating, and if they are in constant use in your daily work you can hardly be expected to keep them out of your merely social affairs: they follow as unhappy memories do or Black Care behind the horseman. ”

“ You know how a mouse squeaks when it is mortally frightened. Have you seen, too, a mouse come right toward the cat that’s playing with it, apparently doing as it’s told—‘Come here and be eaten’? I’ve seen that, and interfered more than once; and remembering how I tried to be good to mice, I squeaked out some sort of mouse prayer to the other Thing—the kind one. And at that I was caught away, fell endlessly, until I woke in my own bed, and the rain was driving in. ”

“ There was no city there now, nor any dream of one, and nothing either good or evil any longer called me, out there in the rain...
“That was nearly six months ago,” concluded Miss Einar, her voice sagging wearily. “Every night since then I have been called and ... have gone ... every night they have fought for me—every night I have broken away and have run through all the world... I have seen every wretchedness there is, everything that is worst among men, but without being able to feel pity or disgust, for all that I saw was a part of myself ”

“ What right has one to be happy in such a world? And there were others. A little, thin, one-legged boy,—oh, such eyes, Mother!—and a poor Italian woman whose husband had been killed,—she had a week-old baby in her shawl,—and others. How can I dance tonight? Shall one dance on graves?”
“If there were no other place to dance,” said Molly’s mother very quietly.
“There is no other place, and one should not dance at all!” said Molly wildly. “Violets, verses to my eyes, and a Mother and Daddy to run my errands and smooth off every rough corner for me—why should I have all these things? ”

“ If I had really been on the other side of death, I should certainly have mot my father there, and he would never have let things happen as they did; but the really dead must be beyond all that confusion, just as the really asleep are, and the danger is only along the edges. And you know, if there are dangerous things, there is no reason why there shouldn’t be others, too, that would like to help ”

“ Having gained my room, I looked about me at my own night-lamp, books and samovar prepared against the empty giant hours, and felt very sorry for Miss Einar. People who fire troubled by sleeplessness, I have sometimes thought, are sorrier than any other brotherhood of invalids for each other. ”

“ He called it ‘specializing.’
“‘You would do a great deal of good,’ said the Princess, taking out her embroidery again; for she never liked to be idle.
“‘I believe,’ said he, ‘that in another ten years we can rid the earth of him.’
“‘You will have to work very hard,’ said she. ”

“ Yet the katydids, doomed to die to-morrow mid presumably without hope of resurrection, wore as cheerful as though the night had been dry and filled with summer moonlight As the girl’s long sombre stare continued, I nervously seized the shade-cord, meaning to shut out whatever gigantic horror might be peering in, but she said:
“No, don’t do that. I’m always looking at windows and hoping, but that was the only time I ever saw it. There must be strange laws over there. What reason can there be in not being able to feel, hear, and see a thing at the same time? ”

“ When I touched a fold of my dress, I knew that 1 touched it only as air might know when it blows over something solid—no more than that...
“Then one of the girls that were on the glee club began to sing in her room, and I woke—furious at waking, and only thinking how I could fall asleep again and get altogether out of my body in the way I had begun. Yet, as I woke more fully and remembered the wickedness of whatever it was that had helped me, I was afraid—but not as afraid as I should have been—I was afraid of not being afraid. ”

“ At Easter vacation I went home, My Greek condition was made up at last, so I could enjoy myself, and now I made sure the dream would go. That week Harvey asked me to marry him. I know now that I was wrong to accept him, with a thing like that hanging over me, but I didn’t know it then, besides... He had the ring in his pocket when he spoke, and pushed it on my finger before I said either yes or no. That’s Harvey’s way. ”