Margaret W. Eggleston

“ Then she threw her arms high over her head and, lifting her face into the sunset, she cried,
“Oh, thou Great Spirit to whom my people have always prayed, though they knew thee not as the great God; oh thou to whom my mother taught me to pray, show me the way to happiness. I would my life should be as my mother wished it to be—a little light. I would do my best in the right place. Is love for the white man the way to happiness? ”

“ Three years before, the good missionary who was leaving the encampment had said to Owaissa, “Soon there will come to your tepee a little child. Should it be a little girl, teach her to see herself in the things about her, so that the birds, and the trees, and the flowers, and the winds may all help her to grow true and fine, even as they help the young braves to grow brave and strong. The girls of your Indian tribes are not given half a chance to see the helpers all about them. Teach her to see, as I have taught you to see, what a woman can do.” ”

“ No matter how hard the people had to work, if the little plant was growing in their homes, they were happy. Indeed, the book said that the flower of the plant was so beautiful that no garden was complete without it; so in the days of the long ago, it grew in the gardens of the rich and the poor, while happiness and prosperity reigned in the land.
Eagerly the king read the description of the little flower that grew on this wonderful plant. It was white as the driven snow. It had heart-shaped petals surrounding a wonderful heart of gold, and it was known as the White Flower of Happiness. ”

“ There was the long hike, the tired muscles, the view from the mountaintop, the wonderful sunset, the stillness of the night and the fear of the dark. Then there was the voice of the woman in the picture,
“Girls, you are safer here than in any house you could find. Just remember that God is over all and sleep as sound as can be.”
Then there was the sunrise, the pancake breakfast on the hill, and the hike home. Best of all there had been two long days with Mrs. Fuller, the friend of girls. What a good visit they had had with her! What a fine story she had told them at the sunset! ”

“ How long it seemed since she had left the office in the afternoon!
The room was so dainty that it took Julia a long time to get ready for bed. How she would love to have a room like this! Maybe it would be easy to be good. She looked at the dress again, as she laid it carefully over the chair. It was all hers. The girls would laugh at her but she loved it. Then she lifted the little string of pearls—not cheap, big ones such as she had worn on Sunday, but dainty, beautiful ones, and they whispered again to her,
“Be as beautiful as the beads, girlie. True beauty is never put on from the outside. ”

“ Take your treasure—the love of the people along the way, but take also the gift of the King—comfort and happiness all the days of your life. For you entered the way of Love to seek for your treasure and where Love is, there God is also. ”

“ And always he has kept fresh water from the spring in the jar. See, he has brought it up here beside your tepee that it would be waiting for me. Yes, my Fir Tree, see, here is my own star still shining brightly—more brightly to-night because of my great happiness with you.”
“Dear little Willow Wand, what a beautiful child you are,” said Fir Tree, and he brushed back her black hair and looked into her eyes. “Don’t you know that the star in the crock is only a reflection of a real star above your dear head in the sky? No one can really shoot a star, Willow Wand.” ”

“ If you will, your school can give to you a vision that will make your load seem very easy; your church can give to you a love that will make you eager to go there and learn to serve; your home cares can give you ideals for your own little home some day; your mother can show you how to grow into beautiful womanhood if you will but give her a chance; your troubles at home can give to you a sympathy that will not only lift your own burden but help with those of others. ”

“ And after she had told it every bit, she squeezed grandma’s hand very hard and said,
“And now, Granny dear, you will help me, won’t you? It is perfectly all right to ask him for all the girls do it. I want him to take me.”
“Well, well, dear,” said the grandmother, “if we find that it is all right, I shall be glad to find a way to help you. But we must see. We must see.”
“See what, grandmother?” asked the girl. “There is nothing to see.”
“Indeed there is, child,” said Granny. “In times of trouble one must always see the Truth. Then the way is easy. ”

“ It was the little white flowers.
They were not afraid. The rain might fall as hard as it would but it would not blast their beauty. They were protected by a bit of overhanging rock. The lightning might flash about the cave but it was calm inside. Who had made the tiny blossoms to grow here in the rock, protected from storm and blast? God! She, too, was being cared for while her companions might be in the fury of the storm. Who was caring for her? Her friend? No, he was interested in something at the entrance of the cave. God was caring for her even as he cared for the little blossom. ”

“ If she follows the crowd and goes in the way of least resistance, there is a big chance that she will fall by the way. If she does not follow the crowd, it is because somewhere, some time, she has found a compelling ideal and is following it. Sometimes that ideal comes to her in the form of a friend. Sometimes she is fortunate enough to have found that ideal in her mother. But often and often it comes to her through a little story that lives with her, and works for her, and helps her to hold to the best, in spite of the manifold temptations to do otherwise. ”

“ She had tried to get her to wear false hair, but instead of doing it her mother had gone to her room and cried because Mary had suggested it. Other girls’ mothers let them wear pretty clothes, but hers were always plain, though they were always very neat. Most of the girls had fancy graduation dresses, but hers was only a little dimity that her mother had made—and now these dreadful beads were more than she could stand and she threw them on the bed in anger. She wished she had a real mother of whom she could be proud. ”

“ They need the personal touch, the sympathetic voice, the freedom of eye that tells the story-teller which girls are finding the message of the story. Some of them will hurt—but experience has shown me that these are the very ones that one has to tell over and over. Can you imagine the Master reading to the groups gathered about him the stories that you and I love to read in his word? When you go into the heart life of a girl, let all your personality help you to carry the message. It was the Master’s way of story-telling. ”

“ And the words of the missionary had burned into the very soul of Owaissa. Her child should have a chance. So when the little girl had come to her wigwam, she had named her Litahni—a little light—and she had sought for ways to help her to see what nature meant that man should see.
“Catch a little raindrop,” she said to the little girl as she played near the wigwam. “Every raindrop helps some plant, even though it is so little. You are tiny, too, but you can help every day just as the raindrop does.” ”

“ I wish to be like Mrs. Fuller. I want to help girls. I want to get the kind of letters she gets from girls who are far away. I want to see ‘my girls’ some day giving service all over the world as she does. I want to be like her. Please, fairy, give me my wish.”
“I can’t make you like her but I can put you in the way of service and then, if you choose, you can become like her and get the things you are asking for. Those things are not given—they are earned, and the cost of them is heavy. I don’t really think you mean what you say, for you haven’t even wanted to go to school to learn to help. ”

“ Perhaps in the communion she might find help for her troubled soul, and again she counted her beads.
But, somehow, there was no prayer on the beads that seemed just what she wanted to say. Again, she went to the altar. But this time she lifted a face, white with suffering and thin from lack of food, to the face of the Christ above the altar and from the depths of her heart she prayed,
“O God! My God! I do not ask for money, though I am hungry. I do not ask for a home, though I am oh! so very lonely. I do not ask for work, though I have none. For only one thing I ask. ”

“ We see the sunset here and we are happy because it is so beautiful, but away over the mountains in the far away the sunset is just as beautiful and they are happy there as they see it. You can bring happiness, too, both here and far away, if your life is beautiful.
“Listen to the wind in the trees,” she said to the girl of fourteen who was eager to do that which father wanted her to leave undone. “You cannot see the wind, yet it sways the great trees and sometimes fells them. You can bend the will of the strong men of the tribe but you cannot do it by talk and by ugly words. ”

“ FOREWORD
“Given a Camp-fire, a group of friendly girls and a good story-teller who knows and loves the girls, and the ideals of a whole community may be lifted in a night.”
The teen age girl is a great problem and at the same time a great opportunity. Her ideals seem low, yet there is no time in her life when she will more gladly follow a great ideal. She seems fickle, yet she is putting her friends to a test that is most worth while. She is misunderstood and she can not understand herself. She is searching for something, yet she does not know what it is. ”

“ A rare smile crossed the face of the old man as he patted her golden hair.
“Good for you! I am glad you are thinking. Long, long ago when my own girlies were choosing their friends I asked them to remember two things as they chose—not only that the one they chose might be their husband, but that he also might be my son, and the father of their children. One thinks much more about the principles of the man who is to be father of their children than about the man whom they love and want to marry. You know what a high ideal your mother holds. ”

“ To be a squaw one must be very brave. We cannot go to hunt and to kill, but it takes no less of courage to stay here and guard the tepees. It takes courage to bear pain—it takes courage to be tired and not complain. You can be brave, Kagigegabo, even though 124 you must grow into a Mahala and sit by the fire. The courage is not in the war paint and feathers—the courage is all in the heart. ”

“ Then Gladys watched her toil through college, earning her way, often overtired and worried as to where the 111 means to go on were to come from. But she pushed ahead.
“Oh,” said Gladys, “how hard she works! I could never do that. I am sorry for her.”
“You needn’t be,” said the fairy. “You need never be sorry for those that sacrifice for an ideal. Be sorry for those who have none and so who live at ease.” And they watched her struggle through temptation and toil to the graduation day. ”

“ Always something to do when I am in the house. I hate housework and I want to be free from doing it. Mother says all girls should help at home. But it is a big burden.”
“My burden is quite different from the others,” said the fourth. “I cannot dress as I choose. I must wear heavy clothes and low heels. I must dress my hair as if I were old and tidy. All the girls do differently and I want to be like them. Really my burden makes me very unhappy. ”

“ Then the horse sped away toward the north. As they passed the little lake in the valley it whispered, “Life is not always calm. There must be tempests. But you can be calm in your inner life and you can be beautiful through it all.” ”