Alice E. Bartlett

“ To arouse the latent instinct of self-dependence and development was an almost unconscious exhalation of the sturdy faith which had always made circumstances only a means unto an end, and that end the uplifting of the better elements of character. To be her brother’s keeper in so far as that keeping could induce a heartfelt aspiration or a simple kindness, had been but an outgrowth of the unselfishness of her aims. Few people looked with as lenient an eye upon the shortcomings of humanity, or were actuated by as sincere a desire to lend a hand to retrieve a false step, as Margaret Murchison. ”

“ God loves his chosen, and they are of all the earth; some day he shall call them together! We spend our Sundays at home. Elsie and Antoine render beautifully those old arks of safety, ‘Come! Ye Disconsolate’ and ‘Jesus, Lover of My Soul.’ We read, talk, study, and open our hearts to the sweet graces of love and charity, and so we forget that outside there is a world which scorns our poverty and our calloused hands. Once in a while, drawn by the music, old Aunt Liza and Eph—who by the way begrudges the Sunday that takes him away from his hunting—make an addition to our number. ”

“ I neglect my work to talk to you, and shall have Margaret scolding presently,” answered Elsie, picking up her trowel and giving one or two energetic digs at the sod about a rose bush.
“Miss Margaret never scolds, I am sure,” said Antoine emphatically. “But oh, if I could run and leap and work!” The words ended in a half-sob.
“We all have our appointed tasks, Antoine,” said Elsie softly. “Some are made to do and some are made to bear.”
“Mine always to bear!” exclaimed the lad bitterly. “Never to be a man with a man’s hopes and ambitions. Just a little dried-up mummy——”
“There, there!” ”

“ Gilbert!”
A hand laid on the lad’s shoulder caused him to turn in wonder and confusion to meet Margaret’s pleading face and terror-stricken eyes.
“You are wrong, Gilbert,” she cried earnestly. “Wrong! wrong! You must not incite to violence. Just see what turbulent elements are before you!”
There had come an instant hush with her appearance on the platform; men and women had risen to their feet and were peering curiously at the two. Flushed, trembling, intoxicated with enthusiasm, Gilbert cried: “But the terrible wrongs of the poor! You know what they are—you who toil for a daily pittance! ”

“ A faint color tinged the hitherto pale cheeks, and an unusual sparkle lit up the dark eyes. It would have been hard to find a happier group of people than the five at Idlewild. They were like one family in their interests and efforts. Lizzette flitted in and out of both domiciles, intent now on Elsie’s cooking, now on Antoine’s music, which came to her ears at all hours of the day and night—for the violin had grown to be like a living companion to the crippled lad—now helping Gilbert and Margaret in the garden or gravely puzzling over some of the English books on Margaret’s table. ”

“ Ely said when I named some of the books in poor father’s library that they were of undoubted value, as many were out of print. He spoke especially of the two Caxton copies, Plantin’s ‘Biblia Polyglotta,’ and Sparks’ ‘Life of Washington.’ Dear Meg, the question is: Shall we keep our treasures and starve, or in letting them go find a chance of outgrowing our poverty? I am tired of this grinding life that takes the color out of your cheeks and puts wrinkles where dimples ought to be. Much as I love the dear old books, I love hope for you and for all of us better. ”

“ If there is to be no one in the house may I try the piano?”
“I was not aware that you played the piano,” said Mrs. Mason a trifle coldly. Elsie’s face flushed.
“I do not. I never touched one in my life; but I have a longing to see what I can do. There isn’t volume and scope enough in our little cottage organ, and I promised Antoine to ask permission to try the piano. He is so much interested in music and finds so much pleasure in learning that I love to help him even in little things.” ”

“ Mason’s voice that appealed at once to Elsie’s tender sympathies. Involuntarily she reached out a hand as if to lay it upon the white jewelled one of her mistress; but with a sudden start of recollection she drew back and said simply: “There is so much in this world to hope for, so much that may be had even by the poorest, that disappointment and doubt need affect one only as externals. I hope I may never grow wise if wisdom brings only bitterness of spirit.” ”

“ It seemed easy to be patient and properly humble in this home of love and appreciation, but in this other world of place-hunting and time-serving the quick retort quite too often besieges my lips. You know, Margaret, it is only the old enemy, and as the horizon widens and I see what life might mean to me if fortune had been kinder, and I realize that I have a nature capable of profiting by the beautiful things of the world, I grow rebellious and dissatisfied. ”

“ Margaret, every time I stretch out my hand to one who has need of a friend, I feel that the grandeur of that Life which is enthroned in my conscience and teaches me to aspire to the highest development, is something infinitely greater than the same truth could have been as a mere abstraction. Jesus, the Nazarene, a man among men, makes possible all that is highest in human endeavor. ”

“ Elsie!” cried Herbert, awed into a great fear by the solemnity of her words, “you shall be the dispenser of charity as bounteous as you desire.”
“And yet be forbidden to soil my hands by contact with poverty or crime. No, we have too much of that sort of charity already. Besides, do you not see, Herbert, that there could be no happiness for us holding such opposite views as we do? Marriage is too holy to admit a division of sentiment and endeavor between husband and wife. Ah, I have been so weak to permit a love that I knew could only bring disaster!” ”

“ It is a rare treat to listen to them as I am listening now—Elsie at the organ, Antoine with his violin nestled lovingly under his chin, and his deft bow bringing out with marvellous power its almost human tones, and both whistling! Elsie grows daily more charming and more expansive, and music seems to be with her, as with Antoine, the expression of much that is restless, wayward, and beautiful in her soul. Gilbert is docile and patient ”

“ They would both listen to her instructions with serious but blank faces, and relapse at once into that indolent method which was a continual thorn in Margaret’s New England thrift. It was her first serious stumbling-block on the way to that high plane of achievement whereon she had made no allowance for the thriftless, the ignorant, and the irresponsible. To her well-regulated mind, all people ought to be industrious, patient, and ambitious, and it was a keen thrust against her composure to be brought into contact with the unpromising side of human nature. ”

“ But with a 267man’s blindness he could not see that the love which he arrogated to himself and which shut out the world as of little moment, was only broadening her sympathies and making divine revelations of its beauty and value. Love with all its sacredness and possibilities, holding close to the one dear image enshrined in the holy of holies of her heart, had opened wide its door to suffering mankind. So vividly burned the fire on the altar of her love that she turned as if with outstretched arms, crying: “O ye who are cold and hungry! ”

“ There was a sound of tears in Margaret’s voice as she answered: “Strength must come from within, Elsie. ‘They that dwell in His house’ know where the well of strength is, and ‘the pools are filled with water.’ As for the vain things of this world for which you sigh, the sin of it depends upon what those things are. I think I know your heart well enough to believe they are not selfish follies, but only healthy aspirations for broader fields of culture. ”

“ I should feel that I lowered myself more in refusing the work at hand, in the vain hope of finding something pleasing and genteel. Dear little girl, your solemn old Meg wants to disclose to you the prosaic rule by which she means to measure her life. It will seem dry and hard to you in your youth and bloom; but you must learn some time, and if the bitter tonic is taken early nothing seems quite so bitter afterward. Shall I tell you?”
“Y-yes,” answered Elsie hesitatingly, “only—only——”
“I know. You dislike even to be told that life is uncompromising. ”

“ Margaret Murchison, the eldest of the three children, was too strongly built, physically and mentally, to be beautiful. It is indisputably true that where nature puts strength she also puts hard lines, and every feature of Margaret’s face bespoke the positive nature; quick to comprehend and fearless to execute. Yet hers was by no means a masculine or an ugly face. Though strongly marked, there was still an indefinable attraction in the warm depths of her blue eyes and the smile of her mobile and sympathetic mouth. ”

“ The purpose which he saw in Margaret and Elsie had awakened a new interest in his life, and to see that their feet were firmly fixed in the way they had marked out for themselves seemed to him the task, as well as the pleasure, of an elder brother. Looking upon life as the vast field from which should spring all that is highest of development and achievement in humanity, he was touched with the hope of being a factor in the ambitious purposes of these inexperienced and well-nigh friendless girls. ”

“ And almost forgetful of the character she was supposed to represent, Elsie struck the heavy chords of the overture, and became at once absorbed in the melody she was evoking. “Ah, that is grand,” she sighed tremulously. “There is power, adaptability, volume in a piano that you can’t find in a cottage organ if you smother your soul in it. Now good-by, Lord Snubbem. Elsie the cook and Antoine the cripple have come back and are going to forget all about you.” ”

“ He had watched her career as best he could, in the occasional letters received from her father, who never failed to comment upon her strength and growth of character, and his love had grown with the subtileness of fancy until he had never stopped to consider the effect it might have upon Margaret. Surely to be sheltered and loved—ah! how he would prove his love to her—ought to be reason enough for any woman so bereft and friendless. ”

“ The lad’s soul seems to have been lit at the altar of music; for on no ordinary presumption can one compute his wonderful development. Strength and a greater degree of comeliness seems to have come into his long thin arms and bent shoulders, while there is a constant glow in his dark eyes and an unusual gayety in his laugh. Lizzette is in a fervor of happiness and pride, and seems not to be able to do enough for us. Elsie has caught Antoine’s faculty for whistling, and often makes a good second to the bird-like notes with which he accompanies his violin. ”

“ Much of the poverty of the world is the fault of the individual. Natural thrift and industry have their reward even in the present untoward industrial conditions. You cannot smoke away, and drink up your income, and justly blame the bloated capitalist who employs you if your children are shoeless and the table stands empty. But you can use your reason, you can be thrifty, careful, and educate yourselves on the side of conscience and humanity. I look upon this talk of reform which is in the air as excellent for the great cause of universal brotherhood. ”

“ The hall was a barren, smoke-begrimed, illy-ventilated room, but Elsie and the children had made what effort they could with meagreness of material to brighten it up. Above the platform, where stood Elsie’s organ and where the semicircle of children was ranged, those in the audience who could read beheld in large letters, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.” Over the windows hung gay cotton banners bearing such inscriptions as “Love is lord of all.” ”

“ Every man must be his own savior and avenger in the battle of existence. Elsie herself had preached the independence of the individual. “True,” said Conscience, “but did she preach that alone? Did she not also believe in the fullest co-operation as a prop and encouragement to individual effort? Was not her life an epitome of the highest personal development, morally at least, combined with the most unselfish desire for the prosperity of others?” ”

“ Primitive ideas had been ignored, scoffed at, trampled in the dust, and yet the great Master had made those ideas the whole sum and substance of life when He enjoined upon man to love God and his neighbor, live soberly and righteously, visit the fatherless and widows in affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world. Setting aside the divine emanation of such laws, they were the truest interpretation of natural law, for what is vicious is injurious. The divine virtues of truth and equity are the bulwarks of society ”

“ Elsie came back from the door and stood before her mistress. “Sit down,” reiterated Mrs. Mason.
“It is expected that servants will stand in the presence of their superiors,” answered Elsie with the old mischievous sparkle in her eyes.
Mrs. Mason laughed. “I like your spirit, anyway. I really haven’t any objection to your using the piano when we are away. I’m glad you are ambitious to cultivate yourself; but you mustn’t make the mistake of regarding a little superficial finish as cultivation. Genuine cultivation strikes deep in the soil and takes hold of every fibre of the being.” ”

“ It is feasting on the putrid carcasses that are crushed under its triumphal car. And all the while there is wealth enough in this world for every man to have and to spare. I tell you, fellow-mortals, the torch and the shotgun, the bomb and the bludgeon, are as much for the toiler as the blue-coated minions of the law.”
The man took his seat on the rear of the platform amid the wildest cheers, and Margaret watched the eagle-like face and the trembling, attenuated form with more than usual interest. ”