Clara E. Laughlin

“ IV BEING KIND TO A TIRED MAN
One day when Mary Alice had been in New York nearly two weeks—and had found several fairies—Godmother was obliged to go out, in the afternoon, to some sort of a committee meeting which would have been quite uninteresting to an outsider. But Mary Alice had some sewing to do—something like taking the ugly, ruffly sleeves of cheap white lace out of her blue taffeta dress and substituting plain dark ones of net dyed to match the silk; and she was glad to stay at home. ”

“ Father was at the station to meet her; and at home, by the soft-coal fire burning beneath the white marble mantel in the sitting-room, Mother was sewing and waiting for her.
Mary Alice was thinking, as she and Father neared the house, of that miserable evening in the fall when she had stolen past her mother and gone up to her room and wept passionately, in the dark, because life had no enchantment for her. ”

“ Mary Alice dined, the first night of the house party, with the Duchess's older children, and then went back to her room to sit at the window and look down on the terraces where, after a while, some of the men guests came to smoke.
It was late, but the twilight still lingered. Mary Alice could not tell who many of the men were, but she could see the King and she watched him interestedly as he paced up and down. She had been told how no one must speak to a king until the king has first spoken to him; and she felt that at best it must be a dreary business—being a king. ”

“ Your godmother has been abroad so long, she can't have many acquaintances in this country now. But you'll see New York—the crowds and the shops and the great hotels and the places of historic interest. And even if you don't meet many people, you'll probably have a very interesting time."
"I don't care about people, anyway," returned Mary Alice.
Her mother looked distressed. "I wouldn't say that, if I were you," she advised. "Because you want to care about people—you must! Sights are beguiling, but they're never satisfying. We all have to depend on people for our happiness—for love." ”

“ Anybody can find them all; and nobody who has found them all needs to feel very bad if she can't find some of the others who have her christening gifts."
Mary Alice began looking for the others, right away. But even one fairy had transformed her, outside, from an ordinary-looking girl into a young woman with a look of remarkable distinction; just as Godmother had transformed her, within, from a girl with a dreary outlook on life, to one who found that
"The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings." ”

“ Even in the matter of a godmother, it seemed, it was Mary Alice's luck to have one without any of the fairy powers. For although Mary Alice's mother had dearly loved, in her girlhood, that friend for whom she had called her first baby, she had always to admit, to Mary Alice's eager questioning, that the friend was neither beautiful nor rich nor gifted. ”

“ One particularly charming experience came to Mary Alice through the Captain's appreciation of her eagerness. Godmother had taught her to love the stars. As well as they could, in New York where, to most people, only scraps of sky are visible at a time, they had been wont to watch with keen interest for the nightly appearance of stars they could see from their windows or from the streets as they went to and fro. ”

“ Mary Alice began; and then stopped to put two and two together. It was all very astounding, but there was no reason why what he had told her and what Godmother said might not both be true.
"If I had known!" she said, sinking down, weak in the knees, into the nearest chair.
"That was what gave him his happy hour," said Godmother. "You didn't know! It is so hard for him to get away from people who know—to find people who are able to forget. That's why he likes to come here; I try to help him forget, for an hour, once in a while, at 'candle-lightin' time.'"
"I see," murmured Mary Alice. ”

“ Godmother squeezed Mary Alice's hand sympathetically; and then, because that was not enough, she dropped a brief kiss on Mary Alice's anxious young forehead. "I know how you feel, dear," she whispered. "All of us, I guess, have fairy charms that we're afraid to use. Others have used them, we know, and found them miraculous. But somehow, we're afraid. ”

“ Godmother was full of human stories of the struggles of the painters and their faithfulness to ideals; and she could stand in front of a canvas by almost any master, and talk to Mary Alice about the painter and the conditions of his life and love and longing when he painted this picture, in a way that made Mary Alice feel as if she'd like to shake the people who walked by with only an uninterested glance ”

“ Then, suddenly, I realized that you were gone—not merely from New York, but from the dream. And I was surprised into rudeness. That's all. But please forgive me!"
"I told you I understood," said Mary Alice, "and in a way I did—not that the—the dream as you call it meant so much to you, but that you were disappointed to find Cinderella come out of her chimney corner and talking to the King. I know that when we have a person definitely placed in our minds, we don't like to have him bob up suddenly in quite another quarter and in what seems like quite another character." ”

“ Mary Alice had never met a man she enjoyed so much. He liked to "play" as much as Godmother did, and they talked most confidentially about their likes and dislikes, many of which seemed to be mutual. Mary Alice admitted to him how she disliked to meet strangers, and he admitted to her that he felt the very same way. ”

“ Everybody's Lonesome
I DISAPPOINTED IN LIFE
Mary Alice came home quietly from the party. Most of the doors in the house were closed, because it was cold, and the halls were hard to heat. Mary Alice knew exactly what she should see and hear if she opened that door at her right as she entered the house, and went into the sitting-room. There was a soft-coal fire in the small, old-fashioned grate under the old, old-fashioned white marble mantel. Dozing—always dozing—on the hearth-rug, at a comfortable distance from the fire, was Herod, the big yellow cat. ”

“ It worked so well, in fact, that Mary Alice came to be quite famous in a small way. People in Godmother's distinguished and delightful "set" talked enthusiastically of Mary Alice's quiet charm, and she was asked here and asked there, and had a quite wonderful time.
Her "poor" friend came in, whenever he could, for tea and toast; and sometimes he made what he called "a miserable return" for this hospitality, by asking Godmother and Mary Alice to dine with him at his palace on upper Fifth Avenue and afterwards to sit in his box at the opera. ”

“ So the Duchess—secretly sympathetic—left orders with her French maid that Mary Alice was to be made ready to see the King.
Mary Alice chose the simplest thing that rigorous French maid would allow and kept as close as possible to her own individual and unpretending style. But even then, she was a pretty resplendent young person as she stole timidly down to find the Duchess and be presented to the King.
The guests were assembled in the great drawing-room, and Mary Alice was frightened almost to death when she saw the splendour of the scene and realized what part she had to play in it. ”

“ Many another girl, feeling as Mary Alice did, would have gone away from home seeking "life" in a big city. But Mary Alice, besides having no qualifications for earning her way in a big city, had a most unhappy shyness. She was literally afraid of strangers, and never got very well acquainted even with persons she had associated with for a long time. ”

“ I'm always wanting to play with lovely hair. And when I saw yours at the theatre the other evening, I couldn't rest until I'd asked your godmother if she thought you'd let me play with it."
So after luncheon they went into Mary Alice's room and wouldn't let Godmother go with them. "Not at all!" said the "what to do fairy," "you are the select audience. You go into the drawing-room and 'compose yourself.' When we're ready for you, we'll come out." ”

“ Godmother lived in an apartment in Gramercy Park. It was an old-fashioned apartment, occupying one floor of what had once been a handsome dwelling of the tall "chimney" type common in New York. All around the Square were the homes of notable persons, and clubs frequented by famous men. Godmother was to point these out in the morning; but this evening, before dinner was served, while she and Mary Alice were standing in the window of her charming drawing-room, she showed which was The Players, and indicated the windows of the room where Edwin Booth died. ”

“ At what you called 'candle-lightin' time,' wherever I was—in strange drawing-rooms, on rushing express trains, on ships plowing the seas, sitting about camp-fires in the wilderness—I'd always seem to see that little, dim-lit room in your New York, and you kneeling beside me on the hearth-rug, with the firelight on your face and hair. I've always been a lonely chap ”

“ When they have something for you, they keep it for you till you get it. If they were not asked to your party, it's your business to hunt them out and get your gifts. Somewhere in the world your own is waiting for you.' That was a magic thought: Somewhere in the world your own is waiting for you. ”

“ He admired the colour."
"Yes," said Godmother, "and if you had known who they were you would probably have tried to talk to the Admiral about ships and sea-fights, and to the painter about the Metropolitan Museum, and would have bored them terribly. Most real people, I think, like to be taken for what they are rather than for what they may have done. ”

“ And oh! the joy it is to look and look, believing that you will surely find. I haven't found wealth, nor beauty, nor accomplishments—perhaps I didn't look in the right places for any of those—but I've found something I wouldn't trade for all the others. ”

“ So they had another beautiful hour, at what Godmother loved to speak of as "candle-lightin' time," and while Mary Alice was in the kitchen cutting bread to toast, Godmother and her guest made notes in tiny note-books.
"There!" she said, when she had written the Gramercy Park address in his book. "Anything you send here will always reach her, wherever she is." ”

“ The lady who was anxious to interrogate him about it was one whose fame as an uplifter of humanity has travelled 'round the globe. This one was a painter, and that one a sculptor, and another was a poetic dramatist.
"My!" sighed Mary Alice, "I'm glad you didn't tell me before we went. As nearly as I can remember, I talked to the Admiral about the Fifth Avenue shopwindows, and to the General about the Jumel Mansion—which he said he had never seen but had always meant to see—and to the painter—what did I talk to the painter about? Oh! ”

“ These dear people, who have many friends, are at home on Friday evenings. Sometimes a large number call, sometimes only a few. And in New York, you know, people are not 'introduced round'; you just meet such of your fellow guests as happen to 'come your way,' so to speak. ”

“ There was the threadbare blanket they used for a silence cloth, and the table-cloth with the red stain by Johnny's place where he had spilled cranberry jelly the night before last, when the cloth was "span clean." There were the places to set, as always, with the same old dishes and the same old knives and forks; and with the mechanical precision born of long practice she would rightly place, without half looking at them, the various napkins each in its slightly different wooden ring. ”