Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates

“ Marjorie looked at the Dream curiously. "Sometimes you are very old," she said, "and say things that I can reach only by standing my mind on tiptoe; and sometimes you are just a—a kid."
The Dream grinned. "Just like everybody else," he said. "Folks sometimes think things that they themselves can understand only by standing their minds on tiptoe. And sometimes it scares them and they hide their eyes and run away. When you get startled by thinking something that seems too big for you, the best thing to do is to walk up and look at it pretty closely ”

“ Grandma had the pane taken out after a while, and a big new glass put into the sash. She said it was bad enough to look out and see other folks that way; but suppose some of them should come and look in and see her through the same pane."
"Well?" said the Dream.
"Oh, I guess I begin to see," said Marjorie. "Wait a minute. The spectacles were bad, crooked glass and weren't true, and so—but even if they were bad glass, and I knew it, I couldn't get them off. I tried and tried, but they were tangled in my hair, and the string wouldn't break, and I couldn't lift them up. What could I have done?" ”

“ The ones on the path are sort of prim and not so interesting; and the ones on the grass and pink petals are dear, jolly ones, but they do fight sometimes, and get into awful squabbles, pull each other's hair, and then dance apart and throw kisses. I don't like the sliding ones very well. They are so kind of smooth and unconcerned. Things have to be alive to you, for you to love them,—not just sliding. ”

“ Those that lie on the path have smooth, clear outlines and plain, quiet colors; those on the grass and apple-blossom petals are all uneven, running in streamers up and down the grass blades and showing pink through the petals; those on the rock are rough and gray and have sharp, ragged edges and look torn where the rock is broken and crumbling ”

“ I turned around to ask the man to help me, but he was gone. I kept on working and tugging, and once I got one side lifted a little, so that I could catch a glimpse of the valley, and I saw that I was right,—that the trouble was all with the glasses; for the people were just as lovely and sweet and kind as they were before; and then I tried harder than ever to get the miserable spectacles off ”

“ You understand that those who are not workers in some way, who have no goal, they have no place; they cannot even keep themselves as they are, or grow into something better and bigger until they begin to work, or at least are willing to work; for the work is exhaled from themselves for them to do; but if they are all fluffy ruffles—well, they can't gather up the scattered petals and be fluffy ruffles again ”

“ The two were climbing the path, back to the apple-tree on the hillside. When they reached it, Marjorie sat down and took her chin on her hands and sat gloomily gazing out over the valley.
"Do you like you?" asked the Dream, presently.
"No," said Marjorie, "I don't. The people are so dreadful, and so cruel and so unkind that I can't help not liking them; and the more I don't like them, the more and more I don't like me."
"Hard luck!" said the Dream.
"But what shall I do?" asked Marjorie. "I've got to like me. It's bad enough not to like other folks ”

“ It doesn't matter what they rest on, and look ugly or ragged or silly or hard, or how beautiful and tender and laughing,—that is only because of what they happen for the moment to rest on; but every one of them comes straight from the sun and isn't the least bit separated from it ”

“ Shove it in the face of every lie that you see; jam it down the throat of every lie that you hear, but do it inside of yourself first, last, and all the time. It is your own glasses that need a hole looked through them; don't worry about other people's spectacles unless they want you to. It may be that it's only your own glasses that make them look as if they wore them, too. All I have to say is, Remember and Try."
"I will," said Marjorie.
The end ”