Happie

“ Scollard and Happie went down in a heap on the floor, to the consternation of Polly, looking on, and the unbounded joy of Penny, who jumped up and down on the sofa where she was playing, clapping her hands and shouting till Jeunesse Dorée leaped from his pleasant doze, swelling up to four times his natural size.
"Oh, Happie," gasped Miss Bradbury struggling to her feet. "Do be careful. You certainly are growing much bigger." ”

“ Margery's broom flew, and Happie dusted briskly the chairs set out in the parlor; it was something like the old-fashioned game of solitaire with marbles to clean in the Patty-Pan; one had to move pieces about many times before they could be restored to their appointed place. Dorée considered cleaning done solely for his entertainment, and flew after Happie's duster till she and Polly and Penny were in a gale of a frolic with him, and Margery had to come out to hug the little cat, who looked like a dandelion in a high wind, as he raced over the floor. ”

“ When they do, they mean (or ought to mean) that a life of mixed joy and sorrow, such as most of us have, is what most of us deserve; and that this is the happiest as well as the best for us in the long-run. ”

“ It's worse than saying the most awful thing! Of course she isn't ill, nor going to be! Do you suppose we could live if motherkins were ill? Well, then! That proves she isn't going to be, because it stands to reason we've got to live. Now, let's hurry these dishes away, and clean those rooms, and make motherkins' room particularly spick-and-span, and then we shall feel better."
"You're a comfort, Happie!" said Margery warmly, laying her face for an instant on the girl's bright hair. "No wonder mother says you are Happie, our happiness! ”

“ But we are, in spite of this disappointment of our expectations, the happiest of mortals or spirits, and cling to the skirts of every passing hour, although we know the next will bring us still more joy. ”

“ The candy bore the unmistakable imprint of the tiger cat's "paddy-paw" feet, and Happie surveyed it with chagrin, while Polly stroked the interloper, and Penny clasped struggling Dorée to her breast, to prevent his manifest intention to punish his neighbor.
"Was it your fudge? I'm awfully sorry," said the boy across. "I guess Whoop-la sat in it."
"I guess so too," returned Happie with a laugh. "It's hard luck after broiling one's face to make it. Hard luck for you, too, because we'd have offered you some if it hadn't been spoiled." ”

“ He looked at Happie, drawing together his brows, but she did not mistake it for a scowl directed at herself, but at annoying circumstances. "Ach!" he exclaimed with a German accent that gave Happie the first clue to his nationality that she had caught. "Talent should be first of all considerations. That lit [92] tle sister of yours should be educated in music at any sacrifice."
"Oh, no, not that," said Happie, surprised at her own boldness in differing from such a heavy frown. "There are other things more important than talent—even if Laura were more than thirteen. ”

“ Do you wish me not to be happy?66 If on the contrary you tell me that the just course of life is happier than the agreeable, I put another question — What is this Good and Beautiful which the lawgiver extols as superior to pleasure, and in which the just man’s happiness consists? ”

“ They may rail at this life—from the hour I began it,
I found it a life full of kindness and bliss;
And, until they can show me some happier planet,
More social and bright, I'll content me with this. ”

“ If sensuality were happiness, beasts were happier than men; but human felicity is lodged in the soul, not in the flesh. ”

“ and I only hope—as I know that you have reason to be so—that you are still happier 48 than you are sad, and that you remember that the smallest seed of faith is of more worth than the largest fruit of happiness. ”

“ She could get angry, and sometimes did, but she never could do unkind or mean things; she was a loyal, pure-hearted, clever little woman of fourteen, with so many talents that she had no special one, and her mother felt that when the time came for her to earn her bread, as all the Scollards must do, it might be hard to decide for what too-versatile Happie was best fitted. ”

“ He sighed, and looked so gloomy that Happie characteristically felt instant longing to comfort him. Before she had made up her mind how to meet this revelation, the guest stirred his tea and asked: "Only thirteen, you say? She looks more. She is really a wonderful child."
"Here she comes," said Happie as Gretta appeared in the doorway with Laura, and with Penny in dancing school array. "Please, please, if ever you talk to her don't let her know you think she is wonderful. Mother tries so hard to keep her from thinking so herself."
"Well, Happie!" exclaimed Gretta as Happie came towards her. ”

“ The new boy straightened himself from delivering these last remarks down the waiter-shaft and smiled anew at Bob. "We've just moved in. The last of our household effects are even now bumping the paper off the front hall—the van men find them bulky. Hope we'll meet again." He cast his eye beyond Bob into the sunny kitchen where pretty Margery and Happie were working like stingless bees. ”

“ Gretta perched herself on a chair beside the latter, fanning herself with her sunbonnet and twisting a corner of the apron which she never discarded when she came on an errand, as she never wore it when making a social call, thereby marking the difference between the two.
"I'm sure I don't know what Happie is trying to tell me," she said with a whimsical twist of the lips. "She always talks so fast that I have to listen with every bit of me—I'm used to folks that talk slow, you know. But this time an automobile couldn't keep up with her! ”

“ Never mind if your Gretta deceives you!"
"I never knew any other boy so imbued with the poets!" said Margery in mock admiration of Ralph's outburst.
But Rosie, flying in and out with steaming dishes, was impressed only by the matter, not the manner of his remarks.
"Don't you talk silly, Ralph Gordon," she said spiritedly. "Gretta Engel never will deceive nobody. She will do Happie good too, and she's made a good bargain yet. Your meat's fried most too much. Set up and eat awhile before it gits cold." ”

“ Happie remarked, issued into the single gabled room running the entire length and width of the house, dusty and musty, dark in the heavy storm, [102] yet attractive with the charm no attic can escape. Happie plunged under the eaves, followed by Penny and Dorée, who had come up with them, the former singing in her crooning voice that sounded very like the latter's purring, which was loud, for the yellow kitten expected mice.
"There's an old trunk in here, motherums, a little hair trunk that has gone quite bald in spots," Happie called in a muffled voice from under the eaves. ”

“ You are a perfect tonic. You would be the very one to lead a forlorn hope."
"I'd rather lead a hope that wasn't forlorn," laughed Happie, well satisfied with the result of her effort at cheering Margery. "Just a plain, every-day hopeful hope. Come on, Margery! Polly and Penny, it's dusting time, but you needn't dust, because we're going to sweep, and sweeping one room in a little flat means dust in all. Perhaps Polly can help Laura make beds and get things ready for sweeping."
This busy household of children had each her appointed tasks and even baby Penelope was supposed to be useful. ”

“ Happier of happy though I be, like them
I cannot take possession of the sky,
Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there
One of a mighty multitude, whose way
Is a perpetual harmony and dance
Magnificent. ”

“ She came up at last to the furthest boundary of the Ark farm, far down on the margin of the brook, and to the house nearest to the Ark. It interested her, because she had heard that in it lived a girl of her own age, together with two women who had the reputation of being decidedly cross, and of leading this young girl a hard life. They were her cousins, without whose dubious shelter the girl would have been homeless.
As Happie came up she caught a glimpse of a brownish sunbonnet, and paused to peer at her unknown neighbor, herself hidden by a friendly chestnut tree. ”

“ We all know what he is as a musical guide. And as to the obligation, Mr. von Siegeslied has set his heart on taking Laura. It will really be a favor to him to let him have the girl to train, and, while his wife would rather steal Happie, or Polly or Penny, still she will rejoice in having any one of the little Scollards to bring young girlhood into her home. Once more, Charlotte, while I shrink from the responsibility of a decision, still some one must take it, and I strongly advise you to ship your third girl to Germany. ”

“ Who locks up, Hattie?"
"Aaron Shale; he keeps the key and makes the fire," said Hattie.
"Then you let Aaron stay here, and slip away with us," said Gretta. "He'll close up." But she reckoned without her host—the host of children. The older ones stampeded after the teacher and her visitors, and formed into line, ready to escort them through the village. Up the road Gretta and Happie spied Bob and Laura, with Polly and Penny, waiting to see them pass. ”

“ If ever happiness hath lodged with man,
That day consummate happiness was mine,
Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative.
The sun was set, or setting, when I left
Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on
A sober hour, not winning or serene,
For cold and raw the air was, and untuned;
But as a face we love is sweetest then
When sorrow damps it, or, whatever look
It chance to wear, is sweetest if the heart
Have fulness in herself ”

“ Are you not young, and fair, and good? Why should you despair? Or if you must for yourself, why for others? If you can never be happy, can you never bestow happiness [?] Oh! believe me, if you beheld on lips pale with grief one smile of joy and gratitude, and knew that you were parent of that smile, and that without you it had never been, you would feel so pure and warm a happiness that you would wish to live for ever again and again to enjoy the same pleasure [.] ”

“ Why hast thou left me? Still in some fond dream
Revisit my sad heart, auspicious Smile!
As falls on closing flowers the lunar beam:
What time, in sickly mood, at parting day
I lay me down and think of happier years ”

“ RECITATIVE—ALINE. My kindly friends, I thank you for this greeting And as you wish me every earthly joy, I trust your wishes may have quick fulfillment! ARIA—ALINE. Oh, happy young heart! Comes thy young lord a-wooing With joy in his eyes, And pride in his breast— Make much of thy prize, For he is the best That ever came a-suing. Yet—yet we must part, Young heart! Yet—yet we must part! Oh, merry young heart, Bright are the days of thy wooing! But happier far The days untried— No sorrow can mar, When love has tied The knot there's no undoing. ”

“ Is it nothing to know that every happiness I have I owe to you—that all the enjoyment of a life more bright than a fairy tale, comes from you? That from your generous indulgence I have learned to think mere existence something like ecstasy, and awake each day as to a fête? ”

“ I have a strange sensation at my heart, which your altered appearance translates into a precursor of happiness. My spirit seems to have burst from the trammels of earth, and to revel in an atmosphere where love and hope are fadeless. You do not smile, love! Does not your heart echo my joy? Does not the same happy presentiment pervade your heart, and gild the future in brilliant colors? ”

“ What shall we say of the joy, the happiness that flow into the soul, when He presses her to his bosom, gives her the kiss of peace, and calls her his own beloved child? What shall we say of her exceeding happiness, when He makes her a partaker of his divine nature, and unites her to himself more intimately than two creatures ever could be united in this world? ”

“ Thus shalt thou be—ah, and thou deem'st, indeed,
That thou shalt gain thereby no happy meed
[Pg 302] Reft of the world's joys? nor canst understand
How thou art come into a happy land?—
Love, in thy world the priests of heaven still sing,
And tell thee of it many a joyous thing;
But think'st thou, bearing the world's joy and pain,
Thou couldst live there? nay, nay, but born again
Thou wouldst be happy with the angels' bliss;
And so with us no otherwise it is,
Nor hast thou cast thine old life quite away
Even as yet, though that shall be to-day. ”

“ Into their romance, into their world of little things, their joys of the moment, their happiness of the hour, had suddenly descended a great and lasting joy, the happiness of the great, grave issues of life—a happiness so deep, so intense, as to thrill them with a sense of solemnity and wonder. ”

“ Pleasure, happiness, is the supreme good; and happiness is susceptible of being analysed." I grant, that the state of a human mind cannot be changed at once; but, had you worshipped at the altar of reason but half as assiduously as you have sacrificed at the shrine of illusion, your present happiness would have been as enviable, as your present distress is worthy of compassion. If men would but take the trouble to ask themselves, once every day, Why should I be miserable? how many, to whom life is a burthen, would become chearful and contented. ”

“ When that life should come to which I secretly looked forward,—when my soul should bound into a more radiant atmosphere, where the clouds, if any were, should be all gold- and silver-tinted, and where my sorrows, love-colored, were to be sweeter than other people's joys,—in that life, there would be moments of sweet abandonment to the simple sense of happiness. ”

“ The Happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling. ”