Sant/
Seven
Easter

THE LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY
SITY OF
OF THE
REGENTS
MINNESOTA
1. A
ing.
2. A
CLASS 812 B172
BOOK OS
\raw-
turn-
ing it to the Library to be rechecked by the Librarian.
3. For the detention of a book longer than the speci-
fied time a fine of two cents a day during said detention
will be charged, which must be paid before another book
can be drawn.
*
SEVEN EASTER LILIES
BY
ELLA M. BAKER
(6
AUTHOR OF "SOLDIER AND SERVANT,” CLOVER LEAVES,”
ETC., ETC.
"Consider the lilies, how they grow."
BOSTON
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY
FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS
COPYRIGHT, 1887,
BY
D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY.
Stälä Dejat. of
sift
3-4-4
8123172
Os
DEDICATED TO
LITTLE ROSE
BY THE ONE TO WHOM HER NAME
SOUNDS SWEETEST
Have you seen but a bright lily grow
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall of the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
Have you felt the wool of the beaver
Or swan's-down ever?
Or have smelled of the bud of the brier,
Or the nard in the fire?
Or have tasted the bag of the bee?
Oh so white, oh so soft, oh so sweet is she!
- BEN JONSON.
965993
PREFACE.
I KNOW well how difficult it is to catch the Ear of
the Public, filled as it is so perpetually with all man-
ner of murmurs, rumors, recitations, petitions and
narratives.
But, suppose that, nevertheless, the Public, by
chance glancing out of window, should catch sight of
one reaching up on tiptoe, and tugging with diffi-
culty at the great door-bell. "And what do you
want?" suppose the Public then to ask, without
stopping to inquire, "Who's there?" perhaps because
of not caring much in the first place, and also be-
cause of having perceived already that the individual
is small and quiet, with a budget, similarly small,
under one arm.
Now, what if at this supreme moment I should
forget my speech, and in my embarrassment be re-
duced either to thrusting my packet in boldly, like an
ignoble hand-bill, or handing it up bashfully, as one
does who either has no errand, or else has been ill
commissioned with it! Whereas, I know that I have
Preface.
the excuse of a real errand, however minute and
humble an errand it may be.
Stay! I will secure myself against such danger.
I will write out beforehand, how I should mean to
speak. With a respectful curtesy, then, and a mod-
est, but straightforward voice, thus:
COURTEOUS PUBLIC:
I have in this small packet-craving consent to leave it
here a few thoughts wrought together, which, having been of
use to one, may be the same to somebody else. Also a story
or two which pleased one, and so might rest or amuse another
for a moment.
Might I ask if there be known to you some elder sister, or
some mother, who would like, upon an Easter Day, such a book
to read aloud to the children? Or a teacher who would think
it good to lend among her Sunday pupils?
This is all I ask, Gentle Public. Good-day!
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I.
A LILY'S LESSON
7
CHAPTER II.
HOW HILDA HELPED
17
CHAPTER III.
SETTING OUT LILIES
40
CHAPTER IV.
A LILY'S TENDING
50
CHAPTER V.
A LILY'S SHINING
87
CHAPTER VI.
A LILY'S LEAFING
•
116
CHAPTER VII.
A LILY GATHERED
166
CHAPTER VIII.
A LILY BEARER
193
CHAPTER IX.
A BLOSSOMING
235
CHAPTER X.
THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES
283
SEVEN EASTER LILIES.
CHAPTER I.
A LILY'S LESSON.
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by contented, through the heat and cold.
MRS. BROWNING.
"MOTHER'S lily will be in bloom till
Easter," said Miss Applethwaite softly,
with tears in her eyes.
She was standing before a great Egyp-
tian lily, its grandly curved leaves casting
the wonderful green shadows that an artist
eye loves, and one perfect white blossom
unfurling for crown.
It seemed almost a living, sympathizing
7
8.
Seven Easter Lilies.
thing to her, for the mother who was now
vanished from her had been used to pet it;
her sick eyes had watched with interest to
see the leaves slowly, evenly unfold; her
own tremulous hand had cut the lily last
Easter Day: one of its flowers, half-opened,
lay beside her the hour of her burial.
"The dear mother!" thought Miss Ap-
plethwaite, speaking half-aloud, as lonely-
living people fall into a habit of doing.
"The world is full of loves and losses, but,
after all, there's no love and no loss quite
like a mother's. For there may be more
than one child, and friend, and lover, and
even husband, but there is only one
mother!"
Over and over again we can only live
what others have lived before us. She did
not remember how Byron had quoted the
very same words from Gray, "We can
A Lily's Lesson.
9
only have one mother." As she leaned
her cheek against the cool leaf, the drops
which fell upon it were as bitter as though
orphanhood were a new grief in this old
world.
But she lifted her face soon. She had
learned to be brave, and she tried to be not
barely brave. One must often be brave by
force of necessity. It is better to be brave
by the grace of God. Then, helping and
healing thoughts cannot fail to come.
“O, you saintly lily!" she said; “I could
almost believe that you miss her, too. And
yet you begin to blossom again, bright as
ever, though you can no longer do it for
her. And that would just please her. She
used to say that it would be one of her
greatest regrets in dying that it would
have to make such a black shadow over
those who were left behind. She loved to
IO
Seven Easter Lilies.
have everything comfortable for other peo-
ple. She was so fond of whatever was
bright, and brave, and beautiful! For her
sake, then, I must try harder. I must live
on like you, Lily, and not only live on, but
blossom, too."
Unfinished sewing lay on the portly,
capable-looking work-table which some of
Miss Applethwaite's young friends called
"the Conjurer," because, in time of need,
it had such a magical way of supplying
from its orderly drawers and boxes match-
ing spools of sewing silk, missing shades
of zephyrs, or indispensable bits of rib-
bon.
From between the open leaves of a wise
book a page of pencil-notes fell, half-copied,
on the carpet, where a sleepy cat, glad of
something to do, speedily set about a new
and spirited application of its axioms.
A Lily's Lesson.
I I
But still Miss Applethwaite looked at
the lily, and thought and thought.
People knew that her half-brother's
widow, Mrs. Dana, and her baby girl, were
coming to make their home with Miss
Applethwaite. They said, What a good
thing it was, and how natural. Dear me!
if there were not so many a heartache,
so many a soul-pinch, behind these very
arrangements that everybody expects!
And yet we ought not to grudge having it
so, for otherwise, how would most of us
have any chance to be heroic?
Now Miss Applethwaite loved to live
alone; she loved the old house; she
dreaded change with the soreness of a
heart that had been often jarred. She
had a little jealous feeling of wanting to
keep these places sacred to the dear ones
who had now passed from them into the
12
Seven Easter Lilies.
waiting chambers and the many mansions!
of Heaven.
So though she had, "of course," as
everybody said, offered her home grace-
fully and kindly where there seemed to ap-
pear no other as fitting for the widow who
was also an orphan, yet she had been thus
far not quite happy about it in her heart.
She knew personally very little about her
brother's wife whom she had met but
once. Then, the new bride had looked
girlish and gay, in her costly dress of the
blue shade which she said Gerald had
This might
asked her always to wear.
prove a companionship which would bring
much change and little pleasure. But at
last, with a more resolved air, Miss Apple-
thwaite now left the room and went slowly
up the long stairs; softly turned a key in
its lock; shut the door behind her, and
A Lily's Lesson.
13
It was
stood alone in a darkened room.
furnished in old-fashioned mahogany, dark
and glistening, with mirrors set in carven
frames. A few homely books lay on the
prim, claw-footed table-Milton, Herbert,
Jeremy Taylor, and volumes of old Eng-
lish magazines. Curiously-cut boxes piled
the locker. Sombre portraits followed
every motion with their solemn eyes.
A clock stood silent in the corner point-
ing immovably to the very hour when a
warm, human heart had stopped ticking
beside it.
At the back, a door opened into a large,
light store-room where a heavy wardrobe,
bureau, and ancient cedar chest held in
their depths, so drearily orderly, now, the
antique dresses, caps and household fur-
nishings of long ago.
In these rooms old Madam Applethwaite
14
Seven Easter Lilies.
had spent the last invalid years of her life.
But she had filled the sick-room then with
a certain quaint, peculiar pleasantness, from
her own cheerful, unselfish character, the
piquancy of her stories and reminiscences,
the flowers she would always have about
her, the children she coaxed often to see
her, and, above all, the serenity of her ripe
faith and founded peace.
It was growing long, now, since she had
gone, and yet her daughter could not bear
to have the rooms opened or disturbed.
Every small detail was kept unchanged.
Now Miss Applethwaite sat down, trem-
bling, upon the great cushiony arm-chair,
and opened, half-unconsciously, under the
quickened sense of pain and loss, her
mother's large-typed Bible resting on its
own especial table near.
The mark lay at the last chapters of St.
A Lily's Lesson.
15
Luke; one leaf was turned down. Her eyes
fell, as she began to read mechanically,
upon these words:
But they constrained him, saying, Abide with us; for it is
toward evening, and the day is far spent. And he went in to
tarry with them.”
The Puritan faith in opening this book
to find some guiding sign when time of
doubt or emergency occurred, had been
one of her mother's dear old ways.
Very quietly, very reverently, but with a
cheerful face, by and by that mother's
daughter threw wide the close-shut, close-
curtained windows, and herself let the outer
air and sunshine enter, rejoicing and pure.
She had the portraits taken down to the
library; then she sent by the afternoon
mail to Balsam, this little white note:
MY DEAR COUSIN:
AXIS, Tuesday Morning.
I want to beg or borrow your Hilda. May she come day
after to-morrow? I am going to make home and heart warm
16
Seven Easter Lilies.
for my brother's widow and the fatherless baby, and Hilda shall
help me to get ready for them.
With love for all, I, a beggar, stand waiting your answer to
my bold knock
as,
Your importunate,
HILDA APPLETHWAITE.
"How much more life the mistress has
in her step to-day!" said the servants to
each other.
2
How Hilda Helped.
17
CHAPTER II.
HOW HILDA HELPED.
Floor is laid, and beams are strong;
Now make soft the whole for rest;
Spread it smooth, and line it thick,
Downy-pillowed, you know best,
Heart of love and throat of song,
Feathering the nest !
"THE dear fairy godmother!" Hilda
Burney said, flushing all over her face, as
she read the note after her mother. This
was her best name for Miss Applethwaite,
though 'auntie was almost as good.
((
""
"Cousin" she rejected as too cold and
remote.
Then she did not say, "May I go?" but
waited.
Lute did not wait; it was not her way.
18
Seven Easter Lilies.
"Her best dress isn't fit, mother," said
she," and the curl is all out of the feather
on her hat."
Perhaps Lute was not to blame. Prob-
ably not. But things all struck her con-
trary. She saw them "objection-side up,"
Hilda said, sometimes - only to herself
and with some qualms of conscience for
thinking so at all, for Lute was very kind,
and very good, and very dear.
Only Hilda knew how delightful it is to
have somebody in the family to say yes.
She knew it because it was her mother's
way.
How many a wavering scale she turned
in favor of the doing that is always better
than the doubting. How naturally plans
and progress were reported to her. How
everybody relied instinctively on finding
her encouragement ready, her smile cheery,
How Hilda Helped.
19
at every crisis of an undertaking, so sure
and unfailing is that mother-charity which
"Beareth all things, believeth all things,
hopeth all things, endureth all things."
So Hilda had not much doubt that her
mother was mentally taking a stitch here,
and basting a ruffle there, preparatory to
packing that family stand-by-the little
square trunk. She was so glad that there
was a day in between to get ready and
to anticipate. The fairy godmother had
known it would be so. Hilda always said
that there were two parts to a pleasure
the expecting and the having; and she
thought it was delightful to make sure of
the first, anyhow. Nobody could rob you
of that, even supposing you didn't get the
rest, by mishap or mistake.
Now that the snow was off the ground
she would make the prettiest of birch-bark
20
Seven Easter Lilies.
.
baskets and fill them with ruddy checker-
berries, whose fresh flavor auntie always
liked. And she would gather a bunch of
winter ferns and evergreens, with a light
garland of the bright-berried partridge
vine around it, to carry in her hand on her
journey.
She remembered that to the last time
her generous, open-hearted grandfather had
gone abroad he had taken with him some
bright bouquet from garden or woods.
((
Always seems to brighten up the car,"
he said, "and may make somebody feel
better. Then there are plenty of people
to give it to."
Hilda felt so inwardly glad that she
liked to have some outward and visible
sign of it about her. Besides, it was good
to make, "for love's sake," ever so little an
offering to the fairy godmother.
How Hilda Helped.
21
'For," thought the fairy godmother's
namesake," she is always slipping in rais-
ins and putting on icing in such a sly
little cunning way, and the brown loaf of a
life I'm mixing turns out plum cake all of
a sudden."
Miss Applethwaite was knowing.
She did not need to be told how dear to a
real girl's heart are the pretty trifles which,
not being essentials, would not naturally
have fallen to Hilda's lot. She could sym-
pathize with the craving for fresh ruffles,
and ribbons for every mood, which Hilda
shyly repressed because they could ill be
afforded. She could see where a loop, a
fold or a tassel would make all the differ-
ence in some simple garment in process of
making, and she had such a deft hand to
supply it as could only have come of fairy
descent. She knew her namesake well.
22
Seven Easter Lilies.
C
Hilda was not one who cared for finery;
her temptation did not seem to be vanity.
She only liked to be in harmony, and Miss
Applethwaite showed her where to put the
right accent on herself and her modest toi-
lets, with a constant but unobtrusive tact
which no showy presents could have com-
pensated for.
"But it is perfectly natural. Why
shouldn't I like, you dear foolish woman,
to see her look pretty?" she laughed, when
Hilda's mother sometimes asked doubt-
ingly, "Ought you to give her so much?"
This friendship between the cousins was
one of the few which keep an immortal
youth, and with the same playful tyranny
she used to show at play in the orchard
years ago, Miss Applethwaite went on:
(C
Yes; why shouldn't I like to see her look
pretty, and help her all I can ? As though
How Hilda Helped.
23
fairy godmother Spring didn't deck out
every young apple-tree of them all finér far
year after year, and not a word said against
it! Hilda and I are just as innocent about
our prinking. We don't mean frivolity
and vain glory. Do you let us and Nature
alone, Priscilla Burney!"
And with a smile of loving confidence
the agreement of letting alone was sealed.
Miss Applethwaite knew she could have
her own way with her name-child.
So, on this occasion, she was not dis-
appointed. She drove on Thursday to the
five o'clock train, and there was Hilda, her
bunch of ferns and red berries in hand,
and wearing, squirrel-like, the soft brown
dress, furs, and quiet cloak to match. Nor
did the crumpled brown feather in the
becoming hat which had been the fairy
godmother's own selection, show much,
24
Seven Easter Lilies.
after all, and its one bright knot of scarlet
was matched by the scarlet knot at the
throat. Seeing this, the fairy godmother
smiled. She knew being in all Hilda's
secrets that she never would wear scar-
let unless she felt "festival-happy." Well,
she was going to make her happy. It was
rather dull and monotonous for the child
up in Balsam. The girl who, in wake-
ful nights, had been used always to fall
back on planning and furnishing a house,
in her mind, to beguile the long hours,
would delight to help about contriving and
re-fitting this room for its new occupant.
Miss Applethwaite would like to see her
do it; mother would have liked it; she
herself would catch Hilda's spirit and have
less pain in the changes.
So they sat in the library by the open
fire and talked it all over that evening,
How Hilda Helped.
25
and the painted people who looked kindly
down, had not one jealous frown for
them.
"I do not care to proceed on anybody
else's plan, or present fashions, in fitting
up mother's room anew," explained aunt
Hilda; "and I want enough of her own
things left in it to make it seem she has a
part in the making ready and the welcom-
ing. But we will leave nothing that sug-
gests dinginess; everything must be fresh
and modern enough to be cheery. We
will suit it to eyes younger than mine."
Hilda listened, enchanted, as the plan-
ning proceeded. Her tact was ready, her
suggestions ingenious, and her fancy lent
charms to the work. The quick color on
her never over-round cheeks, her young,
sympathetic enthusiasm, the eager light in
her clear eyes made the quiet lady at her
26
Seven Easter Lilies.
side grow animated, sharing in such inno-
cent enjoyment.
It was not Hilda's way to be often in
very high spirits, but to-night she grew as
gleeful over their consultations as a merry
child. She laughed as it is good to hear
any child laugh, and said:
"Dear fairy godmother, I always knew
it of you, but I never was myself quite in
fairyland, to stay a fortnight. How we
will hunt pretty things, and haunt picture
stores, and how particular we'll be about
all our selections! Yes; I've a whole fort-
night to spend with you in fairyland!”
"But it's for me to say how long a fairy-
land fortnight is, remember," rejoined Miss
Applethwaite mysteriously.
܀
The two went at once to work. The
spacious room was newly papered, and
looked, when finished, as though a pale
How Hilda Helped.
27
gold haze had settled over it, through which
you could distinguish shapes of leaf, vine
and cobweb. The painter was inspired to
choose a tint for the woodwork which so
perfectly blended that its often too obtru-
sive personality was rendered almost invis-
ible. Then with exceeding pains an affin-
ity was found in a carpet, for Miss Apple-
thwaite elected it should be a carpet rather
than rugs, because her mother had had
an antipathy to the polished floors, and,
instinctively, she consulted, as though she
were still with her, that absent mother's
taste.
"And the curtains, Hilda," announced
the mistress suddenly, one day, clapping
her hands like a girl, “are, I do believe, no
further off than the attic storeroom-cur-
tains that were folded away when I was a
little girl. If I remember the shade, it will
28
Seven Easter Lilies.
be just right; they were dull yellow silk
damask. Let us hurry and see."
When the yellow pile was brought to
the light it proved that some judicious se-
lecting and sewing would be necessary, but
when that had been accomplished, the cur-
tains falling from the rods and rings were
a delight to the eye, both in color and text-
ure, and Miss Applethwaite, charmed at
her own genius, as she said, went on with
renewed ardor and zest.
But blue is Katharine's color, and we
have not planned here for any blue," she
pondered, shaking her head dubiously.
"Let us have that represented by the
chintz, then," suggested Hilda, "for we
agreed to leave the big couch and easy-
chair in the room."
So they went chintz-hunting, passing
gravely critical from store to store, until
How Hilda Helped.
29
they found in cretonne the elect pattern.
It looked as if some one coming in from
summer fields and gardens had lain down.
and dreamed it. For it had against its
azure background grasses with butterflies
and winged insects poised above, a foun-
tain and drooping garlands, somebody's
basket thrown down, birds a-tilt, a daisy
peering out among the rest, a hint of an
arbor here, and a lost hat there.
"How many different things one can
discover in it!" Hilda said, while the
seamstress was deftly fitting the coverings;
"here is even a clover leaf which, I'm
sure, I never saw before, just as there was
one half-hidden in the pattern of the
carpet. You see it is plainly foreordained
that the new people when they come shall
be in clover, Auntie."
The bedstead, massive, low and wide,
30
Seven Easter Lilies.
and the roomy dressing-table were retained,
but fitted with the prettiest new replenish-
ings. For the ungainly bureau, a many-
drawed chiffonier, with broad mirror, was
substituted.
Meanwhile letters came back from the
distant home which death had broken up.
They were letters so full of sense, and of
sweetness, too, so grieved, yet so patient in
tone that as the new friends read and sym-
pathized the lingering sense of stranger-
hood dropped away.
When Miss Applethwaite found that
the baby had been called Rosalind, at the
dying father's wish, after the name of his
step-mother, she began to ponder some-
thing else that in her mother's name she
could do for the child.
"Come in here," she proposed thought-
fully to Hilda, opening the door beyond;
How Hilda Helped.
31
"for years my mother only made this her
store-room, but it is an ample room, after
all. Do you know, I have half a mind to
fit it up as Baby Rosalind's own? She
will quite need a nursery. It could be
made very convenient and useful."
"And lovely," assented Hilda, with shin-
ing looks; "let us make it a real 'little
white rose of a room.' A fairy godmother
can do anything."
"Mother would like to have it so, I be-
lieve," mused Miss Applethwaite; and that
settled it.
They found it even more engrossing
than to render the Blue Room complete in
every detail for comfort, for rest, for toilet,
to make this "little white rose of a room
half-revealed through the portière, “ O, so
white, O, so soft, O, so sweet!
"
They carefully admitted enough warmth
32
Seven Easter Lilies.
of hue to exclude any perception of chill
or blankness; then Hilda was allowed to
carry out her idea, and for the rest, carpet,
curtains, couch and cushionings, were
white, and the furniture was a simple set
painted white, too, with half-open buds
upon it.
Thick rugs, soft and snowy, were laid
upon the floor; the lovely faces of Ma-
donna, and of little children, hung on the
walls in frames of white and gilt. A figure
of the Shepherd carrying a lamb in his
bosom, looked down from one corner;
that of a child asleep rested upon a rosy
bracket; they chose another of a child ca-
ressing a dove, for the mantel with its orna-
ments of crystal; everything was made to
look as if nesting in white rose-leaves, with
the dainty edges of laces, embroideries and
flutings, and, to Hilda, the baby's cradle
How Hilda Helped.
33
was the crowning glory. With its airy
pure muslin, trimmed in ruffles and ruched
in pink, its downy pillows, its softest, spot-
less blankets, it looked, she said, as though
if the sun could get at it he would melt it
away, like a morning cloud.
To accomplish all this they had to spend
many half-days in shopping. Though they
were careful to leave plenty of space for
all the possessions of the new-comer, yet
they knew she could not bring with her
many such on a journey so long. Here
came in to Hilda "the real fairyland of
it." Nor was it shaded for her by any per-
ception that to Miss Applethwaite there was
more pain than pleasure in the alterations
which she was constraining herself to un-
dertake. On the contrary, now that Miss
Applethwaite's mind was quite made up,
she enjoyed it too. There is philosophy
34
Seven Easter Lilies.
as well as authority in the Scripture condi-
tions of peace: that a man must forsake
all, and give up all that he hath, first.
For there is no suffering left in a sacri-
fice that has been made fully and entirely.
It is the half-hearted renunciation which
leaves a repining, fretful ache behind it,
like that little sore piece of tooth that
the unskilful dentist did not pull out with
the rest.
Hilda was appreciative enough to enjoy
like a woman; she was unsophisticated
enough to enjoy like a child. With all
Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's simple ecstasy in
shop-windows, she had a keen love of the
beautiful, and a very delicate instinct:
every bit of drawing was an education to
her; every carving a revelation. And so
the fairy godmother, looking on, and guid-
ing by a silken thread, widened their quests
How Hilda Helped.
35
to the limits of the city for very pleasure
in Hilda's pleasure, herself well-content at
the simple grace of the untrained taste,
and wondering dreamily how her "fairy-
niece" would feather her own home-nest,
God willing, in years to come. She wanted
to have every possession mean some
thing, noted Miss Applethwaite. Nothing
was chosen so much for a trick of execu-
tion or a play of color.
ceremonious
She would not have
bunches of flowers framed and hung up
— even daintiest water-colors. They must
seem to grow about the rooms by chance,
like the white and purple violets on the
Swiss paper-knife, the apple-blossoms on
the plush border of the table-cover, the
Marguerites which she herself wrought on
the toilet set with its elaborate setting of
drawn threads.
36
Seven Easter Lilies.
(
She was not tempted by the trinkets in
'the stores.
"One only cares for such things if they
have associations," she remarked: "and,
after all, how can we choose pictures for
somebody else? Let us only have a pho-
tograph or two, and a few books on the
shelf of the desk, because any room is bar-
ren without books, and some plants in the
window. All the rest they will add when
they come. After all, the fireplace is the
glory of the room; that they could not
bring with them.”
"Yes; I am so glad mother never would
give it up,” replied Miss Applethwaite ;
but your idea of the shelves and the cur-
tained niche above, was invaluable, my
child."
<
It was complete, and loving after-
thoughts only remained to be added when
How Hilda Helped.
37
Hilda chanced, in an out-of-the-way store,
upon a picture which to her was irresist-
ible. Only a half-open door; graven above
it, in faint letters, the one word Peace;
within, a soft interior, grave but fair, a
glowing sky beyond that showed through
an open window. Hilda's gray eyes were
dim for pleasure when, having clambered
up the step-ladder, she hung this picture
just above the Blue Room door outside.
And the fairy godmother's were dim, too,
for it seemed like a special interpretation
of that "large, upper chamber," wherein,
now that one good pilgrim had gotten
safely beyond the sunrising, she was suf
fered to make welcome an abiding-place
for another who passed near, at present
wearied by the way.
What the length of time might be rep-
resented by a "fairyland fortnight," had
!
38
Seven Easter Lilies.
long been wondered over at Hilda's home,
when this hasty note was received:
DEAR MOTHER AND LUTE:
IN CLOVER, Wednesday.
I am sitting here in the Blue Room, which I shall always
think of by this name, "In Clover," to write you that at last I
am coming home. How much I shall have to talk about! It
will be like having the Blue Room and the White-rose Room
open right out of our house when I tell you the whole.
Mrs. Dana, or, as she calls herself, cousin Katharine, and the
baby have made the long journey from Australia and here they
are no
now in their chamber called Peace, with a new moon com-
ing up over in the sky.
Nothing could be more beautiful than the lovely baby,
mother, and Mrs. Dana- when auntie, so tall and stately, put
her two hands out to this pale little lady and just said, "My
child!"—if you could have seen her! She had such sunshine
in her hair, and tears in her eyes, and then smiles again on her
lips, with the baby in her arms, and the widow's cap and crapes!
Auntie opened the piano for her- it has been shut for so
long, you know!-that first Sunday night after she came, at
dusk. She sang one hymn-only one — in a low, rich voice,
like an oriole's:
Abide with me! fast falls the even-tide;
The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh! abide with me.
Auntie really cried, then, as she hardly ever does. She told
You know how Robbie when he first had
me why afterwards.
How Hilda Helped.
39
a cent to spend at the candy-store, brought it home again un-
broken, because, " There was so much there," he said. "There
is so much ” here, that I stop writing in something the same way.
But I'll bring it all (and sugar-plums for the children, too, tell
them) by the eight o'clock train Friday night.
Till then you must guess what auntie Katharine (she insists
on that, and I'm learning it), said to the Blue Room, and how
she looked when she saw the White-rose Room. I like to think
how that room will keep widening out and ruffling fuller, as a
rose does, blossoming with Rosalie's things,- first a baby's
things, then a child's, then a girl's left around in it, and all her
presents and pretty things.
Please put a lamp in the chamber window Friday night, Lute,
to show as the train goes round the curve, you know, for your
Coming. home
HILDA.
40
Seven Easter Lilies.
CHAPTER III.
SETTING OUT LILIES.
Bear a lily in thy hand,
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand.
THE baby was "in clover." She was a
happy, healthy baby, and had never missed
the atmosphere of constant brooding care
about her.
Round, moist and smiling, she was lying
on the bed among snowdrifts of pillows.
The dainty white robes and nesting flan-
nels turned back, left the gleaming feet
to toss and kick at their restless pleasure;
from warmth, content and comfort the little
creature could not help cooing and gurg-
ling her confidential, significant baby-talk.
This was one of her mother's happy
Setting Out Lilies.
41
times, and even so soon it was becoming
the same to Hilda's fairy godmother.
Once she had dreaded to have the old
echoes disturbed by the baby's coming,
but, as it proved, the fairy thing and her
winsome ways began to fill up empty cor-
ners in her life, to soothe sore places in
her heart.
The Blue Room had gained, now, the
charm of a soul in it, which any sort of a
body needs. There were a few foreign
photographs on the wall-souvenirs of the
wedding journey-a Madonna, one paint-
ing of wild sea-water, with hovering sea-
birds and frowning cliff, and its companion,
a placid lake, reflecting the woods above,
and starred with water lilies. These were
beyond price, for they had been wrought
by the "vanished hand," and they were
hung so that a touch of sunshine from the
42
Seven Easter Lilies.
eastern window struck upon the open lilies,
at sunrising; a slant ray just touched the
top of the painted cliff, at sunsetting.
The own peculiar books which each
individual mind naturally gathers to itself
were niched and shelved about the desk
near one window. A low sewing-chair
beside the baby's cradle, after all, what
lovelier furniture is there than the baby's
cradle? had a graceful basket close by,
with piles of linen and embroideries, and
a tiny afghan, its blocks of blue and white
half-wrought with wild pink roses from
which petals were blowing away.
Sitting there in her black dress, after
her baby had fallen asleep, there was, in
spite of all, the wistful look in the young
mother's eyes, the grieving sadness about
her child-like mouth, which the older wo-
man, watching her, could interpret but too
Setting Out Lilies.
43
plainly from her own experience. She fol
lowed her companion's eyes to the porce-
lain likeness of a man's face, strong, dark,
and yet gentle-looking, hanging in a deep
enclosing frame of velvet. The wife had
that morning wreathed it heavily with ivy;
it was Miss Applethwaite who had stolen
in afterwards and placed on the bracket
under it, so seldom left empty of flowers,
"mother's Easter lily." For this was Eas-
ter day.
Uplifted by its high and hallowed mean-
ings, its holy sacraments, they could say to
each other, as the twilight deepened, some
few low words of faith, and hope, and sym-
pathy, of love and memory, about those
who had been received up out of their
sight. But neither could say many, nor
needed to.
Then Mrs. Dana spoke in her half-timid,
44
Seven Easter Lilies.
half-fearless way, "I've been thinking
that I ought to begin to find some neigh-
bors, now."
"Neighbors?" questioned Miss Apple-
thwaite; "the Grayners called, and the
Armstrongs, and Miss Anthony: not the
Benthams yet; but there has been illness
in the house."
"I know; not those. But I want to do
something for somebody, - to help a little,
couldn't I? Do you know, the people
at Vixbro' called our house 'The Help-Up?'
It was all himself, you know-his strong,
ready, frank way with people. They came
to him naturally with their troubles. And
now if I❞— her voice trembled; the baby
stirred" if I could go on as he did," she
added hurriedly.
"There, there, darling," and she turned
to hum unsteadily a stave of cradle-song,
Setting Out Lilies.
45
then, with one finger caught and held in
the child's soft hand, began to speak firmly
again, as though strengthened.
'I've been thinking of it, as I said, and
to-day I believe I saw a beginning. Will
it be queer in me, do you think?”—The
sweet voice plead eagerly now." This
morning, when service was over, and the
people went down the aisles, some whis-
pering how uncommonly beautiful the flow-
ers were, and how eloquent the preacher
had been, I heard a pale girl say to a tired-
looking woman, 'Mother, don't you think
I might beg for just one flower out of all
those, to take away?' And the mother
said, in a scared tone: 'I don't know, dear;
I believe I wouldn't dare. Perhaps it isn't
here.' Poor child! She looked
their way, here.'
wistful, and so sick!
"Then I noticed that the little lame girl
46
Seven Easter Lilies.
did not once turn her head from looking
towards the lilies till she had passed lin-
geringly quite outside the door.
"And there was a rough-looking young
fellow-with bright, knowing eyes, too
who came down from the gallery as we
went by. Did you hear him say, ‘Wasn't
them lilies the beater, though, Joe, my
boy?'
"I don't think I did. Little Donald,
though, the boy who asks the most ques-
tions in my Sunday-school class, did say
-and I cannot think what he meant, can
you? — 'I wish I had as much gold as there
is there,' when he looked at the lilies and
fingered a golden stamen.
"And Miss Anthony was repeating to
me one of Elsie Grayner's queer speeches,
when she was going home from church:
'Seems to me if we had those great white
Setting Out Lilies.
47
things round in sight every day, it would
be easier to be good. They make you
think of the communion cup, somehow, or
anything that says Hush!'"
"For my part," Mrs. Dana went on,
looking up at the transparent vase, “I sup-
pose I felt these things just because my
own eyes were wet already with looking at
one of those lilies. Is it strange that to-
day the Easter lily seems like a sacred and
significant sign to me? It
It marks my
husband's first Easter in Paradise, our
baby's first Easter on earth, and the begin-
ning of this new home you've made for us-
my baby and me. At any rate, something
made me think, and it was like striking a
match in the dark, I will make neighbors
of these young things - why not?' They
are no more strangers to me than every-
body here, and I must begin somewhere.
48
Seven Easter Lilies.
I will offer them each a lily plant in bloom,
and so make acquaintance with them.
Then maybe I should see a way to real
neighboring. Or if it should end in afford-
ing only a very little passing pleasure, I
would not call it wasted." She paused,
thinking. Her companion was silent, too.
This impulsive fancy seemed odd to her
orderly habits. Kind and benevolent as
those habits were, they had never led her
to count as neighbors those whom she met
casually. She preferred old acquaintances,
established charities, approved methods.
Still her heart was very tender to-night
towards the young sister who looked such
a mere girl, but bore herself so bravely.
She could not run the risk of cold criti-
cism if anything comforted her. And
what, after all, was this slight stir in her
own conscience that said: "Have I been
4
Setting Out Lilies.
49
too comfortable, letting other people
choose my neighbors for me? Have I
perhaps overlooked those I might have
helped, and dwelt too little on the question,
'What is thy duty toward thy neighbor?'"
She answered gently at last: "Hilda
must have a lily if the others do. Hilda
has quick intuitions, and can learn of a lily
if anybody can."
"And one I will keep for baby Rosa-
lind, in memory of this Easter Day. So
there will be seven-seven Easter lilies,"
Mrs. Dana finished.
"Dear mother! how your lily spreads,'
thought Miss Applethwaite silently.
50
Seven Easter Lilies.
CHAPTER IV.
A LILY'S TENDING.
They say this life is barren, drear and cold;
And yet, a little patience strengthens life;
Lo midst the winter shines the laurel leaf!
"HAVE you this shade in blue ? "
Mrs. Dana had finished her shopping,
and was turning home, when she remem-
bered the zephyr she was to have matched.
Spying a small fancy store on the corner
of the by-street she had reached, she went
in, and laid the coil of blue, thus far for-
gotten in a pocket of her purse, upon the
counter.
The young clerk was afraid not; he
made a few rather embarrassed investiga-
tions of boxes, and then said he would ask.
Left waiting, the customer noticed an open
A Lily's Tending.
51
1
German book on the counter, and a moth-
erly-looking rocking-chair at the back of
the store.
She walked over to the chair, with an
idea of resting while she was detained, and
took up rather unthinkingly, a small worn
book that lay half-hidden under sewing
beside it. It was a Testament, and
against the leaf rested a newspaper cut-
ting. It was only a simple, everyday
rhyme. The title was Patience.
$
The lady shut the book quickly with a
sensitive blush, as if she had been unlaw-
fully prying into holy places. She smiled,
nevertheless, as one does who catches
sight of a familiar face, or a first flower.
It was a glimpse through; who knew
into what secrets of living it opened, what
endurance, what resignation, what quiet for-
titude, to one who had need of patience?
52
Seven Easter Lilies.
it."
A young girl came round the counter.
<6
No, ma'am; mother says we haven't
"Ah!" spoke the golden-haired lady
then, leaning forward, "I have seen you.
You are the little girl who wanted one
flower at Church Easter Sunday!"
"I know I got quite hot and red with
wonder, mother," said the little shop-girl,
telling it afterwards, "but she asked me in
the sweetest way to come up to 54 West-
minster Street, and I should choose a
flower for myself. And she was a real
lady. I'm not at all afraid to go, and it
isn't too far for me to walk. The blue
didn't match; she bought some white."
There was something to wonder over,
something to anticipate, all day, in the
dull little shop. It brightened the faded
mother to see slender Ruth so interested,
A Lily's Tending.
53
though she herself could not quite get
over the nervous fear of something wrong
which continually haunted her. As to
Ruth's brother Conrad, he was silent and
haughty about it. He was always queer.
They had become used to it. In so many
families there is some one for whom the
rest tacitly and instinctively turn out!
And they knew that Conrad had a hard
time. He was thwarted in his bent for
study by their poverty; he was too proud
and sensitive not to be galled intensely by
the desertion of the absent father whose
name was never alluded to among the
three. Perhaps he had fled back to his
German vater-land; Conrad did not care;
it was enough that his misdeeds had
driven the English mother from her old
home, and made them all poor in an alien
land. Poor Conrad! he knew but too well
54
Seven Easter Lilies.
the misery that the old hymn hints at,
misery more pitiless, more thorny than any
ordained suffering of the flesh, how-
Passion rages like the sea,
And pride is restless as the wind.
When Ruth had been to 54 Westmin-
ster Street, and came home flushed and
happy, quite won by the ladies' gentle,
homelike ways, with her story of the grow-
ing shrubs and trees at the back of the
house, and the early spring flowers, Conrad
could not entirely resist the English vio-
lets and heart's-ease in her hand, which
brought such tears to the mother's eyes,
but he would not quite keep back the
haughtiness that made him dread being
condescended to, when the gift of the lily
was told.
"We don't want charity," said he curtly.
The mother looked at him appealingly,
A Lily's Tending.
55
and Ruth cried, with the unusual color
coming and going in her cheeks,
"But
this isn't charity. It's real friendliness. If
you could only have seen how she spoke
and smiled! And the lily is in bloom.
It's going to be sent to-night. I want to
be sure and remember what she said about
it. It wasn't as if she meant to preach,
but only to let me hear a piece of her
thinking: 'I thought perhaps you might
learn something from the lily. See what
perfect, even curves it grows in. Don't
you wish we could make our lives as round
and shapely and satisfying? So pleas
ant for other people to look at, you know.
And tell me, sometime, what you find to do
with the blossoms, will you?' As if she
quite cared for me, mother."
Ruth found no better place to put her
lily than in one of the small shop windows
56
Seven Easter Lilies.
in front. Alas! there was plenty of room
for it there- they could only afford such
a very modest stock; and some of the rib-
bons were fading without purchasers al-
ready. But, ill as they could afford that,
what was it to bear if only Ruth did not
fade too, thought her anxious mother.
The ladies at Westminster Street noticed
the girl's pallor and dry cough; they
would often drop in to buy trifles. They
never asked questions, but were quick to
guess. Their
ways were so quiet and natu-
ral, their kindness so thoughtful and un-
obtrusive, that Conrad ceased to grumble
and mistrust when they took Ruth up in
their carriage to try a shade in zephyrs
(going around by crooked, unnecessary
streets, and crossing the Park), or lent her
a new book, sending her back when she
went to return it, with more flowers.
A Lily's Tending.
57
This garden, old-fashioned and box-
edged, crowded in between the back of the
old house and a street running parallel, had
been neglected since Miss Applethwaite
had been left alone. Now wakened by
Mrs. Dana's love of flowers, she had begun
to suspect that even here was a neighbor
who had been slighted. So the shrubs,
planted long ago, were suffered to grow on
luxuriantly, but pruned and trained enough
to leave room for lilies of the valley that
might spread as they like, pinks, myrtles,
anything that would grow in the shade.
Then there were window-boxes set from
the south and east windows of the Blue
Room, where, mignonnette, and scented
geraniums and verbenas, could have their
chance in the sun. Ruth felt rich to have
her glimpses of all this, and then come
home to her very own lily. She was taking
58
Seven Easter Lilies.
heart, now, to try more bravely not to be
so homesick, and discouraged, and sad.
It appealed to the girl-nature in her,
that idea of making her life pretty, and
"pleasant for other people to look at."
And when the lily put out new leaves in
that shady shop-window, though it had left
happy companions in some fragrant
tended greenhouse, she began to read
from it the lesson of content. The home-
sick English girl really tried to be happy
in the new place, and to make things
"pretty and pleasant," for mother and
Conrad.
She began to make "neighbors," too.
A seamstress buying a spool of silk, said
some kind friendly words at sight of the
lily. Her English accent, betrayed by the
speech quickened into warmth, opened the
mother's heart. It made things a little
A Lily's Tending.
59
brighter when by degrees they came to
know the good-hearted "Old Country"
folks, who were wiser about this rapid,
noisy America than they were, and could
advise the mother and set some of her
fears at rest. And it sent a warm glow to
the hearts of mother and daughter to give
their first blossom away: in their shaded
and meagre lives now, there seemed so lit-
tle giving and taking. Besides, Ruth, at
least, perceived a new beauty in trying to
help any one, from the graceful handling
of it she had lately seen and felt.
Thus it is that every good deed and
honest effort multiplies and self-sows to
come up again in fresh places.
'Whose seed is in itself."
A gaunt Irish woman, asking for two
yards of black ribbon, had cried entreat-
ingly: “An' is it yours the lily is? Can't
60
Seven Easter Lilies.
yees sell it to me the while? The babby's
dead, the darlint! or, shure, I w'uldn't be
after askin' yees; but och! she'd seem safer
to me, like, wid that in the little hands of
her."
She broke down in a mother-grief so
real and utter that Ruth put the flower in
her hand with a woman's touch.
"I'm glad to send it to the baby; you
needn't pay for it," she said gently; "don't
cry. They'll take good care of her, you
know they will, where she's gone."
"Yes; but 'twas all the purty thing I'd
got," sobbed the mother.
<<
Bless ye, miss!
I'll come some day and thank you."
But, spite of all, life went very hard in
that dull little shop as the summer heats
descended. So few people as cared to
come in! So few as ever knew of its ex-
istence !
A Lily's Tending.
61
The mother was more pale and silent,
and Ruth, who loved her tenderly, could
not look at her without that sharp ache
which loving hearts know but too often.
She tried to be a cheerful scholar at her
lesson of content, but she was "so tired
much of the time; the glare and fire of
the air were almost more than she could
bear, and her wistful watchings for the gen-
tle lady from Westminster Street were
strangely unrewarded.
How did she know that there were anx-
ious days and weary nights there now?
A spider spun its web before the en-
trance of a cave. Because it hung there
unbroken, the pursuers believed that the
fugitive they hunted had not passed
through. Our familiar, wonted doings, our
accustomed, everyday surroundings are
spun like the spider's web, mercifully before
62
Seven Easter Lilies.
our eyes. We see them repeated over and
over, unchanged, and we forget to fear.
This we realize afterwards when a great
dread, or a sharp shock of sorrow has
come upon us, and changed into a wild,
strange place the whole "little landscape
of our life." This is why we say that
Death is always sudden.
Thus unexpectedly, then, to this mother,
every little interest and errand of yester-
day had grown to seem old, and purpose-
less, and distant. Life centred now in
the one little moaning child. The sicken-
ing fear of losing her, the pain of seeing
her suffer, could be endured only in Love's
way-by taking refuge in devoted care
and tireless service. How noisy the streets
seemed all at once! How incessant the
passing of people! How fearfully still
and empty it was within!
A Lily's Tending.
63
But it did not last, thank God! The
dreadful weight lifted, the sweet relief
came; baby was better. They were ad-
vised to take her away then, into the pure
country air. In her absorption Mrs. Dana
would have forgotten Ruth, had not she
gone to make some purchase at the store,
and then she could not fail to be pained at
seeing how weak and ill the girl looked.
The heart so tender with the joy of hav
ing its treasure given back, was quick-
thoughted to
to`
to aid another. Yes, she
would have Ruth go with her, to help in
taking care of the baby. Did her mother
think she could be spared?
It was so
pleasant up in Balsam that it would be
sure to do her good; Rosalie would need
so much care, for a while. As though
she could be content to trust the child
out of her own arms just now!
64
Seven Easter Lilies.
But it was all managed like a miracle,
Ruth thought. She was cheered anew,
and her mother grew quite hopeful over it
- poor, anxious heart! and Conrad said
nothing, but busied himself the more
closely.
Ruth's new friends began to look at
him carefully. He chafed in the little
cramped place, and brooded over the Ger-
man book. They could guess from Ruth's
wistful looks at him something how it was,
and wished they could help the proud,
silent boy in his troubles.
It is a most exquisite thing to have
made anybody as happy as Mrs. Dana
thus made Ruth. Rest and change, air
and liberty, put new vigor into her life,
and her life was too young to fade for the
lack of it.
There was plenty of room-house-room
A Lily's Tending.
65
and heart-room-in the farmhouse up in
Balsam. They took Ruth right in the
homesick German girl with her English
name and her English ways.
As she grew stronger, she learned how
to churn and make bread with Lute the
notable, how to help the children out in
their scrapes and their plays, how to
know all the ferns, and roots, and flowers,
with Hilda, and how to love, better than
ever, by having all these new, kind people
around her that nobody could help loving.
For the baby and her mother, it was a rev-
erent and worshipful love; for Mrs. Burney
a resting and admiring love; for Lute a
respectful love, and for Hilda it was that
most intoxicating and romantic thing-a
girl's first friendship. Happy Ruth, to
have come to that!
Hilda pitied, first, then petted her, in
66
Seven Easter Lilies.
her own generous way, doctored her with
herbs, and feasted her with dainties. Why,
she even read to her some of the rhymes
that she caught on the wing, and that was
a thing she did not often think of doing
for anybody. She was like a shy partridge,
and had the instinct of hiding her nest.
As to Ruth, she gave back all her secrets
and troubles in confidence.
t
"Hilda," said Ruth, one day, "I begin
to believe I never was really out of doors
before in all my life."
They were making moss-baskets, out in
the woods. The air was spicy with pine.
A rabbit had just run by into the bushes.
They had gathered great bunches of flow-
ers and left them in the brook at their feet
to keep fresh. The whole earth seemed
so generous, so full, so beautiful, that
Ruth felt at that moment the real, rare
A Lily's Tending.
67
ecstasy of living, as she had few times in
her life.
"And you're satisfied with out-doors,
are you?" said Hilda archly, picking
the greenest mosses out of her basket.
"O, Hilda! how happy you are to have
it all. How rich you are! Why, you can
have the best of all the woods for nothing!"
<<
Ruth, you've put a thought in my head.
Wait a minute, and I'll count up how much
I'm worth for you. You shall see my tax-
able list. I'll take account of stock."
Hilda dropped her mosses, discovered a
providential pencil in her pocket, borrowed
the back of Ruth's last home-letter which
was never separated from her, and did not
speak again for half an hour. Then she
looked up with an elfish face, and read to
an audience of two spiders that ran over
her lap, a little green worm that lit on her
68
Seven Easter Lilies.
paper, and the profoundly admiring Ruth,
a rough copy of these verses:
REAL ESTATE.
The neighbors boast their woodlands broad,
And count their acres rod for rod
That mount far up to hundreds odd;
They reckon, with more skill than mine,
Their oak and maple tall and fine,
Their chestnut, hickory and pine.
They tell the oldest beech-tree's worth,
So many dollars by the girth ;
Compute the cords on so much earth,
How high the land has raised this year,
The sum it's paid, if market's near,
And fuel.scarce, and firing dear.
And I,- I own my claim is naught
To their domain, nor hold I aught
By deed secured, by earnings bought;
And yet, I've harvests year by year,
From off their lands, gains good and clear,
Howe'er the legal right appear.
For me the partridge's shy vine shows
Her one live coal, that redly glows
All winter long, beneath the snows;
The buried winter-green keeps fire,
And glistening laurel growing higher
Shines lady in her rich attire.
A Lily's Tending.
69
From thence my Christmas wreaths I glean;
My lichens, silver, gray or green;
Mosses, like shaded zephyrs, seen
In broidered patterns wrought between;
The last year's nest; bright leaves that strew
Pine needles' tapestry below;
The unclaimed cones that hemlocks grow.
Mine are the spots, shady and wet,
Where windflower grows, and violet,
Where choice arbutus leaves are set,
Where fairy fern most oft is met,
Thus, when the nuts are ripe, and lie
Thick on the ground or clustered high,
We're quite content, Squirrel and I;
Yes, quite content with our year's share
Of profits, that you unmissed spare,
Good neighbor, from your woodlands fair;
So, whate'er be the market rate,
Or shift of price, from date to date,
Hold undisturbed; our real estate !
"Hurrah!" cried Ruth, and threw a
bouquet which she had been absently
composing, in a somewhat eccentric man-
ner, of the nearest leaves and grasses.
Then she kissed the blushing rhymer,
and dismissed one of the spiders, wonder-
70
Seven Easter Lilies.
ing all the while, in meek and reverent
mystification, how Hilda could do it.
<<
'Why, I could make our fortunes if I
could do what you can, Hilda," said she,
with sublime faith; " or, even if I had your
real estate to go to. I'd make a piece
of woods right in the middle of the city.
But as it is"-Ruth sighed, and Hilda
reached over to pat her hand consolingly.
"You see, dear," continued Ruth slowly,
"if the store would only get a little ahead
so that mother and I could manage it, then
Conrad could go and try something else.
But it's so out of the way, and we can't
afford to stock it better, and advertise"
She stopped, for Hilda looked suddenly
wise and bright, and clapped her hands
softly. "I think I see something for you,
Ruthie," said she, "and it was you yourself
began it, too."
A Lily's Tending.
71
So Ruth talked it over with Hilda, as
girls together can talk; then Hilda talked
it over with mother and Mrs. Dana, and
they all talked it over with father.
By this time, as you may imagine, it had
ceased to be a secret in the house.
Hilda's plan was to make of one of
the large store-windows what she called
a "Window Woods," "Have all of the
country in it that you can, Ruth," she ad-
vised; "make it all the year round a
faithful epitome of what is going on in our
country woods; don't disdain anything. In
the spring have the trailing arbutus, blood-
roots, anemones, cowslip balls, and even
dandelion greens. In the summer there
will be everything-from water lilies to
fresh-picked berries; and you must press
ferns for the winter sale. We have every
kind here. Later, there will be holly, bit-
72
Seven Easter Lilies.
:
ter-sweet, and lichens; and Christmas ever-
greens would be sure to sell.
"You shall come out and stay a month, to
gather them and twine them ready. There
will be autumn leaves, too; I will show you
the best ways to press them.
there would be no end to it.
Why, Ruth,
You would
have a large fernery from which you could
at any time transplant roots, and then you
would have smaller ones all fitted for sale.
You must not leave out buttercups, daisies
and clover; acorns and bird's-nests; in their
season you must have pussy willows, young
winter-greens, sassafras, black birch, water
cresses; you must have checkerberries;
you must keep all sorts of herbs - you
must have May baskets; even willow
whistles for the city boys and girls;
won't that help spread the news?
""
The joyous confidence and delight with
A Lily's Tending.
73
which Hilda told off this inventory carried
everybody along with it.
Of course there was doubting, of course
there were obstacles. Hilda's father never
committed himself rashly; Lute quietly
foresaw lions in the way. But there was
mother," always smiling and tolerant, and
Mrs. Dana, willing and hopeful.
((
"You know, fairy godmother," wrote the
persevering Hilda, "it might be a taking
advertisement of the store, and attract
city people who crave the woods, you say
- and I don't wonder they do."
"Yes," came the reply, by the next mail,
"and I think it might be made to pay in
resting and comforting some people, too.
We'll try it."
So Hilda taught Ruth how to arrange
simple transparencies of autumn leaves, to
make baskets of cones and spruce tips, to
74
Seven Easter Lilies.
contrive rustic brackets, to fashion boxes,
baskets and sun-hats, from birch bark, to
string of hemlock cones a pendant fringe
that well became rustic brackets, to con-
struct moss-balls which could be beautifully
arranged with pressed ferns and leaves.
They planned and planned. The two
lonely people in the dingy city shop were
quite borne along by the enthusiasm of all
these kind strangers.
Did not farm-produce go up to the city
every week? There were plenty of small
boys who for a trifle would help gather
anything that grew. Hilda would super-
vise, and there was no danger but that
prudent Lute would, when the time came,
help with a generous hand. The ladies at
Westminster Street took long drives, and
would bring in treasures from the roadsides.
"Now it begins," announced Hilda, when
A Lily's Tending.
75
Conrad came out by invitation, to take his
sister home and prepare for the Window
Woods.
!
This visit did Conrad good. Every-
thing about his new creditor, out-of-
doors, was free, unlimited and bountiful.
Selfish thoughts, or mean, hard thoughts,
grew ashamed before such a creditor as
this. Besides making a bargain for farm-
produce with Hilda's father, which he saw
would sell profitably in connection with
the wild growths, Conrad made friends
with the woods; learned many wild secrets.
of a hunter with whom he contracted for
occasional game, and spent whole days
constructing gnarly baskets of laurel roots,
at which trade he succeeded to his own
surprise and delight. It was a new sensa-
tion to take from the lavish woodlands
more than he could use, to possess himself
76
Seven Easter Lilies.
of whatever he chose, and give nothing
back, assured that all would not be missed.
What a contrast to the haggling and bar-
gaining which wearied Conrad in dealing
with niggardly human sellers of stock and
furnishing! He was growing hard and
sullen under it; this was an entering
wedge of grace. And he was quite proud
of Ruth, with the brotherly pride that is so
pleasant and manly a thing, as they trav
elled home. Her face had grown plump
and peaceful; a tinge of color replaced
the sallowness of her cheek; there was a
piquant air about the brown hat of rough
straw adorned only by a wreath of wild
grasses woven one day in the fields by her-
self and Hilda.
The Window Woods was promptly be-
gun, and by friendly aid made its little sen-
sation. The Ritters worked busily and
A Lily's Tending.
77
lovingly at their idea, and thought no
other helpers and advisers could equal
theirs.
Between them all it was really true that
a city dweller who kept an eye on this
humble store might see the whole proces-
sion of the year pass by, bearing its suc-
cessive growths. The things that were in
season out under the Balsam pines and
chestnuts, were faithfully reproduced in
the Axis show-window. Ruth developed
a talent for arranging her treasures which
she devotedly practised, and the window
was generally worth looking at.
It might
be only a heavy oval wreath of coarse
grasses framing a vase of brilliant autumn
leaves; it might be only a mossy bank of
ferns; it might be daisy chains, or a tan-
gled mist of clematis; or the merest care-
less bunch of golden-rod and purple aster.
78
Seven Easter Lilies.
((
Somehow, whatever it was, the charm, the
seemingly accidental just-rightness," as
another has happily expressed it, would
always be there. More than once, at the
recommendation of her friends, Ruth un-
dertook the arrangement of tables for
small lunch or dinner-parties, until her
tact became recognized in a small circle as
quite the thing to command where regular
florists were not necessary.
(6
Where do you get such pretty fern-
eries, and such a constant succession of
wild flowers as fast as they come?" asked
callers of Mrs. Dana or Miss Applethwaite,
noting the glorious scarlet of cardinal flow-
ers in their vases of an autumn day, or ad-
miring the fragrant twin-flower budding
in a rustic basket. And the answer would
compel the mental note, "What an odd
little store! I mean to look it up."
A Lily's Tending.
79
Customers found there the best of
sweet marjoram, lavender, thyme, the
freshest of vegetables, ripest of berries,
and, later, stores of nuts. Bunches of
caraway and dill found buyers, and Ruth
always remembered how a strange girl
cried over the spicy seeds one day. She
had not a gentle look, and her companion
was a bolder and showier girl than herself,
but Ruth heard her say between her tears
as they turned away,
"It reminds me
of mother and mother's garden. No; I
won't go with you, Delia; I'm going back
to mother."
The most magnificent woman in the
city had a good word to say for "that
unique Window Woods" ever after she
bought a branch of sweet-fern there. Her
admirers did not know it was because the
homely, spicy smell brought back so viv-
80
Seven Easter Lilies.
idly how years and years ago she used to
go crunching through hedges of it in
the mossy, dry pastures where huckleber-
ries grew; the log-cabin sun-bonnet that
would be off in half an hour, and hang by
one string, the tin pail with its jingling
cup, the woe of spilling the fruit, the pride
of filling the pail and the carrying it home
to mother!
Mr. Peters, the well-known merchant,
gouty, and gold-caned, went up street one
day chewing a bit of black birch, and, after
that, was quite a regular customer. That
was all for old times' sake, too. If the
wood-flavored bark could only taste as it
did when he was a boy, though!
There came to be many who looked reg-
ularly in at the window and lingered about
it. Poor people there were —
- sick peo-
ple, tired people, tempted people, little
A Lily's Tending.
81
children.
Shop-girls would come in to
buy one of the dainty little bunches of
wild-flowers. The friendly Irish woman,
who did not forget the gift of the lily,
would send customers - poverty-stricken
people, perhaps, who could not have
afforded a flower for the bride, or even a
wreath for the dead, elsewhere, but here
Miss Applethwaite begged Mrs. Ritter to
act for her, and give at her discretion.
Through only a flower, they came thus
to find many other clues; to detect more
needy “neighbors."-
Thus by one and another means the
modest venture was becoming fairly well
known when Hilda came in mid-winter to
the city with her trunk full of contribu-
tions to the Window Woods. Many dozen
sprays of the star-leaved ivy fern and the
maiden-hair had been biding their time
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Seven Easter Lilies.
under heavy weights in the Burney gar-
rett. Hilda brought these, now that the
Christmas wreaths which had been so pop-
ular, were sold out, and besides, she had
mountain-cranberry vines, exquisite green
mosses, mitchella, tiarella, and cedar thick
with bluish berries. Few people realize
how much of undying green is hidden in
the bosom of New England forests even
through the sorest of the winter's frost and
cold. The gardens lie desolate and the
fields are blank and bleak, but nourished
warmly under the pines is a wealth of glad
and gracious beauty, moss and fern, shrub
and vine.
:
Hepatica, winter-green, pyrola, and sev-
eral varieties of ground-pine push their
heads merrily up above the snow like chil
dren who will not lie down and keep the
sheets smooth. The tassels of the pines,
A Lily's Tending.
83
and the undulating boughs of the hemlock,
never seem fuller of thoughtful, yet genial
vitality, than under those keen, clear skies,
and the whole place is populous with
glossy laurel. No wonder, then, that Hilda
came well laden with fresh pelf for the
Window Woods, but her own pleasure in
seeing the Ritters and their improved
estate, her friendliness and sympathy, was
better than all pelf.
Ruth seemed charmingly well, useful
and happy. Mrs. Ritter, too, was really
growing wonted and placid; the new coun-
try and the new friends were proving, after
all, so kind! and Conrad was quite genial,
now. Miss Applethwaite had managed to
introduce him to libraries and reading-
rooms, and sometimes to lectures and con-
way-oh!
certs. Her way was the real way·
Hilda knew all about it. Her favors
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Seven Easter Lilies.
were so well-timed, offered with such quiet
fitness, and dignity so unostentatious, that
they gently compelled as their due a grate-
ful acceptance.
They all cheerfully planned hopeful
things. Conrad was convinced that an-
other year it would pay to hire help and
make a real business both of pressing ferns
and tying greens for the market in large
quantities.
Perhaps after awhile by shrewd manage-
ment and thrifty saving Conrad would be
enabled to own a greenhouse of his own, or
they could afford a larger store, and make
it a real flower-market.
"He's so much brighter and happier
than he used to be!" said Ruth. "One
night there came a sudden early frost, and
we found my calla with all its leaves droop-
ing over. I quite gave it up, but I was too
A Lily's Tending.
85
busy to stay looking, and when I did come
back every single leaf was standing up
(
just as straight as ever! There's pluck,'
Conrad said (and he don't often speak
out, you know); 'might be well if I could
catch it.' He spoke quite low, but I do be-
lieve he's tried harder ever since. Times
when I've had to say over 'Patience! pa-
tience!' pretty often to myself, I've caught
him looking at that calla and muttering,
'Pluck, pluck!' He never thought I no-
ticed."
"
Ruth," answered Hilda, “just tell Con-
rad, sometime, what I heard a man say
once: Isn't there something grand, after
all, in having Life rush strongly at you and
wrestle hard, as though it did not take
you for a coward or a baby?''
((
'I don't understand that," Ruth con-
fessed; "I think it's so trying, this waiting,
86
Seven Easter Lilies.
and working, and fighting. I think it's so
hard about father," she went on in a lower
tone. "Oh! that's my cross, Hilda. And
once it was so ugly to me that I had
hardly any pity or hope for poor father.
But now I do think there's cedar and bit-
ter-sweet covering up my bare cross-some
patience, some hope, and some love. And
it's you all who have woven it over so for
me, you darling, you all, and-" Breaking
off here, Ruth led Hilda into the warm
back sitting-room and showed her their
lily in bud- the beautiful Easter Lily.
A Lily's Shining.
87
CHAPTER V.
A LILY'S SHINING.
This world is full of darkness,
So we must shine,
You in your small corner,
And I in mine.
CHILD'S HYMN.
A FEW people of the church missed the
little lame girl from her place on Sun-
days. She and her lily were in the City
Hospital now. A sudden fall had made
her lameness so much worse that the doc-
tors had advised her removal there.
Eunice made the best of it, after a while.
Some days she cried a good deal; some
days she could only think of her pain; but
there is nothing in human nature more
obstinate than the wanting to be happy,
and Eunice was young. As to the neat
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Seven Easter Lilies.
room she had, and the care, they were
better than she had been used to at home,
only that was home.
Her father came to see her as often as
he could, after work hours. Her mother
would bring a child or two twice a week
and visit her. The great doctor was very
good to her, and the nurses were kind.
Her favorite employment when she was
well enough, was making patchwork. She
had begun it at home with her thrifty
mother who preferred to use up in this
way worn-out dresses and aprons. There
was a good deal of contriving and inge-
nuity about it which served to divert her
mind; she "liked to make the colors grow
together," she said; and she connected
fancies of her own with the calico bits.
Blessed faculty of imagination which
can change the lead of life to gold!”
<<
A Lily's Shining.
89
Eunice would hang pieces on the blank
walls of her room, varying them with her
moods. A piece of pink for a sunny day;
lead-color when it rained; buff and white
when she had a good day; one very dark
square when she had been bad; her
queerest and craziest samples on days
when she had to stay in bed. Because
then, out of these latter she could imagine
figures of fairies, griffins, giants and dwarfs,
of castles, lakes, mountains and palaces,
and could amuse herself by making up
stories about them half-way nonsense, to
beguile the long hours.
Then, with the large, ever-growing
patchwork quilt she grew to associate
people and things. It had begun with
homely yellow browns, and dull brick reds,
such as they happened to have in the
house at home. But it was getting
90
Seven Easter Lilies.
brighter now. The nurses had contrib-
uted to help her along, and one or two
thoughtful visitors had taken pains to
bring in the prettiest odds and ends of
their piece-bags.
So she sorted her increasing store with
great care, and saved the choicest frag-
ment to put in when something especially
pleasant happened.
Every day, at the doctor's blithe word
when he came to see her, a block from the
honored pile would go in. Some good-
natured nurse
nurse or convalescent patient
would tell her a story and she would me-
morialize it by a flowered square of calico;
something in a book or paper would
please her, and she would choose a bright
color and sew it in to remember that by.
There was one piece of cambric which
she treasured for weeks, because she could
A Lily's Shining.
91
not make up her mind that anything fit
for it happened. Miss Applethwaite had
brought it one day in a roll of pieces. It
had, over a groundwork of colors deli-
cately shaded and softened, scattered pan-
sies dropped in a graceful carelessness.
This so delighted Eunice that she kept it
always where she could see it, and would
on no account use it till something spe-
cially beautiful should chance to occur.
But one day that most lovely thing, a
happy old woman, came to the hospital.
It was a dark day, and a disappointing
day, for the rain kept mother and the chil-
dren away. Eunice had not been able to
keep from crying a little over the dull
and rather insane-looking blocks of calico
which she was obstinately bent on putting
in, despite the gentle remonstrances of the
nurse; trying to cheer her up, by suggest-
92
Seven Easter Lilies.
<<
ing more cheerful hues. Come, chick,
don't be so downhearted," said the kind
woman; "can't you chirp a bit of a song
for us this dull time?'
(6
No, no," said Eunice, mournfully, "I
am lonesome, and I'm forgotten. If I'm
a chick I'm a poor chick, shut away from
my mother, and left out in the storm."
So she cried harder.
And just then there was the beautiful
old lady coming down the hall, leaving
words and smiles all the way along.
She put her arm around tired, lonely
Eunice, and smoothed the head pressed
against her warm breast, with the dear,
motherly touch, and talked about pleasant
things. Then Eunice looking up into that
face so full of rare stillness and peace,
could not help saying, “Oh! how happy
you look."
A Lily's Shining.
93
"Yes," answered the dear old lady; "and
I want you to be happy, too. Do you re-
member this ? He that dwelleth in the
secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty.' I like
to feel always that I am cuddled up just
So. And so are you, my child."
When she went away, leaving a kiss and
a flower, Eunice cheered right up. And
then she fitted the pansies in, for this was
beautiful enough.
For the centre of this wonderful quilt
Eunice had planned a wonderful block.
She was going to name it the Easter
Lily bedquilt, because the plant had been
so much company for her all this while
since Mrs. Dana had given it to her, and
she had lived her circumscribed life inside
the hospital.
"Before I had it, I used to get so tired
94
Seven Easter Lilies.
making crosses, crosses, all the time," she
told its giver one day, when the acquaint-
ance between them had become well es-
tablished and cemented by many confi-
dences and kindnesses.
"How was that?" asked her visitor,
stroking the small thin hand tenderly.
"You know there's a great tree that
stands right before my window? Well,
when it is bare the boughs cross and cross
each other, and lying there I was always
making them up till I was so tired! but
could not stop it. I remember one day I
was too sick to sit up and sew patchwork -
I was thirsty and aching; I couldn't make
anybody hear me call for water.
"It was Monday, and all the bells were
ringing, and the children running, and
workmen hurrying along, and it seemed
as though everybody was taken care of
A Lily's Shining.
95
but me, and God had forgotten all about
me!
"So I cried, and then I got to making
crosses. I'd made sixteen, I think, when a
little bird lit right on the arm of the seven-
teenth. Such a pretty blue-bird, — and it
was so early for him, too! He had some-
thing in his mouth, and I remembered
what you told me once about the bird that
puts his head under his wing, and leaves
God to think for him was that it?
So it really did seem when I'd put it all
together, and thought it over, you know, as
if I knew what the bird had in its mouth
when I saw him: as if I had been told
that it was a little letter for me, that said
inside, No; I won't forget you, Eunie.'"
((
Dearie," said Mrs. Dana lovingly,
"there is a letter where it is written for
you in almost those same words, 'Yet
96
Seven Easter Lilies.
will I not forget thee.' I mean to paint
that little text for you to have hung up
here always in sight."
This she did afterwards, and had the
motto placed above Eunice's window.
But delicate as were the gilded letters and
the tiny blue forget-me-nots, Mrs. Dana
would not let Eunice take down a little
contrivance of her own. It was only a
part of a familiar poem, cut from a news-
paper and pinned to the wall. Eunice
had framed it about with even strips of a
gray calico, having a pattern of small, blue
plumy feathers:
A little bird I am,
Shut from the fields of air;
And in my cage I sit and sing
To Him who placed me there;
Well pleased a prisoner to be
Because, my God, it pleases Thee.
Naught have I else to do;
I sing the whole day long,
A Lily's Shining.
97
And He whom most I love to please
Doth listen to my song.
He caught and bound my wandering wing,
But still He bends to hear me sing.
"I thought the paper printed that just for
me," said Eunice, while Mrs. Dana read;
"and see how I have marked your motto
in my patchwork, to remember that by."
She showed her how carefully she had
fitted in a circle of blue calico about the
centre block and its setting of white. She
had heard something about Mrs. Dana's
Blue Room, and so associated the color
with her.
That centre was, as I said, quite a small
wonder in its way, and many busy hours
had little Eunice spent over it, that might
otherwise have been slow and heavy in
passing. Eager, interested and engrossed,
it was to her what the artist's dream is to
him.
98
Seven Easter Lilies.
By piecings carefully contrived out of
white and yellow, she had shaped her
blocks into rude, but real likeness to a lily,
and arranged about it settings of dark
green, formed like the leaves.
After she had seen this ingenious bit of
patchwork, Mrs. Dana took great pains to
collect for Eunice scraps, and even breadths
of her own prettiest dresses. Many a
larger gift has cost the giver less. She
could not without a pang unfold them;
they were the old dresses her husband
used to praise or to select, and linked with
many associations of their life together.
But it was worth while to help these
thoughtful, skilful fingers, and please the
quick eye. She and Miss Applethwaite
could not know all the big blocks and
brilliant that Eunice pieced in to stand
for deeds or gifts of theirs. Miss Apple-
A Lily's Shining.
99
thwaite would bring such fruit and flowers
she was very glad of the garden now!-
and her own beautiful face was enough, to
say nothing of the exquisite grace there
was about everything she wore. It rested
Eunice's artist eye to look at her, though
she did not reason why. Mrs. Dana could
tell such stories, and read, and sing, with a
voice that never wearied the listener.
The ladies found many neighbors here
at the hospital. There was
There was a worn-out
seamstress who had lived in the country
all her girlhood.
"And now," said she, "when I can sit
up and look out of the window, I think,
only this thin glass between me and the
green grass there in the yard, and yet I
can scarcely hope ever to step on it
again!"
For her they would bring every pretty
י
100
Seven Easter Lilies.
wild thing from Ruth Ritter's Window
Woods; for her table, a queer, gnarly,
mossy knot with vines growing in it-the
home-faced wild flowers she used to know;
on May Day a real May-basket, its wire
frame covered with the exquisite leaf-moss
whose every spray was like an artist's
pencilling for outline and shading. It
pleased her to hear about the Window
Woods, and to send Ruth hints for it,
about little tricks and devices she had
made as a child playing out-doors.
·
They saved from their reading bits of
thought and poetry, or, now and then
an exceptionally pretty illustration from
Harper's, to pin up in the room of a sick
mother, so anxious for her separated chil-
dren.
And in this they received more than
they gave in her well-spoken words of
A Lily's Shining.
ΙΟΙ
hard-learned resignation and beautiful lived
philosophy.
+
"Sometimes I wonder," she said, after
their delicate ministrations had won her
shrinking nature to believe in them as real
friends and comforters, "why God puts me
here. I am needed in my home, and I
think I cannot bear it. Then I think, I
suppose He knows about how it goes.
We grow to being angels; we grow there,
too, I fancy. You, with your learning and
your books, will go to a higher life; but
mebbe He gave me this bed and these
days of pain so that I might enter higher
up than messin', washin' dishes, mendin',
darnin', and such brings one. I stay alone
here, and sometimes I think till I laugh,
and sometimes I think till I cry, but I
mostly come to the same end ag'in,— it's
all right as it is!"
102
Seven Easter Lilies.
The rare tears were in Miss Apple-
thwaite's eyes again as they drove away.
"Be it ever as God will,
Amen, praise God," sobbed little Claribel;
Mrs. Dana quoted. "So hard a chord for
us to catch that 'Amen, praise God!' yet
how perfectly that woman is learning it!"
Some sick people became used to ask-
ing of these visitors, "What can I think
about to-night when I cannot sleep?
Sometimes the answer would be, Words-
worth's sonnet, "To Sleep: "
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water and pure sky.
There was lulling power in such images
for many, though the sonnet goes on,
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie sleepless!
Again Miss Applethwaite would be-
i
A Lily's Shining.
103
think herself of Hilda's old resource,
building and furnishing, or tell how rogu-
ish Elsie Grayner ran away in a tin-cart
once, and leave the invalid to imagine the
country roads, the moping horse, the farm-
house kitchens, the farmers' wives, and the
haggling for tin-ware, with all the children
looking on.
Among these latter sick neighbors was
one who, in spite of all hope's long defer-
ment, yet clung with pathetic tenacity,
to the prospect of getting well sometime;
of being able to work sometime.
And they knew she would, sometime, be
well and happy - if not here.
A couple of wandering Italian harpists
played one day where she heard them, at
her window, sitting there with "Sometime'
in her mind.
""
Mrs. Dana, coming in, found her writing
104
Seven Easter Lilies.
feebly, and begged to do it for her. The
sick woman answered:
"I've been putting rhymes together in
the wakeful nights,- poor little rhymes,
but it gave me something to think of, and,
somehow, when I heard harps the other
day, they began to sing themselves. They
went like this:
SOMETIME.
Is it strange, that to burden
Of spiky-nailed crosses,
Is it strange that to grieving
Emptiness after losses,
I should always hear pulsing,
Keeping sweet time,
This one little harp-word,-
Sometime, and sometime!
Chant time's moaning waters,
O where runs the river?
Far out of my vision
It seeks a Forever,
But I, standing ignorant,
Catch a far rhyme,
My own little harp-word,
Sometime, and sometime.
A Lily's Shining.
105
Boats that long ago went down
Come not back again;
Boats that sail up full freighted
Are fewer than then,
But while I stand downcast
Near rings the chime,
My one little harp-word,—
Sometime, and sometime !
O golden land Heaven,
I wonder art far?
The spires look so distant
From star-space to star;
But while I stand homesick
Breaks that low chime,
My one little harp-word,-
Sometime, and sometime !
So, waiting, wondering,
Wistfulness, grow
Easier bearing,—
Once let to know
All will come plain to me
In the hour's prime,
Reason, will, way, result,-
Sometime, and sometime!
It was no vast thing to lend little
Eunice Andersen's fairy tales; to take her
for a drive one day when she was able. But
106
Seven Easter Lilies.
it was such gladness and comfort to the
lame girl! Not only that, but it made her
mother so thankful, and cheered the hard-
working father who carried a sore heart for
this child whose infirmity made her the
more his pet. She talked about her
friends and the drive with such real glee
that the father went home almost light-
hearted.
And did not Mamie, and Katy, and
Tom, too, always remember the story she
told them of "The Little Ugly Duck-
ling?"
"It seems to be the will of God that we
should go through life cumbered." And
so we can't calculate how much even a
little lifting may help - just a touch of
real sympathy, the pressure of a hand, the
simple sense of friendliness.
One day Miss Applethwaite brought
i
A Lily's Shining.
107
"
Eunice for her “ night-thought" the vision
of Queen Mab, and read archly:
she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman,
Drawn with a team of little atomies
Athwart men's noses as they lie asleep!
Her waggon-spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover, of the wings of grasshoppers;
Her traces, of the smallest spider's web;
Her collars, of the moonshine's watery beams;
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner, a small grey-coated gnat,
((
Not half so big as a round little worm
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid :
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out o' mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this state she gallops night by night
Through lovers' brains and then they dream of love,
On courtiers' knees, that dream on court'sies straight;
O'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream;
'There, Eunie!" finished Miss Apple-
thwaite, “now you can fancy out her cos-
tume, and where she goes, and what
108
Seven Easter Lilies.
dreams she leaves on her progress, and, in
fact, where she gets her dreams manu-
factured, and what they are made of, too!"
The next time Miss Applethwaite came
Eunice cried, "Oh! I do believe Queen
Mab left me a dream."
(C
Well, then, tell me all about it," smiled
Miss Applethwaite.
"I've been thinking and thinking lately,"
Eunice began; "I have so much time, you
know, and there's so little else I can do.
That, and the lily and the motto, were all
mixed up together in my dream. I thought
I was going through a dark, swampy place.
I could not see other people about, but I
seemed to hear voices. And I cried out,
'Oh! if I only had a candle.' For
then I could see my way clear, and all
these other people could, too! At last I
seemed to get quite bewildered and dis-
A Lily's Shining.
109
couraged, and to be sitting down in the
dark crying, and saying,' God has forgotten
me!' Then, all of a sudden, I caught
sight of something that looked white and
yellow, and that shone in the dark, low
down under the shade.
"I crept towards it thinking, it's my lily.
Now I shall have company with my lily.
And when I got to it, I cried out for joy,
for though it seemed to be my lily still, yet
just as that tall yellow steeple stands up
out of the white cup, there seemed in my
dream a gold light like a candle-wick burn-
ing, and a white sheaf to it like the wax of
a candle. And by the light of it I could
see forward and back, and knew that I was
not alone. I could see, too, so nearly
under my feet that I'd almost stepped on
it (but I sprang then, and picked it up), my
very text,—' Yet will I not forget thee.'
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Seven Easter Lilies.
Wasn't it a beautiful dream?
I've made
up beautiful dreams, but I never really had
one come, in all my life before."
"Yes; it was beautiful," answered her
listener tenderly. She was indeed struck
by its poetry and suggestiveness.
"It will last me a great while to think
of," said the lame girl dreamily, "and it
came to me so like a picture, that it seems
to me I could make one of a lily — my lily
- lit, you know, into a shining candle. If
my head wouldn't ache!
"Perhaps you can make the picture some
day, dear," answered Miss Applethwaite,
thinking she would talk it over with Mrs.
Dana. "At any rate, you can 'make
very lovely thoughts out of your dream.
It reminds me of a beautiful scene in a
book, which would not be a bad picture
itself, -a lighted hall with its mistress
A Lily's Shining.
III
and her maid approaching it through the
moonlight, and the lady saying,
That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far yon little candle throws its beams!
So shines a good deed in this naughty world.
"That was such a good thought of yours,
to light the other people through the dark,
as well as yourself! Your light will so
shine before men, when you are kind or
patient. And wouldn't that same little
text be a beautiful candle to carry? If
you carry Faith in your hand you won't
stumble nor get lost, for it will shine
so in the dark that you cannot help
seeing all the time the promise, 'Yet will I
not forget thee.' And, 'A lighted lamp
will glow as brightly in the hands of a lit-
tle child as in those of the tallest giant.'
So see all the good you can do by carrying
the light, dearie!"
112
Seven Easter Lilies.
They did talk over afterwards, in the
quiet of their own home, Eunice's idea
that she could make a picture.
"She has certainly a remarkable percep-
tion of color and beauty," said Miss Apple-
thwaite.
(6
Yes," assented Mrs. Dana, "she would
hardly like yet to agree with good old Dr.
Doddridge. Listen!" She took down a
heavy book and read a page where the leaf
was turned down.
"I do the best I can, and should, I
think, do the same, if I were a mere pagan,
to make life passable. To be always la-
menting the miseries of it, or always seek-
ing after the pleasures of it equally takes
us off from the work of our own salvation.
And, though I be extremely cautious what
sect I follow in religion, yet any in philos-
ophy will serve my turn, and honest
A Lily's Shining.
113
Sancho Panza's is as good as any. On
his return from an important commission,
being asked by his master whether the day
should be marked with a black or a white
stone, he replied, 'Faith, with neither, but
with good brown ochre.'
What this philosopher thought of his
commission I think of human life in gen-
eral — good brown ochre is the complexion
of it."
(6
"
However, to come back to Eunice,
continued Mrs. Dana, "I mean to try her
with a few simple lessons in drawing when
she is strong enough."
She did, and was pleased and surprised
at the quick eye and skilful hand a little
teaching developed in her pupil.
Thus began the cultivation of a talent
which whiled away many weary hours at
the hospital, and in the future proved to be
114
Seven Easter Lilies.
not only a solace to its possessor and a
pride to her hard-working father and
mother, but also, in the hands which up-
held it for the comfort and pleasure of
others, another little light shining to show
them, along their way, pure and pleasant
things, which without it they might have
missed seeing.
Then when patience, culture, and true
love for her art had perfected the talent,
she sent, one Easter, to Mrs. Dana a pict-
ure whose subject was a white lily held
out by a fair woman towards the uplifted
hands of a child.
A radiance seemed to scatter from it
into the gloom around, which showed
other pilgrims turning to follow it through
the forest gloom. Children raised their
hands eagerly towards its shining. A
white gate showed dim in the distance,
A Lily's Shining.
115
and below was written in illuminated let-
tering:
Bear a lily in thy hand;
Gates of brass cannot withstand
One touch of that magic wand;
People who exclaimed at the picture
could sometimes recognize its inspiration
in these lines of Mrs. Browning, but its
possessor best knew the secret meant in it
by the woman whose now ripened life,
whatever dark places it came to (and to
such come we all), had lit for guidance, its
lamp of Faith.
And once truly lighted it never goes
out. It may flicker; it may burn low; it
never goes out.
116
Seven Easter Lilies.
CHAPTER VI.
A LILY'S LEAFING.
Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever.
KINGSLEY.
WHEN Hilda's lily reached her she said,
"Here begins the book of the Clover
Room, and so the lily has arrived in just
the right time to be its frontispiece." For
Hilda had been illustrating still further her
conception of what a room which fitly
represented the idea of being in clover,
might be made. At the time she had
packed her trunk in her own room to go
up to Axis, there had been a very ugly
and much worn carpet on the floor, and
an antique paper on the walls, setting forth
brown ships that sailed upon vividly green
A Lily's Leafing.
117
saucerfuls of sea, and were surrounded by
wildly imaginative flowers. When she
came back to it weeks after, Hilda looked
around rather wistfully, and her mother
understood all about it, though Hilda would
not say a word. Neither did the mother
say anything about it either for a while,
but when the time was ripe she talked it
over with father, and the end of it was,
she told Hilda they would make over her
room this spring, if she liked. There
would have to be a new carpet, at any
rate, and father thought he could afford the
rest, too. Then Hilda, in great and grate-
ful ecstasy, began to plan. She at once
decided that nothing could be more de-
lightful than to interpret fully, in this ren-
ovated room, the idea "In Clover," which
had taken her fancy while the "Blue
Room" was in process of fitting. And
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Seven Easter Lilies.
first they had to secure that important
character in a country neighborhood, the
"Man who Papers and Paints."
What tantalizing uncertainties, what
enforced waitings, what prolonged grop-
ings they had at this period! One must
feel for him carefully, secure him with a
firm grasp, and then drawing a long
breath over the prize, submit to the ca-
prices of this autocrat with impatience
smothered. He is a creature of queerness;
he vanishes and reappears, he lingers and
listens. But it was a great thing to have
secured this indispensable artisan, — this
much-sought and much-besought will-o'-the-
wisp. For, others less fortunate, vainly
track him, and from safe distances entreat
him.
Hilda become quite used to hearing
such bits of dialogue as this between her
A Lily's Leafing.
119
painter and some farmer whose long red
wagon would stop at the gate, with a hail
for "Jule!"
<< I say, Jule, how long's this job goin' ter
take yer?
""
Wall, ter-morrer, I guess.'
I've got some paperin' ter hev done."
"When do you want it done?"
"Wall, she wants it done ter-morrer-
paper's all stripped off."
"Can't come ter-morrer," pronounces
Autocrat, with autocratic brevity.
"All right; she'll have ter back it her-
self: hedn't ort ter; but she will!" and
with a sigh, the farmer would drive on.
Hilda felt that with her mother, with
Lute, and with such a fairy godmother,
all things were now possible to her.
"I have the very thing for you," wrote
this fairy godmother; "it is the old carpet
120
Seven Easter Lilies.
that was on my mother's room. The
colors are good, as it happens, and by cut-
ting out the best parts you can make ad-
mirable rugs for your stained floor. And,
while I was about it, I could just as well,
with cousin Katharine's help, select wall
paper that would blend well with it. I
send also an old cashmere long shawl that
used to be Great-aunt Potter's. Could not
you contrive out of it a portière between
your room and Lute's?"
Here was wealth indeed. Lute flew at
the roll of carpet and contrived out of it
the large centre rug and three small ones,
as Lute only could contrive. Hilda drew
long breaths of delight over the wall
paper with its marvellous sheeny combina-
tion of old golds and olive greens, and
its modest frieze of grasses blowing in
the wind.
A Lily's Leafing.
121
Hilda had no big brother to help her
with his carpentry, but she had Uncle
Seba.
Uncle Seba had lived as hired man on
the Burney farm ever since the children
could remember, and he had loved Hilda
as though she had been his own from her
babyhood up. He talked very little and
whistled a great deal, but, somehow, he
was always in Hilda's secrets.
Hilda could not have a fireplace in her
room, and had owned but one high and nar-
row shelf across the chimney which pro-
jected awkwardly into her territory. At
her entreaty Uncle Seba, whistling more
than ever, fitted other shelves, nicely grad-
uated above and below, and Grandmother
Burney's old-fashioned brass-framed look-
ing-glass fitted in just right between the
shelves. They were of cheap pine, but
122
Seven Easter Lilies.
Hilda covered them with velveteen from a
roll of pieces that had faded to a dull pur
plish red, much like clover-blossom color,
and outlined clover leaves on the edges in
green crewels. Upon these shelves were
arranged the old brass candlesticks, the
few pieces of grandmother's china which
Hilda had inherited, and her small stock
of trinkets.
"Then here is a sort of waste corner be-
hind the door," she said to Uncle Seba;
"if I had the simplest case of open shelves
there for my books and boxes, it would be
the very thing."
And Uncle Seba measured and whistled,
planned and whistled, till in the end Hilda
rejoiced over the low open book-case of
shellacked pine, more than over great trea-
sure.
"Let me send you the chintz you will
A Lily's Leafing.
123
f
need," cousin Katharine said; and upon
the chintz appeared the unmistakable
clover leaf. With its aid a large, bare-
boned chair was bewitched into stuffed
and cushioned comfort, a broad lounge-
frame made with valance and pillows,
a genuine rest for the weary, and boxes
fitted beneath the windows to serve both
as ottoman, lounging-seats and stow-
away places. Miss Applethwaite remem-
bered just in time a piece of yellow-white
barége which had never been made up.
This was turned into pretty curtains, fin-
ished by bands of the clover-colored velve-
teen wrought to match the shelf-trimmings.
Hilda also skilfully covered the battered
bureau with the same material, arranged
by rings so that it could be slipped to one
side whenever she wished to open her
drawers.
124
Seven Easter Lilies.
"But I don't at all see my way to rods
and rings for the windows," she confided to
Uncle Seba more than once. Money was
spent but frugally in the house, and she
had a conscience about asking it to please
herself. Uncle Seba pondered, was silent,
and whistled, after having rods and rings
fully explained to him. At last he climbed
to Hilda's Clover Room one day with a
peculiar burden.
Will it do, think?" was all he said, his
eyes twinkling whimsically.
It was no more nor less than a rod made
of white birch, almost satin-white and
satin-smooth. The rings were of the same,
most carefully fitted. Hilda knew that to
find birch so perfect had cost much
tramping and hunting, and to cut out the
rings so evenly had taken patient labor.
She praised the quaint idea, and showed
A Lily's Leafing.
125
her delight so thoroughly that Uncle Seba
went off to finish the others, really too
pleased even to whistle.
When company came up from Axis in
broad clover time, they made the Clover
Room complete: Mrs. Dana painted four-
leaf clovers above the door, and Miss Ap-
plethwaite made a table-cover sprigged
with clover leaves.
They thought of so many things to do
indeed and, as the baby grew well and
merry, helped Hilda to make her room so
perfect, that she declared "she was too
happy to hold it all, and must spill over.
If it weren't too much to ask," with a cer-
tain cunning, deprecating air of shyness,
((
•
couldn't she have a clover party to dedi-
cate with, and share her good things?
Ah! when did ever mother think any-
thing too much that the children wanted?
126
Seven Easter Lilies.
But who left in Hilda's room little
creamy invitation-sheets, with a green
clover leaf stamped on each, and envelopes
to match? Is it
Is it any wonder that she
could not sleep the night after these
invitation-sheets were folded and sent?
There had been thunder-showers in the
night, but Hilda was too fearless, healthy
a country girl to be disturbed by them.
In a lull, towards morning, the clear, near
notes of a whip-poor-will rang out deli-
ciously, and Hilda was sure that the whip-
poor-will instinct must be true,— the bird
must know; the showers must be over, the
day about to break, and the shadows to
flee away.
The song was not finished
when she crept away from little Robbie's
side. She stole down-stairs soft as a mouse,
and stealthy as a cat, opened the door
noiselessly, and dipped into the clover,
A Lily's Leafing.
127
though first she stood a moment, hum-
ming to herself a tune that Mrs. Dana
had set to the words:
All shimmering in the morning shine
And diamonded with dew,
And quivering in the scented wind
That thrills its green heart through,-
The little field, the smiling field
With all its flowers a-blowing,
How happy looks the golden field,
The day before the mowing.
Then she went to work swiftly.
Wreaths and bunches, baskets and gar-
lands she made and hid away before the
house was astir, and appeared at breakfast
oh! so demure, and oh! so neat, in an un-
drabbled clean calico that had the small-
est of violets printed on it.
That morning the back clover lot was
mowing; Lute was making cake; Mrs.
Dana would insist on helping to arrange
the rooms and tie bouquets, while “aunt
128
Seven Easter Lilies.
Hilda" held the baby and Ruth dusted.
As to "mother," she pervaded the whole,
remembered everything, and was cheeriest
of all.
"Mother is the gathering-thread,”
Hilda always said of her.
The children were coaxed off to play in
the grape arbor, and the birch bower, and
the rocky corner where they were fond of
keeping house with precious fractional
crockery and rusty tins.
But, dear me ! Robbie fell into the little
brook and came in gasping and dripping;
little Kit tore her dress and lost off a
shoe, and Hal quarrelled with both, till
they declared pathetically, "Their hearts
were most broke with him." Mrs. Burney
left all her work, to mend, to appease, to
comfort and exhort. She hunted up an-
other shoe, suggested new plays and
places, and then went back unhurried and
A Lily's Leafing.
129
unruffled to the place where she left off.
Why must Mrs. Exeter come in to beg
the pattern of little Kit's new apron? Mrs.
Burney had no pattern, but she took the
time and cut one without delay, while
Lute, with a lowering brow, put extra
speed into every movement, and slammed
the oven doors with a vehemence which
seemed to ease her mind.
Then a pedler, then an agent, then
Miss More with a subscription paper.
They were all very meek, very propitiatory,
but Lute's hurry was at its climax, and she
remarked energetically to the pie-crust,—
"Shade of Oliver Twist, ask me no
More ! How mother can be so placid
under all these eternal interruptions is in-
conceivable! Her morning is completely
wasted!"
Then she hurried the cover on as though
130
Seven Easter Lilies.
i
this speech like one of the "five-and-twenty
blackbirds," were under it and she feared
its escape, and hastily turned to beat up
the eggs for frosting the waiting loaves of
cake.
Good, earnest, active Lute! She made
that pie for dinner; beat up three dozen
light, puffy cup-cakes; baked the rolls and
wiped the china; boiled the custard, laid
out the napkins, and hulled the straw-
berries. It was a good morning's work,
well done and quickly. And to-morrow
there would be almost nothing left of it,
after all.
Mrs. Burney had comforted the pangs
of three soft little hearts; gently dropped
lessons of patience, forbearance and peace
into the yielding young souls; made life
really easier for a tired, over-burdened
mother, without any faculty, poor thing!
A Lily's Leafing.
131
spoken kindly to the strangers, rasped by
impatient denials, and given from her own
quiet place a small, yet clear rill into a
large living charity that would reach into
the future and out towards many needy
lives. Surely it was a good morning's
work. She might have reason to remem-
ber it in Heaven, when Lute might quite
have forgotten hers.
Mrs. Dana thought of it so.
She came
up, and, watching Lute's discontented face,
took the early peas to shell for dinner
without asking leave.
She had the charm, which Ruth had
noticed in her, of speaking from her own
thoughts without seeming to preach them.
I think it was because she did not listen
to herself. You remember that it was the
Pharisee who stood and spoke "with him-
self." It is a trick easy to fall into.
132
Seven Easter Lilies.
"I've been thinking about interruptions
this morning," said Mrs. Dana, with her
own sunny smile, "till it really has begun
to seem to me that we ought to treat them
with special reverence. We don't look
nor provide for them, we don't invite them,
as it were. God sends them to us. They
may be His angels unawares. Think what
a beautiful thing it is not to be so set on
any particular work but that we can look
up and attend to any company the Lord
may send in, as grandma used to say, 'un-
expected!'
A heart at leisure from itself,
To sooth and sympathize,
is just like that!'
""
"Yes; that must be what keeps beauti-
ful mother always so calm!" thought
Hilda, overhearing this, "and always so
hospitable to interruptions, even when
}
!
A Lily's Leafing.
133
they are dark, dark, suspicious-looking
ones."
She remembered how it was when aunt
Sophronia came for one of her melancholy,
long visits, "clicketty" as Mrs. Gummidge,
and "contrairy" as an east wind in the
house. And when the children had the
scarlet fever, and when her father was so
ill last winter. She could not help think
ing of it though she was braiding her hair
for the party that noon.
66
Interruptions
company that
the
Lord sends unexpected "-she repeated;
"that is a good thought; I'll try to re-
member it."
But here was the fairy godmother, come
to loop the fresh, mottled-rose muslin.
She had given it to Hilda last summer,
and it was chosen to-day because it looked
like the red clover. She draped it with
134
Seven Easter Lilies.
the red and white flower-heads, in their
green trefoils of leaves, and arranged the
clover wreath deftly. Hilda would have
her, too, wear the festival sign of a bunch
of clover, and so must all the rest, even
to little Kit, she insisted with playful tyr-
anny.
Hilda
There were a host of children.
said she longed to "take the selfishness off
her pleasure" by having it make some-
body else happy, so she had reckoned in
rich and poor, near and far, and many
different ages. Now, full of life and joy,
her transparent face lit and flushed, she
looked fit to represent the flower which
decked, in all the grace of her morning's
work, the pretty clover room where the
guests were led as they arrived, and met
with a spray of the same white and red to
fasten at throat or waist.
A Lily's Leafing.
135
The stiff company ways of all children
in their best clothes were not suffered to
have much chance before the atmosphere
of frolic in the house, and before their
own wonder at this transfigured room of
Hilda's.
And then the very first thing was a
grand hunt after the four-leaf clover. Hil-
da wanted it to hang up over the door in
memory of the day.
'You'll be sure not to find it because
you want it so much," prophesied Lute.
At any rate, it was a pretty sight, the
others thought, watching the flowing hair,
changeful ribbons and fluttering bright
dresses, from the windows.
Never mind if it is nonsense rhyme,
thought one of them, scribbling away at
sleeping Rosalie's side, as she looked on
with the loving smile of a mother whose
136
Seven Easter Lilies.
heart is warm towards all children just for
the sake of one.
Slender and strong, and silken and sweet,
The grasses spring on their lithe little feet,
Masses crowded all close together
Firm as tapestry, light as feather,
And stirred by the wind from their sun-lit green
To changeful, shimmering shades of sheen.
The clover taps in its fearless way
On dandelion's windows of unlit gray;
Red sorrel a mist of garnet blows;
Gay buttercup lighted and shining shows,
As a flaming candle its gold outflings;
And daisy placidly rocks and swings,
What in the world as happy and free
As the broad rich clover field can be,
With its hosts in populous hum and stir,
Foraging, tasting, as if they were
Wise buyers, picking to carry away
From the market town on a market day!
What does he want, the humming-bird gay,
Poised in his whirling sphere of gray,
That's like the dust from some chariot-wheels,
After the fairy-king's horses' heels?
He is a customer well-used to sue
For their choicest fragrance, and best honey-dew,
A Lily's Leafing.
137
What is he after, the portly bee,
Mumbling and fumbling importantly,
With his fussy air, and elegant coat?
Merchandise honey his bags denote,
And he'll take, to try their deep honey-wells,
More sips than, I'll warrant, he ever tells.
But what would the children? they flutter through,
As bright, as light, as butterflies do,
In ribbons and robes like blossoms a-blow,
Their fair hair flying and eyes a-glow?
What do they want that they hunt them over,
My beautiful, bonniest field of clover.
"Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief;"
Soothsayer challenges vainly belief,
Unheeded, too, cricket and grasshopper fleet
Away from the rustling of ruthless feet;
Their quest for to-day is bent to discover
The good-omened, fortunate, four-leaved clover!
Good luck to their errand! and when, as years fly,
Out where the field is the world by and by,
My children go hunting and hunting it over,
May they find there, as dewy, the four-leaf clover !
By and by there was a shout; who but
merry little Irish Nanny had found the
four-leaf clover? Mrs. Dana made the
awakened baby wave her small hand from
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Seven Easter Lilies.
the window in congratulation. Then, as
the children ran towards her, she longed
to sketch the pretty three-leaf clover made
by the three girls in their midst, — the cun-
ning small Nanny, with her pink and white
face, dancing true-blue eyes, and wilfully
curly chestnut hair, her little mate Nelly,
just the same size, but dark-haired and
dark-eyed, and the taller, Hilda in the mid-
dle, all with arms close-interlocked about
one another, and bringing exultantly the
four-leaf clover of the quest.
But she had no time to sketch it that
day, for the little crowd settled around her
baby, in half-reverent, half-ecstatic admirà-
tion, and she was too "precious of the
child" not to guard her carefully as she
was in process of being distributed among
all her worshippers. A new mother cannot
help being jealous of her first baby.
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139
They were all in the frolics afterwards;
nobody could keep out, not even Lute
who felt so much older, and responsible
for the frosting besides. It was such free,
old-fashioned, genuine fun, and they played
everybody's favorite game, beside new and
strange ones. Before they had remem-
bered the possibility of such an event, so
engrossing was the merriment, the troop
were marshalled off in a whiff, to waiting
seats on heaps of new-mown hay.
The low, long table had been spread in
the fragrant, fresh-shaven field, and the
white damask, besides being trimmed with
clover, was otherwise gracefully laden.
Strawberries and thick yellow cream,
rich golden custards, Lute's immaculate
frosted loaves, Hilda's tarts, and the deli-
cate rolls, made such exquisite contrast of
hues in the old-fashioned china and quaint
140
Seven Easter Lilies.
glass which set it forth, that the table
spread for bees and birds in Hilda's flower-
bed near by, was not more daintily arrayed
than this table that was spread for the chil-
dren.
Afterwards there was no resisting a
grand rough-and-tumble in the hay; then
the great swing and the perfect moonlight
kept them out-doors till Miss Apple-
thwaite, mindful of the dews, begged for a
song, which recalled them to her seat on
the piazza. Her own voice, rich and deep,
but rarely used, led the eager, happy
voices of the children so gently and har-
moniously that the tired baby fell asleep,
even in the midst of it, and her mother
came out among them on the piazza.
"I've half a mind to tell a story," said
she, with a little quaint shyness, sitting
down among them.
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141
"Oh! it's the very one thing!" thought
Hilda gratefully, and there was a great
rustling of delight among the children.
So she leaned her head against the pil-
lar, and picking a clover to pieces, began,
by saying, of course it must be,
A STORY OF CLOVER.
Once upon a time Merryfew set forth to
dig. And he dug in the forest, and he
dug in the field, but he did not find the
treasure. He knew there was a treasure,
because all his family were born knowing
So.
Sometimes he tried to play in the sun,
and sleep in the shade, and not care. But
something in him was not satisfied with
out the treasure; he dreamed of it nights,
and then remembered his dream all day;
and so he would set out to try again.
:
142
Seven Easter Lilies.
:
To-day he climbed the mountain-side,
and there once more he dug and dug.
Ants, and bugs, and common beetles, yel-
low earth and ugly stones- that was all
he had for his pains.
But a beautiful glancing red bird came
and flew about his head three times, sing-
ing a lovely bit of song. Then she flew
away; then she came back, to fly three
times around his head and repeat her
song; again she winged away, again she
came, to sing the song and fly away once
more, away—always towards the east.
"There is no knowing," thought Merry-
few, at last, "what these creatures that
live all their lives in the woods do find out.
I'll follow the red-bird this one time, and
maybe I can catch her, if no more."
Off he went, dragging the shovel and
the pick.
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143
Lo! the bird did not lead him far away,
or over the mountain, but down to the
very home valley where his house stood.
"Dear me!" thought Merryfew, "how
useless! This way of all ways!"
But then the bird wheeled and flew
three times around his head again.
And so they came in sight of the lilac
clump at the corner, and the great clover-
field in the rear.
The red-bird flew straight down to the
tall, thick clover, and, poised there, sang a
wonderfully sweet song; then, as she float-
ed away and away, dropped something
from her bill on Merryfew's door-step.
Though Merryfew tried to follow her, she
was soon lost to view. Then he returned
and picked up a four-leaf clover from the
stone. Perhaps he ought to dig under
the place whence it came, he reasoned.
144
Seven Easter Lilies.
So he dug and he dug till the moon
came up, and all to no purpose. Then,
much disheartened, he sat down in his
door to rest and enjoy the cool air.
Strange to say, at this late hour, a little
old woman came up to beg.
Merryfew
said, I have nothing but a shovel and a
pick to give you, my good woman."
"Nonsense!" answered the beggar.
"You know you are heir to the treasure."
((
Well, what of that? where it lies I
know not, and so I shall sell my shovel and
my pick, and the money will be all I have
to show for my inheritance.”
"Well, well, well!" laughed the beggar;
"do you not know the legends of your
own house, faint heart? Come! have not
your ancestors told you that he who wins
worthily and wears well the treasure, must
first find the four silver horseshoes? For
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145
under the sign of the four silver horse-
shoes lives a good-natured fortune-teller,
and he will tell you the hiding-place of the
missing leaf. The missing leaf is part of
a receipt known to his tribe and practised
among them, so that they live in perfect
bliss. Now, if a Merryfew finds out this
receipt and practises it, he will surely in
the end be guided to the treasure-will be
made happy all his life, and rid forever
of this gnawing restlessness. Now, then,
where is the leaf the red-bird dropped?"
"Aleck!" wailed Merryfew, hunting in
his pockets," it's surely, surely lost!"
The little old woman's tongue clucked
in dismay against the roof of her mouth.
""
Well, well, well!" said she again,
"there you go, then. But take my advice;
go hunt in the clover and read its know-
ing little leaves over before you dig again."
146
Seven Easter Lilies.
And lo a field-rabbit running out
through the clover was all that Merryfew
could see. For, to all good and gentle
people, as well as to all little children, the
dumb race mean nothing but good.
Next day Merryfew hunted in the clo-
ver, the comfortable, cosey, happy, happy
clover, and the "knowing little leaves ".
winked and blinked mysteriously on their
hairy stems. But oh! for the missing leaf,
and oh! for the four horseshoes, and oh! for
the good-natured fortune-teller. Anybody
could see the leaf was missing, of course,
for there was the vacant place on each
stem, and though the three remaining
leaves were all traced over in fine lines,
with the silver horseshoe showing whitish
above them, it was all a jargon, and no-
body could make out anything. Merrily
dropped and lifted the hairy, oval leaves;
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147
the great blossoms glowed crimson: it
was a beautiful sight! Poor Merryfew,
however, was so dazzled and puzzled, that
one day he fell asleep in his search, pil-
lowed in clover, and shaded by a walnut-
tree. I suppose you'll think he dreamed
it; he said himself afterwards that it wasn't
any matter if he did. The clover being
put off guard by seeing him apparently
safe in unconsciousness, began to nod and
beat time to a waltz, and to shine all the
prettier, and to clink its silver horseshoes
together, and to sing over and over as if it
were the most musical rhyme in all the
world,-
To be happy as I can,
To grow all I can,
To help all I can,
And to keep honey-hearted.
Over and over sang the clover, and
clinked the silver horseshoes together, and
148
Seven Easter Lilies.
though there isn't one single rhyme in the
whole of it that I can see, Merryfew was
as bewitched as though he agreed with the
singers, and thought himself that it was
the most delicious poetry mortal ever
heard. He rubbed his eyes and started
up. It seemed to him (of course I won't
say for certain), it seemed to him that he
caught a young clover-stalk in the act of
growing; that several sets in trios were
dancing in time most gleefully; that a
grasshopper with a broken leg crept in,
chirping, "Help!" and had a leaf, gently
and skilfully made smooth from every
wrinkle, laid down for him to rest on, and
that a humming-bird waited at the door,
calling for "Honey!" and then sipping a
long while when the faucet was turned.
As soon as Merryfew had recovered
from his bewilderment, he said to himself:
A Lily's Leafing.
149
"Dear me! I can't remember the tune,
and I don't dare to try it before this com-
pany of clover. How they would laugh at
me! But I remember the words," he
gladly continued.
Now the oftener he said them over, the
better he liked them.
"I haven't found the fortune-teller; I
haven't found the missing leaf," thought
he, "but I'll practise the new receipt like
a man, and if it isn't the clue to the treas-
ure, it is good to live by."
Then Merryfew did set to work "like a
man." He made the little cottage a honey-
place, a happy place, and a helping place,
for his friends, the strangers, the beggars,
the children. He read and studied to
grow wise; he tried hard to be good and
kind; he enjoyed all he could himself, for
he remembered that a wise man said,·
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Seven Easter Lilies.
"He scatters enjoyment who can enjoy
much."
Well, after all this, it came to pass on a
certain day that he sent for the mowers to
come and cut down his clover-field's ripe
yield. He went, too, to swing his scythe
with the workers, for work always helps
one to be happy and honey-hearted, as he
had found out.
A bird flew crying up before his scythe,
and he nearly stepped upon her nest of
young under his feet. He bent to take it
up tenderly in his great brown hand, and
behold! a cleft four-leaf clover had dropped
into the nest.
Oh! here was the missing leaf; here was
the fortune-teller (I believe he was a slight,
hairy little creature, wearing a cloak of
four capes, a horseshoe on each shining
in tarnished silver), and he was dumb with
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151
amaze to find that Merryfew could read
the receipt without his help in spelling it
out,
To be happy as I can,
To grow all I can,
To help all I can,
And to keep honey-hearted!
So Merryfew found his treasure at last.
He never told where, of course, so you
mustn't ask me; and if he did live in
clover all his days after, not one of his
neighbors was envious, because he made
them all the happier and the better with it,
thanks to the magic receipt he learned
among the clover!
Much as they liked the story, none of
the hearers could ask for another, then,
for Nanny's chestnut curls had dropped
wearily down, and been nestled in Hilda's
lap, and the story-teller herself had drawn
152
Seven Easter Lilies.
another nodding head to her bosom. But
as they put on hats and wraps in the
Clover Room, Hilda made them pass the
four-leaf clover solemnly from hand to
hand, while she, with great pretense of
pomp and ceremony, pronounced the very
simple dedicatory service: "Now we dedi-
cate the Clover Room, to be always a
happy place, a honey place, and a helping-
place!"
So ended the thirtieth of June, long
remembered as Clover Day in the family
annals.
At the farmhouse they made the next
day one of those delicious "afterward"
times, when you feel that you have really
earned the right to rest and there's
enough cake left over in the pantry.
Miss Applethwaite took her noon nap
in the Clover Room, to please Hilda, and
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153
that contented adorer sat sewing by the
window. She used her gold thimble-
"auntie's" gift of last Christmas — and
on the ledge at her side stood the slip-
per, shaped of whitest birch bark, which
she had planned, and Lute had fitted
up. It had a wax-ball and emery, in acorn
saucers, fastened in; a needle-book in the
form of an oak-leaf, scissors secured be-
neath, a smooth row of spools, and for
rosette a flat pin-cushion in the shape of a
butterfly.
Hilda felt like playing queen, and using
her best common, to-day.
Outside the window lay the flat roof of
a projection built out from the main part
of the house. A great box painted green,
and filled with ferns, stood there, beckoning
the eye with delicate hues and wavy,
crimped outlines. The lily stood beside it.
154
Seven Easter Lilies.
"Does it blossom, dear?" asked Miss
Applethwaite, looking out at it through
the curtains.
"Not yet, auntie. It's all leaves,
'nothing but leaves.'
Hilda hummed the plaintive air through,
but she looked grave.
"It makes me think, you know," said
she softly, "for sometimes I get to being
afraid just as Leslie Goldthwaite did,
and perhaps all girls do, sometimes that
I shall run entirely to leaves myself. I
have so many pleasures, and everything
done for me! But I don't mean to be all
leaves," and Hilda looked up with a blush-
ing, honest face. "If I have a lily blossom
by Easter I mean to put it in church, and
though I can't bloom any great white glory
like that, I wouldn't like to think, then,
that the Lord can't see any little bit of
i
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155
flower, after its kind, to my life, after this
whole 'year longer.
She could talk to Miss Applethwaite,
for her listener understood her too well
not to follow with a gentle foot, the shy
thought venturing out like a daring part-
ridge, from the covert. Now she only re-
plied tenderly, as if thinking aloud:
"My beloved is gone down into his gar-
den to gather lilies.' It would be dreadful
to disappoint Him, dear, as you say."
"I can't help wishing I could do some-
thing grand, but I'm getting rather dis-
couraged. Only the other day I said so
to Lute, and she said back in that quick
way of hers, like a flash, 'Suppose while
your lily was waiting to blossom, it should
disdain to put out a single leaf, in the
meantime?' Auntie, that set me think-
ing, too. And I notice that each new
156
Seven Easter Lilies:
leaf grows a little taller than the one be-
fore it did."
"Yes, dear; I see."
"I've half a mind to tell you a leaf that's
come since that."
Hilda went to a drawer and took out a
small blank book. She showed it to Miss
Applethwaite. The title was: "The Book
of Things that Never Happened." It read
like this:
May 30th. Hal managed to get hold of a laudanum bottle,
but it was discovered just as he pulled the cork out.
June 2d. Swallow ran away with the light wagon, but
father escaped without injury.
June 5th. Mr. Hunt's house was struck by lightning, but the
owners were absent at a sewing society, and so safe.
June 11th. Robbie fell into the brook when swollen by
rains. Lute was coming home across lots from a neighbor's,
and arrived in sight just in time to save him.
June 17th. Mother opened the oven door by chance, and
thereby saved the poor old cat from being roasted alive. The
boys had shut her in.
June 20th. Little Kit could not go with mother for an after-
noon's visit to Aunt Jennie because of a sore throat. That
week Aunt Jennie's baby came down with the measles.
A Lily's Leafing.
157
June 23d. A runaway horse passed so near little Kit that
the mark of a hoof was on her white dress; somehow, she
sprang aside in season.
"You don't think it's silly, do you,
Auntie?" asked Hilda, blushing. "You
see we get worried, and fretted, and anx-
ious, Lute and I, and we agreed that it
would be a good thing to keep a book like
this, to set it off and remind us how many
things are saved us.
And oh! the scrapes
that children don't get into."
Miss Applethwaite laughed her musical,
enjoying laugh.
"It's a good thought, Hilda. I like it.
I always did think Jean Ingelow's Two
Ways of Telling a Story,' one of the best
things she ever did for us. You'll see the
same comfortable idea illustrated in that.
So you do get worried, do you, Hilda
dear?"
158
Seven Easter Lilies.
But
"Yes, rather. Afraid that something
will go wrong, like Lute; and teased
that plans can't run straight along with-
out hindrances and interruptions.
(now this came from thinking, as you
asked what to learn from the lily) I'm try-
ing to study calmness. Isn't it beautiful,
Auntie? And I ought to learn it from
mother. Always she keeps as placid, and
cool, and still, as my lily in its leaves. It
is like a fragrance in the house. Dear
Auntie, how I keep you awake! Now I
sha'n't talk any more till you've had your
nap."
She did not, but she went on thinking
about the "leaves " she had spoken of, and
how to make the Clover Room a happy
and helping place. And in fulfillment of
these thoughts it became afterward a
room that Hilda's young friends and
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159
schoolmates would run to when they were
tired or blue, or wanted a "talk-over."
She kept it in delicate order, and
hoarded up there little pleasant or pretty
things to show to particular people when
they were in need of being cheered. Her
keen eyes took note of the fairy god-
mother's exquisite ways of keeping and
of handling. Miss Applethwaite had that
rare perfectitude of innate order which,
while it is really an instinct, exercised
so effrontlessly as to be almost uncon-
scious, has, over all the smallest and furth-
est details of common life, the effect of
careful, artistic tact.
Beginning to copy it, Hilda thereby
kept her room always restful and soothing.
It was natural to resort there whenever
anything confidential or choice was to be
said
another valuable little house-centre.
166
Seven Easter Lilies.
About birthday or Christmas times, it
would be,
Q. Where's mother?
A. Ho! you needn't go after her.
She's up In Clover. They're having a
whisper.
Hilda herself would run away there,
"like a dog with a bone," she said, when a
new letter came, or her pet magazines.
Thinking, writing, studying could be done
so well nowhere else, she thought.
There was, also, a little club of girls that
met there through autumn and winter, to
read, to sew for the poor, and to get up a
small paper, "The Four Leaf."
Mrs. Dana was a zealous and judicious
patron; she sent occasional letters, mailed
them real books, not "things in books'
clothing," as Charles Lamb so expressively
phrased it; suggested work for them to do,
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161
and criticized or contributed to "The Four
Leaf," thus adding the zest of a Public to
the little enterprise.
The club was named Company Clover,
and with her help, the members really
caught at the spirit of genial, helpful,
generous living. It became for some of
the open-hearted, simple girls an outlook
towards whatsoever things are honest, just,
pure, lovely and of good report.
Mrs. Dana sent them a badge; the four-
leaf clover shaped as a pin, and wrote in
the accompanying letter:
of
"My little Company Clover, I'm proud
you when I hear of your clover crusades,
when I know how you talk up and try
ways of giving and getting good. But re-
member, too, that every little disagreeable
act, every cross word which you repress
and replace at home, every day, pays too,
162
Seven Easter Lilies.
and pays well. I know all about it. When
I was a girl I wanted to do something
vast, like Grace Darling, for instance.
Dear girls, I never did. But I found out
that simply to be good to live with, and
nice to have around, does help some, in
this world. Just as clover ministers to us,
not in bearing fruit, or even doing good as
medicine, but in only being so thrifty, so
fragrant, and so bonny. Let me copy
something which will be helpful for you to
think of in connection with this:
In every society there are those who derive their chief char-
acteristic from what they have; who are always spoken of in
terms of reverence; and of whom you would not be likely to
think much, but for the large account that stands on the world's
ledger in their name. The second and nobler class prove
themselves to be here, not that they may have, but that they may
do; to them life is a glorious labor; they are seen not to work
that they may rest, but only to rest that they may work. No
sooner do they look around them, with the open eye of reason
and faith, upon the great field of the world, than they perceive
that it must be for them a battle-field; and they break up the
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163
tents of ease, and advance to the dangers of lonely enterprise
and the conflict with splendid wrong. But there is a life
higher than either of these. The saintly is beyond the heroic
mind. To get good is animal; to do good is human; to be
good is divine. The true use of a man's possessions is to help
his work; and the best end of all his work is to show us what
he is. The noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing
so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever so
glorious, is historical and transient; the majesty of their spirit
is essential and eternal. While to some, God gives it to show
themselves through their work, to others he assigns it to show
themselves without even the opportunity of work. He sends
them transparent into this world; and leaves us nothing to
gather and infer.
"Now, dear 'little women,' you may have
brave, heroic deeds to perform by and by.
Most good women do, and it's well to be
ready. At the same time you may not
ever have set before you any mighty op-
portunity. But at any rate, you can make
sure of so much as this: you can render
yourselves pleasant, and pretty, and agree-
able, just as pretty and just as pleasing as
you like. Do! Copy the home-growing
164
Seven Easter Lilies.
clover.
'Make things sunny in one little
place.' Be wholesome, hearty, blithe and
happy, coveted for company, and pleasant
to have in the home all the days of your
life. The world will be the better for it,
trust me, and, whatever happens, you will
not have been wasted or useless. This is
the real meaning that I want you to take
to heart out of our little club."
In such ways, Hilda, quick to learn
where she was gently taught, became more
patient with the little children, more lov-
ing and wise, as older sisters have need to
be; she put new life into Mother Goose,
and mud pies, even. To learn Lute's
capable, thrifty housekeeping, and help
about sewing, became worth doing in her
eyes. It was delightful to help anywhere
she found.
While her hands filled, her heart big
A Lily's Leafing.
165
gened, and busy, merry, satisfied in a good
large aim, the house was cheerful with her
singing, her laughter, her busy steps, and
pretty with her flowers, her tasteful de-
vices, and the ornaments she made.
Thus her life was leafing out in the sun-
shine, all the while not unmindful of the
beautiful power to blossom in its time,
which the Maker had vested in it.
"No, Lute," said Hilda, one night when
the girls were having one of their confi-
dential talks, "I don't think that I shall
ever do anything very great, but I mean to
help, and not hinder, anyhow."
And then Lute quoted one of her fav-
orite proverbs,- "A lantern in the hand is
worth a dozen stars.' Be a lantern, then,
Hilda, with all your might," said she. "I
cry, Bravo!"
166
Seven Easter Lilies.
CHAPTER VII.
A LILY GATHERED.
Who is this in pain?
DICKENS.
A BROKEN-HEARTED woman, dying alone
with her two little sobbing children, left
them but one legacy: a last prayer that
her God would take care of them, some-
how, and bring them back to her in
Heaven.
And He remembered.
Years afterwards, as it drew towards a
wintry twilight, a lady coming down the
steps of a store, shuddered, as all true
women do shudder, at the sound of oaths.
(6
O, don't!" she said involuntarily,
"don't swear! It isn't respectable."
A Lily Gathered.
167
She hurried on, half-wondering at the
impulse that had made her speak. The
group of boys scattered with a loud laugh
or two, for Ben Saxe, their leader, had
abruptly turned his back and walked away
with a savage stride, so their fun was
spoiled. There was something about this
boy that made him leader wherever he
went. Where had he gone? the others
wondered, lounging off, and cracking a
poor joke or two at the passion he had
been in with Murphy for making fun of
his deformed sister, but not one of them a
bit frightened at the too familiar sound of
swearing.
The lady in the brown cloak and pale-
blue plumes wrapped her rich furs closer,
and threaded her swift path through the
crowds on the sidewalks. She had been
detained, and was afraid to be out alone
168
Seven Easter Lilies.
after dark. Probably she would not have
been more at ease had she perceived that a
great rough-looking boy was slowly follow-
ing her. The boy was thinking some tum-
bled-up thoughts, and didn't much care
where he went. Moreover, he was capti-
vated by that beautiful face, and curious to
see where it was going in that "respect-
able" world of which he knew so little.
that beau-
"Respectable," she had said,
tiful lady in her silks and furs. Respect-
able? "Well," he thought, "it wouldn't be
a bad thing, maybe."
They turned into quieter streets, with
tall houses on each side. The lady ran up
a flight of steps. Ben shrank back, and
as the door opened, stopped before a glow-
ing window. Looking in, he saw the rare
ferns and begonias growing there between
the fall of silvery laces, the rich-hued pict
A Lily Gathered.
169
ures against the pale walls, the wonderful
books and bronzes, the dark, carved furni-
ture, and the glowing grate,-hot-house
flowers in the silver vase, tropical fruits
laid in a crystal dish. He saw the lady
flutter in among it all, and bend to kiss
the gray-haired gentleman who sat read-
ing. Then he gave a short sigh and
turned away. This was to be respectable,
was it?
"I might as well be respectable as the
next man," muttered he, thinking of the
forlorn room in the forlorner house, the
hunger and the cold. "And I'd like it.
I'll try it. If it's respectable not to swear,
then I won't."
And as his old, misshapen boots shuf-
fled by on the icy pavement they kept time,
in his mind, to one word, Respectable. He
had a good deal of faith in his will. It
170
Seven Easter Lilies.
had kept the boys under him; it had not
been apt to fail him if once he set it firmly
to anything. If he made up his mind not
to swear, he shouldn't; of course not.
"And I won't; I make up my mind I
won't," said he, stamping up the rickety
old stairs, flight after flight.
Won't, won't, won't," clacked the stiff
old boots.
It was a strange housekeeping, -all he
was used to. He and Letty got along just
as they could. Their reliance was the pay
he earned in the mill. Sometimes of an
evening he ran errands or carried pack-
ages, and so picked up a few extra pennies.
Sometimes Letty sewed a seam, or rocked
a cradle, and was paid in such poor food
as the women in the house could get.
Sometimes they went hungry, often they
were cold. Letty could not walk far, be.
A Lily Gathered.
171
sides, she dared not venture in the streets,
because the rude boys laughed and jeered
at her. There was nobody to teach her,
nobody to care what she did. She had
lonesome times; she had hard times.
But Ben loved her; yes, though he was
so poor, he had this one treasure,-some-
thing to love. He saw that she was more
gentle and womanly than any other thing
in that great, crowded, noisy, wicked house
where they lived. Ben began to wonder
at it. She hardly knew herself what it
was that she lived by, this unconscious
"lily among the thorns."
Her mother had had a little old book,
given her by her own mother years and
years ago. It was written on the yellow
fly-leaf, in letters faded brown, "Blessed are
the pure in heart, for they shall see God."
Letty could spell out some few words, and
172
Seven Easter Lilies.
on days when she was weaker than usual,
and had to stay quite still and all alone in
that dreary, empty room, she had made out
places in the little book. There was not,
I think, any other book in the whole
world that Letty could have understood
much of. But she did understand, by de-
grees, some of this one. Perhaps an angel
helped her. An angel
above it.
would not be
The beatitude about the
"
pure in
heart" was pencil-marked on a worn page,
and Letty was very fond of that text,
thinking it must mean something wonder-
ful to be so distinguished.
She liked, too, the places where "love"
came in so often, because the words were
so short in that part.
Poring over that Gospel of St. Luke,
half-spelling and half-guessing out the
A Lily Gathered.
173
"littlest stories," as she called the parables,
and best pleased with the story of the
prodigal son, Letty was almost as ignorant
of what she was handling, as unconscious
how the words she read touch all that is
vast and vital in life and death, as are the
Little birds that sit on the telegraph wires,
And the news of the world runs under their feet.
Ben did not go regularly to church
oh! no;
only sometimes when it was too
cold for any fun outside. He never said.
anything to Letty about it, for of course
she could not go; what use would it be?
until that day when a lady spoke to
him, after church, in the vestibule. It
quite took his breath away. She said, “I
don't know you, my boy, but I want to
give you a lily like those you admired so
much in the church one Sunday. You
will let me, won't you?"
174
Seven Easter Lilies.
<<
Why
I
I it's if "
-
stammered
Ben, not knowing what to make of it.
(C
The lady helped him out, by saying,
Now, if you would just walk along the
street a little way with me, I would tell
you all about it."
Some of the people passing in carriages
wondered who that rough young fellow
could be walking with Mrs. Dana. She
went on, as Miss Applethwaite fell be-
hind them, to tell him simply about the
lily, and to ask if he had any place for it.
Was there anybody to take care of it for
him? Would it be in the way?
She found out, by degrees, where he
lived, that he had a sister Letty. Then
she said, "I'll manage it, then," gave him a
friendly smile and let him go. Which was
a great relief, for he felt very awkward
and embarrassed.
A Lily Gathered.
175
He had to tell Letty about this, of
course, and it all seemed wonderful and
delightful to her. Poor child! she could
not understand why her head was so heavy
to-day, and why hot and cold seem to run
over her. But it was too plain, after a
tossing night, that she could not get up.
What should they do?
Ben was helpless; he could only bring
her water, and bathe the burning head.
There was nothing in the cupboard, and
he could not be absent from his place at
the mill.
All day Letty had to lie there alone,
but a dull stupor seemed over her, so she
could bear it better.
At night she could not eat the crust of
bread, and the poor tea which Ben begged
for her from a neighbor, and the next
morning it looked hopeless as ever.
176
Seven Easter Lilies.
Gruff and miserable, poor Ben had no
words for anybody among the workmen
that day, and he became very angry at the
jokes one of his mates played on him.
Within himself he was severely morti-
fied at this. Alas! it was not the first
time he had broken his resolution, either.
What ailed him? Couldn't he do as he
chose? How was it that not for one day
had that strong will of his availed to keep
his lips clean?
Slow and spiritless his step sounded as
it neared Letty's poor, cold room that
night. He had one warm currant bun
hidden in his hand. He had snatched it
out of the basket a confectioner's boy was
carrying towards somebody's luxurious tea.
What harm was there? Perhaps poor
Letty could eat that.
He stopped short, as he shut the door
A Lily Gathered.
177
behind him. Letty was awake, and smiled
delightedly up at him. The rusty old
stove almost looked beautiful, smiling too,
in warm, red light, through its cracks and
crevices. Letty had an ample shawl
wrapped all over her, and a glass of jelly
stood at the head of her bed, where she
could reach it. "Why, who "- began Ben.
"Your lady came, Ben," cried Letty
eagerly, "the lily lady. She's going to
send it to-morrow.
thing like her, Ben.
Oh! I never saw any-
She seemed so sorry,
and nobody ever touched me like her be-
fore. She said, 'You poor little thing!'
And she went right away and came back
with this shawl to wrap me up, and this
jelly-oh! you don't know how easy it
slips down my throat, Ben- and she made
up the fire herself, after the wood came,
and look in the basket, Ben!"
178
Seven Easter Lilies.
Letty sank back, tired out, and Ben,
hastily lifting the basket, could scarcely
wait to prepare himself from it such a
supper as the bare Mother Hubbard cup-
board had never set forth in its best days.
He was really in need of proper food, and
it was a feast he never forgot. He sat
close to the old stove, and Letty watched
him in great content and happiness.
"I got a bun, too, Letty," said he.
"Did you? Oh! ain't we rich, Ben?"
she asked satisfiedly.
Ben could not be quiet till he had seen.
Letty taste a few crumbs of the bun,
though she told him the lady had given
her a warm drink, and she was no longer
hungry. In spite of himself he was rather
uneasy about that bun. He had some idea
that even, for Letty's sake, it was not quite
respectable to steal.
A Lily Gathered.
179
When the lily came the next day, two
ladies came with it, and a doctor followed.
He looked very grave over suffering Letty;
it was a hard day with her. She was too
sick to be left alone, and they found a kind
woman who came to take care of her, and
was good to Ben, also.
He had received his gift with surprised
shyness and silence.
"Kind of a queer notion, he should
think."
But the very queerness of it impressed
him.
"And what should he want of posies?"
But the majestic blossom was so unabashed
in its white perfectness that he could not
cavil at it, after all, particularly as Letty
was so pleased with it.
Then, your real boy is not by nature
ungrateful, and the ladies had come to him
180
Seven Easter Lilies.
with a frank, fearless sort of friendliness.
And Letty was in raptures over it, when,
next day, she was easier, and could look
at it.
"I'm so glad to see a lily. I never saw
a lily before," she said wistfully.
The lily's giver felt very pitiful over the
child, who had never seen a lily before in
all her short, dark life. She came often to
sit by Letty, and soothed her by a strong,
gentle magnetism that sick poeple felt in
her fingers, or sang a very little, or after
she saw the little old book in the wasted
hot fingers, she would talk.
Carefully, clearly, she made the book
plain to the sick child, and showed her
what the stories she had guessed at really
meant. Letty had not ever been taken
care of before. Even in pain she was
gentle, and grateful, and good.
A Lily Gathered,
181
"I really wish if He was like that, I did
have something to give Him," she said
one day simply, when they had been tell-
ing her again some of the kind and pitying
things which Christ did in his life among
men. "But I haven't got a thing my
own. Even the lily is Ben's." The an-
swer came ready to Mrs. Dana's lips:
i
What can I give Him,
氰
​Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
Yet what can I give Him?
Give Him my heart.
These child-like lines Letty eagerly
learned, and repeated with such content
that Ben, to please her, allowed her to
teach them in turn to him. These first
verses that either ever learned, Ben never
forgot.
182
Seven Easter Lilies.
But faster than the lily faded Letty.
She lay weak, pale and patient, till one
early dawn while the nurse slept, she
opened her eyes and called, " Ben! Ben!"
What, Letty?" and the boy started
((
from a half-doze.
"I thought-once- I'd ask you some-
time to cut the lily off and let me see how
it really feels."
"I will, Letty, I will." And the blos-
som was brought.
"Good Ben! kind Ben!" she said,
stretching out her hand to him; "I wish,
Ben -mother, you know- I wish I knew
where to find mother; I'd carry this to her.
Good-night, Ben!" Letty's eyes closed
wearily.
When the nurse came in, half an hour
after, she lay there, still asleep. O, yes! so
peaceful and so rested, still asleep; and
:
A Lily Gathered.
183
she had put the lily against her cheek:
the little, old, worn book lay under her
pillow. Had she, indeed, gone to carry
the lily to her mother?
(6
Nobody can guess how it was after that.
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard." But
it would seem that her mother must have
been waiting for her there, as she came
in sight of Heaven. It would seem that
they would take pains to show the little.
girl who had almost died without seeing
one lily, all the wonderful flowers in the `
heavenly garden. The tired, homely body
would be replaced by one all the more
beautiful and strong, because the first had
been so tedious to bear. And there little
Letty would grow up, with her mother to
show her, and the angels for companions,
never lonesome, never poor, never trou-
bled any more.
184
Seven Easter Lilies.
!
So it was not sad, really sad, that Letty
died, was it?
But Ben felt it very bitter to be left all
alone. He could not bear to go back to
the lonely room when Letty was no longer
there. He found a place to board with a
fellow-workman, and, for Letty's sake, the
lily was set in a high window of the great
stone factory where Ben worked, to live, if
it would.
When he saw how clean and orderly
Mrs. Matthews kept her house, how the
plants shone in her windows, how her pict-
ures, and tidies, and patchwork cushions,
made it all so different from the garret
room he had left, he thought again,
((
Yes; it does pay to be respectable. I'd
like to own a house like this. But, what's
the difference now? It was half for Let-
ty's sake I tried. Nobody cares now."
A Lily Gathered.
185
He said, "Nobody cares," and yet,
the words would have sounded differently
to him if he had not remembered how the
golden-haired lady had put her hand on his
arm with a motherly instinct, and said,
Think, sometimes, when you look at
the lily, that there is somebody living whọ
hopes you will make a good man, and
would be glad to help you.”
Ben was sharp and shrewd. Common-
sense daily pointed the difference between
thieves and rogues and upright, honest
men. The idea which had taken root in
his brain went on growing; he'd be "re-
spectable, anyway;" that is, he'd be hon-
est, and he wouldn't drink. For all he
saw, it was respectable enough to walk in
the country Sundays and lounge in the
park; and if a fellow got angry, of course
he couldn't pick and choose his words.
186
Seven Easter Lilies.
That lily grew and blossomed as if upon
honor. Ben became quite proud and fond
of it for its own sake, but he called it
Letty's still, and laid each flower as it un-
unfolded, on her unmarked, humble grave.
Somehow he shrank from seeing his grimy
hand against the pure, satiny blossom, and
he never touched it without a thorough
washing first. The beauty of cleanliness
grew to be thus suggested to him. Letty's
friend did not forget him; she even asked
him to come and see her, but he shrank
away, unused to kindness.
However, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews were
altering that, and making a home warm
about the friendless lad. Mrs. Matthews
coaxed him to go to church of a Sunday
with her, and her husband introduced him
into an evening school.
One day as he grew more accustomed
A Lily Gathered.
187
to the new surroundings, out leaped a
dubious word in Mrs. Matthews' presence.
Ben flushed. In spite of all his faith in
that strong will of his, that little red
beastie, his tongue, was rather too much
for him.
Mrs. Matthews shivered a little, and
said softly,
"I wish you wouldn't, Ben!"
(*
Well, I don't mean to, marm," con-
fessed Ben frankly. "I know it isn't re-
spectable, and I mean to stop it; but it's
mighty hard to remember."
So it is," answered Mrs. Matthews
warmly; "I'm so glad you try. But try
because it's right, my boy. Suppose we'd
painted and varnished this house all over
outside, and left it all rags and dirt within?
We should have looked respectable to the
people passing by, but it would have been
188
Seven Easter Lilies.
a pretty poor place, now wouldn't it? I
don't mean to preach, and I don't know
how, supposing I did, but what a Blessed
there is for the pure in heart, Ben!"
Strange that she, who never saw the old
book Ben had laid away up-stairs, should
have said those same words!
*
He thought about it all the next day,
and took out the brown volume to find the
marked verse in the Gospel of St. Luke,
thinking it all over again-his poor, pa-
tient Letty, and the friends who had been
so good to her. He wondered with a blind,
reverent sense of awe upon him, if he,
Ben, -this coarse, ignorant fellow, ever,
ever could see Letty again, ever meet
her and know her where she was gone.
The next Sunday he went off early to
church, and watched for Mrs. Dana. When
she came he put a white lily, hurriedly un-
A Lily Gathered.
189
wrapped from his handkerchief, into her
hand.
"My lily's doing splendid, marm. I
thought perhaps you'd like to know," said
he abruptly.
It was the anniversary of the day when
Gerald Dana's wife had been left a widow,
and a cold, dreary rain was falling against
a wild and sobbing wind, without.
Oh! how the lily preached to her sore
heart, longing for comfort, meekly glad to
take up any little crumb of consolation in
its desolate aching. It seemed that morn-
ing as if an angel might have brought it,
the resurrection lily,-sign of Easter hope!
She set herself still more patiently after
this to win Ben's trust, and she succeeded.
It became a pleasure to him to go to
church, even, because he could watch her
and feel as though he were sitting in the
܂
190
Seven Easter Lilies.
same family. She tried with patient tact
to make highest aims and purest truths
attractive to him; to help him to be respect-
able, indeed, by being worthy to be re-
spected.
To her only he confessed, after he was
getting quite confident in his own powers
of self-restraint, and proud in the progress
he was making in the night school, that
when a mischievous boy whom he had
chanced to offend, had knocked the lily
from its ledge, every wild passion asserted
itself, and every evil word that he had
thought forgotten, now came rushing from
his lips.
"I'm afraid it's no use," said Ben then,
with a quivering lip, "and I thought it
was all so sure, at last."
Then the motherly hand was laid on his
arm again, and the soft voice was not the
A Lily Gathered.
191
less eloquent that it trembled, to tell him
of the hope there is for just such uttermost
extremities, and to show him where to
learn the purity of heart whence every
outgo must also be clean.
To her he confided the great anxiety he
had to save his earnings till he could buy
a white head-stone to mark Letty's grave,
and how he wanted a lily carved upon
it, and her own text, beneath, the one
about the "pure in heart."
He really grew manly under the quiet,
watchful influences thrown about him. He
dropped his rude acquaintances, bent him-
self to his books, and tightened his firm
will to the life-long fight which a true man-
hood involves.
But that short grave was never forgot-
ten. Still Letty's sorrowful eyes would
seem to gaze out at him when, from his
!
192
Seven Easter Lilies.
daily work, he looked up at the lily,
sturdily taking heart again in spite of its
sudden downfall. He had his discouraged
times, spite of youth, and energy, and
hope, when he remembered his friend-
lessness.
"But
Then he would say to himself,
Mrs. Dana says we ought not to treat it
as such an affliction to have a family that
lives in Heaven. And I'm working for
Letty still."
His bed-time candle gleaming over the
walls of his tidy room, showed him at night,
last before he shut his eyes, Letty's own
motto, delicately painted among lilies,—
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they
shall see God."
So carefully and so graciously had his
lesson been set before him to be learned!
A Lily Bearer.
193
CHAPTER VIII.
A LILY BEARER.
All may of Thee partake;
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this tincture "for Thy sake,"
Will not grow bright and clean.
HERBERT.
"I NEVER Saw such a girl in all my
life!"
When brother Will said that, he only
said what all the rest of the family did, and
probably all the people on that street, and
the girls who went to the Grammar
School into the bargain.
She was such a witch and mischief!
From the days of baby corals till now,
when she looped her own over-skirts and
boasted a chignon-sometimes (though
194
Seven Easter Lilies.
she was wont to scatter hairpins with
pleasing liberality wherever she went, and
bore the nickname of Pleasant Riderhood,
from the frequency with which she wound
herself up by the back-hair) there never
had been one of the Grayner children who
tumbled in and out of so many scrapes as
this one did.
Fortunately they were kind, easy-going,
large-hearted people, and gave her all the
room they could. A stricter, more con-
tracted sort of house and houseful would
have been kept in a constant froth and
fret.
Her brothers had fallen into the trick
of calling her Firefly, partly because her
peculiar auburn hair, so difficult to keep in
order, had such changing gleams of light
and dark in it.
That wilful, lovely hair! Rich shades
A Lily Bearer.
195
of color seemed to play at hide-and-seek
among its shadows, and when she let it fly
over her shoulders, as she was apt to do,
its waves reminded you of the ripples in a
clover field when the wind runs its fingers
through. And then, too, Firefly just
fitted her for a name, said brother Will,
because she was such a little open-and-shut
thing. You'd catch her laughing or cry-
ing, just as it happened; and if you ex-
pected to find her shut, she'd be sure to be
shining; if you expected to find her open,
she'd certainly have a fit of blues.
The neighbors would be scandalized to
see her climbing the tree in the back yard
when cherries were ripe, or a robin had
dared to build there. Or, she would be
seen flashing through the streets on some
spirited horse, having made a pitiful case
of it to her admiring boy cousins in the
196
Seven Easter Lilies.
next street, and coaxed or bewitched them
into changing for the too sober little nag
her father would hire for her, one of their
own swift ponies. She didn't mean to be
rude, but she was so full of life, so fearless,
and so thoughtless.
She had been brought up in the country,
and spent every summer at the old place
still. She would learn everything that her
brothers did; not one of them could row,
or swim, or skate, or drive better than
Elsie could. She could fly a kite, or rig
a boat, or play ball, or load and fire, and
there was utter sympathy between her
and horses and dogs. As, for instance, on
that occasion of her escapade with the tin-
cart, the tin-man's dog, known to be a cross
and surly animal, never growled after he
recognized her voice, and followed meekly
after, as he was used to do with his master.
A Lily Bearer.
197
Certainly that was a rather wild adven-
ture of Elsie's.
Mr. Lovering, the tin-man, lived quite
near her country home. As far back as
Elsie could remember, it had been one of
her childish delights to see the lumbering
red wagon start out upon the road bristling
all over with bright tin-ware, and carrying
its rows of brooms, that she used to com-
pare to the old rooster's tail-feathers,
standing rigidly up in the air behind.
Sometimes she watched the cart go off
over East; sometimes it would come down
the hill and round the corner with solemn,
sleepy deliberation, and stop at their own
gate.
This impressed Elsie as an honor of vast
solemnity, and she would look on, awed
and interested, while rags were weighed
and her mother examined and selected
198
Seven Easter Lilies.
pans, or pails, or covers from the well-
filled cavern that lay hidden inside the
wagon.
How eagerly she handled over the new
tin when it was bought! How she stud-
ied her own round, rosy face in the daz-
zling deeps, and wondered to
see it
twisted, lengthened, distorted in all man-
ner of queer duplicates!
Her own particular pint-pail with the
cover, and her drinking-cup, for berrying,
were bought from this same wonderful cart,
and to her fancy it used to seem a mys-
terious, but grand and delightful privilege
to ride about as keeper of such treasures,
and charioteer of such an establishment.
Good Mr. Lovering! His sober, spec-
tacled face, his plodding brown horse and
tinkling cart were known for miles around.
The honest man had travelled many a long,
1
A Lily Bearer.
199
rough road in peace and quiet, after fat
bags of motley rags and lean gleanings of
scrip and pennies. His bargains were fair
and even; not an ill-gotten dollar bur-
dened his conscience; and many a tin
rattle or little flat plate, with the alphabet
circling round it upside down, did his
good nature prompt him to throw in for
the delight of his customers' babies.
But he was old and rheumatic now, fast
getting too feeble to endure the jolts and
prolonged weariness of his trips, and when
the Grayners were in the country, one sum-
mer, the tin-man was lying very sick in
that little house of his on the hill.
Mrs. Lovering was not at all diffident
about telling the story of her troubles,-
O, no!—and was glad to talk even to a
child like Elsie, about what the doctor
said, and her own pain in the back, and
200
Seven Easter Lilies.
how she believed they would have to sell
the old horse, and the tin-ware rusting out
there in the cart all this time!
"Wouldn't it pay to hire somebody to
drive the cart?" suggested Elsie, sagely.
"O dear! no, child;" Mrs. Lovering didn't
suppose it would. Besides, she couldn't
think of anybody to get; "all the men were
so busy at haying this season."
"Why, I should suppose anybody would
like it better than haying," said Elsie.
"I just wish you'd let me take the cart,
Mrs. Lovering!'
""
"The mercy, child!" and Mrs. Lovering
laughed at the absurd idea till her glasses
fell off. "You don't suppose I'd refuse to
let you have it? No; whenever you make
up your mind to turn pedler I'm all ready
to hire you.
""
The very next week there was a picnic
A Lily Bearer.
201
of young folks at Winsimere Lake. Every-
body knew what fishing and frolic that
meant, and Elsie was all expectation to
the very tip-ends of her restive bright
ribbons.
She reckoned on Will's escort, always
the most brotherly of brothers, and when
it came out the evening before that he, in
the coolest of nonchalance, had engaged to
play squire to a certain other pretty girl
visiting in the neighborhood, there was a
rather spirited scene.
"So this was what Will thought sisters
were for, did he?" flashed the Firefly
"good to sew on buttons, and hem sails,
and be stood in the corner with face to the
wall, like a doll, when there was anything
good going on!”
"Why, you see, Herb Remington's
coming to go with you said he'd be de-
202
Seven Easter Lilies.
lighted to take you," offered Will in a
pacific tone.
"Humph!" glowered the Firefly, while
three tears, in spite of her, twinkled
down her cheeks. "Will didn't care any
more than that; he'd just as lief have his
sister go with somebody he'd begged up!
Well, she wasn't dependent on anybody, and
Will, and Herb Remington, both, might
just as well find it out now as any time!"
Will was a little anxious; what trick
mightn't she be up to, now, to spite him?
But that evening when gentlemanly Her-
bert very politely besought her company
for the next day, Elsie blushed with the
most demure propriety, and replied,-
(6
Thank you. At seven o'clock, you say?”
with so much grave quietness, that Will
thought, "She's been sensible enough to
make the best of it, good little girl!'
""
A Lily Bearer.
203
!
Several people were surprised the next
morning. Mrs. Grayner was, to find the
lunch basket, carefully prepared the night
before, vanished from the pantry, and its
place occupied by a note to say:
DEAR MOTHER :
Good-by! I'm gone earlier than expected.
You'll see me to-night.
All right.
Herbert Remington also was surprised,
and not very agreeably so, by finding,
early as it was when he came down stairs,
a note on his breakfast-plate, in which
Miss Elsie begged to be excused, though
much obliged for his polite invitation for
the day.
Herbert suddenly changed his mind,
and accompanied his father up to the city,
that day, taking the early train.
Consequently the party and Elsie's fam-
ily naturally concluded that Herbert had
204
Seven Easter Lilies.
called for Elsie earlier than had been
agreed, though Will, to be sure, was rather
uneasy.
But Mrs. Lovering was more surprised
than any of them when she went out to
feed patient old Dobbin. Horse, cart and
dog were invisible, but her fear of robbers
was laid speedily, for Elsie had left this
word tied to the stall, scrawled upon a
sheet of unmistakable size:
DEAR MRS. LOVERING:
You know you said I might take the cart, and I didn't wake
you up to ask you again, because it is so early. Don't say a
word to anybody. I'll bring everything back safe to-night and
make you rich with the money I'll get.
ELSIE GRAYNER.
"Oh! my stars and patience," gasped
Mrs. Lovering, feeling quite weak and
limp with surprise and apprehension;
"what a child that is! What a venture-
some, fear-naught child that is! And how
A Lily Bearer.
205
under the canopy, she what could have
possessed
Then she began to think that it wouldn't
do to worry her husband about it, and she
couldn't leave him to go up to the Gray-
ners' till after the doctor had been round.
And Dobbin was old and safe, though to
be sure Elsie could drive that wild Fly-
away of her father's, for that matter, and
the dog was a pretty secure guardian for
her and the property.
So it was not until nearly noon that
Mrs. Lovering went up to Elsie's, home
and left her clue, very much afraid, kind
soul! that she was getting her favorite
into a scrape, and very anxious as well, to
save her all blame.
Meanwhile, there was the rogue, in a
sober brown linen suit, and a hat with all
the flowers picked out of it, driving steadily
206
Seven Easter Lilies.
and carefully away on the long road to
Lake Winsimere.
By the time people were clearing off
their breakfast-tables she was among those
who could not recognize her, however they
stared at the sight of the familiar team
with only a slender, tall young girl driv
ing it.
"Oh! what fun." That was what she
was thinking to herself, the quick pulses
bounding, the fresh young blood leaping
with healthy, wholesome tingling through
every vein.
She had seen the sunrise puff the downy,
gray dusk away from around it. Every
tree began to flutter in the breeze. Maple,
alder, birch, and silver poplar shook out
their pretty green robes as if to air and
smooth every crease and corner. Morn-
ing-glories poised on their vines as if
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207
fairies had been blowing bubbles and left
them lying around:
Oh! the little birds sang east, and the little birds sang west;
the pond-lilies were awake; millions of
laughing baby faces of flowers winked at
her from the roadsides.
She had taken her own breakfast out of
the basket, with water from the brook. It
was time to begin the day's work, and
Elsie's "sense of superlative spree," as she
called it to herself, still lasted.
How she enjoyed seeing the children
stop their play and watch with awe as the
tin-cart drew up before the door! How
gravely she walked up the path and asked
at the door," Tin-ware to-day, ma'am?"
How astonished the woman looked, as
she hesitated, and queried cautiously,-
"Ain't that Lovering's cart?"
"Yes, ma'am. First-rate establishment,
208
Seven Easter Lilies.
"Won't you
ma'am." (The rogue!)
buy?"
"Be you his darter?"
Well, no; but I'm just as honest as if
What will you have, ma'am?
I were.
"L
"Hum," the woman looked dubious-
well, I'm bad in want of some bakin'
pans, and a dipper for the well. If you'll
trade fair, now, I dunno but I'll come out
and look. Lovering's pretty well daown,
ain't he?"
Elsie knew how to weigh. The woman
said, "Lovering alw'ys gives six cents a
pound for the rags; she warn't goin' to
take a cent less." So Elsie set that price,
and demurely crowded down the rags; the
family gathered round to select the articles,
and Elsie, partly aided by a good memory,
partly by Yankee shrewdness in guessing
values, managed to make a good trade.
A Lily Bearer.
209
Then, with a merry good-by to the chil-
dren, and mentally resolving to buy some
sugar plums at the next store, she drove in
good order with the sober, cross old dog
running behind.
Having taken care to put her purse in
her pocket she did buy the sugar-plums,
and took a vast amount of sly pleasure in
dropping them into the hands of every
child she met on the road.
Of course people looked at her curiously,
and every buyer put her through a similar
catechism, but she kept the innocent, cer-
tain face and business-like air which all
New Englanders respect, and the old dog
stood her in good stead.
So on she went in triumphant safety,
much interested in the old-fashioned
flowers around farmhouse back-doors, edi-
fied by the shining rows of milk-pans set
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Seven Easter Lilies.
in the sun, the trim kitchens, the clean
pantries and dairies which she caught
glimpses of, being herself born with the
housewife instinct, and much amused by
the odd ways in which people lived and
talked.
She was really ambitious to succeed in
carrying home gains to Mrs. Lovering;
and so tried with all her might to dispose
of her wares, and had reason to be elated
in the result. Mr. Lovering's customers
along this route respected his fair dealing
in the many years they had become accus-
tomed to him, and were sorry for his mis-
fortune, so they bought with good will
whatever they wanted.
Little brown brooks were good company
all along the winding road. Horse, dog
and driver could there read the sign, "Re-
freshment for man and beast; " Elsie
A Lily Bearer.
21 I
hired a sleepy farmer to bait old Dobbin,
too. Thus, in good condition, they neared
the picnic grounds.
In the merriment of getting dinner, the
fishing party, rather late in from their
sport, hardly noticed the jingling and
rattling of the heavy tin-cart till it came in
sight up the rough road. Poor Will, whose
enjoyment had been much disturbed by
Elsie's non-appearance and his consequent
mystification, was in the act of presenting
to his stylish companion, the city girl,
some sticks broken from dead trees left
standing in the marsh, that were adorned
with long gray-beard moss, when he sud-
denly let them fall at her feet in a gallantry
by no means premeditated, and uttered an
exclamation which he would not naturally
have chosen for the occasion.
Oh! how red that cart did seem. How
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Seven Easter Lilies.
J
dusty! How ugly the stub-tailed horse
was, and what a vile dog! Will was hot
with mortification, and red with wrath, and
dazed with astonishment. And, after all,
he couldn't be exactly ashamed of Elsie,
though what would people think of her?
For the little tin-driver did not look pre-
cisely frightful. The trim dress would be
becoming, the round hat coquettish, and
her gleaming, wavy hair, her great shining
eyes, and her little red mouth were all
a-glow and a-light with such utter, twink-
ling glee and joyousness, such perfect fear-
less fun, that she made a vision bright and
striking as one often sees.
She drew up with an exultant clash and
flourish, and for a second there was silence.
Then the ready somebody gave a signal,
and even Elsie was abashed when she had
to sit still on her pinnacle under a deafen-
A Lily Bearer.
213
ing three times three. Will might put on
all the gruff airs he liked; Elsie was queen
of the day, after that. Laughter, jest and
compliment, the best of the feast, and the
choice of cavaliers was hers. Will per-
emptorily forbade her return home alone,
but the favorite among her cousins took
the seat beside her, and, followed by shouts
and cheers, they took a different route
home, where the boy, not to be out-done by
a girl, worked hard to equalize the after-
noon's sales with Elsie's of the morning.
It was after dark when Mrs. Lovering's
anxious watch along the road was rewarded
by the familiar apparition of the old red
wagon. In her relief she scolded Elsie
roundly; stood aghast at the money
counted into her hands; cried a very little
for nervousness as she counted the bags,
and ended by hugging Elsie and insisting
214
Seven Easter Lilies.
on going up to plead her cause with the
father and mother.
But Elsie had not thought of being
afraid of them; that was the beauty of her
fun. She had such an innocent security
in their confidence in her, that the thought
of dread of concealment never occurred
to her.
She had the warmest, openest heart in
the world. Not a blind man that she
could pass by in the street; not a hand-
organ-man that she wanted to refuse a
penny. Every beggar might count on her
fullest sympathy; a tale of distress would
make her lip tremble, and her eyes dim
any time.
She was walking in her most decorous
manner and best Sunday boots through
Chestnut Place, one day, when she came on
a group of boys chasing a lost cat. A
A Lily Bearer.
215
discreet reformer, you know, would have
observed calmly, "My dear young friends,
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals"-and so on, with the rest of
it. Elsie dashed across the street, not
minding a puddle or two, and flashed be-
fore the Ragamuffin Brigade, "full light-
ning-bug," remarked descriptively the dis-
mayed brother who accompanied her, had
the poor smirched fugitive up in her arms,
regardless of mud, and broke down crying
before the astonished boys in the very
midst of her scorching, "How dare you do
so, you horrid, cruel, shameful things!"
Then she bore the kitten off home; the
discomfited hunters slunk away; her
mother brushed and sponged the damages
off as well as might be, and that was the
end of that.
Always interested in fairs and benevo-
216
Seven Easter Lilies.
:
lent enterprises, invaluable at tableaux and
and successful as a solicitor, it was beauti-
ful to see how her serenity in the faith of a
good cause, and strong belief that every-
body would consider it a privilege to help,
would carry her up front steps that the
other girls were afraid of. The cheerful
enthusiasm of her appeal, the cool, take-for-
granted air, and the genuine delight with
which she pocketed the pence, would be
irresistible.
As to the knack of masquerade and
mimicking, that was inborn.
There was one old lady who never to her
death found out the secret of a certain
fearful night she once passed.
Everybody knew that she was a miserly,
unhappy woman, narrowed, soured and
whimsical, and everbody pitied the scared-
looking orphan niece who lived with her.
A Lily Bearer.
217
But not everybody was so warmly sympa
thizing as the Firefly. The scanty clothes,
the inadequate fare, the unloved and un-
pleasured lot of her gentle neighbor Annie,
aided by the glamours of romance which it
was always easy for her imagination to
conjure up, made impetuous Elsie the or-
phan girl's one zealous supporter, active
friend and unfailing confidant.
"Why wouldn't somebody interfere?
Why didn't somebody step forward and
rescue Annie?" wondered the Firefly.
And when at last Annie, crying bitterly,
told her a sorrowful tale, not only of un-
kindness and loneliness, but of actual
angry and unjust blows, she was almost
frightened at the passion it caused in
Elsie.
<<
Annie, you poor little innocent!" she
cried, clasping her hand tight, "if nobody
218
Seven Easter Lilies.
S
else will do something desperate for you,
I will. I dare, and I will! Only promise
me one thing-leave the kitchen door-key
outside the little north window to-night."
Annie demurred timidly, but Elsie
coaxed, and was at last tolerably sure of
her end by force of her stronger will, and
her influence over Annie.
((
Firefly's up to some mischief, I know,"
said Fred to Will in the course of the day,
as he thoughtfully stooped to pick up a
hairpin; "she's locked up in her room.'
""
Within that locked door a peculiar
toilet was spread on the bed. A broom
was arrayed in a sheet whose long flow-
ing folds depended from a peculiar bonnet
firmly fastened on the bushy end. The
millinery was only a white muslin apron
caught on with pins, and tied in white
ribbons.
A Lily Bearer.
219
Elsie put on a white dress, and, taking
up the mysterious white thing, crouched
down under it low to the floor, holding it
by the handle with both hands over her
head,
Rising more and more by degrees, and
bobbing about the broom this way and
that, a sufficiently grotesque and frightful
illusion was produced. So far, the boys, if
they could have looked in, would have
seen only the earlier developments of a
familiar game.
But that night, when Elsie was sup-
posed to be deep in decorous slumbers, a
figure stole from her room and, crossing
the still back-yard, passed through the
gate which communicated with Miss
Nantes' territory.
That forlorn woman was sleeping a hot
and heavy sleep, in her smothering tight
220
Seven Easter Lilies.
bedroom on the ground floor, when she
had, through a disturbed dream, some
annoying conviction of a glare of light
striking on her eyes.
"Fire!" she tried to scream, starting up
half-awake, and then, startled into clearer
consciousness, fell back with staring eyes.
The red glow had died out, but in the
moonlight surely she had not left the
blinds wide open in that careless way!—
a ghastly white thing at the foot of her bed
was fumbling over her precious boxes at
the very bureau where her money and
bank-books were kept.
The figure seemed to grow higher and
higher as she looked, the head wagged
hideously, and a voice that appeared to
come from the middle somewhere, mut-
tered, with smothered, sepulchral accents,
but terrible and vindictive distinctness:
A Lily Bearer.
221
"I'm hunting for her soul.
Dreadful
hard thing to find! A small cambric
needle, now, would more than cover it. A
soul that would starve a poor, dear, innocent
girl, a soul that would beat cruelly a dead
sister's child! O yes! it's a dreadfully
hard thing to find, such a small soul as
that is! But it's got to be accounted for
all the same, in the Day of Judgment."
Here the figure seemed to pass, groping
and searching by, towards the door.
"Can't find it! can't find it! O, dear!
O, dear! Only till morning to find such a
small soul as that in," moaned the voice,
gliding on till only a long-drawn "O,
dear!" sounded back faintly after its noise-
less retreat.
It was not very strange that Miss
Nantes, who did not lack the superstitious
element, and had a guilty conscience to
222
Seven Easter Lilies.
terrify her, was fairly paralyzed with fright
at this experience.
She must have fainted, for when she did
dare to scream, when Annie in terror
came trembling in, and Miss Nantes in-
sisted on calling the police and having the
house searched, on looking over her boxes
and having a neighbor summoned, all was
quiet.
"But if she strikes you again, Annie,
and there's nobody else to defend you, I'll
haunt her once more, and haunt her
worse," vowed the Firefly, when her friend
accused her of the night's uproar.
Miss Nantes was really sick for a week.
"She acts as though she were afraid of
me," narrated Annie, half-remorsefully,
"and she actually said I should have some
new dresses and go to school. If I were
only half as plucky as you are, Elsie!”
A Lily Bearer.
223
However, this affair and the commotion
which Miss Nantes herself had incautiously
raised about it, brought about some rather
particular inquiries into Annie's affairs,
and Miss Nantes was not likely again to
dare public opinion by ill-usage.
They loved Elsie dearly at home, of
course, in spite of the ferment in which
she was apt to keep them, and the trou-
bles of one sort and another in which
she would be involved.
She always "owned up everything to
the mother" afterwards, if she was apt to
be wilful beforehand, and the said mother
had that happy sort of confidence in her
coming out right which some people who
sighed over "that unmanageable child"
called “insensibility.”
It must be confessed, though, that in
general, somebody who never spilt ink
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Seven Easter Lilies.
and never broke china, never shook the
smaller children in sudden gusts of pas-
sion, and was not oblivious to order and
nicety; somebody who cultivated patience
and practised gentleness, long-suffering,
meekness, would naturally be considered a
rather more peaceable member of a house-
hold.
Plenty of serious times, plenty of sorry
times,— the “Firefly-shut times," her broth-
ers called them,-had Elsie. Times when
she had been saucy even to the dear
mother, and then shut herself up in her
own room to repent. Times when the
children were sick and she could not for-
give herself for having been so cross and
selfish with them. Times when her plans
failed, or her trusts betrayed her, or her
undertakings turned out badly. And then
she would try for a day or two to be very
A Lily Bearer.
225
good, and then forget again, and wish that
it was "always Sunday, where one was
kept still, and there was an angel always
around to look after her."
So her bright face sobered a little when
Miss Applethwaite, whom she loved as she
did every perfect and beautiful thing, had
first told her, at Mrs. Dana's desire, about
the lily.
(6
Yes," said she, "perhaps it will make
me feel Sunday some, weekdays, always so
grand, and still, and pure, you know; I
did think so last Easter."
"Well, Elsie," said Miss Applethwaite
then, with her sunny smile and her unre-
buking eyes, “that is a beautiful thought
you have hold of — that God gives us his
best things to use every day. Just as the
lily does not think its purest and grandest
too good to wear always for all eyes, as
226
Seven Easter Lilies.
*
well as on Sunday in the church. I be-
lieve it will be a real help to you if, when
you look at it, you are reminded of that.
And I know a little rhyme I want to send
you with it, to pin up in your room.”
For many months after these verses fre-
quently caught Elsie's eye from the place
where she had hung them in her room,
pinned against a strip of broad satin ribbon :
LEARNING OF THE LILIES.
Consider how the lilies grow,
My Master said. Now well I trow
A simple child I am, and so
I'm glad He too doth know
And sets me lessons not too grand,
Things I can see and understand.
Lilies, I wonder at you, though,
While I consider how you grow!
The greatest kings were ne'er arrayed
In robes like yours, by hands not made,
That glisten royal in the sun
Fairer than mortal looms e'er spun;
Yet thus you ev'ry day are drest,
You do not save them for your best.
A Lily Bearer.
227
Lilies, I wonder if He means
That one the best in him who screens
From shining, serving, all the while,
Who fears lest daily use defile
That precious part has but unlearned
The lilies how they grow discerned.
Lilies, I wonder at you! You
Can nothing compass, nothing do;
You cannot toil, you cannot spin;
There is no bustle you are in;
And yet in large content you bide
And somehow win all to your side.
Lilies, I wonder does He mean
That we must keep our souls serene
And count our fevered doing less
Than being what our Lord will bless,
Choosing for ours a better part,
A peaceful mind, a pure, warm heart!
Lilies, as I consider you
I say, May I be lovely too,
And copy all your winsome ways,
That I also be His praise!
I will not fret, I will not try
Great things to do, and strive and cry:
Lilies are common; well may I
Own I am common, nor ask why,
But thankful take my sun, my dew,
From deepened roots my life renew
That I may have to give ;-
and so
Consider how the lilies grow.
228
Seven Easter Lilies.
"I will try; I mean to try," said Elsie
honestly and humbly, as she put her hand
into Miss Applethwaite's.
"I will try; I mean to try," she said,
many a time afterwards, caring for the
thirsty lily, and all by herself. Even to
remember to water it daily was a little dis-
cipline to her natural carelessness, which
her mother had suggested to her as such,
telling her that even so small a faithfulness
was not to be despised in forming habits
that would help her to be faithful in much.
Elsie resolved, too, that no blossom
should wither on its stalk; she would cut
each as it came, for some one else to enjoy.
"That's right, my Lily Bearer!" smiled
her mother when, one day, she saw her
carrying the last to Miss Nantes herself.
What Elsie would have done without her
mother, I'm sure I don't know.
A Lily Bearer.
229
Despite good intentions, she did not
always remember, and the
suffer for want of water.
she found herself cross,
poor lily would
Despite trying,
or heedless, or
unkind, pretty often, too. Then she would
say, at the good-night time, "It's been a
dry day, mother; a dreadfully dry day.
Please, come water me.
So then her mother, never impatient
with her, would stroke her hair and "talk
dew," as Elsie called it, till sometimes
even the child's eyes would get damp.
It was at such a time that she told her
this fable. Elsie's complaint that night
had been, “O, mamma! if I didn't go up
and down so all the time."
Then her mother said, "I shall have to
tell you a story, my child:
"Once a youth came to a certain wise
man and spoke in this manner. Said he:
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Seven Easter Lilies.
My troubles are like those of a servant
set to carry through a crowd a crystal
glass full of water. It is a time of drought,
and his master, faint and ill, awaits the
restoring drops. Sometimes the water-
bearer is rudely jostled and the water spills
over; sometimes in his excitement his
hand trembles perilously; sometimes for
weariness it is lax. Sometimes he gets so
much interested in his charge that he only
cares to get along safely himself, and does
not mind how he jostles other people;
sometimes he becomes so engrossed by
all that goes on around him that he is
heedless of the burden. Sometimes he
hurries too eagerly, sometimes he dallies
till the growing twilight frightens him.
The man is honest; he is anxious about
his crystal, but how shall he keep his hand
steady, steady all the long way? Answer
A Lily Bearer.
231
me this, wise man, for even so I am carry-
ing my soul through this world.'
Then the Preacher answered: Friend,
have you never as a child seen a tiny
goblet filled with ruby wine, that, however
recklessly you tipped it from side to side,
never spilled over? For over it was spun
a thin web of glass, well-nigh invisible,
which held it safe. God's love found out
that way to keep souls long, long ago.
Only carry the unquiet cup to Him and
He will cast over all its fickleness and
restlessness that constraining calm. Al-
ways you will need to be careful to your
utmost of the choice thing lest it drop
or be snatched from you in the crowd; but
ask, ask, and then it will be possible for
even your shaking hand to bear it evenly
to the end, spilling none of its preciousness
on the thankless earth.""
232
Seven Easter Lilies.
This fable helped Elsie all her life.
Quite often Elsie would find at morn-
ing in the cup of a blossom, some helpful
thought, copied, or clipped from a page,
neatly folded and laid in. Or, maybe,
only a text, in gilded letters, just to remind
her. And at night there would be some-
times, best of all, a tiny white note, with
just a few words to show how her mother
had noticed what Elsie thought nobody had.
:
'You have been good to-day, and have
helped me much, darling. Thank you,
with all mother's heart." Or, "Never
mind, my little girl.
it seemed to fail.
for mother's sake."
You did try, though
Keep up good courage,
Somehow these tiny notes helped Elsie
more than words spoken would have done.
It was not always easy to say these things,
and hear them said, right out loud.
A Lily Bearer.
233
By their encouragement she kept on
trying, and when one of her little brothers
carelessly snapped off a week beforehand
the one lily she had been coaxing and sav-
ing for her mother's birthday, and she not
only refrained from a burst of anger, but
spoke gently and kindly about it to the
luckless offender, not all the lilies in the
world could have given that mother so
pure a joy as this one that she did not
have, after all.
My little Lily Bearer!" she said fondly,
kissing her daughter that night.
And Elsie, trying to be good learning
to be gentle and helpful towards others,
loved this pet name ever afterwards better
than any other.
The best of it was, that as she became
in her turn a lily bearer to other lives, her
open, ready hand grew steadier, wiser and
234
Seven Easter Lilies.
stronger.
The flickering brightness of
her nature was disciplined to an even glow.
So that, years after, when a young friend,
troubled as she had been with many ups
and downs of spirit, wrote,-
"Where do you get your sunshine?
How can you be always so evenly cheer-
ful?" our Firefly could write back:
"You ask me, my darling, where I get
my sunshine. I only stay in the sun, and
let it shine on me. And though I have
had many sad experiences in my life thus
far, when it seemed that I could never
smile again, I found the sun did not go
out so easily. My sunshine always came
back."
A Blossoming.
235
CHAPTER IX.
A BLOSSOMING.
Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers, with song and shout,
Just as he please,
just as he please.
· MISS MULOCK.
Love, and love only, is the loan for love.
You wonder why Donald Keith thought
of wishing he had "as much gold as there
was there," when he looked at the Easter
lilies, and fingered their golden stamens.
So did Mrs. Dana. He was too shy to
answer very clearly about it, but after she
had been several times to his home about
the sewing which an elder sister took to
do for her, she began to understand.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
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Seven Easter Lilies.
yes, if you'll believe me, eight children in
that house, a grandmother and the baby!
Donald's father had four children when
he married the present mistress with her
two girls and this big, old-fashioned house
in a back street where they now lived all
together.
But a large family of boys and girls
makes a happy little community, and no
need to pity the Keiths on that score.
They all worked, or studied, and so had
enough to do. They never had lacked
food, or apparel, or fire, or necessary care.
The mother was a thrifty woman, and
knew how to spare, and how to spend; how
to make, and how to mend.
faithfully for them all.
She worked
Well, wasn't this enough?
Donald
could not have told, then, just what was
wanting, but he missed something. He
A Blossoming.
237
had, a feeling that, somehow, it wasn't
enough.
At times they had known what it was
to be hungry when his own mother lived;
but he used to feel so satisfied, he remem-
bered.
She used to kiss him good-night and
good-morning. She used to tell him stories
at bed-time. Sometimes in the night, he
would wake to find her covering him up
in bed.
Now he had long lessons to learn at
school and in the evenings; he had to
help out of school about the wood, and
the water, and the paths in winter. They
were all busy, though. Jane worked in a
shop, and Eliza took in sewing; Agnes
was as good as a housekeeper; the boys
were apprenticed. Even the smaller chil-
dren had their alloted part of the work-
238
Seven Easter Lilies.
errands, or dusting, or taking care of the
baby.
Everybody was in a hurry. None of
them took breath even to sing about their
work. No pets were allowed. There was
too much else to do. Each was so busy
for himself that no looking on the things
of the others could be spared. Meals were
hurried over in silence; at evenings the
older ones snubbed the younger, and the
younger "pecked" among themselves.
Little bickerings and jealousies sprang up
among them. The air was full of a cold
kind of uncomfortableness. The mother
would not allow quarreling, but she never
encouraged caresses. The father was
stern and silent. The grandmother was
an invalid who could not bear noise, and
hated romps.
After all the kindness about work and
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239
so on, Mrs. Keith would not, of course,
object to the lily Donald's teacher and the
other lady wanted to give him. He could
keep it on the broad window-sill in the
sewing-room, she supposed. Eliza would
not care? "Anything you say, ma," an-
swered Eliza coldly.
Nobody looked pleased to have Donald
pleased; no confiding, familiar looks passed
between them as they talked. In spite of
all the people who lived there, it was a
lonesome house.
Donald's teacher asked him quietly, one
day, what he would do with a great deal of
money, if he had it.
"I'd build a house of my own," answered
the boy stoutly at last, "and it would be
my home. And I'd have lots of good
times, and people coming in. And I'd buy
all the best things."
240
Seven Easter Lilies.
"So that is what you wanted the gold
for?"
Donald blushed this time, and was
silent.
'But surely you'd miss the baby?" said
the teacher very gently; "wouldn't you be
lonesome sometimes ?"
(C
'Yes; I should miss the baby," con-
fessed Donald, for this baby was the one
pride and pet of the family; "but I
shouldn't be lonesome. It's lonesome at
home."
The lady sighed a little to herself, but
she spoke cheerily to Donald.
((
Come," said she, "I'll make you a little
story."
Donald's face brightened. He had not
heard a story for a long while.
"Once upon a time, a boy set out on his
way through the world. He had not a
A Blossoming.
241
dollar of money, but he had a heart full of
love.
"And first he met a lame dog limping
forlornly along. He has a thorn in his
foot,' thought the boy, but can I stop to
pull it out?'
"Then he felt so much pity for the dog
that he was ashamed of his selfishness and
quickly pulled out the thorn.
"Ah! I should like to own you, my
fine fellow,' said the boy, patting the dog's
big head, but I've not so much as a crust
to feed you with!
"Nevertheless, henceforth I follow you,'
said the dog, licking his hand. Love is
enough.' And nothing could persuade the
dog to leave him afterwards.
(C
Going on together, they saw a balky
horse being fiercely beaten by a carter.
Pitying the animal, the boy stepped up,
242
Seven Easter Lilies..
and petted and coaxed the horse with
clover till his every touch was obeyed.
Buy the horse,' said the wondering
carter, 'for he is so unmanageable as to be
useless to others. I will even trust you
for the sum due me.'
"But I have not even a barn or a stall
to keep him in,' said the boy.
"It matters not, master,' neighed the
horse, trotting after him; 'I will serve you
well. Love is enough.'
"Now the boy rode swiftly till he saw
before him, in a solitary place, a pedler's
wagon overturned. The pedler was SO
pinned under the ruins that he could
not stir, and a thief was plundering the
broken boxes.
"Here is danger,' thought the boy;
the thief is armed. But for Love's sake,
I cannot leave a neighbor in such peril.'
A Blossoming.
243
"Now the dog served good purpose, for
he so bit and frightened the thief that
after a little scuffle he was forced to run
for his life. The three friends chased him
till he plunged into a thick wood, glad to
hide. Then, by hard work, the pedler
was released. He gratefully offered large
pay from property or purse to his deliverer.
"O, no!' answered the boy; 'Love is
enough.'
"Is Love enough?' cried the rescued
man; then for that you shall never lack.'
((
'So he took him to his own house and
there made him a most honored guest,
tended in sickness and dearly cherished
by all.
"But I cannot stay here, to be an ex-
pense and trouble,' said the boy, when he
lay sick, 'for I have no money to pay
you.'
244
Seven Easter Lilies.
"Love is enough, Love is enough,' cried
the wife, the husband, and the children.
"However, when he was well again he
deemed best to bid them good-by, and go
his way again. Though he missed his
friends as he journeyed, still he was not
lonely.
"Love was enough to make him com-
panions and win him friends all the way.
"In a certain place he heard of a lord,
rich, but miserable, who had lived so evil
and cruel a life that he was only hated and
feared. They said he was fallen ill of a
loathsome disease, and none would go near
to tend him.
"Then the traveller grew very sad and
thoughtful. But presently he lifted his
face, severe, but strangely bright, and
quietly asked the way to the castle. They
tried to dissuade him, but all in vain.
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245
Then, let us first bring you wines or
cordials,' said his host.
'Let us loan you herbs and doctors'
books,' another offered.
Take some weapon of defence. You
know not how fierce the man is,' cried
others.
"To all he but answered, 'No, no; Love
is enough.'
"When he reached the castle, he saw
that its beautiful windows were shut and
barred; its noble ornaments and pillars,
statues and fountains, were broken or tar-
nished; weeds and poisonous vines had
choked the gardens; neglect disfigured
where all was made to be so fair.
"The sick man, raving in delirium, did
not know his nurse for days. When he
came to himself, and lay weak and pros-
trate, he was subdued with wonder, the
246
Seven Easter Lilies.
stranger was so patient with his petulance,
so tender to his pain.
"What induced you to risk your life
for mine? What could be sufficient to
persuade a stranger to such sacrifice, such
risk?' he was forced to ask humbly, at
last.
CC ( 'Love was enough,' answered the
nurse, as he brought him a cooling drink.
"Oh! then,' said the poor rich man, 'I
beg you stay with me, and use my house,
my lands, my gold, as you will, only give
me a little Love. What, then, can be so
wonderful, if this is Love?'
(C
'He was right. What can be so won-
derful as Love? By its influence over him,
he restored and re-furnished the ruined
beauties of his castle, and sought to win
back there the wife and children his harsh
hand had driven away. But they feared
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247
to come, so unkind a guardian he had
proved.
"One night some former enemy set fire
to his castle, and in the morning all was
blackened timber. As the lord sat among
the ashes of his home, he cried, for Love
had changed him so, Ah! what does it
matter, for it was not a home. We might
yet be happy if now, for Love's sake, wife
and children would return to me!'
"Then the boy stole away, and pleaded
these words of his with the wife and
children.
"And you came, you came now!' cried
the lord amazed, when wife and children
had hastened to him and caressed him.
'But, see! all is ruined, and I have not
even a roof to receive.
you under.'
"Love is enough, dear husband,' smiled
the wife.
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Seven Easter Lilies.
"Love is enough, dear father,' echoed
the children.
"The home they found was humble,
the fare they shared was plain, yet never
had one of them been so happy. There
were no rich carpets on the floor, no pict-
ures on the walls, no servants save the
lord's one faithful attendant. Ah! but it
was Love that served, Love that received
service. Love was enough. And every
Saturday night the smallest children were
taught to say this lesson:
Love is a path, if any be misled;
Love is a robe, if any naked be;
If any chance to hunger, He is bread;
If any be a bondman, he is free;
If any be but weak, how strong is He!
To dead men, life is He; to sick men, health;
To blind men, sight; and to the needy, wealth;
A pleasure without loss, a treasure without stealth.
"At last the castle was re-built, and
stood looking higher, fairer, grander than
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249
before. Then the lord said to his ser-
vant,
You shall be its equal owner; you
shall marry my dearest daughter.'
But, my lord, though I love her, I am
not of high birth: I have no wealth; I am
not talented.'
'Love is enough,' answered the lord;
'but ask her. Tell her all, and see. It
shall be as she decides.'
"Then he told her all, but she only
looked the more radiant, and cried joy-
ously, as she took his brown hands,
"Love is enough. Love is more than
enough!'
"So he was rich and happy: he had
friends, and wife, and, home, and, for all
this success, 'Love was enough!'"
Donald drew a long breath as the story
ended.
250
Seven Easter Lilies.
"Is it a true story?" he asked.
"No; it isn't exactly true, all through,
but, my boy," said the lady, so earnestly
that Donald listened intently, trying to
understand, " you want gold to get for
yourself friends, and a home, and all good
things. Try this kind of gold; we all can.
See if Love isn't enough. It is choicer than
money; it is scarcer. It is twice blessed;
it blesses him who gives, and him who
takes,'" she quoted, smiling to herself at
the thought how Shakespeare, like the
Bible, is full of sayings that continually fit
into the mosaic of even common life. "Sup-
pose you begin loving and helping people
every day, Donald, and by and by you'll
see that Love is enough. You'll count up
scores of friends, scores of homes glad to
welcome you, and life will never be lone-
some."
A Blossoming.
251
Donald went away thinking, and he
never saw the golden stamen of his lily
without remembering the motto: “Love
is enough! Love is enough! Love is
enough!" It ran in his head.
There came a dreary time in that large,
busy house. One went away out of it
never to come back. It was the very
smallest thing, only the baby, but when
A gap is in the fireside made
The wideness of a little tomb;
And carols such as robins sing
Are faded out of every room,
what a pitiful, aching emptiness it leaves!
The mother who was so active and so
strong had never spared her strength;
the family had never thought of the possi
bility of her falling sick, but the very day
of the baby's burial she fainted, and for
many days knew none of those about her.
રી
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Seven Easter Lilies.
Little Donald would creep in and sit
beside her; all was confusion now, and no
one forbade him. He heard her cry
wildly: "Nothing left that loves me! No,
no, no! The baby's dead."
<<
Mother, I will love you," Donald said
one day, and he softly stroked the hot, hot
hand. Then she seemed to smile, and
grew quieter.
and say,-
Every day, after that, he would steal in
There, there! I love you,
mother!" For he had a tender heart, and
suffering moved it easily to pity. When
he saw that the sick mother seemed to like
his voice and touch, a warm glow of love
and pleasure filled him.
The grandmother asked
him to bring
her a cup of tea, one day. “For they are
all so taken up, and nobody cares for me,"
she complained.
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253
((
O, yes! I'll care," said Donald. He
said it so gently that she looked up at him,
and said, - "Thank you! You're a good
boy," when he brought the cup.
"Why, I haven't done anything for her
-anything to speak of," thought Donald.
Then he remembered what his teacher
had said, “Love is enough."
He began to understand.
When Mrs. Keith began to get well she
thought she could not have borne the
lonely stillness of the house, and her own
changed frail health and spirits, but for
Donald's thoughtfulness and gentleness.
He was almost like a woman (such a
teacher is Love!); he sat by her and waited
upon her untiringly.
(6
Why, he seems to love me!" thought
the mother. All her life she had been
starved for Love, and never knew it. But
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Seven Easter Lilies.
now she had come to one of those places
in life where only Love is enough. She
could not but see it, and while the older
girls ministered to her for duty's sake, and
her husband was attentive to her wants, it
was from a simple child's warm young
heart that she drank thirstily, as drinks
ground that long has been dry, of that one
rare, costly elixir of life, named Love.
While she still staid in her sick-room,
thinking in its forced quiet of all these
things and many, many more, Donald's
teacher, or her friend, Mrs. Dana, would
often come to ask for her. And of all
their good words, she remembered most,
as chording with her new thoughts, a hymn
that Mrs. Dana once sung to her:
What was thy crime, my dearest Lord?
By earth, by Heaven thou hast been tried,
And guilty found of too much love,
Jesus, our love, is crucified.
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255
Found guilty of excess of love!
It was Thine own sweet will that tied
Thee, tighter far than helpless nails;
Jesus our Love is crucified.
Mrs. Keith's visitors smiled at each
other to see the beautiful tenderness which
was growing up between this mother and
<<
son. This is the beginning of better
things," they said gladly; "the leaven will
work."
Mrs. Dana noticed that the lily stood
now in the sick-room, near the mother's
chair. She guessed that Donald had told
his mother the, story whose motto was,
"Love is enough."
But one day the lily was gone from its
place, and Donald was looking red and
angry.
"I know where it's gone," he exclaimed,
too vexed to care what he said; "the beg-
gar-girl stole it. I saw her hanging round
256
Seven Easter Lilies.
when I set it out in the sun just for a
while. And here's the pot empty. Oh!
how mean. I'll pay her!"
(C
There, dear, you can have another,"
said his mother, as she would not have
said a few months ago. And the guest,
after a pleasant call, asked him to ride
home with her, and bring back a bunch of
flowers to the sick mother. She made the
drive charming-not a bit stiff; and after-
wards let him choose the flowers. Then
as he was ready to go, she just said,
"Suppose he could have his choice be-
tween a lily and a thistle, which would he
choose?"
Donald was sure the lily, of course.
"And of course he'd rather carry a lily
than a thistle?"
"O, yes!"
Well, now, here was a chance. To see
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257
hate in his heart would hurt and grieve the
best Friend he had; to see Love there
would be a white, sweet offering to Him.
Hate would be sure to prick and sting
his hand, too, all the way, while Love
would be very fragrant. Then couldn't
Donald get over hating the poor naughty
beggar-girl, to please that Friend, and to
please her? She thought he would feel
much happier remembering it, when he
saw the lilies in the church again, at Eas-
ter-time. Donald smiled a little, blushed,
and went away. Nobody heard him scold
about the beggar-girl afterwards.
- Poor Meg, "Queer Meg!" as they called
her in wretched Winsey Lane, down by the
river, with its rows of high, rickety lodg
ings and tumbling hovels. They said she
was not over-bright, and certainly she was
utterly untaught.
>
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Seven Easter Lilies.
Half because she wanted a plant for
once, half because she disliked Donald for
thoughtlessly making fun of her, she had
taken the lily with no particle of compunc-
tion, carried it home and set it in an old
rough box in the window.
Nobody minded what she did. Who
cared for Meg, or what did Meg care for
anybody? She was only one of a number
of brothers and sisters (how many she
could not have told) who knew very little
about what each other did.
A vagrant father would make his ap-
pearance at unequal intervals, and there
was a mother who talked much about hav-
ing her hands full with the baby, and the
children, and times when she went out to
work; there were times when she was
"sick" from over-drink: times when she
was engrossed with her cronies in the lane.
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259
Sometimes Meg was so wild and strange
in her ways that everybody was half-afraid
of her. So they all let her alone. A few
back-doors became used to her fluttering
-rags, and wild hair, and dull eyes
a few
servants, noticing that she was "queer,"
pityingly spared her a few more crusts
and pieces than they would ordinarily have
done.
She was very silent, hardly giving back
any thanks, and only answering questions
with more weird looks out of her strange
eyes. But she had thoughts —very pecu-
liar thoughts; not always dreadful thoughts.
She knew her way all over the city, by a
sort of instinct, and she "picked out" her
houses. Not only this, but she chose her
rooms in them, too. She liked large, long,
handsome rooms best, fitted up in bright
colors; but wherever there was a plant in
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Seven Easter Lilies.
the window, Meg would linger long whiles,
and remember to come back again after-
wards.
"One of my rooms," she would mutter
grandly to herself, and tip-toe across the
street, holding up her poor short dress as
she had seen fine ladies do. After dark of
a rainy night, Meg would visit her best
room. Her best room?
A corner of the porch in an angle of a
beautiful house, where a bright red fire
would always, on such nights, be shining in
the grate. Then a servant would come in
and light the gas.
"Thank you," Meg would whisper to
herself, watching unseen from her corner;
"it is about time. Bring in the children."
And there, through the crimson hang-
ings and curtains, she would see glowing
pictures on the white walls, and costly or
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261
naments on the tables (she was always
especially pleased and proud when she de-
tected among them a new one), and a
lovely mother coaxing for her merry chil-
dren the tunes they loved best out of the
great glistening piano. Meg called the
keys a row of white teeth, to herself.
"How pretty they chatter!" she would
say. This was the nearest Heaven that
Queer Meg knew. The music rested her
so that, when they pulled the curtains
down inside, she would not mind the mud
and old, the long walk home, or her hard
bed. The strains would be singing over
and over in her head, and she would be
listening.
There were days when she went hungry.
Then she would go out to dinner. She
knew where the blinds were apt to be
thrown back.
>
1
262
Seven Easter Lilies.
}
There would be cut glass, and silver,
and china, and cake, and creams, and
fruits, and flowers, on the table, and how
could anybody starve in sight of such
plenty?
The gay feasters there never knew of
this little uninvited guest. If they had
known, you think, surely they would all
have run to let her in? For did a Royal
One stand out in the storm at our door,
would there not be a strife who should
first let Him in? Would we be willing to
run any risk of losing, when His Kingdom
comes, the right to those words of music,
"Come; ye did it unto Me?"
Well, they did not see her, but queer,
dull Meg fancied an ownership in all their
luxuries, and would go away saying in her
mind: "Yes, yes; bully house that is of
mine. They take good care of it; let 'em
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263
be. I s'pose my turn'll come to live there.
We'll wait awhile."
One friend owned Meg; that was a
strange friend, too.
Years ago a good man had died, and
they had set up a great benignant statue
of him in the Park.
The hurrying people walked their streets
in continual sight of it. Maybe, among
them all, one seeing it, and noticing how
few could stop to look towards it, some-
times remembered, with yearning, how
thus One ever stands, as above Jerusalem,
with hands lifted for blessing over every
man, woman, and child, and how, never-
theless, they hurry by, even thus, and can-
not stop to look up, and so miss the
benediction.
And maybe, sometimes, another would
think, and thrill with the thought, how
264
Seven Easter Lilies.
grand it is to make one's life so good and
helpful that, when it is done, it can be
truthfully pictured thus.
But certainly Meg never thought of any
such things as these. It only seemed to
her something indeed very grand, but
something very kind.
She had an idea that the "Still Man,"
as she called the statue, knew more about
her than any other person, and could even
see into her thoughts. She had not much
idea of right and wrong, only that other
people were sometimes cross and angry
about things, and sometimes pleased.
They generally shrank from her, in any
case.
But whatever she did, and whatever other
people did, the Still Man was always the
same, she found, and always held his hand
over her so protectingly and lovingly.
A Blossoming.
265
So she grew to thinking of him as we
do of a best friend, to spending long times
near the statue, murmuring to the Still
Man or to herself, at hours when there
was least passing. And here, in this indi-
rect way, she took into her darkened life
and wandering brain a dim yet comforting
idea of a Somebody who always was kind,
always was the same, and always held His
hand over you.
There was, you see, Some One, after all,
who really cared that the poor little waif
should know so much as this.
Many a time Meg's lily came near being
dashed out of the window by her mother
who did not want it in the way, or by the
children, who jarred it carelessly in their
rough games or rougher quarrels.
But Meg defended it with a fierce, sul-
len passion which carried weight with it.
266
Seven Easter Lilies.
Here was a plant her very own, and she
was determined to see it "make a flower."
So she watered and watched the old grimy
box, till at last, opening as unhurried and
unfrightened as any lily of them all, one
great satiny vision stood revealed against
the grimy window.
Meg, in real and exquisite delight, broke
it herself from the stem. She carried it
away, and a few passers in the street
smiled, or sighed, or wondered, and then
forgot again, to see that forlorn and ragged
beggar-girl bearing proudly so white and
stately a flower in her red, soiled hand.
She reached up on tiptoe, and laid it, with-
out a word, at the feet of her friend, the
statue. She went away smiling, not doubt-
ing her dumb instinct of believing that
her one friend, the Still Man, would know
all about it, and appreciate the offering of
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267
that first flower which had ever blossomed
for her.
The envious wind blew the white tribute
to the ground, and tossed it about in the
whirling storm that night, till the snow-
flakes, building noiselessly about it, had
reared a fitting tomb. But our Lord Him-
self would not have scorned to take that
lily from the hand of the beggar-girl, and
perhaps, all unknowing, she did bring it to
His feet, and leave it there.
Some impulse moved her as she went
down the street, to step into the open
door of a church vestibule. It was cold
and dark, with threatened storm outside.
Hark! They were singing inside. Moved,
as music always could move her, the
beggar-girl daringly, stealthily opened an
inner door, and crouched down, back of
the pews, in a dark corner, absorbed in the
268
Seven Easter Lilies.
delicious sounds which seemed to come
from the gilded pipes far at the other end
of the building.
Solemn and sweet at last the words
reached even her, and though they were so
uncomprehended, yet a far-away sense of
rest and kindness fell upon her as she lis-
tened to the closing benediction.
Hushed as the devoutest, she waited,
awed, strangely quieted, till the people
rose to leave the church, and then, in a
panic of fright, hastened away lest any of
them should see and reprove her.
That bitter winter a city missionary
stood one day looking down Winsey Lane.
Almost discouraged by its utter filth and
wretchedness he was about to turn from
it sickened, when, as he set his face the
other way, a lily caught his eye-one
perfect Easter lily against a dirty window.
A Blossoming.
269
How beautiful it looked to him, in that
wilderness of tumble-down houses, falling
chimneys, vile streets and broken windows!
((
Come, Faint-heart, you must have a
sign, must you?" said he stoutly to him-
self, and walked fearlessly up the stairs to
find the beckoning lily.
He was careful and skilful; praises of
the lily made a good beginning. He ven-
tured to sing a song he knew about some
"Gentle Annie, fair as a forest lily," and
then a livelier one. He really felt kindly
and meant well to them all, and somehow
it showed, perhaps the more because he
had the air of one used to take his own
way.
He knew quantities of songs better than
those; wouldn't they like to hear them,
perhaps learn some? He would come
down next Sunday, and bring something
270
Seven Easter Lilies.
to help make music. Money? O, no!
It wasn't for pay.
He had been so quick, so much in ear-
nest about it, that before anybody had re-
sisted he was gone with a loud, cheery,
"Good-by, then!"
Little, do you think? Well, that was
the beginning of the Mission School there
in Winsey Lane. First, they taught chil
dren to sing, and gave them plants and
seeds to tend. It was a real means of
grace, that flower-gardening.
After a while Winsey Lane had a build-
ing to itself, with mottoes and pictures
about the room, and "Come and See" in
illumined letters above the outer door.
There were strong, cheerful men and
women who tried every Sunday to lift up
heartily the same inviting cry, “Come and
see," by which they hoped to help these
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271
poor people who did not even know how
wretched, and miserable, and poor, and
blind, and naked they were, or that there
was a Father's house with enough and to
spare.
The two ladies from Westminster street
were among these helpers, and through
them there was a certain little Company
Clover up in the country who did a good
deal for the Mission School. And Hil-
da's tender heart was more deeply stirred
than it had ever been before, when she
first saw the misery among which it had
sprung up.
The good missionary could not be satis-
fied to have it called by any other name.
than the Easter Lily Mission.
But Queer Meg never knew much of
this Mission. Before it was fairly begun,
the pitiful caricature of a father came
272
Seven Easter Lilies.
home one evening and, by some tipsy
clumsiness, knocked the long-suffering lily
through the window, with a crash of splin-
tering glass.
Poor Meg, beside herself, struck at him
wildly, with some passionate cry, and the
man turned upon her in a fury, thrust her
fiercely from the door with a blow and an
oath, and bade her never let him set eyes
on her again, or it would be worse for her.
The half-unconscious thing could scarcely
tell where she was going through the
storm, or what had happened. And there
was nobody to care.
Policeman, you may well lift your lantern
and turn its light to the highest point; a
notable picture is this, indeed.
Is it a dead girl who lies here under the
statue?
It is an outcast, unprotected, homeless
A Blossoming.
273
and unloved, but look! she lies there
under a hand outstretched as if in blessing.
Is it a mistake? Is it a sarcasm?
"What very strange, wild eyes that
young girl has! "
Two ladies were passing through the
wards of a new city hospital, and one of
them spoke to the physician who attended
them.
"A sad case," answered the benevolent
doctor, not unwilling to enlist charity for
his patient; "brought here one snowy
night, apparently dead; a creature half-
starved and half-frozen. She barely lived
through a long, hard sickness, and since.
she has been as ignorant as a baby of
everything that went before. We only
know a policeman found her that night
in the Park, nearly buried in the snow."
274
Seven Easter Lilies.
What! has she no friends, no one to
look out for her?" asked Miss Apple-
thwaite.
"We can discover none."
"But what will become of her?"
"There seems to be nothing for her but
the poorhouse," replied the doctor, moving
on; "she will not be fit to leave the
hospital for some weeks."
The sight of this friendless sufferer
haunted Miss Applethwaite strangely.
A thin white face, hair cropped close in
the late illness, great, dumb-looking dark
eyes which had followed her like a por-
trait's this picture kept rising up before
her unbidden. She felt a care for the girl,
who had none to provide for her, and went
again to the hospital.
"And her friends have not been heard
of yet?" she asked the nurse.
A Blossoming.
275
تر
"Not a sign of them, ma'am. I've a
strange pity for the girl myself. She's not
bright, whether she ever was before the
dreadful fever and delirium or not, but
she's just as docile as a kitten, and seems
to be so grateful.”
Weeks went by, and good treatment,
care and kindness, had altered " queer
Meg" until she would scarcely have been
recognized at her old home. She had
learned gentle ways from the motherly
nurse; her intelligence increased, and
there was something very touching in her
appealing, timid, child-like ways. Now
the time had come when she must be
placed in some permanent home. Miss
Applethwaite's kind heart, and Mrs. Dana's
mother-tenderness would not be quite con-
tent at any disposal yet proposed for the
stray girl.
276
Seven Easter Lilies.
They sat talking it over one day in the
Blue Room at the baby's bedtime, which
had grown to be a sort of frolic for the
three together.
"Just think of it," the elder lady broke
out suddenly, "suppose the Lord Himself
should advertise, 'To Let Unfurnished, a
Soul!' What a chance! Katharine, I've
about made up my mind that I shall apply."
Mrs. Dana laughed a little, but rather
reverently, at this way of putting it. She
stopped to kiss the little Rosalie, and hold
her
very tight, as she unbuttoned the wee
pink shoes and pulled off the soft, woolly
stockings. For what if Baby should ever
know what it is to be homeless and friend-
less, an unclaimed estray that nobody
owned!
"And how will you do it?" said she.
"I don't-quite-see," was the answer,
1
A Blossoming.
277
slowly and thoughtfully given; "help me
think."
Baby laughed and crowed; the flannels
were presently dropped off like rose-petals,
and they played Peep! with the ruffled
white night-gown over her head.
Then Mrs. Dana was ready to speak
again.
"I don't know but this pink-and-white
baby of mine is the first thing for you
to put into that 'unfurnished soul,' Hilda
dear. What do you think?"
"What! because Rosalie's nurse-girl is
going to leave? My dear child, if you
think my protégé would be trustworthy
enough, it's the very thing!
(6
""
Well, to tell the truth, I did shiver a
little over that," answered Mrs. Dana, cud-
dling the child, "but we must teach her to
be, and if it proves that she is not capable
278
Seven Easter Lilies.
of being so taught, then we will find
another place for her."
"I know it is a good deal to undertake,"
Miss Applethwaite resumed, "but it seems
cruel to leave a frail, defenceless young
thing to any chance handling. If care,
and time, and patience, can fill the mind,
so empty now, with goodly furniture,
oughtn't I to be willing? Isn't it my
part?"
Thus the real decision was made, and
Meg came to help take care of Baby
Rosalie, who continued to call her Margie,
the name which she had learned to call
her former nurse.
It is doubtful if the girl had ever loved
anything until now, but the baby won her
heart, or rather won her to know she had
a heart, just as easily as she could make
her playthings obedient. It only took a
A Blossoming.
279
few innocent smiles, after a little baby shy-
ness, some half-intelligible cooing, a trick
of throwing kisses, and Rosalie had made.
one more devoted slave.
That was the best of beginnings, and,
after careful, patient teaching, and watch-
ing very gentle, but at first close and not
a little anxious, the two ladies were quite
convinced their charge would in the end
repay their painstaking and forbearance.
The doctor had said, on her leaving the
hospital, that she might never be quite like
other people, but her devotion to her baby
charge, her loving, grateful ways, and the
advances which she made in comprehend-
ing and learning, made her teachers as
really happy as is the sculptor when he
sees the plastic clay take in his hands the
form or expression which he chooses it
shall assume.
280
Seven Easter Lilies.
By degrees some memories of her old
life returned, but she seemed to remember
it as one does a dream. Only when the
baby's lily blossomed she grew strangely
excited, and from that time commenced to
talk, but not often, of "her flower," and of
the "Still Man." She could describe
enough to show that her situation had
been both poor and painful, and they
encouraged her to forget it all, and begin
anew.
When Mrs. Dana found how music de-
lighted her, she saw that the discovery
would be a great help in the educating
and training which they had undertaken.
From the time when she began to teach
Margie cradle songs and simple hymn-
tunes, Margie's real life seemed to begin,
and thence to develop steadily, just as it
had wakened first from its dormant state,
A Blossoming.
281
at sight of the dimly-remembered flower.
She seemed now to adopt the lily, just
as she did the baby, to be a special object
of love and care.
It was just after sunset. The day had
been rainy, but late in the afternoon the
clear shining had returned after the storm,
and the sky was full of tranquil color that
lingered yet, as Mrs. Dana coming in from
a walk pushed open the door gently, for
the room was very still, and betokened that
baby must be asleep.
She saw a pretty picture against the
pale yellow sky which showed through the
window. Rosalie had tired of all her play-
things, and begged with baby caprice for
the great white thing in the window, till
Margie had moved up close beside it, and
let the small pink fingers draw the lily
down to lie next to the child's soft cheek
282
Seven Easter Lilies.
on Margie's shoulder. Thus Rosalie had
dropped contentedly off to sleep, and the
loving nurse was softly crooning over her,
When He cometh, when He cometh,
To make up his jewels,
Like the stars of the morning-
The mother stepped in noiselessly. If
Margie had noticed tears in her eyes as
she bent to kiss the baby, she would not
have known why they were there.
"Even so," was the unspoken thought
which prompted them; "my baby's wee
weak hand by its unconscious clinging
helps us to save for the King this lily that
might have been trampled in the mire.”
The Beauty of the Lilies.
283
CHAPTER X.
D
THE BEAUTY OF THE LILIES.
The Lord into His garden comes;
The spices yield a rich perfume.
OLD HYMN.
MRS. DANA guided the baby's hand to
cut from her own plant the lily, and place
it in the vase before papa's picture.
For again it was Easter Sunday. The
church bells rang out joyfully through the
softened air, and the mellow sunshine that
had come back again. Each brazen
tongue shouted in its own key, the same
Alleluia! and the sweet-voiced, strong-
voiced chimes played their loveliest tunes.
Again in the holy places among the rest-
ful shadows, and the purple, scarlet, yellow
lights, slanting from the stained windows
284
Seven Easter Lilies.
like reflections of those precious stones
which build the walls of Heaven, blos-
somed wondrously the glistening lilies of
white and gold.
Many a little child marvelled that day,
awe-struck, at the deep, glad, tumultuous
thunder of the great organ, pealing
Glorias with such rapture and triumph.
The child thinks the organ a grand and
mysterious thing,- a being to be reverent
of; and so he is. Elsie could scarcely
get over yet the thoughts she had had of
him as a child. Perhaps they were nearer
like this than she would have recognized:
I know the Organ is a living thing;
He speaks on Sundays when they sing,
And meditates with a patient mind
On the thoughts the people have left behind,
Thousands and thousands in their breath,
Though the church is empty, and still as death.
I should like to creep into the church at night,
And visit him there, alone in his might,
The Beauty of the Lilies.
285
When the moon through the picture-window gleams,
And paints the wonderful creature's dreams.
Sometimes, when I sit and look at him,
My heart beats thick, and the church grows dim !
He speaks: I look at the pipes on his face,
And I think he will move, move, move from his place;
And I think the roof of the church will rise;
The cold floor shakes with fear as it lies;
My body seems to have lost its weight -
We all shall float, like clouds to the skies,
When the beautiful Organ comes marching down,
And the church will be larger than any town ;
For his voice is a lifting voice, and great;
The voice of a creature that moves on straight,
Like a driving light in awful dream,
Or a ghostly ship on a ghostly stream.
To-day the eager, restless Firefly, Elsie,
was there, so sorry that she was ever
thoughtless and selfish, and wishing hum-
bly that she could be fit to come there in
company with the lilies. Yet she did not
go away unblest; penitence, simple humil-
ity, honest begging before Him have a
sweet perfume to the Master of the Feast.
It is the very "beauty of the lilies."
286
Seven Easter Lilies.
When Elsie went home she found a
white box in her room. Under its cover
lay flowers delicately arranged, and a white
note said:
DEAR LILY BEARER:
The blossoms are sent lovingly for Easter sign and greeting,
and gladly to say, we think the lilies begin to show every day
in your life.
YOUR NEIGHBORS.
This was Margie's first Sunday in a
church, and though much of the service
was incomprehensible to her, still the
music and the flowers left a lovely picture
in her mind that never faded out, while
the kind hearts beside her, seeing clearer,
felt a glad thrill, in spite of the work and
the waiting yet to come, that here was the
"lost piece of silver," brought into His
own house for the Master to look upon.
And Thou wilt uplift it and make it re-shine,
For it was silver, pure silver of Thine,
they entreated, believingly.
The Beauty of the Lilies.
287
Little lame Eunice waited, after service,
just to feel Mrs. Dana's bright smile, and
Miss Applethwaite's warm hand. She
knew they would be glad, with her, to
know that her mother and father could
bring her to church to-day from the hos-
pital.
"Oh! everybody is so kind that I think
I must know better than to think the good
God will forget me ever again," whispered
Eunice, trying to thank these thoughtful
friends for the Easter flowers they had
(6
that morning sent her. They make me
so happy," she said, "and I'm going back
to make them reach round as far as I can,
mother, and all the sick people,
besides
you know.”
"Would she never forget again?" won-
dered Mrs. Dana's gentle heart, as she
smiled on little Eunice, so truly "a willing
288
Seven Easter Lilies.
shiner" in her shady place. It is a won-
derful and a beautiful thing that the great
Teacher never gets out of patience, but,
as over and over we forget a lesson, over
and over picks it up, as it were, and teaches
it to us again, that we may know it by
heart in the end.
Why were there tears on Ruth Ritter's
face, and why was her mother not at her
side, as usual? The business throve well
now. Even the pressing and selling of
the ivy fern had yielded them more than
their modest hopes for the whole Window
Woods had been at its beginning. Ruth,
nowadays, seemed always well, cheerful,
and full of really useful industries and
ingenuities. Mrs. Ritter was happy be-
cause her children were so, for Conrad,
too, had grown genial and cheerful, with
his interest in rustic work and gardening
*
The Beauty of the Lilies. 289
books, and all the inventive devices which
helped them to prosper. What could be
the trouble?
An anxious look was all the question
Ruth needed. She explained, speaking
low and hastily, lest Conrad should hear.
At last they had heard from the father.
He had written to say that he was suffer-
ing for money. If they would send him a
little he would never trouble them by join-
ing them, and he carefully hid the place
of his abode.
"It has made mother quite sick," said
Ruth faintly, “but she begged me to leave
her alone, and not to spoil Conrad's Easter
by telling him till to-morrow. Oh! isn't it
hard to be patient? Isn't it hard to wait
so long? And only this, after it all!"
"But try to be patient, still," answered
the lady, with that loving pressure of sym-
290
Seven Easter Lilies.
pathy which one meant when he said, "The
"I
touch of a friendly hand is Heaven."
have a word to send you, by and by. Wait
for that."
It was the first balm which the poor,
heart-sore wife could feel in this new prob-
ing of an old, deep wound, when there
came to Ruth the dear, human-faced, up-
looking pansies, the English violets, and the
wee, modest, crimson-tipped
daisies, with the note which accompanied
them, in Mrs. Dana's handwriting:
"This is the word I have found for you;
is it not one you can believe?
Be true to Love! Doth it delay?
Still let thy soul be calm and strong;
Who wrongeth love her soul doth wrong
Have patience! it is on its way I
O friend, what if the years be flown -
Eternity is Love's estate !
The loving heart hath time to wait,
And love will yet reward its own.
The Beauty of the Lilies. 291
"Take heart, dear Ruth.
ers remind you again this
Easter lily's patience."
Let
Let my flow-
Easter of the
Where was Ben? The friends who had
known of Letty's last days had not for-
gotten her grave with its one mourner, and
themselves had twined the white wreath
and the green garlanding which Ben had
received at their hands this morning. He
had gone to carry it there, and leave it
where she was sleeping.
In the afternoon they had asked him to
go with them to the Mission. He must
feel lonesome, indeed, on this Easter Day,
without Letty. And Easter Sunday is the
day of all days when we feel brave to speak
of hope and comfort to the bereaven, when
we are surest of that "glorious resurrec
tion" which it typifies.
Donald's teacher remembered to ask,
>
Seven Easter Lilies.
292
after school, whether he had ever heard
from the stolen lily.
Donald had not.
"But you don't hate the beggar-girl,
now, I think?" spoken so gently the boy
could not do otherwise than answer,
((
No, ma'am ;" and his bright eyes looked
clear and certain.
"I'm pretty sure you feel better not
to?" was the reply, and in the same kindly
tone of voice.
Donald did not drop his eyes from the
lady's face, though he was silent because,
boy-like, it was not his usual way to talk
answers so much as question. In spite of
his silence, though, he was owning to him-
self that it did make a fellow feel a good
deal more of a man.
He was a good deal more of a man.
Nothing can make one meaner, bitterer,
The Beauty of the Lilies. 293
madder than a cherished hate. Miss Ap-
plethwaite knew. She looked pleased.
"I've sent you another lily," she said;
you will find it at home, and I just want
to give you the same sweet old watchword
for you to keep day by day remembering
with it only Love, just Love, Donald.
'Love is enough.'
And Donald understood her meaning so
much better now! They were all begin-
ning to learn about this same Love in his
home!
Hilda, away up in Balsam, had had her
wish. Her lily had blossomed at last.
The young bud was so much like a young
leaf, too, that for a long while she did not
know it for a bud at all. It was a fair
illustration of many a welcome and long-
watched-for gift or grace which in the end
"cometh not with observation." Besides
You
294
Seven Easter Lilies.
this lily, Hilda had a box of exquisite
flowers to rejoice over, sent as an Easter
greeting from Axis.
With tender care the earnest young girl
had arranged a few of these in the Clover
Room, carrying the rest to the village
church.
Nothing in my hands I bring.
This heartful line of the Hymn Beauti-
ful was in Hilda's mind as she sat with the
face of a little child in her place the next
day.
She was not satisfied with herself; she
did not dream how the lilies of peace ·
and purity, of faith, and hope, and love,
were budding in her simple girl-life. But
she was not restless nor impatient against
herself.
She remembered the great Love over all
The Beauty of the Lilies. 295
which condescended to accept even such
little simple blossoms as a child could
gather, little simple blossoms all mixed
with leaves, even.
"Let us count our lilies," said Miss Ap-
plethwaite.
Sitting together at nightfall, they spoke
of Donald and his home; then they talked
of the sleeping baby, and of the wakened
mother; of little Letty, and how the Heav-
enly Father had kept her neglected heart
pure for Himself, as He so easily keeps
the lilies "unspotted from the world,"
wherever in it they may chance to be
growing.
They planned for that small white stone.
which it had been decided to-day that Ben
had saved enough to buy.
"With a lily on it," the brother always
stipulated.
2.96
Seven Easter Lilies.
An open letter lay near Miss Apple-
thwaite. It was a letter from Hilda,
marked, "To be read Easter Day." There
were only a few simple, grateful words
about the gift of last Easter, and these
verses. They knew how much it had cost
her shrinking diffidence to send them this
token.
(C
Read them aloud, dear," said Miss Ap-
plethwaite, running her eye over the neat-
ly-written lines, "for you give a charm to
whatever you read, beside its own."
So Mrs. Dana complied:
Christ hath took in this piece of ground
And made a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wounds.
The tomb within a garden was
— HERBERT.
Where swift, out-running John,
With Peter following, early came;
Where Mary heard One call her name,
As there she wept her heart away.-
"O that I had been there that day!"
The Beauty of the Lilies.
297
:
I heard a listening young Child say.
Dear Child, you may be there, you may !
That fragrant Garden-piece is barred,
Its beauties closed, its gates shut hard,
No guileless, wistful heart upon.
One lovely day in every seven
We walk in the King's Garden;
When its East Gate all burnished swings,
We leave all common, craving things;
Loom, needle, axe of week day toil,
The noise, the whirl, the grime and soil;
Till shuts the emblazoned Western Gate
We lingering stay, we joyful wait,
And walk in the King's Garden.
Sometimes we come with haggard eyes,
Our hearts how sick, how sore!
The King some comforting surprise
Has ready wherein cordial lies
For healing herbs there spicy grow,
And flowers most rare and ripe fruits glow;
He there lifts off all weights; the poor
He feeds; and bids the shamed ill-doer
Go free, and sin no more.
But in its lily season most
Is the King's Garden fair;
Then holy Easter Day is here
And for the humble and sincere
298
Seven Easter Lilies.
Its snow-white lilies thickly shine!
"And might I have one flower for mine?
Yes, Child; and there thou mayest bear,
Where all dare, this, thine offered prayer:
Lord, let Thy Garden's wondrous bloom
So fill my garments with perfume
I bear it everywhere !
There was another note to read, for
Ruth would not rest till she had sent some
sign of gratefulness to Mrs. Dana, — dear,
earnest, helpful Ruth, and she had writ-
ten it so lovingly that it was very sweet to
the receiver.
She wrote at the end, so like a little
child:
"I will wait; I will be patient. At any
rate, I will try."
"What more could she?" thought the
reader.
The impulsive Firefly could not delay
till Monday either; and so, actuated by
the impelling force of her nature, had run
The Beauty of the Lilies. 299
in to bring kisses to pay for the flowers, a
tear or two before she knew it, and thanks
out of her warm little heart.
"I love you dearly, and I do truly mean
to be good and water my lily better," she
said.
After which Elsie fluttered away, rest-
lessly, as she had come.
To-night that picture before the best-
loved face lifted up another spotless lily.
No one knew whence it had come. It had
been left at the door by a stranger, with
only these words on the cover of its white
box:
"An Easter lily, in memory of my bene-
factor, Gerald Dana."
As, talking over all these things, and
wondering anew about the stranger's gift,
they heard Margie crooning over motherly
lullabies to lovely Baby Rosalie, they said
300
Seven Easter Lilies.
softly to each other, with pure and sweet
delight, -
The old hymn words have come true
for us,
The lilies grow and thrive."
And thus, in the hush of that holy festi-
val day, the Beloved went down into His
garden to gather lilies.
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and beautiful double lithograph cover.
The
OUR LITTLE MEN AND WOMEN, 1886. Quarto, illuminated
cover, $1.50; cloth, $2.00.
A notable feature of this attractive annual is the large number of full-page
pictures, seventy-four in all, two printed in colors, in addition to nearly two
hundred smaller illustrations. The text is designed for the delight and infor-
mation of youngest readers.
BABYLAND, '86, Boards, 75 cents; cloth, $1.00.
This beautiful annual for the nursery is radiant with pictures of bonny baby-
life. Its bewitching little stories, its merry jingles and charming pictures
make it a never-ceasing delight.
LITTLE FOLKS' ART BOOK. Double lithograph covers in nine
colors by H. Bencke. $1.00.
Pen-and-ink drawings prepared for the children by George Foster Barnes,
M. J. Sweeney, W. P. Bodfish and J. E. Francis. The delight of the nur-
sery and the drawing-room; while the designs tempt the little people to copy
them, thus inciting to early practice with pencils and crayons, the wit of the
conceptions certainly amuse and greatly entertain the older members of the
family.
!

812 B172
os
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UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
812B172 OS
Baker, Ella Maria, 1848-1884.
Seven Easter lilies.
3 1951 002 096 895 G
WILSON
ANNEX
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MEMORIAL DRIVE, ROCHESTER, NEW YORK 14623
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PRODUCED BY GRAPHIC ARTS RESEARCH CENTER