THREE SISTERS OF THE WILDERNESS
OLLY'S room was done in soft pinks and lavenders and greens, with a creamy foundation. And this color scheme, developing with luminous unobtrusiveness along walls and curtains, creeping behind the white woodwork, and emerging subdued—the symphony’s andante—from the stained floor and the rugs, made you think of a pastel by some famous artist whose name I can’t remember just now. Yet it had all been accomplished by Molly’s mother, working with the enthusiasm of a bower bird ever since Molly came into the world, to make the world lovely as far as her hands could reach; and her slow, careful toil had brought such comfort, together with such harmony of color and line, to all the rooms of the doctor’s suite, that Molly’s environment wore an air of extreme prosperity and expense which caused Molly’s father to be rated as well to do far beyond the facts.
But the final crown of all the skill of Molly’s mother was the lovely gown that she had just spread out upon bed,—a party gown, a gray wonder with a flush of violet and a tiny flame of green worked in mysteriously. Tonight was Molly’s first great ball. And the gown was done, all done. Molly’s mother looked down at it peacefully, holding her sore left forefinger to her lips; for it was as rough as sandpaper from the embroidery she had just finished. But she smiled and hummed a little tune, one of the lullabys with which she had been used to put Molly to sleep years before; for she knew that, while her work was as good as any other dressmaker’s whose wares would be exhibited at that ball, the girl who was to wear it would beyond doubt be more beautiful than any other there.
They Talked Strangely Among Themselves.
A maid brought in a florist’s box. When Sidney had consulted her about the flowers, she had said that violets would go best with Molly’s eyes. She took off the wrappings and read Sidney’s card thoughtfully; then with an odd flicker of a smile she smelt of it. Disinfectants are terribly penetrating, and if they are in constant use in your daily work you can hardly be expected to keep them out of your merely social affairs: they follow as unhappy memories do or Black Care behind the horseman.
For all odors are the words of a language, and just as violets mean girls like Molly, so the breath of poor Sidney’s card meant the dreadful hospital cleanliness of pain and death. And, more than that, to Molly’s mother it meant a man not young and enthusiastic like Sidney, but an older man, overworked and weary and saddened, with heart a little calloused by the ceaseless tapping upon it of Sorrow’s fingertips,—a soldier who every day, all his life, must go down into the field against the pale horseman, whose sword often and often must be out of its scabbard all night long. Had she not helped him forth when his eyes were set in black disks of fatigue, and his face was as yellow as parchment, and his tongue stumbled as with wine?
But—Molly and Sidney—would it do? When Sidney began to be bowed by the great discouragements of that journey, when he was old before his time, and let his weariness appear at home, and kept his cheer and strength for his sick people abroad—would it do? Could Molly stand it? She looked about at Molly’s lovely room and stroked Molly’s lovely gown. Could Molly do—the sort of things that Molly s mother had done to make home sweet to a mortally tired man?
Molly came in. It was early in spring, and the air was keen and sweet. Her cheeks should have been finely red; but they were pale instead, and the light in her eyes was that of trouble and unrest.
“I’ve been down with the Settlement girls,’ said Molly.
Molly’s mother put Sidney Matthew’s card back among the violets and laid the box in Molly’s lap. Molly took up the card unsmiling.
“Did you see his little verse?” asked Molly’s mother as the girl was replacing the card without looking at its back.
“If a star could be a violet too.
And a violet a star,
I’d know a thing more like your eyes
Than just poor violets are. “
The shadow of a dimple flashed at her mouth corner. “Poor Sid!” said she. “I don’t see how he can spend his time on such nonsense.” She put the box aside indifferently and sat down on the bed without noticing the pale folds of the party gown. Indeed, it was only by quick foresight that her mother rescued a corner of it from being sat upon. She loved every stitch of that gown.
“I’ve been down with the Settlement girls,” said Molly again. “They were telling me—things.’
Molly’s mother sat very still, looking down at her locked hands. For the hands of a gentlewoman they seemed rather work roughened. “What things, Sweetheart?” she said at last, as Molly kept silent, staring with eyes that did not see at the little gray suede slippers that stood beside the long gray gloves on her dressing table.
“Things that I knew only the names of before,—about children in the slums, about little girls who have no care, about poverty and wickedness of all kinds, and what it’s like when people are cold and hungry.’
“Those are very terrible things,” said Molly’s mother.
“They were only words in the dictionary before,” said Molly; “but I know more now of what they mean. I saw some of the people—I rather think I’ll be a trained nurse, and do district work,” said Molly.
“You would feel like that,” said Molly’s mother, “of course.”
“Mother! You know about all the dreadfulness of the world, and yet you go around as jolly as anything, pottering—yes, forgive me. Only after learning what I’ve learned today it seems wicked to have a dear, contented home like ours, to spend time on—on embroidery.”
Molly’s mother touched her roughened finger to her lips as though it hurt.
“Embroidery, and all the little, tiny, everyday things of the house—”
“Does it seem so, Dear?”
“Oh, Mother, there was a girl there who had never had a chance. Miss Wayte was talking to her as I came in. They are going to do something for her; but she must die. Her poor face with the paint upon it, her poor high heeled shoes all run over at the side, her nervous laugh and pathetic slang—and she was younger than I!”
“And what then, my darling?”
“What then? I have seen this poor, wicked, dying thing— Wicked? Who am I to say so, who have been sheltered and petted all my life, while she was caught like a mouse and tortured as a mouse is by a cat? What could she do? And you say ‘What then?’ Why—then —am I to put on my pretty new gown tonight and my new slippers and my gloves and Sid’s violets, and dance? What right has one to be happy in such a world? And there were others. A little, thin, one-legged boy,—oh, such eyes, Mother!—and a poor Italian woman whose husband had been killed,—she had a week-old baby in her shawl,—and others. How can I dance tonight? Shall one dance on graves?”
“If there were no other place to dance,” said Molly’s mother very quietly.
“There is no other place, and one should not dance at all!” said Molly wildly. “Violets, verses to my eyes, and a Mother and Daddy to run my errands and smooth off every rough corner for me—why should I have all these things? I won’t live that way any longer! I must do something!” and she cried very hard with her face in her mother’s lap.
I’LL tell you a story,” said Molly’s mother, “a fairy story. Pretend you’re little again and I’m rocking you to sleep. You were so very little once,—do you remember?—so very little, and now so tall!”
“Once upon a time,” said Molly’s mother, “there were three sisters, Princesses. In fairy stories the three sisters always are Princesses, aren’t they? And they lived in a palace on a Hill just above a Wilderness.
“It was a very dreadful Wilderness—you know Dore’s dismal pictures ? Like that, with quicksands and odors of decay and monsters,—things that were cruel because they liked cruelty, and stupid creatures that knew no better. People lived there too. Many of them did not mind; perhaps some even liked it. But others stayed only because they didn’t know how to get out.
“The people on the Hill used to have their washing done there; in fact, all the rough work of the Hill people was done there as a matter of course.
“‘Civilization,’ the Hill people said, ‘is without doubt the most important thing m the world; but naturally it takes a great deal of work to keep it up properly. That is what these Wilderness people are for. How, for instance, could we dress for dinner if nobody ironed our shirts? We work too; just as hard as they, but in a different way. We work with our heads instead of our hands—at least some of us do. That is—’
“‘How perfectly beautiful the sunsets are over beyond the Wilderness! If it weren’t for the mists, you could see the Delectable Mountains tonight.’
“‘If the swamp were drained, we shouldn’t have these mists and could see the Delectable Mountains every evening.’
"I'm Going Down! I Can't Stand It Any Longer!"
“‘That’s true. ‘Twould almost be worth the price, wouldn’t it? We’ll have to take up the matter soon. Shall we have our coffee on the terrace?’
“‘Oh, dear, no! The mosquitos are so thick! Besides, the—the crying—’
“For the crying of the little children could be clearly heard by the people in the palaces. Some of them complained, saying that it kept them awake at night; but others said, ‘Nonsense! Why don’t you close the windows on that side of the house? All children cry.’
“Still, those whom it troubled were sure that these children cried more than they ought; certainly more than the Hill children ever did. They thought something ought to be done.
“But in the main the Hill people had very little to trouble them. The air was fresh and clear, and the lawns stretched mile on mile like green velvet, and everybody had plenty to eat and great gardens full of flowers, and the children always played. Nobody dreamed of letting them work. They said that work was not good for little children. Yet—in the Wilderness —but that was different, of course.
“There were some men and women, however, who did not close their windows on the Wilderness side, and had not such a cultivated taste for sunsets that they were able to disregard the annoyances of the swamp. And they kept on listening and worrying, until they said, ‘This is unendurable! If the Wilderness is as old as the race, then it is older than it should he, and the race is too old to endure such folly any longer!’ and they went down, and drained swamps, and fought with beasts and worse, and saved little children, and let in light and air where men and women were working.
“But they grew very tired, and the Wilderness was bigger and wilder than they thought, and—they died. But there were a few little patches of wholesome, firm land where they had drained the swamps, and some of the monsters were dead.
“It was so little, though, that the people on the Hill hardly realized that any work had been done at all. They were still annoyed by the mosquitos. ‘We must under-drain the whole tract, cut down the jungle, and make a park there,’ they said, as they drank their after dinner coffee and cognac on the terraces. But if any were present of those who had been down there themselves, they shook their heads silently.
THESE three sister Princesses talked a great deal among themselves as they sat by their window at sunset.
“‘That morass is as black and wide as the ocean,’ said the eldest, ‘and you can no more make an impression on it than on the ocean. I’m not going to sit here any more. I shall take a room on the other side of the palace, and attend to the matters that belong to my own life.’
“The second one wrung her hands and wept. ‘I’m going down—I’m going down! I can’t stand it any longer!’ And without changing her delicate gown and her satin slippers she rushed away, crying hysterically, to see what good she could do. They tried to stop her; but could not. People who really want to go down there can seldom be stopped. It is enchantment.
“So the eldest one took her suite of rooms toward the east where the morning light cheerful. and she practised her music, and embroidered, and entertained her friends, and was very happy. And by and by a most delightful Prince came and married her, and they moved to a place quite out of hearing of the Wilderness—and I suppose they were happy ever after.
“The poor unhappy Princess who had gone down to help was rescued by the people she had gone to save, and brought home; but she was quite ill and weak, and when she got back her strength she cut off her hair and put a veil upon her head and went into a cloister to pray that other people might do the things she had wanted to do and couldn’t. So only the youngest sister was alone with the old King. Once he came upon her sitting at the western window, and saw the tears in her eyes.
“‘Wouldn’t you like to read in my books?’ he asked. ‘Books are an excellent antidote.’ But the sound of the Wilderness was very distressing that evening. It was hot weather. And that is bad for little children. The Princess shook her head.
“I was thinking of going down,” she said.
“Oh, don’t do that! Now, whatever you do, don’t do that!’ said her father, and went hastily away.
“Nevertheless, she rose and folded away her embroidery, and was thinking about what things it would be best to pack in her suitcase, when a Prince was announced. She had known him for quite awhile, and that he had it in mind to go down himself. Now he had come to say goodby. He was greatly troubled when she thought of going down there herself.
“‘Oh!’ said he. ‘And I was thinking I should have you to come back to—’
“She sat down again to think that over; for she always respected other people’s opinions as much as her own. And the Prince I began to tell all about his plans. It was noticeable that he said very little about being sorry for the Wilderness people. Neither did he tell how much good his work was going to do everybody. No; he was interested in a particularly vicious Giant who lived in one of the worst places, snaky and slimy—and ill smelling. A great many men young and old were already fighting him, and the Prince wanted to join them—if he could win to such an honor. He talked about it in much the way she had heard other Princes discuss polo. He called it ‘specializing.’
“‘You would do a great deal of good,’ said the Princess, taking out her embroidery again; for she never liked to be idle.
“‘I believe,’ said he, ‘that in another ten years we can rid the earth of him.’
“‘You will have to work very hard,’ said she.
“‘Yes,’ said he, ‘work hard, and die poor—and it’s said to be hard on your wife.’
“‘Then—your wife—her work would count—’
“‘I could do double, I think, with you,’ said he.
“And when the old King came in—for he was worried about what the Princess had said of going down to the Wilderness, and was going to argue it with her—he found the two kissing just like any other lovers.
“So,” the kind voice lingered sighingly at this part of the allegory as though to stay for a moment the passing of some evanescent thing, a sunrise, a flight of falling spring petals, “so they were married. For a little while I’m afraid they forgot about the Wilderness. It seemed as if the Hill people were right,—that the best thing to do was just to keep on making all the Hill part of the world as perfect as possible. But they : soon found out that it wouldn’t do, at least for them. Why—” she laughed softly and abruptly left her allegory at loose ends.
MY dear, we meant to go round the world for our wedding trip; but when we were on the steamer, in the middle of the very first week, he left me and my seasickness to the stewardess and spent his time trotting around after one of the stewards whom he had spotted as an interesting ‘case.’ I was deathly ill; but he had seen too much real sickness to be in the least worried. I was on my back feeling that I should like to die, and the steward, but for a face like yellow wax, seemed as well as anybody. But—they put the poor man in a hospital at Antwerp. And your father to this day has no idea how cross I was about his neglect; for I held my tongue until he came back from seeing his ‘case’ to the cot that he would never leave alive. I had been crying all alone in the dismal hotel when he came in.
“‘Well,’ said he, ‘that’s over. Poor fellow! But we’ll get the best of it, some day—any day may bring something tangible. See how Lister has upset things!’ For, you see, my dear, we were just coming out of prehistoric surgery then, even so short a time ago as that. And he went on to talk of his work. He had not even looked at my face. He took me so for granted, don’t you see? And as—as he talked, my silly anger all withered up and blew away, so that when he finally did come over and tell me how pretty I way looking, and all the other nice things, I had learned my lesson—and I rather pride myself that I haven’t had to learn it since. It wasn’t easy.
“You know a little about your father’s fame. Younger men—men like Sid—are taking his place now; but they will always respect him for his pioneer work, even when his theories are overturned and superseded, as he says quite calmly that they soon will be. But, my dear, he says, when he has time to think and speak of such things, that but for me he couldn’t have done it. You know how many operations he has done; but have you any idea how they exhaust him, how hard I have tried to have everything here at home restful for him, how I have fought to get him leisure when I knew he had used his last ounce of strength? There are men of such amazing physique that they could go through it all alone; but Daddy isn’t one of them. He—he needs all I’ve done; he needs the—the pretty things. It—it isn’t just pottering, Deary—” and suddenly Molly’s mother put her rough little hands over her eyes and began to cry.
MOTHER,” cried out Molly, “I never meant —oh, that I should have said such a thing!” But before she could begin to cry too her mother was laughing and kissing her.
“It was only,” said Molly,—”oh, you don’t think I don’t appreciate the lovely dress, and everything—oh—”
He Was Greatly Troubled over Her Thought.
“My dear,’ said Molly’s mother, “haven’t I been telling you how I felt just so, before you—how I thought I must do something? Ah, Dear—I was thinking before you came in! I was afraid you were going to be like your Aunt Rachel,—the eldest Princess, you know, who went to the other side of the house. She—wants you to go to her for the London season. She wants to find a title for you—and would probably succeed.”
Molly and her mother laughed together with the disdain of the wise for a thing too foolish for serious discussion.
“And then when you came in, so wild with sudden pity for the things you had seen, I remembered poor Aunt Jenny at her prayers, and I hardly knew which would hurt me most, to see you in a coronet or a veil. But—oh, my dear—the woman’s way—the old, old woman’s way—it isn’t easy! Many, many days the burden of my life has been greater than it seemed I could bear. Do you realize that you were sick a good deal when you were a baby? To have one’s own little, little baby suffering and growing weaker—to be alone with your sick baby, and not be able to let your husband know, because he was saving somebody’s life by a hair’s breadth— You don’t think my life is easier than—district nursing, for example, do you?”
“Mother,” said Molly in a small voice, “may I put it on?”
While her mother with a glowing face was hooking it up the back, Molly held the violets to her nose and read the scrawled verse a great many times:
If a star could be a violet too—
“What perfect nonsense!” said she; but that did not seem to be exactly what she meant.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1955, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 68 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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