Up the Sunbeams

by Katherine Merritte Snyder Yates

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By Katherine M. Yates

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Davis & Bond
Publishers
Boston

A book hath more of the reader than of the writer between its covers. See that thou dost find good within thy books.

 

Up the Sunbeams

In which Marjorie learns how to see folks as they really are, and why she should "judge not."

Up the Sunbeams

Katherine M. Yates

 

 

Davis & Bond · Boston

Copyright, 1916, by
Katherine M. Yates

To
three Ruths, whom
I love

Up the Sunbeams

"OH, oh, oh, dear!" exclaimed Marjorie, and she struggled awake and sat up, breathing hard and rubbing her eyes rapidly.

"What's the matter?" asked the Dream, who sat on the footboard as usual, swinging his feet.

"Oh, it was the horridest nightmare!" and Marjorie shuddered. "Just about the worst one that I ever had."

"Was it worse than the time that the tea-cup chased you?"

"Oh, yes, it was. A million times worse."

"It must have been a beauty," said the Dream. "What was it all about?"

Marjorie brushed her hair back and blinked her eyes a good many times, looking about rather anxiously. "I wish I could see somebody," she said.

"Well, here am I," said the Dream, pointing a small brown finger at his breast and grinning.

"But you won't do," said Marjorie. "You always look just any way that you happen to, and I want to see somebody real and see her look pleasant things at me, so that I will know that the nightmare is gone."

"Well, tell me about it, and we'll see whether it is gone or not."

Marjorie folded her hands and began. "Well, you see, I thought that I was in a beautiful valley—oh, the most beautiful valley in the whole world—and there were big shady trees, and a little stream with waterfalls, and great boulders that the water splashed around, and flowers growing everywhere; and there were people all about, some of them working and some of them sitting in the shade and talking or reading, and the children were having the happiest time, romping about and wading or reading or making pretty things with their fingers. But the loveliest part was that the people were all beautiful—oh, the most beautiful people that I ever saw."

"How?" asked the Dream. "What were they like?"

Marjorie thought for a moment. "Well," she said, "I don't know that I can describe any of them; I don't seem to remember what sort of hair or forms or clothes they had,—it didn't seem to be that. I guess that it was the smile back of their eyes, and their voices, and the gentle, strong way that they did things. Anyway, I thought that I had never seen such lovely people; and everything that they did was kind; whether they worked together or played together or only sat by themselves, you just felt the kindness and the helpfulness and the lovingness of them."

"What an awful nightmare!" commented the Dream.

"Wait," said Marjorie, "I haven't got to the awful part yet. While I was standing there watching them and loving them, a man came up behind me—he didn't come from among them—and when I turned around and saw him, it made me jump, he looked so different. At first I didn't know what made him so different; but after a moment I saw it was his spectacles. They were such ugly spectacles!"

"How were they ugly?"

"Why," said Marjorie, "I don't know; but they just seemed hateful and sarcastic and selfish; and seemed to draw his mouth and wrinkle his forehead and to give his whole face a sort of critical and ill-natured expression. I turned away right off, but he came around in front of me and smiled with his crooked mouth and he said: 'I'm going to give you a present.'

"'I don't want it,' I said. I didn't want anything that such a man would have.

"'Yes,' he said, 'I'm going to give you some glasses like mine,' and before I could do a thing, he had clapped a pair of them right over my eyes and slipped the string that was on them down over my hair.

"I was so angry that I didn't know what to say and I reached up to take them off; but just then I happened to glance over the valley, and oh, it was dreadful! All of those beautiful people had become ugly. The smile had gone from their eyes, their foreheads were puckered, and their mouths looked hard and unkind; everything that they did was jerky and fretful. They looked at each other as if there wasn't room enough in the valley for them all, and each one wanted all of the rest to get out; and they all looked suspicious and put away the things that they cared for, for fear that some one would take them; and the children stopped playing together and divided off into little groups and began fussing among themselves.

"At first I couldn't understand it, and just stood staring at them and wondering how anything so awful could happen so suddenly; and all at once I happened to think that it must be my spectacles that was the matter and not the people at all, because they had all come to look exactly like the spectacles that the man wore. I was so glad that I laughed right out and reached up to take the glasses off; but the string had caught in my hair and I couldn't get it loose. I tried and tried and it got tangled worse and worse all the time and pulled my hair dreadfully. I turned around to ask the man to help me, but he was gone. I kept on working and tugging, and once I got one side lifted a little, so that I could catch a glimpse of the valley, and I saw that I was right,—that the trouble was all with the glasses; for the people were just as lovely and sweet and kind as they were before; and then I tried harder than ever to get the miserable spectacles off; but they fell back tighter over my eyes and I couldn't loosen them anyway I tried.

"And after that I went pretty nearly crazy. I thought that I would have to wear those dreadful things forever and ever, and I couldn't break them and I couldn't tear them off, and I struggled and struggled and—and then I waked up."

"Whew!" said the Dream. "That was a pretty tough one!"

"It certainly was," said Marjorie. "What made you bring me anything like that? You must have known all about it before I told you."

The Dream looked at her with his head on one side and his mouth pursed up. "Well," he said, "it wasn't pleasant; but sometimes folks learn things from experiences that are not exactly pleasant."

"But can't they learn just as well from pleas—ant ones?"

"Perhaps they can, but it isn't always that they will."

"Well, what did I learn from that?"

"How do I know?"

Marjorie sat still and thought. "I suppose," she said slowly, "that I should have learned that the things on the other side of the spectacles are not always just the same as they look from our side."

"Good guess," said the Dream.

"But what do the spectacles stand for?"

The Dream grinned. "Did you ever look through a skew-gee window-pane?" he asked.

Marjorie laughed. "Indeed I have," she said. "There was one pane in Grandma's sitting-room window that made people coming up the street look as if their feet grew out of their chins, if you got your head in the right place, and when they got nearer, their faces would be all wriggly. I used to sit there and giggle, it was so funny."

"Did you worry any about the poor people with their feet growing out of their chins, or with the wriggly faces?"

"No," Marjorie laughed. "I knew that it was just the window-pane that made them look that way."

"And what was the matter with the window-pane?"

"Why, Grandma said that it was very old glass, made before the people here knew how to make the clear, true glass; and she said that sometimes careless work still made that kind. She didn't like it. She said she liked to see her friends look as they really were, and that her window had no right to spoil them, even in her own eyes. She didn't think it was as funny as I did. Why, even the old watch-dog looked like the most awful beast, through that pane; and one kiddie that saw it screamed herself sick, she was so frightened; she couldn't be made to look at the real dog, she was so sure that she was going to be eaten up. Grandma had the pane taken out after a while, and a big new glass put into the sash. She said it was bad enough to look out and see other folks that way; but suppose some of them should come and look in and see her through the same pane."

"Well?" said the Dream.

"Oh, I guess I begin to see," said Marjorie. "Wait a minute. The spectacles were bad, crooked glass and weren't true, and so—but even if they were bad glass, and I knew it, I couldn't get them off. I tried and tried, but they were tangled in my hair, and the string wouldn't break, and I couldn't lift them up. What could I have done?"

"Well," said the Dream, "I think that if I had been in your place, and had caught the little glimpse that assured me that the people really were lovely, and that it was all in the glasses, I think that I would have—"

"What?" exclaimed Marjorie, eagerly.

"Just simply looked a hole through those glasses. You knew what was on the other side; and if you had looked hard enough, knowing that, you'd have had them punctured in no time."

"Oh, dear!" said Marjorie, "and so I did all of that struggling for nothing. And just think how I would have looked to those lovely people if they had seen me with them on—just the way the dreadful man looked tome. But how was I to know that I could look a hole through them?"

"Because you knew what the truth was, and that what you saw wasn't the truth. You can always look a hole through anything that isn't the truth, if you only look hard enough."

Marjorie sat and thought again. "Then," she said, "the spectacles meant that we sometimes get bad, wriggly mental glass in front of our eyes; and then it is up to us to look a hole through it and see folks as they really are. But how are we to know how they really are?"

"Look at those sunbeams," said the Dream.

Marjorie glanced about her and found that she was sitting under a great apple-tree on the side of a hill; a little way below her lay a pretty, brown road, and a little pathway ran in and out among the apple-trees, passed close in front of her, and then twisted away along the roadside. Just as she looked up, two little children came down the path carrying a big tin pail between them. They looked poor and tired, and as they came close, Marjorie saw that the pail was full of wild strawberries, beautiful, big ones, and a little whiff of wind brought the delicious fragrance to her.

Marjorie's mouth watered. She reached into her pocket to find if there were money there; but there was none, and she shrugged her shoulders and glanced toward the Dream with a funny little helpless grimace; but the Dream paid no attention.

Just then the children set down the pail to rest, and looking about, they saw Marjorie, who smiled and nodded to them. One of them had a little crescent of pink color in one cheek as if an apple-blossom petal had fallen there. She looked at Marjorie for a moment, bent over the pail and carefully selected several large sprays of the berries which grew on such long stems that the cluster looked almost like a bouquet. Then she came toward Marjorie holding them out.

"But I have no money," said Marjorie.

"Oh, I don't want money," said the little girl. "I just wanted to give them to you."

Marjorie took them and patted the little girl's hand, lovingly. "Why did you want to give them to me, Dearie?" she asked.

The child looked at her earnestly, and shook her head. "I don't know. I guess it was just because your eyes kissed my cheek."

Marjorie laughed, and with her finger touched the little pink crescent. "I did just love it," she said, "but I didn't know the love showed through."

"It did," said the little girl, nodding seriously, "and I'm not nearly so tired as I was."

"What are you going to do with the berries?" asked Marjorie.

"Mother is going to take them to town and sell them. We are trying to save money enough to buy back the cow."

Again Marjorie put her hand in her pocket, but there was nothing there. "Oh, how I wish I could help you," she said.

"You have helped me," said the little girl. "There was a great big lump in my throat and now it is all gone. I think you loved it all away. Now I'm going. Good-by."

Marjorie watched her go back to the other child, and together they took up the pail again and walked down the path toward the road.

"She is a dear little girl, isn't she?" said Marjorie to the Dream, who was stretched out flat on the top of a boulder, with his chin on his hands.

"Yes," said the Dream, following her with his eyes, "and—"

"Oh, look!" interrupted Marjorie excitedly. "Look there!"

The children had gone quite a little way down the road, when suddenly out of a gate by the wayside ran a big, rough-looking man. He rushed up to the children, said something, snatched the pail of strawberries out of their hands, and ran back into the yard with it and out of their sight among the shrubbery in the garden.

The children stared, open mouthed, after him for a moment, and then the little girl threw herself on the grass by the roadside and began to cry bitterly, and the little boy bent over her, trying to comfort her.

"Oh, how shameful, how shameful!" cried Marjorie, starting to her feet. "How could he do a thing like that?"

The Dream lay still with his chin on his hands. Marjorie looked at him angrily. "How can you lie there and kick your heels together, when anything like that is going on?"

"It does no good to get angry and hate the man," said the Dream easily.

"But I'm going to do something. I'm not going to stand— Oh, dear, now where have the children gone? I didn't see, did you? And I can't even be sure out of which gate the man came. Oh, dear, I can't do a thing after all."

"No," said the Dream, "all you can do is to hate the man."

Marjorie looked at him sharply. "How can I help hating him?" she said. "Don't you hate him?"

"No. I don't even know what made him do it."

"But you could see why he did it. He wanted the strawberries."

"He didn't tell me that he wanted the strawberries."

"Well, any one with half an eye could see that."

"Yes, people with half an eye often see more than people with two whole eyes. Lots of folks spend most of their time looking at things with half an eye or on the bias, when they are neither half-of-one-eyed nor cross-eyed."

"Well, I don't care," said Marjorie, "that man ought to be hated."

"All right," said the Dream; "go ahead with your hating;—it's your loss."

"My loss," said Marjorie. But just then a woman came down the pathway and Marjorie turned to look at her. She was carrying a large bundle, and a little child lagged behind her, wearily.

Marjorie jumped up. "Let me carry the bundle down to the road for you," she said.

"Oh, it's too heavy for you,' said the woman.

"Indeed it isn't," said Marjorie. "Just let me take it and you take the kiddie's hand for a little way," and Marjorie shouldered the bundle and started down the path.

"How good you are," said the woman, stretching her arms and sighing with relief. "You see, I've carried it for more than a mile; but I thought that if I could just get down to the road with it, perhaps some one would give us a lift and then we'd be all right."

When they reached the road, the woman sat down on the grass, wearily; but she smiled up at Marjorie. "Now," she said, "I am quite sure that we shall get along nicely, if some one only comes along with some sort of a team."

"There comes some one, now," cried Marjorie; for down the road came a large comfortable carriage drawn by a fine, high-stepping bay horse and driven by a well-dressed man who had the whole vehicle to himself.

The woman got up quickly and took her bundle into her arms, called the child and went to the side of the road, standing close and looking eagerly at the on-coming carriage. As it drew near, she put up her hand with a motion of humble inquiry.

But the man never drew rein. As he passed he said something hastily, which they could not understand, and kept on his way, scarcely glancing at them.

"How selfish!" cried Marjorie, indignantly, and the child began to sob.

The woman turned silently back to the roadside; and sitting down, she took the child into her arms and began soothing it gently. It was not an attractive child,—not pretty nor bright,—but it was clean, and had a very sweet little smile when one spoke to it.

Marjorie sat gloomily watching them.

"What's the matter?" asked the Dream, who had followed them and was swinging on a blackberry vine beside her.

"I don't like people," said Marjorie. "What makes them act like that? What's the use of being so selfish and so unkind? I can't like them. I won't like them."

"You are hating that man, too, are you?"

"Yes, I am. He ought to be hated. He could see that the woman was tired, and see her big bundle, and the tired kiddie. I just hope—"

"Be real careful what you 'just hope,'" said the Dream.

"Well, I can't help it," said Marjorie. "It fairly makes me boil. Perhaps there won't be another carriage by here for hours."

Here the woman looked up dispiritedly. "I think we would better be going on," she said, gently wakening the little child whose head lay heavily against her shoulder. "If another team comes while we are on the road, perhaps it will pick us up; but I don't dare to wait any longer." She rose up, took her bundle, and turned toward the road. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, "there comes an automobile; but of course it is headed in the wrong direction. Isn't that hard luck?"

The car came on rapidly, and when it reached the little group it stopped and a woman leaned out. "How far are you going?" she asked. She was a cold-looking, fashionably dressed woman and her voice was hard and rather ungracious.

"Oh, I'm going a long way—more than three miles," said the woman with the bundle, shaking her head with a little sorry smile.

The cold-looking woman stepped out of the car and motioned to the others to get in. "Take them wherever they wish to go," she said to the chauffeur, "and come back and pick me up along the road here, somewhere."

The tired woman attempted to protest, but the other merely motioned her toward the car and turned away.

The little girl had been standing looking with big, unbelieving eyes from the car to the woman. Her face had become almost beautiful in its eager, wondering delight; and suddenly, as her mother turned to lift her into the car, she broke away and ran after the woman, catching hold of her dress. "Oh, please," she cried, breathlessly, "please may I kiss you?"

The woman turned and looked down at her, then her head lifted higher and her lips grew tight and thin. "No," she said, quietly, and walked on.

The child dropped her hand and turned away, her eyes looking hurt and frightened and her lips trembling, as she walked slowly back and climbed into the car.

Marjorie waved her hand to them as they drove away, and then turned and stood looking after the woman, her eyes narrow and her chin hard.

"You don't look happy," said the Dream.

"I'm not," said Marjorie. "What makes people act that way? What makes them? Does she think that she will get any good out of a kindness done in such a spirit as that? Do you suppose that she does?"

"Perhaps she didn't do it for any good that she would get out of it. Perhaps she did it because the woman looked tired."

"No, she didn't. Any one who would do a thing that way, and who wouldn't kiss a clean little child just because it wasn't pretty and rich, hasn't one bit of heart. She just did it because she was superstitious and thought that by doing something for somebody, she would get something in return. That's all she did it for."

"Something of a mind-reader, aren't you," said the Dream.

"Well, I can read that much, anyway."

"But still you don't feel real happy."

"Of course I don't feel happy when I am hating people; but how can I help hating them when they do things like that?"

The two were climbing the path, back to the apple-tree on the hillside. When they reached it, Marjorie sat down and took her chin on her hands and sat gloomily gazing out over the valley.

"Do you like you?" asked the Dream, presently.

"No," said Marjorie, "I don't. The people are so dreadful, and so cruel and so unkind that I can't help not liking them; and the more I don't like them, the more and more I don't like me."

"Hard luck!" said the Dream.

"But what shall I do?" asked Marjorie. "I've got to like me. It's bad enough not to like other folks; but I've got to live with me for an awfully long time; and if I get the habit of not liking me, it—it will be dreadful."

"Yes," said the Dream, "that would be very dreadful."

"But what shall I do?" asked Marjorie again.

"It's your problem," said the Dream.

"I know—you think I ought not to hate them; but I can't see how I can help it when they do such dreadful things. I can't see—"

"No," said the Dream, "it seems that you can't. You don't seem to have long-range eyes—or long-range ears—or a long-range mind. You are focused right up close to you, all the time."

Marjorie sat and looked at him. "You mean—"

"I mean that you don't get any perspective. You look at things right up close and don't stop to think of the things they may be related to, away off before or behind that particular instant. You don't know why people do things,—you can't know; but just the same, you try them and condemn them and hate them and yourself, and make everything just as hard as possible for everybody."

Marjorie sat up very straight. "I don't think that's fair," she said. "You know that I try to help whenever I can, and I don't try to make it hard for anybody; but I just can't see the reason—"

"Do you have to see a reason? When you don't know anything about it, isn't it just as easy to assume that there is a reason, as that there is not?"

"But," cried Marjorie, "what reason could there possibly be for that man to steal the berries from those poor little children? How can I assume that he had a reason?"

The Dream looked at her with a little grimace. "Well, I said that you had not long-range eyes—nor ears—nor mind; but I'll lend you some for fifteen minutes and let you go reason-hunting; and I'll turn the clock back a little so that you can go after the particular ones that you want. There, do you see the little folks with the berries?"

"Yes," said Marjorie, "and there comes the man to take them away. Oh, I don't want to see that again!"

"Wait," said the Dream.

"Oh," said Marjorie, "I can see better now that I am so close. Why—why, that house is afire! Oh, look! That is what he took the berries for; he poured them out on the grass just as carefully, even if he was in such a hurry; and he filled the pail with water and climbed up on the roof beside the chimney. My! but there is a lot of smoke! Oh, I don't see how he can stand it! There, he has come down for another pailful. There doesn't seem to be anybody at home and the house is all locked up so he couldn't get in for anything to carry water. See, there come the children. Oh, it's their own house and their mother is away; that is why they were crying so.

"There, I believe he's got it out now. My! but he's all smoked up, and I guess he burned his hand; but he got it put out—he put it out all by himself! Isn't he splendid!" Marjorie was leaning forward and looking eagerly.

"And you don't hate him?" said the Dream, quietly.

Marjorie looked at him, her eyes full of tears. "Just think," she said, "I've been hating him for hours!"

"Yes," said the Dream, "you have."

"But I didn't know—I couldn't know."

"But you assumed to know enough to make you hate him."

"It was I who was dreadful," said Marjorie in an awed voice.

"Took down the road and see another reason," said the Dream.

Marjorie looked, and saw the man with the bay horse, sitting straight and holding the reins taut as he was when he had passed them. And then, while she was looking, the horse suddenly laid back his ears, thrust his head forward with a twist and a jerk, and bolted. The man sat tight, drawing on the reins with all his strength. The carriage swayed and swerved and rocked; but he never faltered, never loosened his grip, never took his eyes from the maddened animal.

Marjorie leaned forward, gasping. "Oh," she cried, "how dreadful. The horse is running away! He can't hold him—I know he can't."

But the man did, and gradually he brought him down under control again, and Marjorie sat back and breathed easily once more.

"It's too bad that the woman and the little girl weren't in there then, isn't it," said the Dream.

"But," said Marjorie, "he couldn't have known that the horse was going to run away."

"Look again," said the Dream.

Marjorie did. The horse was about to pass a group of children by the side of the road, when one of them tossed a bit of paper into the air. Off went the horse, to one side, swerving the carriage almost into the ditch, and then bolting again.

"Whew!" said Marjorie, looking after them. "That is a great horse to drive. He'd shy at a canary-bird. He must be just broken. There, the man has him under control again. Isn't he a wonderful driver? He hasn't used the whip once; he merely holds him hard and talks to him until he quiets down."

"Too bad such a fine man should have been so unkind to the tired woman," said the Dream, whimsically.

Marjorie bit her lip. "Yes," she said, "he's another that I hated, and yet he was doing just the very best that he knew how."

"You certainly have wasted a lot of hatred to-day, haven't you?" said the Dream.

But Marjorie was looking away, farther up the road.

"Looking for another reason?" asked the Dream.

"Yes," said Marjorie, soberly. "I see the cold-hearted woman walking up the road. She's—she's crying."

Just then the woman stopped and turned aside from the road and threw herself on the grass under a tree, burying her face in her hands and sobbing heavily—great, dragging sobs; and Marjorie heard her gasping, over and over again, "I wasn't good enough to kiss her. Oh, I wasn't good enough—I wasn't good enough!"

Marjorie turned away her head. "Oh," she said, "how dreadful—how dreadful I am."

The Dream sat looking at her thoughtfully for a few moments. "Look at those sunbeams," he said at last.

Marjorie heaved a sigh and looked about. The apple-tree beneath which she was sitting was in full bloom, and the sunbeams came flickering down through the leaves and the pink and white blossoms, dancing all about over the grass and the pink and white fallen petals. "Oh," she said, "how beautiful! And don't the apple blossoms smell good! Don't you love them?"

"Yes," said the Dream, "they are beautiful and they are good; and they are working to make themselves something worth while—not just to be pretty apple blossoms. That is one reason we love them so much."

Marjorie took some of the petals in her hands and touched them softly with her fingertips. "Once," she said, "we had an apple-tree that used to have double blossoms on it—on just one branch. They were quite big and very double,—all fluffy ruffles. They were pretty, but somehow we didn't love them as we did the others; we used to pick them just for curiosities; but some way they didn't seem to have the character that the sweet, open-hearted, single ones did."

"Did they bring forth apples?" asked the Dream.

Marjorie shook her head, soberly. "No, they were nothing but petals."

"And do they still come double?"

Again Marjorie shook her head. "No, the branch withered. Father said that he didn't care, because it took the strength of the tree without producing anything in return. I think I understand better now than I did then."

The Dream nodded. "You understand that those who are not workers in some way, who have no goal, they have no place; they cannot even keep themselves as they are, or grow into something better and bigger until they begin to work, or at least are willing to work; for the work is exhaled from themselves for them to do; but if they are all fluffy ruffles—well, they can't gather up the scattered petals and be fluffy ruffles again; but they will have to search within themselves to find the 'makings' of something worth while, if they are to have a place and a part that is worthy of the name."

Marjorie looked at the Dream curiously. "Sometimes you are very old," she said, "and say things that I can reach only by standing my mind on tiptoe; and sometimes you are just a—a kid."

The Dream grinned. "Just like everybody else," he said. "Folks sometimes think things that they themselves can understand only by standing their minds on tiptoe. And sometimes it scares them and they hide their eyes and run away. When you get startled by thinking something that seems too big for you, the best thing to do is to walk up and look at it pretty closely; for it is almost sure to lead you into big company; and the fact that it has come is a certain proof that you are ready for it and its kind, if you keep your head and don't run away."

Marjorie nodded seriously.

"Now take a look at those sunbeams," said the Dream for the third time. "They answer a question that you asked me a while ago."

"What was the question? We've talked about so many things."

"You asked how you are to know what people themselves really are."

Marjorie sat looking at the sunbeams earnestly, as they danced and flickered all about. Some swung across the grass and apple-blossom petals, some slid back and forth on broad dock leaves, some rested upon a great, rough, gray boulder, and some lay upon the smooth path before the apple-tree. "They are curious," she said, at last. "They are all of different shapes and sizes and colors. Those that lie on the path have smooth, clear outlines and plain, quiet colors; those on the grass and apple-blossom petals are all uneven, running in streamers up and down the grass blades and showing pink through the petals; those on the rock are rough and gray and have sharp, ragged edges and look torn where the rock is broken and crumbling; that one over there, on that clump of dandelions, is laughing back at itself and is the happiest thing in the whole world; those on the dock leaves just slide and slide and keep on sliding; and there is a little bit of a one over there, apart from the rest, sitting still on a toadstool, just as if it thought that it was the only thing anywhere, and that nothing else mattered."

"Each one is different, isn't it?" said the Dream.

"Just as different as can be. There aren't two of them the least bit alike, and they keep all the time changing, too. Some of them you can scarcely keep track of at all, they flicker from one thing to another so fast,—all except the one on the toadstool."

"And some of them you like better than the others?"

Marjorie laughed. "Why, of course I do, only I wouldn't have thought of putting it that way. I love the one on the dandelions. It is happy and good and cheery and gentle, and laughs right back into the soul of itself. I could just hug that one, and when it makes me laugh, it is the kind of a laugh that I love to feel coming, because it is all sweet. The ones on the path are sort of prim and not so interesting; and the ones on the grass and pink petals are dear, jolly ones, but they do fight sometimes, and get into awful squabbles, pull each other's hair, and then dance apart and throw kisses. I don't like the sliding ones very well. They are so kind of smooth and unconcerned. Things have to be alive to you, for you to love them,—not just sliding. Some of the ones on the rock I like; some of them are ugly, and frown and look hard-souled and cruel; some are just stern and severe, but you can see that they are kind and don't mean to be hard—just happened to come that way. The little one over on the toadstool is horrid. I don't like her at all."

"They are a good deal like people, after all, aren't they?" said the Dream.

Marjorie nodded. "Ever so much, when you come to examine them."

"Perhaps you have noticed," said the Dream, "that it is the face of each one that touches the grass and the rocks and the flowers. The self of it stretches down from—somewhere."

"Yes," said Marjorie. Then she laughed. "You'd think they'd rub their noses off, wouldn't you?"

The Dream laughed, too. "They would if there were friction," he said; "but they know how not to let the rocks and roughnesses be real enough to them to rub; and so they save their noses and their dispositions. Now go over there to that one sitting on the toadstool—the one that you don't like—and put your face down close to her, right where her face is resting, and look up."

Marjorie did, and for a moment her face shone out with the glory of the sun. Then she stood up, her hands over her eyes, but not all of the glory gone out of her face.

"What did you see?" asked the Dream.

Marjorie took down her hands and her eyes were full of wonder from within. "I looked straight into the sun," she said, in a low, awed voice. "I—I think I begin to understand."

The Dream watched her as she looked from one sunbeam to another, the ones that she had criticised and the ones that she had loved.

Suddenly she swept out her hands. "Every one of them," she cried, "every one of them, if you look up the very self of it, you look straight into the sun—you are dazzled with the glory of it. It doesn't matter what they rest on, and look ugly or ragged or silly or hard, or how beautiful and tender and laughing,—that is only because of what they happen for the moment to rest on; but every one of them comes straight from the sun and isn't the least bit separated from it; and when you know that, why—why you know that the edges and the colors and the movements haven't really anything to do with them at all—aren't any part of them; and—and then you love them all; you can't help it, they are so wonderful."

Still the Dream sat watching her. "Oh, you needn't think it's just sunbeams that I mean," she cried. "I see what you meant by the sunbeams answering the question, and that is why it is so glorious. Every one of them—every one of the people that I don't love, and every one of them that I do, if I could just look back through the self of them, the way that I looked back through the self of the sunbeam, I would be dazzled a million times more, I'd see the glory that their life is in and is never separated from; and I'd love them—oh, I'd love them with divine love that shines down through me and makes me one with them all."

The Dream turned away his face for a moment. Then he turned back and his eyes looked misty. "I guess I was looking up a sunbeam," he said, "and I was dazzled."

Marjorie sat down again under the apple-tree. "I want to think for a little while," she said. "This must be one of those thoughts that I would better walk up to and examine."

After a while she heaved a little sigh and looked up. "I wish I could stay there all the time," she said.

"Where?" asked the Dream.

"Where I can see things right. If I am like a sunbeam, I ought to know that even my own rough edges and ugly sides aren't real, and I ought to look back up the self of me, to where I really live, and act the way that it belongs to me to act; but I know just as well as can be that as soon as I see folks again, I shall begin seeing their rough edges and dullnesses, and feeling my own. What can I do about it?"

"You can remember and try," said the Dream. "Since you know the truth, you can just keep everlastingly using it. Shove it in the face of every lie that you see; jam it down the throat of every lie that you hear, but do it inside of yourself first, last, and all the time. It is your own glasses that need a hole looked through them; don't worry about other people's spectacles unless they want you to. It may be that it's only your own glasses that make them look as if they wore them, too. All I have to say is, Remember and Try."

"I will," said Marjorie.

 

The end