Read Ebook: Resurrection Seven by Marlowe Stephen

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Ebook has 105 lines and 7284 words, and 3 pages

Thus Fanny came back home to her mother, followed by bird music in the air.

Fanny went to bed before candle time in a little bed that a cabinet-maker of the village had made a long time ago, with a frame of walnut and graceful banisters. Long ago the good man had gone to sleep in the shadow of the church, under a black cross, in a bed with a coverlet of grass, for Fanny's bed had been her grandfather's when he was a little baby, and the little girl slept now in the same place as her ancestor. She slept. A cotton curtain with a pattern of roses protected her slumbers. She slept and dreamed. She saw the blue bird flying toward the castle of his love. He looked as beautiful as a star, but she did not expect for a moment to see him perch on her shoulder. She knew she was not a princess, and couldn't expect visits from a prince changed into a bird the color of deep sky. However, she told herself that all birds are not princes, that the birds in the village are villagers and among them may well enough have been some country boy changed into a sparrow by a wicked fairy, and having a love for Fanny in his heart beneath his gray feathers. Such an one, if she should find him, she would give not only bread, but cakes and kisses too. She would like to see him. And now she does see him! He comes and perches on her shoulder. He's just a little cock sparrow, not fine or rare, but very alert and lively. To tell the truth his appearance is a little tousled: one tail feather is missing, lost in a fight, that is unless he has encountered some bad fairy in the village. Fanny suspects him of having a bad head; but she is a girl, and it does not worry her that her cock sparrow has a bad head if his heart is good. She pets him and calls him pretty names. All of a sudden he grows bigger and longer: his wings change into two arms. He turns into a boy, and Fanny recognizes Antony the gardener's little boy, who says to her: "Let's come and play together."

She claps her hands with joy and starts to go--then suddenly wakes up. She rubs her eyes. No sparrow, no Antony! She is alone in the little room. The dawn, shining through the little flowered curtain, spreads its innocent light on the bed. She hears the birds singing in the garden. She jumps out of bed in her nightgown, opens the window, and there in the garden, among the roses and geraniums and morning glories, are the little bird beggars, the little musicians of last night, sitting in a row on the fence rail and giving her a morning song to pay for their crumbs of bread.

THE FANCY DRESS PARTY

Here are little boys like knights of old, and little girls who are heroines. Here are shepherdesses with dresses looped up in paniers and garlands of roses, and shepherds in satin suits with knots of ribbons on their shepherd's crooks. Dear me, what pretty white sheep such shepherds must have in their flocks! And here are Alexander and Zarius, Pyerhus and Merope, Mahomet, Harlequin, Scapin, Blaise and Babette. They have come from everywhere, from Greece and Rome and blue distant countries, to dance with one another. It's a fine thing, a fancy dress ball, and very agreeable for an hour or two to be a great king or an illustrious princess. It has no inconveniences. You have not to sustain your costumes by actions or even by your words.

It would not be very amusing to wear a hero's dress if you had to show his courage too. The hearts of heroes are torn in all sorts of ways. For the most part they are famous through their misfortunes. If any of them lived happily they are not remembered now. Merope never cared about dancing. Pyerhus was wickedly killed by Orestes just as he was going to be married, and the innocent Zarius perished at the hands of the Turk his friend, a philosophical trick indeed. As to Blaise and Babette the song says that their pangs of love were never-ending.

In the same way, if it comes to Pierrot and Scapin, you know as well as I that they were perfect rascals, and that people more than once tweaked their ears for them. No, glory comes very high, even the glory of an Harlequin. On the other hand it's very nice to be a little boy or girl and masquerade as these old characters. That's why there's no fun like a fancy ball where the costumes are fine enough. You feel grand just by wearing them. See how well all the pretty company wears its plumes and cloaks. What a fine and gallant air they have, how well they look and how much old time grace they can display.

On the balcony, in the part that you don't see in the picture, the musicians tune their violins with a sweet and plaintive sound. The music of a quadrille in the grand style is open on the leader's desk. They are going to strike up this piece. At the first notes of it our heroes and masks will step forth and dance.

THE SCHOOL

I declare I believe Miss Genseigne's school is the best school for girls anywhere in the world. I maintain that those who believe and say the contrary are false and misleading. All Miss Genseigne's scholars are well-behaved and diligent. There is nothing so pleasant as to see them, with their little stiff bodies and their heads so erect. You would say they were so many little bottles into which Miss Genseigne was pouring knowledge.

Miss Genseigne sits up perfectly straight on her platform; very grave and sweet. Her braided head band and her black cape inspire respect and sympathy.

Miss Genseigne, who is very well educated, is giving a lesson in arithmetic to her little pupils. She says to Rose Benoit: "Rose Benoit, if I take four from a dozen how many have I left?"

"Four!" replies Rose Benoit. Miss Genseigne is not quite satisfied with this answer.

"And you, Emmeline Capel, if I take four from a dozen how many have I left?"

"Eight," replies Emmeline Capel.

"You hear, Rose Benoit? I have eight left," adds Miss Genseigne.

Rose Benoit lapses into a deep revery. She hears Miss Genseigne say she has eight left, but whether it is eight hats or handkerchiefs, or for that matter eight apples or pens she does not know. The thing worries her for quite a long while. She understands very little about arithmetic.

On the other hand she is very well up in sacred history. Miss Genseigne has not a single scholar who can describe the garden of Eden or Noah's Ark like Rose Benoit. Rose Benoit knows all the flowers of paradise and all the animals that were in the ark. She knows as many fables as Miss Genseigne herself. She knows all the story of the Crow and the Fox, of the Ass and the Little Dog, of the Cock and the Pullet. It never surprises her to hear it said that the animals talked in the olden days. She would be more surprised to hear that they did not talk any more. She is quite sure that she understands the language of her big dog Tom, and of little Cheep her canary. And she is right, too. Animals have always talked, and always will talk, but they talk only to their friends. Rose Benoit loves them and they love her. That's why she understands them. To be understood there is nothing like sympathy.

To-day Rose Benoit has recited her lesson without a fault. She receives a good mark. Emmeline Capel too receives a good mark for her recitation in arithmetic.

When the class is out she tells her mother about her good mark, and then she asks: "What's the use of a good mark, Mamma?"

"A good mark is no use at all," says her mother. "That's just the reason why you should be proud to have it. You will know one day, child, that the rewards men think the most of are those that give them honor rather than profit."

MARY

Little girls have a natural desire to gather flowers and stars. But stars won't let themselves be picked and so seem to teach little girls that in this world there are some desires that are destined never to be satisfied.

Miss Mary went out in the park, where she discovered a basket of hortensias. She knew that the flowers of hortensias are pretty, and so she picked one. It was very hard to pick too. She seized the plant in both hands, at great risk of sitting down hard when the stem broke. She was very pleased and proud at what she'd done. But her nurse saw her: and scolded and darted at Miss Mary, seizing her by the arm. To make her do penance she did not put her in the dark closet this time, but posted her underneath a great chestnut tree, in the shade of a big Japanese umbrella.

There Miss Mary sits, surprised and astonished, and thinks it all over. Her flower in her hand, with the stripes of the umbrella making rays around her, she looked like some queer little foreign idol.

Her nurse said: "Mary, I forbid you to carry that flower in your mouth. If you disobey me your little dog Toto will eat your ears up for you"--with which warning she departed.

The little penitent, perfectly still beneath her shining frame, looks around her at the sky and the earth. They are large, the earth and sky, and can amuse a little girl for a while. But the hortensia flower interests her more than anything. She reflects: "A flower should smell good." And she raises nearer to her nose the beautiful rosy, blue tempered ball. She tries to smell it but can smell nothing. She is not clever at smelling perfumes. Not so very, very long ago she used to breathe over the roses instead of sniffing them in. We must not laugh at her for that: one can't learn everything at once. Besides, she might have had, like her mother, a very subtle sense of smell that could smell nothing. The flower of the hortensia has no odor. That is why one grows tired of it, in spite of its beauty. But Miss Mary thinks: "This flower is made of sugar, maybe." With that she opens her mouth wide, and starts to raise the flower to her lips.

A cry recalls her. Yap!

It is the little dog Toto, who, darting round a border of geraniums, comes and sets himself, his ears straight up, before Miss Mary and looks at her warningly with his round bright eyes.

PAN PIPES

Three children of the same village, Peter, James and John, are standing up looking off at something. Ranged side by side they form together the outline of a Pan Pipes with three reeds. Peter, at the left, is a big boy; John, at the right, is small; James, between the two, may consider himself big or little, according as he regards his neighbor on the left or right. It is a situation upon which I invite you to meditate, for it is yours, as it is mine or any one in the world's. Each one of us, just like James, may consider himself great or small, according as his neighbor cuts a big or little figure in the world.

That's why one can truthfully say that James is neither big nor little; that he is both big and little. It is as God wishes it to be. He is the last reed of all in our living Pan Pipes.

But what are his two comrades doing? They are gazing off into space, all three of them. At what? At something which has disappeared below the horizon, something which they can't see any more but still see in their mind's eye, and which still dazzles them. Little John has forgotten his eel-skin whip with which just now he incessantly beat up his wooden shoes in the dusty road. Peter and James, their hands behind their backs, gaze stolidly.

What they saw, all three, was the wagon of a travelling peddler, a wagon drawn by his own arms, which had stopped in the village street.

The peddler pulled back the oilcloth that covered his wagon, and in a minute any quantity of knives, scissors, little guns, puppets, soldiers of wood and lead, cologne bottles, cakes of soap, pictures, a thousand dazzling things were exposed to the admiring view of all the men, women and children in the town. The servants from the farm and the mill were pale with longing; Peter and James were red with joy. Little John lost his tongue. Everything in the wagon seemed beautiful and precious to them. But the most desirable things of all were the unknown articles of which they could not guess either use or reason: as for example the bowls polished like mirrors that reflected your face comically deformed; paintings of Epinol, covered with faces more lively than reality; needle cases and mysterious boxes that contained unimaginable things.

The women made purchases of guimpes and lace by the yard, and the peddler rolled the black oilcloth back again over the riches in his wagon, and putting himself in the traces once more started on his further way; and now the wagon and the waggoner have disappeared below the horizon.

ROGER'S STABLE

It's a great care to keep up a stable. The horse is a delicate animal and requires a thousand attentions. If you don't believe me ask Roger.

Just now he is grooming his beautiful chestnut, who would be the pearl of wooden horses, the flower of the Black Forest steeds, if he had not lost half his tail in battle. It's a matter of some moment with Roger to know if wooden horses' tails grow in again.

Again having made believe groom his horses, Roger gives them some imaginary oats, for it is an understood thing that the little wooden animals on which small boys ride through the land of dreams are always fed in this way.

Behold Roger starting out for his ride. He has mounted his horse. Even though the poor beast has no more ears, and all his mane looks like an old broken comb, Roger loves him. Why?

It would be hard to say. This red horse was a present from a poor man, and maybe there is some secret grace in the gifts of the poor. Remember our Lord who blessed the widow's mite.

Roger is gone. He is quite far away. The flowers on the carpet already seem to him like flowers in tropical, distant countries. A pleasant journey, little Roger! May your hobby horse conduct you safely through the world. May you never have a hobby more dangerous. Little or great we all ride. Who has not his hobby?

Men's hobbies ride like mad through all the ways of life; one makes a bid for glory, another for pleasure; many of them jump from high places and break their rider's necks. I hope when you are grown up, little Roger, you will bestride two hobby horses that will keep you always in the right path: one lively, the other quiet; both beautiful--courage and kindness.

COURAGE

Louisa and Frederick have gone to school along the village street. The sun is shining and the two children sing. They sing like the nightingale because their hearts are gay. They sing an old song that their grandmothers sang when they were little girls and which one day their children's children will sing, for songs are frail immortals which fly from lip to lip throughout the ages. The lips that sing them lose their color and are silent one after the other, but the songs are always on the wing. There are songs that come down to us from a time when all the men were shepherds and all the women shepherdesses--which tell us of nothing but sheep and wolves.

Louisa and Frederick sing, their mouths round as flowers, and their song rises shrill and clear on the morning air. But suddenly the sound catches in Frederick's wind pipe.

What power invisible has strangled the song in this schoolboy throat? It is fear. Each day inevitably, at the end of the village street, he meets the dog that belongs to the big butcher, and each day his heart shrivels and his legs grow weak at the sight. It is not the pig man's dog ever attacks or menaces him. He just sits peaceably on the threshold of his master's shop. But he is black, and his eyes are fixed and bloodshot, and sharp, white teeth show beneath his baboon jaws. He is terrifying. And then he sits there in the midst of all sorts of meat cut up for pies and hashes, and seems the more terrible on that account. Of course no one supposes he has been the cause of all this carnage, but he presides over it. He's a fierce dog, the pig man's. And so, as far away as Frederick can see him in the doorway, he picks up a big stone, following the example of men he has seen arm themselves in this way against surly dogs, and goes hugging the wall of the house across the street from the pig butcher's closely.

This time he has followed this practice, but Louisa mocks at him.

She has taken none of these violent precautions, against which people always arm themselves more violently still. No, she doesn't even speak to him, but keeps on singing, only changing her tone in such a mocking way that Frederick grows red to his ears. Then there is great travail in his little head. He understands that he must fear fear as much as danger. And he is afraid to be afraid.

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