February, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
56
to Ç ^ feari with (! 5 wrYOUNG READERS . . . B y F lorence N ye W hitwell
strained and nervous and thin! Her father and I were in the service together, y’ know, overseas, and I knew her mother once— ” he broke off abruptly. For a few mo ments, only the soft sputter of the fire was heard and the lash of the rain that was driving in over San Francisco Bay, through the Golden Gate. Finally Maria spoke. “ Can’t we get her out among people? How about a dinner while I ’m here, or— ” “ It wouldn’t work. She is not interested in polo,, and that’s all we talk about. Besides, the furies have criticized the poor girl’s manners till she is uncomfortable and makes every one else so. I told ’em she was charmingly uncon ventional and refreshing. No u se!” and the major returned to his moustache, bitterly. “ The child has poetry in her,” said Maria. “ Yes— so had her mother.” “ You know how she loves the little house on the hill you loaned her? I’m glad the terrible aunts allow her to write there.” “ I do want her to be as happy as possible. The aunts worry her because she throws her things around and has a disorderly bureau drawer. She was somewhat spoiled by her father and petted by his military friends—-mother less girl, sort o f thing, y’ know. But they’ve gone about correcting her the wrong way. Wish you’d look into it and help her.” Thus the good major concluded. Y e s ! The aunts had gone about a great many things in the wrong way, Maria reflected, as she topped the hill on an early walk, the next morning, and tapped at Mrs. Hernan’s bright green door. The rest of the cabin was marine blue— with a shaggy little r o o f! Mrs. Hernan’s Irish heart opened at Maria’s first word. “ Arrah ! The poor choild! An ’ it’s glad I am you’ve come along, ma’am!”; The matter went deeper than the major suspected. It was not merely a matter o f bureau drawers. Mignon’s heart and spiritual life had both suffered. “ Sure an’ the poor gurl’s that thin, me heart aches fer her. Look at her hands— sure she was not that way onct!” Maria had noticed the gaunt little hands when Mignon had played and sung to her. “ An’ is it releegious her aunts call thimselves ? That is not the God I know, ma’am. No, ner you either with yer happy face. I can’t read, but didn’t He say something about bein’ so tender-like, He wouldn’t break a bruised reed ?” “ I don’t know, Mrs. Hernan, but it— it sounds like Him,” answered Maria frankly. “ I know Him ” she went on humbly, “ but I do not know His Book very well—y e t!” “ That’s all right, me dear,” and the old Irish woman patted her hand. “ Sure an’ it’s heart-knowledge o f the Lord that makes us love people enough, and that’s what the wor-rld’ s needin’. Look at poor Miss M ignon!” The story was soon told, and told vividly, by the kindly old soul. * * * * * * “ And I wish you were here, my new-old friend,” she wrote to Uncle Alan that evening, “ and your dear, happy Thin Red Line, too! There are three elderly unmarried females who seem to be literalists, talking about Christ without heart-knowledge of Him. Tell m e ! Are not letter- and-law people more harmful to His cause, when they’re unloving, than erstwhile sinners like me ?
Little Miss Orpheus “A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth” (Isa. 42:3). jV H tonon was singing one of her own songs ! “ Oh, little house on the heavenward hill, How sad the heart in thee! I ’ll get me down to a cabin, south, By the noisy, murmuring sea. “ And when the storm wave’s shuddering shock Booms on the streaming shore, I’ll draw me close, while the fagots flame, And the winds fight fast at the door. “ O little house, where the hill meets heaven, I’m coming back again! There’s nought o f me, i’ the south or the sea, And my heart is there with its pain!’’ , Her voice trailed away at the last, on a high minor note of sadness. Maria listened sympathetically. ‘’ Did you write it yourself, Mignonette ?” “ Yes. It was in my heart, and I wrote it.” Mignon had had a fanciful little mother who had lived just long enough to bring her into the world and whisper in her passing, “ Call her Mignonette.” The severe aunts, who had her now, disdained the ro mantic little sobriquet. They called her “ Netta.” But the slender little poetess, with her flame colored hair and her flare o f a face preferred “ Mignon.” “ You are not happy, Mignon?” asked Maria after a lit tle silence. “ No, because I ’ve lived among robbers, who stole away what I loved!” and the lithe little creature was pacing the floor at this, with flashing eyes'. Maria was aware that the girl’s reply was somewhat involved, that she really meant that her youth had been in some way deprived o f its fulfillment. She had been filched o f her joy by unappreciative elders. But in what way pre cisely ? Maria mused over it and longed to help. “ Why do you like this old Irish woman over the hill ?” she asked with diplomatic indirectness. “ Mrs. Hernan? Oh, lots o f whys! She tells me stories o f elves and pixies, and how her grandmother saw the banshee one moonlight night, and she tells my fortune in a teacup! And she’s edged her front yard with the whitest clam shells you ever saw. And she can’t read or write— and whenever I ’m with her I feel happier and cozy somehow!” Maria restrained a smile at these remarkable reasons, realizing that they were merely tokens o f what Constance would term “ temperament.” “ Poor little- M ignon!” said Maria’s host to her late that evening as they sat over a dying fire. “ W e ’ve always called her aunts the three furies. Ever meet ’em ?” And he bit his close-clipped, grizzled moustache. “ Miss Gratiana, Miss Beulah, and Miss Leila,” he went on. “ When Mignon came to them a few years ago, she was as utterly irresistible a little baggage as I have ever seen— not exactly pretty, but insouciant, rougish, y’ know, and attractive. It makes my heart ache to see her n o w -
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs