Julie M. Lippmann - Dreamland
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Julie M. Lippmann >> Dreamland
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6 DREAMLAND
by
JULIE M. LIPPMANN
Author of "Miss Wildfire," "Dorothy Day," etc.
The Penn Publishing Company
Philadelphia
MCMXIV
TO
LULU AND MARIE.
CONTENTS.
THE WAKING SOUL
BETTY'S BY-AND-BY
THE WHITE ANGEL
IN THE PIED PIPER'S MOUNTAIN
MARJORIE'S MIRACLE
WHAT HAPPENED TO LIONEL
MARIE AND THE MEADOW-BROOK
NINA'S CHRISTMAS GIFTS
DREAMLAND.
THE WAKING SOUL
Larry lay under the trees upon the soft, green grass, with his hat
tilted far forward over his eyes and his grimy hands clasped together
beneath his head, wishing with all his might first one thing and then
another, but always that it was not so warm.
When the children had gone to school in the morning, they had seen
Larry's figure, as they passed along the street, stretched out
full-length beneath the trees near the gutter curbstone; and when they
returned, there he was still. They looked at him with curiosity; and
some of the boys even paused beside him and bent over to see if he were
sunstruck. He let them talk about him and discuss him and wonder at
him as they would, never stirring, and scarcely daring to breathe, lest
they be induced to stay and question him. He wanted to be alone. He
wanted to lie lazily under the trees, and watch the sunbeams as they
flirted with the leaves, and hear the birds gossip with one another,
and feel the breeze as it touched his hot temples and soothed him with
its soft caresses.
Across the street, upon some one's fence-rail, climbed a honeysuckle
vine; and every now and then Larry caught a whiff of a faint perfume as
the breeze flitted by. He wished the breeze would carry heavier loads
of it and come oftener. It was tantalizing to get just one breath and
no more in this way.
But then, that was always the case with Larry; he seemed to get a hint
of so many things, and no more than that of any. Often when he was
lying as he was now, under green trees, beneath blue skies, he would
see the most beautiful pictures before his eyes. Sometimes they were
the clouds that drew them for him, and sometimes the trees. He would,
perhaps, be feeling particularly forlorn and tired, and would fling
himself down to rest, and then in a moment--just for all the world as
though the skies were sorry for him and wanted to help him forget his
troubles--he would see the white drifts overhead shift and change, and
there would be the vision of a magnificent man larger and more
beautiful than any mortal; and then Larry would hold his breath in
ecstasy, while the man's face grew graver and darker, and his strong
arm seemed to lift and beckon to something from afar, and then from out
a great stack of clouds would break one milk-white one which, when
Larry looked closer, would prove to be a colossal steed; and in an
instant, in the most remarkable way, the form of the man would be
mounted upon the back of the courser and then would be speeding off
toward the west. And then Larry would lose sight of them, just at the
very moment when he would have given worlds to see more; for by this
time the skies would have grown black, perhaps, and down would come the
rain in perfect torrents, sending Larry to his feet and scuttling off
into somebody's area-way for shelter. And there he would crouch and
think about his vision, fancying to himself his great warrior doing
battle with the sea; the sea lashing up its wave-horses till they rose
high upon their haunches, their gray backs curving outward, their foamy
manes a-quiver, their white forelegs madly pawing the air, till with a
wild whinny they would plunge headlong upon the beach, to be pierced by
the thousand rain-arrows the cloud-god sent swirling down from above,
and sink backward faint and trembling to be overtaken and trampled out
of sight by the next frenzied column behind.
Oh! it sent Larry's blood tingling through his veins to see it all so
plainly; and he did not feel the chill of his wet rags about him, nor
the clutch of hunger in his poor, empty stomach, when the Spirit of the
Storm rode out, before his very eyes, to wage his mighty war. And then
at other times it would all be quite different, and he would see the
figures of beautiful maidens in gossamer garments, and they would seem
to be at play, flinging flecks of sunlight this way and that, or
winding and unwinding their flaky veils to fling them saucily across
the face of the sun.
But none of these wondrous visions lasted. They remained long enough
to wake in Larry's heart a great longing for more, and then they would
disappear and he would be all the lonelier for the lack of them. That
was the greatest of his discouragements. What would he care for heat
or cold or hunger or thirst if he could only capture these fleeting
pictures once for all, so that he could always gaze at them and dream
over them and make them his forever!
That was one of the things for which Larry was wishing as he lay under
the trees that summer day. He was thinking: "If there was _only_ some
way of getting them down from there! It seems to me I 'd do anything
in the world to be able to get them down from there. I--."
"No, you would n't," said a low voice next his ear,--"no, you would
n't. You 'd lie here and wish and wonder all day long, but you would
n't take the first step to bring your pictures down from heaven."
For a moment Larry was so mightily surprised that he found himself
quite at a loss for words, for there was no one near to be seen who
could possibly have addressed him; but presently he gained voice to
say,--
"Oh, I know I could n't get 'em o' course. Folks can't reach up and
bring clouds down out o' de sky."
"I did n't say anything about clouds nor about the sky," returned the
voice. "I was speaking about pictures and heaven. Folks can reach up
and bring pictures down out of heaven. It's done every day. Geniuses
do it."
"Who is geniuses?" asked untaught Larry.
"People who can get near enough heaven to catch glimpses of its
wonderful beauty and paint it on canvas or carve it in marble for the
world to see, or who hear snatches of its music and set them upon paper
for the world to hear; and they are called artists and sculptors and
composers and poets."
"What takes 'em up to heaven?" queried Larry.
"Inspiration," answered the voice.
"I don't know o' that. I never seen it," the boy returned. "Is it
death?"
"No; it is life. But you would n't understand if I could explain it,
which I cannot. No one understands it. But it is there just the same.
You have it, but you do not know how to use it yet. You never will
unless you do something besides lie beneath the trees and dream. Why
can't you do something?"
"Oh, I'm tired with all the things I 'm not doin'!" said Larry, in his
petulant, whimsical way.
For a little the voice was silent, and Larry was beginning to fear it
had fled and deserted him like all the rest; when it spoke again, in
its low-toned murmur, like the breath of a breeze, and said,--
"It is cruel to make a good wish and then leave it to wander about the
world weak and struggling; always trying to be fulfilled and never
succeeding because it is not given strength enough. It makes a
nameless want in the world, and people's hearts ache for it and long to
be satisfied. They somehow feel there is somewhere a blessing that
might be blesseder, a beauty that should be more beautiful. It is then
that the little unfledged wish is near, and they feel its longing to be
made complete,--to be given wings and power to rise to heaven. Yes;
one ought not to make a good wish and let it go,--not to perish (for
nothing is lost in this world), but to be unfulfilled forever. One
ought to strengthen it day by day until it changes from a wish to an
endeavor, and then day by day from an endeavor to an achievement, and
then the world is better for it and glad of it, and its record goes
above. If all the people who wish to do wonderful things did them, how
blessed it would be! If all the people who wish to be good were good,
ah, then there would be no more disappointment nor tears nor heartache
in the world!"
Larry pondered an instant after the voice had ceased, and then said
slowly: "I _kind_ o' think I know what you mean. You think I 'd ought
to be workin'. But what could I do? There ain't nothin' I could be
doin'."
"Did n't I hear you complaining of me a little while ago, because I did
not carry heavy enough loads of honeysuckle scent and did not come
often enough? I carried all I was able to bear, for I am not very
strong nowadays, and I came as often as I could. In fact, I did my
best the first thing that came to hand. I want you to do the same.
That is duty. I don't bear malice toward you because you were
dissatisfied with me. You did not know. If you tried the best you
could and people complained, you ought not to let their discontent
discourage you. I brought you a whiff of perfume; you can bring some
one a sincere effort. By and by, when I am stronger and can blow good
gales and send the great ships safely into port and waft to land the
fragrant smell of their spicy cargo, you may be doing some greater work
and giving the world something it has been waiting for."
"The world don't wait for things," said Larry. "It goes right on; it
does n't care. I 'm hungry and ragged, and I have n't no place to
sleep; but the world ain't a-waitin' fer me ter get things ter eat, ner
clo'es to me back, ner a soft bed. It ain't a-waiting fer nothin', as
I can see."
"It does not stand still," replied the voice; "but it is waiting,
nevertheless. If you are expecting a dear, dear person--your mother,
for instance--"
"I ain't got no mother," interrupted Larry, with a sorrowful sigh; "she
died."
"Well, then--your sister," suggested the voice.
"I ain't got no sister. I ain't got nobody. I 'm all by meself,"
insisted the boy.
"Then suppose, for years and years you have been dreaming of a friend
who is to fill your world with beauty as no one else could do,--who
among all others in the world will be the only one who could show you
how fair life is. While you would not stand still and do nothing what
time you were watching for her coming, you would be always waiting for
her, and when she was there you would be glad. That is how the world
feels about its geniuses,--those whom it needs to make it more
wonderful and great. It is waiting for you. Don't disappoint it. It
would make you sad unto death if the friend of whom you had dreamed
should not come at last, would it not?"
Larry nodded his head in assent. "Does it always know 'em?" he asked.
"I mean does the world always be sure when the person comes, it 's the
one it dreamed of? Mebbe I'd be dreamin' of some one who was
beautiful, and mebbe the real one would n't look like what I thought,
and I 'd let her go by."
"Ah, little Lawrence, the world has failed so too. It has let its
beloved ones go by; and then, when it was too late, it has called after
them in pleading to return. They never come back, but the world keeps
repeating their names forever. That is its punishment and their fame."
"What does it need me for?" asked Larry.
"It needs you to paint for it the pictures you see amid the clouds and
on the earth."
"Can't they see 'em?" queried the boy.
"No, not as you can. Their sight is not clear enough. God wants them
to know of it, and so He sends them you to make it plain to them. It
is as though you went to a foreign country where the people's speech
was strange to you. You could not know their meaning unless some one
who understood their language and yours translated it for you. He
would be the only one who could make their meaning clear to you. He
would be an interpreter."
"How am I to get that thing you spoke about that 'd take me up to
heaven, so's I could bring down the beautiful things I see?" inquired
Larry. "Where is it?"
"Inspiration?" asked the voice. "That is everywhere,--all about you,
within and without you. You have only to pray to be given sight clear
enough to see it and power to use it. But now I must leave you. I
have given you my message; give the world yours. Good-by, Lawrence,
good-by;" and the voice had ceased.
Larry stretched out his hands and cried, "Come back, oh, come back!"
But the echo of his own words was all he heard in response. He lay
quite motionless and still for some time after that, thinking about all
the voice had said to him, and when finally he pushed his hat back from
before his eyes, he saw the starlit sky smiling down upon him
benignantly. And then, from behind a dark cloud he saw the radiant
moon appear, and it seemed to him like the most beautiful woman's face
he could imagine, peering out from the shadow of her own dusky hair to
welcome the night.
He got upon his feet as well as he could, for he was very stiff with
lying so long, and stumbled on toward some dark nook or cranny where he
could huddle unseen until the morning; his head full of plans for the
morrow, and his heart beating high with courage and hope.
He would dream no more, but labor. He would work at the first thing
that came to hand, and then, perhaps, that wonderful thing which the
voice had called inspiration would come to him, and he would be able to
mount to heaven on it and bring down to earth some of the glorious
things he saw. He thought inspiration must be some sort of a magical
ladder, that was invisible to all but those given special sight to see
and power to use it. If he ever caught a glimpse of it he intended to
take hold at once and climb straight up to the blessed regions above;
and dreaming of all he would see there, he fell asleep.
In the morning he was awake bright and early, and stretching himself
with a long-drawn yawn, set out to find some way of procuring for
himself a breakfast. First at one shop-door and then at another he
stopped, popping in his shaggy head and asking the man inside, "Give me
a job, Mister?" and being in reply promptly invited to "clear out!"
But it took more than this to discourage Larry, heartened as he was by
the remembrance of his visions of the day before; and on and on he
went, until, at last, in answer to his question--and just as he was
about to withdraw his head from the door of the express-office into
which he had popped it a moment before--he was bidden to say what it
was he could do. Almost too surprised at the change in greeting to be
able to reply, he stumbled back into the place and stood a moment in
rather stupid silence before his questioner.
"Well, ain't yer got no tongue in yer head, young feller? Seemed ter
have a minute ago. Ef yer can't speak up no better 'n this, yer ain't
the boy fer us."
But by this time Larry had recovered himself sufficiently to blurt out:
"I kin lift an' haul an' run errants an' do all sorts o' work about the
place. Won't ye try me, Mister? Lemme carry out that box ter show ye
how strong I am;" and suiting the action to the words, he shouldered a
heavy packing-case and was out upon the sidewalk and depositing it upon
a wagon, already piled with trunks and luggage, before the man had time
to reply.
When he returned to the door-step he was greeted with the grateful
intelligence that he might stay a bit and see how he got along as an
errand-boy if he liked; and, of course, _liking_, he started in at once
upon his new office.
That was the beginning. It gave him occupation and, food, but scarcely
more than that at first. He had no time for dreaming now, but often
when he had a brief moment to himself would take out of his pocket the
piece of chalk with which he marked the trunks he carried, and sketch
with it upon some rough box-lid or other the picture of a face or form
which he saw in his fancy; so that after a time he was known among the
men as "the artist feller," and grew to have quite a little reputation
among them.
How the rest came about even Larry himself found it hard to tell. But
by and by he was drawing with pencil and pen, and selling his sketches
for what he could get, buying now a brush and then some paints with the
scanty proceeds, and working upon his bits of canvas with all the ardor
of a Raphael himself.
A man sat before an easel in a crowded studio one day, give the last
touch to a painting that stood before him. It pictured the figure of a
lad, ragged and forlorn, lying asleep beneath some sheltering trees.
At first that seems all there was to be seen upon the canvas; but if
one looked closer one was able to discover another figure amid the
vaporous, soft glooms of the place. It grew ever more distinct, until
one had no difficulty in distinguishing the form of a maiden, fair and
frail as a dream. She was bending over the slumbering body of the boy,
as if to arouse him to life by the whispered words she was breathing
against his cheek.
The artist scrawled his signature in the corner of his completed work
and set the canvas in its frame, and then stood before it, scrutinizing
it closely.
"'The Waking Soul!'--I wonder if that is a good name for it?" murmured
he to himself. And then, after a moment, he said to the pictured lad,--
"Well, Larry, little fellow, the dream's come true; and here we are,
you and I,--you, Larry, and I, Lawrence,--with the 'wish grown strong
to an endeavor, and the endeavor to an achievement.' Are you glad,
Boy?"
BETTY'S BY-AND-BY.
"'One, two, three!
The humble-bee!
The rooster crows,
And away she goes!'"
And down from the low railing of the piazza jumped Betty into the soft
heap of new-mown grass that seemed to have been especially placed where
it could tempt her and make her forget--or, at least, "not
remember"--that she was wanted indoors to help amuse the baby for an
hour.
It was a hot summer day, and Betty had been running and jumping and
skipping and prancing all the morning, so she was now rather tired; and
after she had jumped from the piazza-rail into the heap of grass she
did not hop up nimbly at once, but lay quite still, burying her face in
the sweet-smelling hay and fragrant clover, feeling very comfortable
and contented.
"Betty! Betty!"
"Oh dear!" thought the little maid, diving still deeper into the light
grass, "there's Olga calling me to take care of Roger while she gets
his bread and milk ready. I don't see why she can't wait a minute till
I rest. It's too hot now. Baby can do without his dinner for a
minute, I should think,--just a minute or so. He won't mind. He 's
glad to wait if only you give him Mamma's chain and don't take away her
watch. Ye-es, Olga,--I 'll come--by and by."
A big velvety humble-bee came, boom! against Betty's head, and got
tangled in her hair. He shook himself free and went reeling on his way
in quite a drunken fashion, thinking probably that was a very
disagreeable variety of dandelion he had stumbled across,--quite too
large and fluffy for comfort, though it was such a pretty yellow.
Betty lazily raised her head and peered after him. "I wonder where
you're going," she said, half aloud.
The humble-bee veered about and came bouncing back in her direction
again, and when he reached the little grass-heap in which she lay,
stopped so suddenly that he went careering over in the most ridiculous
fashion possible, and Betty laughed aloud. But to her amazement the
humble-bee righted himself in no time at all, and then remarked in
quite a dignified manner and with some asperity,--
"If I were a little girl with gilt hair and were n't doing what I
ought, and if I had wondered where a body was going and the body had
come back expressly to tell me, I think I 'd have the politeness not to
laugh if the body happened to lose his balance and fall,--especially
when the body was going to get up in less time than it would take me to
wink,--I being only a little girl, and he being a most respected member
of the Busy-bee Society. However, I suppose one must make allowances
for the way in which children are brought up nowadays. When I was a
little--"
"Now, _please_ don't say, 'When I was a little girl,'--for you never
were a little girl, you know," interrupted Betty, not intending to be
saucy, but feeling rather provoked that a mere humble-bee should
undertake to rebuke her. "Mamma always says, 'When I was a little
girl,' and so does Aunt Louie, and so does everybody; and I 'm tired of
hearing about it, so there!"
The humble-bee gave his gorgeous waistcoat a pull which settled it more
smoothly over his stout person, and remarked shortly,--
"In the first place, I was n't going to say, 'When I was a little
girl.' I was going to say, 'When I was a little _leaner_,' but you
snapped me up so. However, it's true, isn't it? Everybody was a
little girl once, were n't she?--was n't they?--hem!--confusing weather
for talking, very! And what is true one ought to be glad to hear, eh?"
"But it is n't true that everybody was once a little girl; some were
little boys. There!"
"Do you know," whispered the humble-bee, in a very impressive
undertone, as if it were a secret that he did not wish any one else to
hear, "that you are a very re-mark-a-ble young person to have been able
to remind me, at a moment's notice, that some were little boys?
Why-ee!"
Betty was a trifle uncomfortable. She had a vague idea the humble-bee
was making sport of her. The next moment she was sure of it; for he
burst into a deep laugh, and shook so from side to side that she
thought he would surely topple off the wisp of hay on which he was
sitting.
"I think you 're real mean," said Betty, as he slowly recovered
himself; "I don't like folks to laugh at me, now!"
"I 'm not laughing at you _now_," explained the humble-bee, gravely; "I
was laughing at you _then_. Do you object to that?"
Betty disdained to reply, and began to pull a dry clover-blossom to
pieces.
"Tut, tut, child! Don't be so touchy! A body can laugh, can't he, and
no harm done? You 'd better be good-tempered and jolly, and then I 'll
tell you where I 'm going,--which, I believe, was what you wished to
know in the first place, was n't it?"
Betty nodded her head, but did not speak.
"Oho!" said the humble-bee, rising and preparing to take his departure.
And now Betty discovered, on seeing him more closely, that he was not a
humble-bee at all, but just a very corpulent old gentleman dressed in
quite an antique fashion, with black knee-breeches, black silk
stockings, black patent-leather pumps with large buckles, a most
elaborate black velvet waistcoat with yellow and orange stripes across,
and a coat of black velvet to correspond with the breeches; while in
his hand he carried a very elegant three-cornered hat, which, out of
respect to her, he had removed from his head at the first moment of
their meeting. "So we are sulky?" he went on. "Dear, dear! That is a
very disagreeable condition to allow one's self to relapse into. H'm,
h'm! very unpleasant, very! Under the circumstances I think I 'd
better be going; for if you 'll believe me, I 'm pressed for time, and
have none to waste, and only came back to converse with you because you
addressed a civil question to me, which, being a gentleman, I was bound
to answer. Good--"
He would have said "by;" but Betty sprang to her feet and cried:
"Please don't leave me. I 'll be good and pleasant, only please don't
go. _Please_ tell me where you 're going, and if--if you would be so
good, I 'd like ever and ever so much to go along. Don't--do--may I?"
The little gentleman looked her over from head to foot, and then
replied in a hesitating sort of way: "You may not be aware of it, but
you are extremely incautious. What would you do if I were to whisk you
off and never bring you back, eh?"
"You don't look like a kidnapper, sir," said Betty, respectfully.
"A what?" inquired the little gentleman.
"A kidnapper," repeated Betty.
"What's that?" questioned her companion.
"Oh, a person who steals little children. Don't you know?"
"But why _kidnapper_?" insisted the little old man.
"I suppose because he naps kids. My uncle Will calls Roger and me
'kids.' It is n't very nice of him, is it?" she asked, glad to air her
grievance.
"Child-stealer would be more to the point, I think, or
infant-abductor," remarked the old gentleman, who saw, perhaps, how
anxious Betty was for sympathy, and was determined not to give her
another opportunity of considering herself injured.
He seemed to be very busy considering the subject for a second or so,
and then he said suddenly: "But if you want to go, why, come along, for
I must be off. But don't make a practice of it, mind, when you get
back."
"You have n't told me where yet," suggested Betty.
"True; so I have n't," said the old gentleman, setting his
three-cornered hat firmly on his head and settling the fine laces at
his wrists. "It's to By-and-by. And now, if you 're ready, off we go!"
He took Betty's hand, and she suddenly found herself moving through the
air in a most remarkable manner,--not touching the ground with her
feet, but seeming to skim along quite easily and with no effort at all.
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