"—as was to spread sunshine, and I thought that was a good idea, only I couldn't see a place in it for me, 'cause I wasn't young and wasn't no girl to go 'round spreading nothing. I looked upon it that being a man, my business wasn't to spread things—a man's business is to get the stuff to spread; so I figured out that being as I was a man, I could maybe help make the sunshine, and then any one could slather it on that pleased. So I began to look about for some sunshine to make, and the handiest field I see was folks with hard lines around their mouths; there's a powerful lot of them around, you know,—ain't nothin' so hard to break up in life as hard lines around mouths. So I set out to plow fields of hard lines." He paused. It was a picture, a picture painted in heavenly colors to see his face at the moment, full of its own heartfelt, tried, and true enthusiasm, and the faces of those of his four listeners, each touched with the spiritual light shed by recent events over his or her own individual path.
"Do go on," Jane whispered softly.
"Well, whenever I'd see a hard man sitting alone, I'd go up to him and hold out my hand and say, 'Well, I ain't laid eyes on you, I don't know when!' That wasn't no lie, and 'most always we'd get a-talking. Then I'd say, 'I'm a harmless crank that likes to go round making friends, and I took a fancy to you right off.' It was wonderful all I come up against. Why, the hardest folks was just aching to sit down and explain that they wasn't hard at all. It was the most interesting thing I ever got hold of. I got arrested once for a gold-brick man, and it give me a fine chance at the jailers and some of the men in prison. Pretty soon everything that turned up seemed to just come along to give me a chance to make a little sunshine. Pretty soon life was all nothing but sunshine chances. I got hold of some books that showed me that lots of others were trying some similar games, and all working hard, and I picked out one book that 'most anybody could understand, and I used to carry it to read from. Would you believe that I wore out that book about a hundred times and sold it more'n five hundred times and give it away 'most a thousand times. I got where hard lines was just play to me. I've now got where they're flowers in my garden. I just fly at 'em. If they don't give up to one course, they do to another. I travel about looking for 'em. I was on my last trip when I see Matilda sittin' across the aisle from me, and I said to myself right off, 'What fine lines!' So I went right over and shook hands with her—"
"He said he feared maybe he'd made a mistake," interrupted his wife, "and I said—God forgive me!—'If you speak to me again, I'll call out to the conductors!'"
"And I said: 'Madam, excuse me, I'm only a harmless crank as is trying to help folks as is sick or in trouble, and you look like a woman as could tell me of some I could help, maybe!'"
"Then I thought of you, Susan," said the sister; "you see, I'd been looking out of the window, and the view was so pretty, and it kind of come over me how awful hard it was to lie in bed—and—and I felt kind of bad, and his face looked kind, and I said: 'Well, sit down. I do know somebody sick.'"
"So I set down," went on Mr. Beamer, "and in just a little while she let up like everybody does and told me the whole story, and then I took her out on the back platform and we was swinging 'round curves of mighty lovely scenery, and I got out my book and I begin to read aloud to her."
"And I got hold of the idea like mad," said Matilda. "I said right off: 'Then Susan's really all well now?' an' he said: 'She's been well always,' and I says: 'And my arm's well,' and he said: 'Nothin' ain't ever ailed your arm except your own innard feelings, and they're gone now,' and then I just put my hands over my face and says: 'Oh, God, forgive me for lots and lots and lots of things.'"
There was another little pause, and then Susan said very low: "And God did it."
"And then," said Mr. Beamer, "I says to her: 'Now, if you want to see how true everything I've been saying is, we'll just put this to a practical proof.' I'd noticed a woman with lines back there in the car slapping two sleepy children, and I told Matilda we'd each take a child for an hour and give her lines a chance to smooth out a little, and then we'd come back on the platform and talk it over."