The Land of Content

by Edith Barnard Delano

VI

During the long silent watches of that night there came to Rosamund one of those revelations, fortunately not rare in human experience, by means of which the soul is taught some measure of the power of the infinite—power to change or to create, to lead, to see more clearly, or better to understand. The afternoon had been crowded with new impressions and emotions following each other so swiftly as to preclude consideration of them, but during the hours beside the unconscious child her mind was busy; one thing after another came back to her, and, reviewed in comparison with all the other happenings of the day, took its rightful place of importance or unimportance.

"One thing after another came back to her."

After the car had borne away her irate sister and friends, the red-headed doctor carefully went over his directions to her, and she had some difficulty in ignoring the twinkle in his eyes; Cecilia's horror and Flood's disgust had been as amusing as Pendleton's lazy irony. But before supper the doctor, too, had hurried away. Flood had not offered him a lift, and the walk back to the Summit was long. Father Cary, whom she found to be a friendly giant with a well-developed rustic sense of humor, had driven off with his tiny wife down the mountain to their daughter's home, leaving Yetta to clear away the supper.

Until then the black eyes of that other daughter of cities had scarcely left Rosamund. As soon as she had washed and put away the dishes, she came to the door of the room where the little boy lay, and after asking if 'the lady' were afraid of the quiet and dark, she went upstairs.

Then Rosamund stood at the window and watched the stars come out. The great boles of the oaks and chestnuts in the strip of woods across the way drew about themselves mantles of shadow. An apple fell from a tree near the low, white spring-house, and a cricket began to chirp. From some lower mountain slope there sounded the faint tinkle of a cow bell, and still farther down the valley twinkling lights marked, in the darkness, the places where people were gathered—little beacons of home; and she knew that overhead there shone another light, set in a window by the old woman before she went down the mountain. The placing of that light in the window, Mother Cary had told her, was the uninterrupted custom of the house since her first child was born. On that day of wonder, when the shadows had deepened in the quiet room where the miracle had taken place, they had set a lamp on the window sill, and a light had burned in the same window every night since then, a signal to all who should see it that happiness had come to live on the mountain, and still dwelt there. It was so small a light that, even when dark closed in, the girl standing beneath it could scarcely discern its rays; yet she knew that it was large enough to be seen far off, miles down the valley, across on the other mountains. Flood had told her of seeing it from Doctor Ogilvie's house at the Summit. She felt its symbolism—so small and humble a light, shedding its rays and carrying its message so far; and with that thought there came another.

This humble life of love and service, how beautiful it was! Only that morning she had believed her life the real one, her world the only one worth living in; but already she was beginning to suspect that there might be a life more real, a world less circumscribed. She looked back into the little bedroom, and beyond into the dimly lighted kitchen; it was so poor a house, so rich a home!

And of their poverty these mountain folk had given immeasurable largesse to how many waifs—dust of the city's greed and sin, taken them into this loving shelter, tended them back to usefulness, taught them cleanliness of heart and body. Yet even to the waif so rescued the city's power of harm reached out! How strange it was that the boy lying there should have escaped so many of the city's dangers, found this safe refuge on the mountain, and then have been injured on a quiet country road by one of those very dangers he had dodged every day since he first toddled across city streets!