As I walked away a timid song sounded on the air. Somewhere a robin was singing. He was not made miserable by thought—he was happy every moment. He did not need to brood upon immortality—he lived unconscious of time—every moment was lived, the beauty of the earth and the sun, and his mate, all accepted without question. The robin lives like an immortal here, upon the earth that is so beautiful: and all the wisdom of the dead civilisations is nothing to what the robin’s song tells, if you will but listen.
SWALLOW BROW: A Fantasy
(To P. T.)
That morning as she brushed her hair little Jo felt a great joy in her heart, for the sunlight was making bright the room. Her real name was Mary, but they called her Jo for short. She dropped her brush and leaned out, while a blackbird with a yellow bill flew to the top of one of the apple trees in the garden and commenced to flute in a rich, beautiful voice. Then a wild bee crawled on the window-sill and began to clean gauzy wings with his legs. Little Jo watched him with the eager look that some small children have when regarding the lesser works of God, and thought that his body was very velvety, with a sash tied round the middle of it. A lark sang over the cornfield behind the garden, and she wanted to sing and shout, for everything was so lovely in the world. But it was nearly time for breakfast, and mother would be angry if she went downstairs after her sisters and brothers had eaten their porridge, so with her heart singing like the gold-bill outside, she picked up her brush and peered into the mirror.
Her face stared back at her, with its dark eyes and shyly smiling mouth. Then a June rose seemed to hover in each cheek, shedding their petals to give her beauty: and her eyes shone.
“Oh, you are pretty,” she thought, touching the glass with her hand.
She was soon dressed, and ran downstairs, almost falling in her eagerness to move, for the sunshine that came from over the orchard was still spinning its thread of happiness in her heart, as it was in the heart of the lark who sang above the green corn.
All breakfast time she thought of the face looking back at her from behind the mirror, and hardly heard the talk about the two visitors coming that day.
After the meal, when Great-uncle Sufford had gone into his study to read the paper before going down to the meadow to paint, Michael pulled her hair and said roughly, for he was her eldest brother, “What were you grinning at during brekker, eh, kid?”
“Nothing,” replied Jo, wishing she had a stick to bang his ankles.