Rosemary and Rue, by Amber

by Martha Everts Holden

"I have no time to bother with such as you," you said, and turned your eyes back to your ledger. But still the boy droned on. You looked at him again and noticed that the small hand that held the pins was well kept and very, very thin. Then your eyes followed the diminutive form down to the feet; they, too, showed signs of somebody's care, although the shoes were shabby and the stockings thin.

"He is not an ordinary little beggar," you said to yourself. And then your gaze traveled upward again until it met his long-lashed Irish eyes, so full of trouble and of entreaty that they looked like twin Killarney lakes getting ready for rain.

"Poor little chap," you said, "of course I'll buy a paper of pins," and in so doing you stooped over and patted his head, perhaps, or called him "dear," so that he went away with the twin Killarney lakes all ready for a sunburst to follow the rain. That was an opportunity you nearly missed, but it brought a blessing sweeter than a Crawford peach. You didn't want the pins, but the little desolate heart wanted the kind word bestowed along with your nickel, and perhaps its bestowal shall be an impulse toward the light to a soul that cross words and constant refusals had already given a downward trend.

There stands a very young girl at the door of a drug store. She hesitates a moment and enters. "May I sit here and wait for a friend?" she inquires of the dapper clerk. "Certainly," he answers, and places a chair for her near the window.

That girl's father told her last night to have nothing more to do with young Solomon Levi. "He is a worthless fellow," said he, "and I have forbidden him the house." "Very well," said she, and this morning she has made the excuse to go to the grocery for yeast, and is waiting here for the graceless Solomon. By and by he will come, and she will listen to him and form plans for clandestine meetings. My dear, there is a stairway whose top lies in the sunshine, but whose lower steps lead down to endless shadow. Your pretty foot is poising on the upper stair—beware! And yet I think the father has been to blame also. These stern, non-explanatory parents are responsible for much of the ruin wrought in young people's lives. If the old rat would go with the young one now and then to investigate the smell of cheese, his restraining presence would do more good than all the warnings and threats beforehand. Temptations are bound to besiege the girls and bewilder the boys. Don't let us make a pit-fire out of moonshine and forbid every bit of innocent fun and frolic because there is a gayety that takes hold on death. Give the young folks a little more license, mingle with them in many amusements which you have been wont to frown upon, do not be so frightened if their light feet go dancing off the path now and then, and ten to one the end of the journey will be Beulah Land and peace. A good deal less faultfinding and a good deal more sympathy would be better all around.

There is no lot on earth so hard to bear as the lot of wedlock where love has failed. The slave's life is not comparable to it, for the manacles that only bind the hands may be laid aside, but those that fetter the heart not death itself holds the key to loosen. It fairly makes me tremble when I see the thoughtless rush young people make to enter what is by far the most solemn and responsible relation of life. They are like mariners who put to sea in flimsy boats, or like explorers who fit themselves with Prince Albert suits and buttonhole bouquets. Before you get through the voyage, my dears, you will encounter tempests as well as bonnie blue weather, and God pity you when your pleasure craft strikes the first billow, if it was made of caprice and put together with mucilage instead of rivets! As for the explorer and his dress suit, where will he be when the tigers begin to scent him and the air is full of great sorrows and little frets like flying buzzards and cawing crows?

Be an old maid in its most despised significance then; be a grubber and a toiler all the days of your life rather than rush into marriage as a hunted fox flies into a trap. There is some chance for the fox that flies to the hills, and for the bird that soars above the huntsman's aim, but what better off is the fox in the trap or the lark in a cage? There is a love so pure and ennobling that eternity shall not be long enough to cast its blossom, nor death sharp enough to loosen the foundation of its hold. Such love is born in the spirit rather than forced in the hot-house of the senses. It is an impulse toward the stars, a striving toward things that are pure and perfect and true. It grows in the heart as a rose grows in the garden, first a slip, then a leaf and finally the perfect blossom. No rose ever put forth a flower first, and then bethought itself of rooting and budding. Pray, dear girls, that this love may come to you rather than its poor prototype, so current in a world of shams and pretenses, whose luster corrodes with daily usage and turns to pewter in your grasp.