The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance

by Paul Elmer More; Corra Harris

It seems very lonesome in the big city without you, little Jack, and often I wish that some of this pile of books around me were carried away and you were brought back to me in their place. But it is better for you where you are.

You must listen to everything Miss Jessica tells you about the trees and birds, and learn to love all the beautiful things growing around you. I remember there were four or five great trees in my father’s garden when I was a boy living in the country, and I loved them, each in a different way, and had names for them and talked to them. One was an oak tree that grew up almost to the clouds, and its boughs stood out stiff and square as if nothing could bend them. That was the tree I went to when I had some hard task to do and wanted strength. Another was an elm that always whispered comfort to me when I was in trouble. I used to go to it as some boys run to their mother, for I grew up like you without a mother’s love, and I did not even have any sweet lady like Miss Jessica to be fond of me. You must ask Miss Jessica to teach you all she knows about the trees in Morningtown, and you must listen to what she says to them. Perhaps she will tell you about the famous oaks that grew in a place called Dodona, and were wiser than any man or woman in the world. People used to talk with them as Miss Jessica does with her favourite tree.

And now, dear Jack, I am going to tell you a story which I have made up just for you. It isn’t about trees exactly, but it all took place in a deep forest that spread around a wonderful city. From the high white walls of the town one could look out over the green tops of the trees as you look down on the grass, and that was a marvellous sight. There was a single road that ran through the forest right up to the gate of the city; but it was a hard road to travel, dark most of the time because the sun could not shine through the leaves, and very lonely, and so still that you could hear your heart beat except when the winds blew, and then sometimes the boughs clashed together overhead and roared and moaned until you longed for the silence again. It was a long road too, and the men who walked through the forest to the city all had great packs on their shoulders. And what do you suppose was in their packs? Why, every traveller carried with him a gorgeous suit of clothes heavy with velvet and gold and silver; for so the people dressed in the beautiful city, and no one could enter the gate unless he too bore with him the royal robes. But you see, while they were walking in the rough forest, they wore their old clothes of course.

Now in one place a wonderful woman sat by the roadside. She was a maga, or witch, named Simona. She was beautiful if you did not see her too close, with large round eyes that looked very gentle and kind. And when any traveller came by, the big tears would begin to roll down her cheeks and she would cry out to him as if she pitied him and wanted to help him.

“Dear traveller,” she would say, “why do you trudge along this gloomy road, and why do you carry that bundle which bends your shoulders and tires your back? Don’t you know that it is all a lie about the city you are seeking? There is no city of palaces at your journey’s end. Indeed, you will never get to the end of the woods, but will walk on and on, stumbling and falling, and growing weaker and weaker, until at last you fall and never rise. And the wild beasts that you hear at night howling in the bushes will rend and gnaw your body until only your bones are left.”

At this the travellers would stop and say: “But what shall we do, wise witch, and whither shall we go?”

Then she would say to them: “Turn aside by this pleasant path, and in a little while you will come to my beautiful garden which is named Philanthropia. There you will find many others whom I have wept for and saved as I do you; and there amid the open glades you may live with them in everlasting peace and love. Houses are there which you need only to enter and call your own. And when you are hungry you have only to speak, and immediately all that you desire to eat will appear on the tables. And when you are tired, soft beds will rise up to receive you. And clothes will be spread before you—not stiff and uncomfortable robes like those you carry in your pack, but soft garments suited to that land of comfort.”

Most of the travellers believed the witch and turned into the by-path. But, alas! it was soon worse for them than it had been on the road; for they were led, not to a garden, but into a great sandy desert, where nothing grew and no rain or dew ever fell. And somehow they could find no way out of the desert, but wandered to and fro in the endless fields of dust, while the hot sun beat upon their heads and their hearts failed them for hunger and thirst.

But now and then a wary traveller did not believe the witch and laughed at her tears and soft voice. And then, unless he got away very quick, something dreadful happened to him. The witch suddenly changed into a huge monster with a hundred flaming eyes, and a hundred mouths with which she raved and bellowed, and a hundred long arms that coiled about like serpents. She was so terrible that most men who saw her in her true form fell down fainting at her feet; and these she lifted up and threw into deep dark holes, hidden from the road, where the poor wretches soon died of sheer loneliness.

And now comes the heart of the story, dear Jack, if you are not too tired to read to the end.