CHAPTER I.
THE CHILD AND HER OWN PEOPLE.
There are some of us who in after years say to Fate, “Now deal us your hardest blow; give us what you will; but let us never again suffer as we suffered when we were children.”
The barb in the arrow of childhood’s suffering is this; its intense loneliness, its intense ignorance.—Olive Schreiner.
Under a great tree a child was singing softly to herself:
Beautiful, dear, and noble old tree
Bend your green branches caressing o’er me.
For oh! a day’s coming, and soon will be here,
When I shall be far from your presence and cheer;
And my heart will be lonely without your embrace,
And you—you will long for a sight of my face.
Your branches bend low to the ground,
Bend low and caressingly,
And they sway with a murmurous sound—
A language of nature profound—
Sway softly and caressingly,
As they bend, with a sigh, to the ground.
They chant the grand chorus of ages,
In musical monotone;
And open the past’s mystic pages—
The wonderful, solemn, sealed pages—
So vaguely and dimly known.
They sing me the song of the ages.
When I listen with spirit and soul
To each swaying, whisp’ring bough,
The silent centuries backward roll
And open before me like a scroll.
And I view the “Then as Now”—
When I listen with spirit and soul.
She was lying on the grass, with her face toward the sky, which she could only see in spots through the tree’s thick branches, which hung low and swayed in the slightest breeze, with a motion that was very like a caress to one beneath them. A house stood near, but the tree completely hid it on one side. One coming from the south saw only a beautiful grassy hill surmounted by a great green umbrella.
Under this friendly shelter the woman-child lay, singing her own words to her own tunes. Oblivious to outward sounds, she heard no footsteps until the branches parted and a stranger entered her temple.
At this a dog that had been enjoying the profoundest of slumber near her, sprang to his feet with a great show of vigilance, making up for his tardiness by the most energetic barking.
“Be quiet, Bliss,” said the child, rising to a sitting posture and looking steadily at the stranger, with the utmost composure. The dog at once became silent, but he went close to her and posed as on the defensive.
“I beg pardon,” said the intruder, politely raising his hat, “I saw no one, and thought to rest a bit in the shade, and get a cool drink of water, too.”