(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.
“Well, ugly-face, if you are contemplating ragging my room, or sewing my pyjamas up, or trying any nonsense, you look out,” he said with the dignity of one whose voice had broken six weeks and three days.
“I’m not ugly-face!” she cried.
“Ho, aren’t you! You’re worse!” He pulled her hair again.
“Oh, I hate you, Micky.”
She ran out of the room, and upstairs in her bedroom she stared mournfully at her own image. It was true, she was an ugly-face, as Michael had said! Oh, and she wanted to be pretty, just to please other people.
Her mouth trembled, and a tear rolled down her cheek. Another and another fell, until she could not see anything, for the mirror was all misty.
“Oh, I want to be beautiful,” she sobbed. “Dear God, make me nice-looking.”
A butterfly drifted in at the open window and flew towards her as though she were a flower. Then, feeling that the gold-dust that came from the great blue sky no longer warmed the white and black bars of his sails, he flickered out again.
Little Jo brushed her eyes, and tripped down the stairs, her misery gone. She ran into the kitchen garden, down the path, past the flowering beans and the cabbages, and through the gate into the cornfield. Soon she reached the brook and flung herself down suddenly at its edge.
She watched the water rippling past, and the green water-weed waving to her. A school of roach went by, the light showing their bright red fins. Little Jo wondered if the fishes knew that they had lovely red fins, and if it was nice to stir the water with them. Behind her the corn seemed to sigh as the wind swept over, as though it knew of coming midsummer, with its hum over the fields, for that meant that August would follow, and the reapers come with the horses and machines.
Then she wondered if the sun loved the brook, for it shook with silvery flashes, and sang a sweet song where it ran into an eddy just by her feet. She was always wondering things. She turned on her back and tried to see a lark in the sky. It was so warm lying there in the sun, and the bees from her Great-uncle Sufford’s hives went over to the clover fields. So warm, and the tiny brook-song so sweet, that her eyes closed. Still the water murmuring softly and the lovely summer sun kissing her. She wondered dreamily if you felt like that when you were in heaven: then remembered that she was ugly and with a small sigh fell asleep.
A swallow flew low over the water, dipping his chestnut breast in the stream. Immediately Jo sat up and clapped her hands.
“Swallow, swallow,” she cried, “how little you are!”
“Am I, my love?” twittered the bird, circling over her head.
“Your wings are so blue, little swallow.”
The bird dived from above and perched at the edge of the brook. Jo could see his slim wings folded over his tail. He took one dainty sip, and then sped, light as a spider’s thread, into the air.
“Come back, little swallow,” she called, “come and perch on my finger. Unless you are afraid,” she added wistfully.
“I will come,” said the swallow. She could feel the tiny claws just touching her fingers.
“We are not afraid of you, my love,” he twittered, “we know that you would not hurt us.”
“Who told you?” she asked in wonder.
“The blackbird who sings on the highest branch of the apple tree by your window, and the humble bees, and the goldfinch into whose nest you peered without touching, and the baby hare you stroked, and all the wild folk.”
“But do they know then how I love them, little swallow?”
“Why, yes,” the bird answered softly, “all the wild things know when a man or a child loves them. Do you not remember the sparrows eating from the hand of an old man in London when you went there one day last year? And how they had no fear of him, but when a lady approached wearing what is called by some a beautiful hat, they all flew away?”
“Yes, I remember, dear swallow.”
“Well, my love, those despised sparrows knew that on that hat were the skins of nineteen humming birds, and though they knew that they themselves would not be desired, or have to give up their lives for the cause of beauty, yet they did not like the woman.”
“Oh, I hate her, I hate her,” cried Jo.
“Hush,” said the swallow. “When she bought the hat she did not think of nineteen of our tiny brothers killed for a hat. She was really a kind woman, only she never thought very much.”
“Tell me,” said the child, very happy, looking at his glorious wings, “Tell me, why do you speak to me? Do you speak to every one?”
“No,” said the swallow sadly, “I want to, but they will not listen. I know that the meadow grasses want to as well, but most of the people seem to be deaf. The meadow grasses talk to the butterflies and the coloured insects that dance among them, for they come to listen to the music of the wind as it swings the little gray and purple pollen-bells that you love to knock off with your hand. And the sound you hear is sometimes the love-whisper of the stems as they tell one another that the baby seeds are being born. For if the seeds are born before the mowers come they are very happy. It is always so among the wild flowers, my love. All they live for is the seeds.”
“I am sad when I see the grasses cut,” said Jo, “for often the little larks are killed and the sorrel dies, and the golden buttercups, and all the sweet flowers.”
“Do not be sad, darling,” twittered the swallow, “for all beauty must die. And beauty gives itself willingly in death when it loves. I remember when I was young we passed over a strange land at dawn, just as the light was coming to cheer us, and below were still figures on the slopes of the hill. We knew that they had given their lives to save their beautiful land: we knew because the wind told us that he had carried their spirits away at the moment of death.”
Little Jo began to sob again.
“Hush, my love, for is not the sun shining and the brook singing its wander-song? We do not know death, for all we think of is the lovely life we have now. The swallows do not struggle as you wise ones do, or kill one another, but each has sufficient and no more. And oh, we are so happy.”
“I am not happy, little swallow, for I am ugly.”
“My love, you are beautiful, for your heart is kind. We all love you so very much. And one day, when you are older, some one will come to you, some one to whom I talk now as I talk to you, and he will tell you that you are beautiful. He is great friends with the owl, who calls to him at night. But at present he is only a little boy.”
“How lovely,” Jo cried, jumping up and dancing. “Will he be long in coming? And will he have a horse, and a sword, and a squire to take off his armour?”
“One day he will have a sword, and he will be brave although his heart may be heavy. And when that is over, he will be sad for a long time, but always brave. But that is years to come. Sometimes even now he is sad, for his mother is dead, and his father thinks that he will grow up wild. Yet he is often jolly and naughty, especially with his friends in a wood. His name is Willie, and he is nine years old.”
“I must be beautiful when he sees me,” said the child-woman, “or he will go away.”
“He will only go away if you do not want him,” twittered the swallow, preening his feathers, “and one day he will need you very badly.”
“Oh, but I shall want my little boy,” she said, “and when I meet him I will tell him I’m his friend. But I am ugly,” and her eyes filled with tears.
“My love,” breathed the swallow, perching on her shoulder, “I have a gift for you, which I give gladly. It is all I have, and soon the meadow grasses will fall, and the roses on the hedges, and then we will be told by the wind that we must go again over the great sea into which so many of us fall. I shall have to die soon, so it does not matter,” he added to himself, but Jo did not hear, for she was wondering what the gift would be.
“Good-bye, dear,” whispered the swallow presently, “and do not forget us when you grow up. So many do.”
“No, swallow, no, but come back soon, and give my little boy a kiss for me, because he hasn’t any mummy.”
The swallow rose high in the air, and in gay flight sped over the cornfield; a swift brown bird dashed after him; a few light feathers danced in the air; a tiny poppy suddenly bloomed on a bended flag of wheat.
“O swallow,” wept the child. “O little, little swallow.”
Her heart still murmured with sadness as she went down the path towards home, past Great-uncle Sufford and a strange man, both painting at their easels. Jo wanted to look at his picture, but she thought that he might think her rude. At first he frightened her when he jumped up and exclaimed, “Oh, let me sketch your head, little lady. Beautiful, glorious!” speaking rapidly to himself, “such an angle, and glorious uplift!” But his eyes looked kind, and already she liked him. And Great-uncle Sufford was laughing.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, “but just let Mr. Norman sketch your forehead. My child, I have only just noticed it. You have the most perfect brows I have ever seen, blue-black like a swallow wing, and such an angle! Norman, you must make your picture worthy of Jo.”
So she stood before him, smiling and with shining eyes, and once more the spirit of the wild rose was in her cheeks. The strange painter-man liked her!
Now, behind the hedge Michael, her eldest brother, was crouching, having crept sinuous and Indian-like, down to the hedge to track the two artists. He watched with disgust what was happening, and determined to take it out of Mary later on. Michael was already disgusted because another stupid girl had arrived in the house a little while ago, and was staying a week.
“Now, I must thank you,” beamed the bearded stranger, “for your beauty has inspired me, you sweet fairy. Now we’ll all go home, and you must meet my little daughter Elsie.”
He picked her up and kissed her lightly and Jo kissed him back, although his face tickled, for he was kind and had said that she was a fairy.