Sunday: It is pleasant again, now, and I am happy; but those were heavy days; I do not think of them when I can help it. I tried to get him some of those apples, but I cannot learn to throw straight. I failed, but I think the good intention pleased him. They are forbidden, and he says I shall come to harm; but if I came to harm through pleasing him, why shall I care for that harm?
Monday: This morning I told him my name, hoping it would interest him. But he did not care for it. It is strange. If he should tell me his name, I would care. I think it would be pleasanter in my ears than any other sound. He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright, and is sensitive about it and wishes to conceal it. It is such a pity that he should feel so, for brightness is nothing; it is in the heart where the values lie. I wish I could make him understand that a loving good heart is a treasure, and riches enough, and that without it intellect is poverty. . No, he took no interest in my name. I tried to hide my disappointment, but I suppose I did not succeed. I went away and sat on the moss-bank with my feet in the water. It is where I go when I hunger for companionship, some one to look at, some one to talk to. It is not enough but it is something, and something is better than utter loneliness. It talks when I talk; it is sad when I am sad; it comforts me with its sympathy; it says, "Do not be downhearted, you poor friendless girl; I will be your friend." It IS a good friend to me, and my only one; it is my sister. That first time that she forsook me! "She was all I had, and now she is gone!" In my despair I said, "Break, my heart; I cannot bear my life any more!" and hid my face in my hands, and there was no solace for me. And when I took them away, after a little, there she was again, white and shining and beautiful, and I jumped into her arms! That was perfect happiness; I had known happiness before, but it was not like this, which was ecstasy. I never doubted her afterward.
Tuesday: All the morning I was at work improving the estate; and I purposely kept away from him in the hope that he would get lonely and come. But he did not. At noon I stopped for the day and took my resting by flitting all around with the bees and the butterflies and reveling in the flowers, those beautiful creatures that catch the smile of God out of the sky and preserve it!
He does not care for flowers. He called them rubbish, and thinks it is superior to feel like that. He does not care for me, he does not care for flowers, he does not care for the painted sky, is there anything he does care for!!! except building shelters to coop himself up in from the good clean rain, and thumping the melons, and sampling the grapes, and fingering the fruit on the trees, to see how those properties are coming along? I laid a dry stick on the ground and tried to bore a hole in it with another one, in order to carry out a scheme that I had, and soon I got an awful fright. A thin, transparent line rose out of the hole, and I dropped everything and ran! I thought it was a spirit, and I WAS so frightened! But I looked back, and it was not coming; so I leaned against a rock and rested,then I crept back, alert, watching, and ready to fly if there was occasion; and when I was near, I parted the branches of a rose-bush and peeped through-, but the sprite was gone.I went there, and there was a pinch of delicate pink dust in the hole. I put my finger in, to feel it, and said OUCH! and took it out again. It was a cruel pain. I put my finger in my mouth; and by standing first on one foot and then the other,I presently eased my misery; then I was full of interest, and began to examine. I was curious to know what the pink dust was. Suddenly the name of it occurred to me, though I had never heard of it before. It was FIRE! I was as certain of it as a person could be of anything in the world. So without hesitation I named it the fire. I had created something that didn't exist before; I had added a new thing to the world's uncountable properties; I realized this, and was proud of my achievement, and was going to run and find him and tell him about it, thinking to raise myself in his esteem, but I hesitated, and didn’t do it. No, he would not care for it. He would ask what it was good for, and what could I answer? If it was not GOOD for something, but only beautiful, merely beautiful… So I sighed, and did not go. I mean really, it wasn't good for anything; it could not build a shack, it could not improve melons, it could not hurry a fruit crop; it was useless, it was foolishness and a vanity; he would despise it and say cutting words. But to me it was not despicable; I said, "Oh, you fire, I love you, you dainty pink creature, for you are BEAUTIFUL, and this is enough!" Then I made another axiom out of my head, though it was so nearly like the first one that I was afraid it was only a plagiarism: "THE BURNT EXPERIMENT SHUNS THE FIRE." When I had made a good deal of fire-dust I emptied it into a handful of dry brown grass, intending to carry it home and keep it always and play with it; but the wind struck it and it sprayed up and spat out at me fiercely, so I dropped it and ran. When I looked back the blue spirit was towering up and stretching and rolling away like a cloud, and instantly I thought of the name of it-SMOKE!-though, upon my word, I had never heard of smoke before. Soon brilliant yellow and red flares shot up through the smoke, and I named them in an instant -FLAMES- and I was right, too, though these were the very first flames that had ever been in the world before. They climbed the trees, then flashed splendidly in and out of the vast and increasing volume of smoke, and I had to clap my hands and laugh and dance, it was so new and strange and so wonderful and so beautiful! He came running, and stopped and gazed, and said not a word for many minutes. Then he asked what it was. Ah, it was too bad that he should ask such a direct question. I had to answer it, of course, and I did. I said it was fire. If it annoyed him that I should know and he must ask; that was not my fault; I had no desire to annoy him. After a pause he asked: "How did it come?" Another direct question and it also had to have a direct answer. "I made it." The fire was traveling farther and farther off. He went to the edge of the burned place and stood looking down, and said: "What are these?" "Fire-coals." He picked up one to examine it, but changed his mind and put it down again.
Then he went away. NOTHING interests him. But I was interested. There were ashes, gray and soft and delicate and pretty -I knew what they were at once-. And the embers; I knew the embers, too. I found my apples, and raked them out, and was glad; for I am very young and my appetite is active. But I was disappointed; they were all burst open and spoiled. Spoiled apparently; but it was not so; they were better than raw ones. Fire is beautiful; some day it will be useful, I think.
Friday: I saw him again, for a moment, last Monday at nightfall, but only for a moment. I was hoping he would compliment me for trying to improve the estate, I had meant well and had worked hard. But he was not pleased, and turned away and left me. He was also displeased on another account: I tried once more to persuade him to stop going over the falls. That was because the fire had revealed to me a new passion-quite new-, and distinctly different from love, grief, and those others which I had already discovered-FEAR-. And it is horrible! I wish I had never discovered it; it gives me dark moments, it spoils my happiness, it makes me shiver and tremble and shudder. But I could not persuade him, cus he hasn’t discovered fear yet, and so he could not understand me.
.1.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.1.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.0.jpg)
.jpg)
