TRIXIE had been gone two weeks and the time for her homecoming was near at hand. Aunt Joy and the Day family were out under the "big oak" planning the decorations which were to make brilliant the lawn and porches, and greet the eyes of Trixie upon the evening of her arrival home. Ned suggested the additon of sky-rockets, and Grace a brass band, and all had laughed merrily over the Fourth-of-July occasion the children wanted to make of Trixie's return. All were glad in the thought of having Trixie with them so soon, for, to tell the facts in the case, the absence of that spontaneous little soul made a big gap in the doings of that interesting family. So this is how it was with them when the two letters came.
The first was Trixie's, and said:
Dear Aunt Joy, Mamma and all of you:
It's only a little bit of a while now till we will be having our good times together again. Why, I can just shut my eyes and be with you now!
Isn't it funny how you can be in two places at once? I open my eyes and here I am in my little, white room at Uncle Ben's, with Cousin Frank whistling out doors, and
Aunt Sue (I call her Aunt Sue now, cause she don't seem to need a long, stiff name like Susan) singing to Baby Charley. And what do you think! She's singing the very little peace song I sang that first night when baby and I went to sleep. Isn't it nice for her to sing it? I shut my eyes again and it seems as it did when I was right there, singing it with the world turned all soft and white and still. It's just like Aunt Joy says: "You're where your thought is." The trick of it is to hold on to 'em, and not let 'em blow you round like a whirlwind. I believe I've thought of a thousand things since I sat down to write; but Cousin Frank's calling me and I'll finish when I come back.
· · · · · ·
Uncle Ben calls me his "foreign missionary," and says if I go home now I will leave him just half "missionaried," and my foreign mission in bad shape. But he took me in his arms just now and told me if I was not too homesick a little girl, I would make him very happy if I'd stay two weeks longer, and he'd promise to go home with me then and get acquainted with Aunt Joy. He said he'd write to mamma and make it all right if I'd stay. I came up into my little, white room to think about it. I want to do what is right; but oh! two weeks more seem awful long. Aunt Joy, I've been saying, over and over, "God is my Father and I am his child," and I have held my mind so still, now I see just how it is. If a thousand years isn't more than a day in God's sight, two weeks oughtn't to be more than a speck to God's child. I'm going to tell Uncle Ben I'll stay and help 'em all I can.
You see, baby's got a tooth and Aunt Sue talks a lot different, and Cousin Frank wishes he had a sister like me for always. Nancy and all the help say I don't make a bit of trouble. So I've got lots to be thankful for. And, oh to think! What if you hadn't ever come to us, Aunt Joy, and helped to find out about it all and everything; "what would we have done?
It makes me so glad to think about all that's come to us of good! I feel as if my heart would burst wide open like the roses, and fill all the air around me with something to make people glad and well.
Now, remember in the silent hour that your Trixie is very, very wise, and very, very happy, and very, very able to show everybody else how to be so.
Now, please don't care a bit because I'm going to stay just that little-bit-of-a-speck-of-a-two-weeks longer, 'cause a thousand years is as a day, you know, to God.
With love and love and love, I am ever your
Trixie.
The other letter was for Trixie's mother and read:
Dear Sister Ceil:
We want to borrow your little girl for a fortnight longer. We've made the discovery that little girls are a great institution in a family; like the old man's liniment, they are
"Good in sickness and good in wellness,
Good in prosperity and good in adversity;
Warranted good for everything
From a broken heart to a busted shin."
I'm sure the old vender's estimate of his "magic oil"
would scarcely exaggerate Trixie's versatility in filling the needs of this family. And the surprising thing of it all is, she seems perfectly unconscious of having done anything at all remarkable.
The very first night of her stay she upset the "old wives' fable" about teething babies, and gave Sue and me something to cut our wisdom teeth on, by taking charge of the youngster herself and putting him so soundly to sleep he never waked till late the next morning. Whatever the spell she put upon him was I can't find out, but the tooth-getting with him has been a very comfortable affair since. Frank says "she's a painless dentist."
I have tried my best to get at what it is in this child that compels the very best side in everybody and everything to show up.
She says Aunt Joy doesn't believe in any other side, and that you're all convinced she's right, 'cause a bad boy with a bad side turned out proved to be a good boy turned wrong side out, or something like that, and Ned turned him right side again with a kind word. You see, Ceil, my happy-go-lucky philosophy which has always so horrified you and Sue, fits in here very beautifully. I took my opportunity to talk it to Trixie. She listened with pleased attention and said, "It's awful nice of you, Uncle Ben, to believe in being happy always and making folks glad."
But my conclusion was quite different evidently from what she expected, and when I stated, "We give up life as a flower does its bloom, and that ends it all for us, Trixie," the child looked at me in such astonishment I felt ashamed of uttering such sentiments to her. She was so still I
knew something was coming of it. At last she said, "Uncle Ben, that wasn't bad for you to say after all. I 'most thought it was at first: then I thought about it, and you know the plant doesn't die when it drops a bloom; it lives right on and blossoms some more. Doesn't it?"
I admitted such was the case.
"Now, Uncle Ben, you like to live and be happy, and make everybody happy, and that's your blossoms, and when one drops off some more come. But there's something in you, Uncle Ben, that wants to blossom bigger and better; it doesn't want to stop blossoming, either. Isn't that so?"
Again I admitted it was so, wondering what she was driving at.
"What is it in you, Uncle Ben, that wants to keep on doing more and more forever and ever?"
"Oh, Trixie!" I answered, "how do I know that there is anything in me that wants to go on doing forever — forever is a long time!"
"But, Uncle Ben, you keep on wanting to live on and on every day, don't you?"
Oh, the child! She fishes into my very depths with her question hooks, and yanks out the secrets of my soul. She ended up with telling me about Aunt Joy's lesson of the balsam seed, and Grace's idea about the "little know" in it, and about Ned's wonderful healing. It goes beyond my comprehension, but Trixie speaks of it as the most natural thing in the world.
This Aunt Joy must be some fairy godmother dropped down among you, disguised in modern raiment, and I
think she must have indued our Trixie with her magic. But seriously, this must be a delightful hallucination of "Aunt Joy's." No wonder you're all so willing to be inoculated with it, since it hides from you stern reality and makes life a gala-day time without end. Why, it beats hasheesh and the old orthodox heaven all to pieces! But don't you think, Ceil, a fellow's imagination's liable to give out with such a constant strain upon it? And then what?
But I've promised Trixie I'd go and sit at the feet of "Aunt Joy" for a season and let her try it on me. I had to do something to induce her to lengthen her visit and that seemed the acceptable thing.
By the way, Trixie caught me pretty slick upon one point. You know I am always freely admitting Nature as the Universal Mother of all that is. Well, Trixie's improved such an opportunity to push me to the wall in an admission that fathers were quite as much a factor of life as mothers were, and then demanded of me the necessity of admitting the existence of a Universal Father. I was quite entertained with her logic. She has no idea of leaving the world fatherless or nature a widow. She gave me to understand I was a "back number" in the affairs of the Universal if I did not know that Mind was the Father of all, and Mind was God; for "Aunt Joy" said so, and that settles it.
I've caught on to a little idea that appeals to me. The possibilities of the race are held back and cramped and dwarfed by the fears and superstitions held over it of that terrible and revengeful God of Scripture. Now, it seems to me, if those who must have a God could only know
about "Aunt Joy's," what a jump the race would make. Now, don't you think I'm getting quite a missionary spirit wrought up in me?
Trixie says I do better than I say, and that's why she knows that I know more than I think I know about the wonderful good of "Aunt Joy's" everywhere-present God. Well, anyway, I want this ardent follower of His to be an everywhere presence in our home for a fortnight longer. You cannot say me nay?
With kind regards for all the Days and "Aunt Joy," I am still your old time, good time
Brother Ben.
