The day before Rebecca started for theSouth with Miss Maxwell she was in thelibrary with Emma Jane and Huldah,consulting dictionaries and encyclopaedias. As theywere leaving they passed the locked cases containingthe library of fiction, open to the teachers andtownspeople, but forbidden to the students.
They looked longingly through the glass, gettingsome little comfort from the titles of the volumes,as hungry children imbibe emotional nourishmentfrom the pies and tarts inside a confectioner's window.
Rebecca's eyes fell upon a new book in thecorner, and she read the name aloud with delight:
"_The Rose of Joy_. Listen, girls; isn't that lovely?
_The Rose of Joy_. It looks beautiful, and it soundsbeautiful. What does it mean, I wonder?""I guess everybody has a different rose," saidHuldah shrewdly. "I know what mine would be,and I'm not ashamed to own it. I'd like a yearin a city, with just as much money as I wantedto spend, horses and splendid clothes and amusementsevery minute of the day; and I'd like aboveeverything to live with people that wear lownecks." (Poor Huldah never took off her dress with-out bewailing the fact that her lot was cast inRiverboro, where her pretty white shoulders couldnever be seen.)"That would be fun, for a while anyway," EmmaJane remarked. "But wouldn't that be pleasuremore than joy? Oh, I've got an idea!""Don't shriek so!" said the startled Huldah.
"I thought it was a mouse.""I don't have them very often," apologized EmmaJane,--"ideas, I mean; this one shook me likea stroke of lightning. Rebecca, couldn't it be success?""That's good," mused Rebecca; "I can see thatsuccess would be a joy, but it doesn't seem to melike a rose, somehow. I was wondering if it couldbe love?""I wish we could have a peep at the book! Itmust be perfectly elergant!" said Emma Jane.
"But now you say it is love, I think that's the bestguess yet."All day long the four words haunted and possessedRebecca; she said them over to herself continually.
Even the prosaic Emma Jane was affectedby them, for in the evening she said, "I don'texpect you to believe it, but I have another idea,--that's two in one day; I had it while I was puttingcologne on your head. The rose of joy might behelpfulness.""If it is, then it is always blooming in your dearlittle heart, you darlingest, kind Emmie, takingsuch good care of your troublesome Becky!""Don't dare to call yourself troublesome! You're--you're--you're my rose of joy, that's what youare!" And the two girls hugged each other affectionately.
In the middle of the night Rebecca touchedEmma Jane on the shoulder softly. "Are you veryfast asleep, Emmie?" she whispered.
"Not so very," answered Emma Jane drowsily.
"I've thought of something new. If you sang orpainted or wrote,--not a little, but beautifully, youknow,--wouldn't the doing of it, just as much asyou wanted, give you the rose of joy?""It might if it was a real talent," answered EmmaJane, "though I don't like it so well as love. If youhave another thought, Becky, keep it till morning.""I did have one more inspiration," said Rebeccawhen they were dressing next morning, "but Ididn't wake you. I wondered if the rose of joycould be sacrifice? But I think sacrifice would bea lily, not a rose; don't you?"The journey southward, the first glimpse of theocean, the strange new scenes, the ease and deliciousfreedom, the intimacy with Miss Maxwell,almost intoxicated Rebecca. In three days she wasnot only herself again, she was another self, thrillingwith delight, anticipation, and realization. Shehad always had such eager hunger for knowledge,such thirst for love, such passionate longing for themusic, the beauty, the poetry of existence! Shehad always been straining to make the outwardworld conform to her inward dreams, and now lifehad grown all at once rich and sweet, wide and full.
She was using all her natural, God-given outlets;and Emily Maxwell marveled daily at the inexhaustibleway in which the girl poured out and gatheredin the treasures of thought and experience thatbelonged to her. She was a lifegiver, altering thewhole scheme of any picture she made a part of,by contributing new values. Have you never seenthe dull blues and greens of a room changed,transfigured by a burst of sunshine? That seemed toMiss Maxwell the effect of Rebecca on the groups ofpeople with whom they now and then mingled; butthey were commonly alone, reading to each otherand having quiet talks. The prize essay was verymuch on Rebecca's mind. Secretly she thoughtshe could never be happy unless she won it. Shecared nothing for the value of it, and in this casealmost nothing for the honor; she wanted to pleaseMr. Aladdin and justify his belief in her.
"If I ever succeed in choosing a subject, I mustask if you think I can write well on it; and thenI suppose I must work in silence and secret, nevereven reading the essay to you, nor talking about it."Miss Maxwell and Rebecca were sitting by a littlebrook on a sunny spring day. They had been in astretch of wood by the sea since breakfast, goingevery now and then for a bask on the warm whitesand, and returning to their shady solitude whentired of the sun's glare.
"The subject is very important," said MissMaxwell, "but I do not dare choose for you. Have youdecided on anything yet?""No," Rebecca answered; "I plan a new essayevery night. I've begun one on What is Failure?
and another on He and She. That would be adialogue between a boy and girl just as they wereleaving school, and would tell their ideals of life.
Then do you remember you said to me one day,`Follow your Saint'? I'd love to write about that.
I didn't have a single thought in Wareham, andnow I have a new one every minute, so I must tryand write the essay here; think it out, at any rate,while I am so happy and free and rested. Look atthe pebbles in the bottom of the pool, Miss Emily,so round and smooth and shining.""Yes, but where did they get that beautifulpolish, that satin skin, that lovely shape, Rebecca?
Not in the still pool lying on the sands. It wasnever there that their angles were rubbed off andtheir rough surfaces polished, but in the strife andwarfare of running waters. They have jostledagainst other pebbles, dashed against sharp rocks,and now we look at them and call them beautiful.""If Fate had not made somebody a teacher,She might have been, oh! such a splendid preacher!"rhymed Rebecca. "Oh! if I could only think andspeak as you do!" she sighed. "I am so afraid Ishall never get education enough to make a goodwriter.""You could worry about plenty of other thingsto better advantage," said Miss Maxwell, a littlescornfully. "Be afraid, for instance, that you won'tunderstand human nature; that you won't realizethe beauty of the outer world; that you may lacksympathy, and thus never be able to read a heart;that your faculty of expression may not keep pacewith your ideas,--a thousand things, every one ofthem more important to the writer than the knowledgethat is found in books. AEsop was a Greekslave who could not even write down his wonderfulfables; yet all the world reads them.""I didn't know that," said Rebecca, with a halfsob. "I didn't know anything until I met you!""You will only have had a high school course, butthe most famous universities do not always succeedin making men and women. When I long to goabroad and study, I always remember that therewere three great schools in Athens and two inJerusalem, but the Teacher of all teachers came out ofNazareth, a little village hidden away from the bigger,busier world.""Mr. Ladd says that you are almost wasted onWareham." said Rebecca thoughtfully.
"He is wrong; my talent is not a great one, butno talent is wholly wasted unless its owner choosesto hide it in a napkin. Remember that of your owngifts, Rebecca; they may not be praised of men, butthey may cheer, console, inspire, perhaps, when andwhere you least expect. The brimming glass thatoverflows its own rim moistens the earth about it.""Did you ever hear of The Rose of Joy?" askedRebecca, after a long silence.
"Yes, of course; where did you see it?""On the outside of a book in the library.""I saw it on the inside of a book in the library,"smiled Miss Maxwell. "It is from Emerson, butI'm afraid you haven't quite grown up to it,Rebecca, and it is one of the things impossible toexplain.""Oh, try me, dear Miss Maxwell!" pleadedRebecca. &............