Clara Burnham - The Key Note

Mrs. Lowell took the boy's arm. "I want to go down to the water," she said. "Will you go with me?"

"Are you afraid to go alone?" he asked.

"I should like it better if you went with me."

He allowed himself to be led around the house, then on among the grassy hummocks and clump of bay and savin and countless blueberry bushes.

"Do you see what quantities of blueberries we are going to have?" asked Mrs. Lowell.

"Are we?"

"Yes. These are berry bushes. Do you like blueberries?"

"I don't know."

Mrs. Lowell laughed and shook the arm she was still holding. "You do know, Bertie," she said. "You must have eaten lots of blueberries." Her merry eyes held his dull ones as she spoke. "I don't like to hear you say you don't know, all the time."

"What difference does it make?" he returned.

"All the difference in the world. The most important thing in life is for us to know . There are such quantities of beautiful things for us to know. This day, for instance. We can know it is beautiful, can't we?"

When they reached the stony beach, she released his arm and sat down among the pebbles. He did not look at them or at the sea; but at her. She wore a blue dress and her brown hair was ruffling in the wind.

"Do you like stones?" she asked.

"I – " he began.

She lifted her hand and laughed again into his eyes. "Careful!" she said. "Don't say you don't know."

The boy's look altered from dullness to perplexity. "But I don't – " he began slowly.

"Then find out right now," she said, lifting a hand full of the smooth pebbles while the tide seethed and hissed near them. She held out her hand to him.

"Pick out the prettiest," she said, and he began pulling them over with his forefinger.

"I love stones," she went on. "See how the ocean has polished them for us. Years and years of polishing has gone to these, and yet we can pick them up on a bright summer morning and have them for our own if we want them."

"There's one sort of green," said Bertie. "Green. That's like me. Uncle Nick says I'm green."

"Uncle Nick doesn't know everything," said Mrs. Lowell quietly, as she took the pebble he had chosen and, laying her handkerchief on the beach, placed the green pebble upon it. "Now, see if we can find some that you can see the light through. There is one now. See, that one is almost transparent. It is translucent. That is what translucent means. Isn't it a pretty word – and a pretty stone? Hold it up to your eye."

The boy obeyed, a slight look of interest coming into his face. Mrs. Lowell studying him realized what an attractive face his might be. It was as if the promising bud of a flower had been blighted in mid-opening.

"Let us put all the best pebbles on my handkerchief and take them home with us. Have you a father and mother, Bertie?"

"No."

"Do you remember them?"

The boy hesitated and glanced into the kind face bent toward him. Its expression gave the lonely lad a strange sensation. A lump came into his throat and moisture suddenly gathered in his eyes. He swallowed the lump.

"Uncle Nick doesn't want me – to talk about her," he stammered.

"Your mother, do you mean, Bertie?"

The tender tone was too much for the boy. He had to swallow faster and nodded. In a minute two drops ran down his cheeks. He ignored them and began throwing pebbles into the water.

The figure that he made in his outgrown trousers and faded old sweater, trying to control himself, moved his companion, and the sign of his emotion encouraged her. Perhaps he was not so stupid as he seemed.

"I think it would be nice to make a collection of stones while we are here," she said. "I'm sure Miss Burridge will let us have a glass jar. See this one."

Bertie dashed the back of his hand across his eyes and turned to look at the small pebble she offered.

"Isn't that a little beauty?"

"I – "

"Careful!" his companion smiled as she said it and pretended to frown at him in such a merry way that the hint of a smile appeared on his face.

"Uncle Nick likes to have me say I don't know. He says it's honest."

"Well, no two people could be more different than Uncle Nick and me. I want you to know , and I want you to say so, because it's what we all have a right to. It is what God wants of us; and, Bertie, if you ever feel like talking about your mother to me, you must do so."

The boy glanced up at her, then down at the pebbles which he pulled over in silence.

"Where do you and your uncle live?"

"In Newark."

"Do you go to school there?"

"No."

"Where do you go to school?"

"Nowhere."

"Where did you learn to read and write then, Bertie?"

"In school. I went when – when she was here."

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

"And have you brothers and sisters?"

"No. Just Uncle Nick."

"Does he give you studies to learn?" Mrs. Lowell's catechism was given in such gentle, interested tones that the answers had come easily up to now.

Now the boy hesitated, and she began to expect the stereotyped answer which he had learned was most pleasing, and the easiest way out with his uncle.

"I – " he began, and caught her look. "Sometimes," he added. "But Uncle Nick says it isn't any use – and I don't care anyway, because – she isn't here."

Again Mrs. Lowell could see the spasm in his throat and face. It passed and left the usual dull listlessness of expression.

"Your mother was very sweet," said Mrs. Lowell quietly, and some acknowledgment lighted his eyes as he suddenly looked up at her. "I know that because she made such a deep impression on the little boy she left. How old were you, Bertie, in that happy time when she was here?"

"I – it was Christmas, and there have been – five Christmases since. I remember them on my fingers, and one hand is gone."

Mrs. Lowell met his shifting look with the steady, kind gaze which was so fraught with sympathy that his forlorn, neglected soul turned towards its warmth like a struggling flower to the sun.

"I'll tell you what I think would be beautiful, Bertie," she said. "And it is for you to do everything you do for her, just as if she were here, or as if you were going to see her to-morrow. Did she ever talk to you about God?"

"Yes. I said prayers that Christmas – and I got a sled."

"Do you ever say prayers now?"

"No. It – it doesn't do any good if you – if you live with Uncle Nick. He – he won't let God give you – anything."

"Let me tell you something wonderful, Bertie. Nobody – not even Uncle Nick – can stand between you and God. You know the way your mother loved you? God loves you that way, too. Like a Father and Mother both. So, whenever you think of your mother's love, think of God's love, too. It is just as real. In fact, it was God, you know, who made her love you."

The boy looked up at this.

"Yes. So, whenever you think of God, remember that 'I don't know' must never come into your thought. You do know, and you can know better every day."

"Uncle Nick won't like it if I know anything."

"Dear child!" burst from Mrs. Lowell at this unconscious revelation of blight. "We will have a secret from Uncle Nick. I am so glad you have told me about your dear mother, and now you are going to start doing everything in the way you think would make her happy if she were here. I am sure she loved everything beautiful. She loved flowers and birds and this splendid ocean that is going to catch us in a minute if we don't move back. What do you say to letting it catch us! Supposing we take off our shoes and stockings and wade. Doesn't that foam look tempting?"

Color rose in the speaker's cheeks as she finished, and the vitality in her voice was infectious.

"It's – it'll be cold," said the boy.