a tree, and tell them one of His parables, and make
them all more happy than words could say; and how
sometimes He would send one out of the beautiful city,
with a poem or tale to say to them, and bands of lovely
music, more lovely than anything beside, except the
sound of the Lord’s own voice. “And
what is more wonderful, the angels themselves come
often and listen to us,” they said, “when
we begin to talk and remind each other of the old
time, and how we suffered heat and cold, and were
bowed down with labour, and bending over the soil;
and how sometimes the harvest would fail us, and sometimes
we had not bread, and sometimes would hush the children
to sleep because there was nothing to give them; and
how we grew old and weary, and still worked on and
on.” “We are those who were old,”
a number of them called out to her, with a murmuring
sound of laughter, one looking over another’s
shoulder. And one woman said, “The angels
say to us, ’Did you never think the Father had
forsaken you and the Lord forgotten you?’”
And all the rest answered as in a chorus, “There
were moments that we thought this; but all the time
we knew that it could not be.” “And
the angels wonder at us,” said another.
All this they said, crowding one before another, every
one anxious to say something, and sometimes speaking
together, but always in accord. And then there
was a sound of laughter and pleasure, both at the
strange thought that the Lord could have forgotten
them, and at the wonder of the angels over their simple
tales. And immediately they began to remind each
other, and say, “Do you remember?” and
they told the little Pilgrim a hundred tales of the
hardships and troubles they had known, all smiling
and radiant with pleasure; and at every new account
the others would applaud and rejoice, feeling the happiness
all the more for the evils that were past. And
some of them led her into their gardens to show her
their flowers, and to tell her how they had begun to
study and learn how colours were changed and form perfected,
and the secrets of the growth and of the germ of which
they had been ignorant. And others arranged themselves
in choirs, and sang to her delightful songs of the
fields, and accompanied her out upon her way, singing
and answering to each other. The difference between
the simple folk and the greatness of the others made
the little Pilgrim wonder and admire, and she loved
them in her simplicity, and turned back many a time
to wave her hand to them, and to listen to the lovely
simple singing as it went farther and farther away.
It had an evening tone of rest and quietness, and
of protection and peace. “He leadeth me
by the green pastures and beside the quiet waters,”
she said to herself: and her heart swelled with
pleasure to think that it was those who had been so
old, and so weary and poor, who had this rest to console
them for all their sorrows.