Sunshine Jane

"What do you think of Mrs. Ralston's niece? Think she's nice?"

"Nice! With Susan Ralston about as lively as a cricket! I don't think much of such new ways. I don't know whatever Matilda will say. She's just got life all systematized, and now here's Susan up and out of bed. I'm so scared the girl'll come over and go at mother, I don't know what to do."

"My, suppose Mrs. Croft was to be up and about!" said Miss Debby, opening her eyes widely. "Whatever would you do?"

"Do! I know what I'd do." Young Mrs. Croft looked dark and mysterious. "I know just exactly what I'll do. And I'm all ready to do it, and if I'm interfered with, I will do it, – good and quick, too."

"How is old Mrs. Croft now?" Miss Debby asked.

"Oh, she's grabbin' as ever. I never see such a disposition. She's always catching at me or the cat or something. Seems to consider it a way of attracting attention. Crazy folks has such crazy ideas, and she's crazy, – crazy as a loon."

Katie Croft took up her market basket and went on up the street. Miss Debby stayed behind to wait for the noon mail. "Katie's so bitter," she said to herself, shaking her head; "she ought to be more grateful for being supported."

Miss Debby forgot that there are few things so irritating in this world as being supported. It is a situation which has become especially unpopular lately, particularly with women and political motives.

But no old worn-out aphorism held for one minute in the breezy bloom of the House Where Jane Lived.

"Oh, I'm so happy," Susan exclaimed many times daily, "I'm so happy. I never felt nothing like your sunshining in all my life before, you Sunshine Jane, you! I feel like my own cupboards, all unlocked and aired and nice and used again."

Jane stopped caroling as she kneaded bread and laughed – which sounded equally pleasant.

"I'm as happy as you are, Auntie; it's so nice to be in heaven."

"I used to think maybe I'd die suddenly and find myself there some day," said Susan. "I'm glad I didn't."

"It's better to live suddenly than to die suddenly," said Jane, merrily; "when people are awfully bothered sometimes, I've heard their friends say: 'But if you died suddenly, it would work out somehow,' and I wanted to say: 'Why not live suddenly instead of dying suddenly, and then everything's bound to come out splendidly.'"

"Oh, Jane, what a grand idea, – to live suddenly! That's what I've done, surely."

"Yes," said Jane, "that's what I did, too. Instead of fading out of life, we just bloomed into life. It's just as easy, and a million times more fun."

"And it's all so awfully agreeable," said Susan. "My things look so nice, all set different, and it's so pleasant having folks coming in, and I like it all, and we haven't to fuss with the garden."

"I attend to the garden!" cried a voice outside, and a mysterious hand shoved a basket of peas over the window-ledge.

"I know who that is," said Susan; "it's that boy, and he's smelt cinnamon rolls and come to lunch. How do you do?"

Lorenzo, brown and merry, was getting in at the window.

"Why, you've really been weeding!" exclaimed Susan.

"Of course! I've tended the garden ever since you gave it up."

"I declare! Well, I never. Jane, we must give him a bite of something."

"Yes, that's what I came for," said Lorenzo, cheerfully, "cookies, jelly-roll, – anything simple and handy. Madeleine and I were out walking, discussing our affairs, and when I stopped for the garden, she went on for her mail. I'm awfully hungry."

"People say you're engaged to her," said Susan. Jane turned to get the tin of cookies.

"Yes, naturally. People say so much. She is a pretty girl, isn't she? – but then there's Emily Mead. I must look at myself on all sides and consider carefully. Old Mr. Cattermole took me to drive yesterday and told me that he was healthy and his dead wife was healthy and that, except for what killed him, Mr. Mead was healthy, too; and there was Emily, perfectly healthy and the only grandchild, and why didn't I come over often, – it wasn't but a step."

"Well, you do beat all," said Susan. Jane offered the tin of cookies. Lorenzo took six. They were all laughing.

Later, when he'd gone away, Susan said, almost shyly this time: "Jane, I don't want to interfere, but he is in love."

"With Madeleine?"

"With you."

"Auntie," Jane came to her side, "you mustn't speak in that way about me. I can't marry, – not possibly. I'm a Sunshine Nurse, and I shall be a Sunshine Nurse till I die. I'll make homes happy, but I shall never have one of my own."

Susan looked frightened and timid. "But why?"

"For many reasons. And all good ones."

There was that in the young girl's tone that ended the subject for the time being.

But Susan thought of it a great deal, and alone in her room that night, Jane thought, too. She had made herself ready for bed, and then sat down by the window, clasping her hands on the sill. Lorenzo Rath was buoyantly dear and jolly, and she realized that he was the nicest man that she had ever met. It had all been fun, great fun, and she had enjoyed it mightily. But with all her learning Jane was not so very much farther along the Highway to Happiness than some others. In many cases she was only a holder of keys as yet – the distinct knowledge to be gained by unlocking secrets with their aid was as yet not hers. To hold the keys and look at the doors is to realize what power means, – but to unlock is to use it. Jane was still a novice; she left the doors locked and was content to hold the keys, and no more.

The next night Lorenzo appeared again. "I'm half-dead," he said. "I've tramped twelve miles, sketching."

"Dear, dear," said Susan, "seems like nobody in this world ever wants what's close to."

"Sometimes it's no use to want what's close to," said Lorenzo, "or else what's close to is like Emily Mead, and you just ache to run."

"Emily Mead is a very nice girl," said Jane, in a tone clearly reproachful.

Lorenzo just laughed. But then Susan made some excuse to slip away. "I wonder if you'd help me a little," he said then, hesitating a bit.

"Is it something that I can do? Of course I'll help you if I can."

"It's something very necessary."

"Necessary?"

"To my welfare and happiness."

"What is it?"

"I think – I'm – falling in love."

"Oh, dear," Jane was carefully tranquil.

"I've never really been in love in my life, so I can't be sure. But I think it's that."

Jane said nothing. The room was getting dark.

"I've never seen any one so pretty in all my life as Miss Mar," said the young artist, slowly. "You know we're old friends."

"Oh, she's lovely," said Jane, with sudden fervor.

"I thought that we might make up little picnics and walks and things?" hesitated the young man.

"Of course," said Jane, heartily. "And you can come here all you like. Auntie likes you both so much."

Lorenzo Rath stood by the door. "Were you ever in love?" he asked bluntly.

"No," said Jane. "I've never had the least little touch of it."

"Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"No, I've never had time. I've never seen any man that I could or would marry."

"Never?"

"Never."

"That's too bad," said Lorenzo Rath slowly. "Seems to me you'd make such a splendid wife."

She laughed a little. Then she had to wink quickly to drive back tears which leapt suddenly.

"I won't say any more," said Lorenzo. She thought that he did not care to speak of Madeleine to her.

Then she went. And later she found herself sitting in her own room again, sitting by the same window, thinking. "Poor Emily Mead and her illusory millionaire! I'm about as silly as she is," thought Jane. "And yet I know it's higher and more beautiful to make life lovely for others than to make it lovely for one's self." She sighed because the reflection – all altruistic as it was – was not quite the truth, and she was true enough herself to feel jarred by the slightest cross-shadow of falsehood. Truth plays as widely and freely as the sunbeams themselves and goes as straight to the heart of each and all.

Finally she opened a little book and read aloud a few pages to herself in a low tone. "I know I'm on the right path," she said, when she had closed the book; "the thing is to stick resolutely to keeping on straight ahead. And I must be absolutely content with all that comes. You have to be content if you're going to grow in goodness, for you have to know that you've been trying and been successful." She sat still a while longer and then rose with a deep, long breath. "Well, to-day's been something, and to-morrow I'll be something better, I know."

The truth did shine then, and she went to bed calmed, but was hardly stretched down between the cool sheets when Susan rapped at the door.

"Come in."

"Oh, Jane, I can't sleep. I've got to thinking of when Matilda comes back, and I'm scared blue."

CHAPTER VII

A NEW OUTLOOK ON MATILDA

THE next morning Susan looked half-sheepish and half-anxious. "I just couldn't help it, Jane. I laid in bed so long, thinking, and then it come over me what life was going to be when she was back and you gone and – well – I just couldn't help coming. I felt awful."

Jane was busy with breakfast. "I know, Auntie, I know. I ought to have thought of Aunt Matilda sooner. Half her stay is over."

"Oh, my, I should say it was," wailed Susan; "that's what scares me so. We're so happy, and the time is going so fast. It's about the most awful thing I ever knew."

Jane began beating eggs for an omelette.

"We never were one bit alike," Susan intoned mournfully; "we were always so different, and then when husband died, there was just nothing to do but for us to live together. She's my only sister, and it's right that I should humor her, but, oh my, what a scratch-about life she has led me. I was getting to feel more like a mouse than a woman – soon as I got a bite, I'd begin to tremble and to listen and then how I did run!"

"But it will be all so different when she comes back," Jane said cheerily. "She'll be very different, and so will you. It'll be just like I told you last night."

"I know, – I know. But somehow I can't see it as you do. I'm all upset. And I'm so happy without her. We're so happy. The house looks beautiful. You've just made everything over. I declare, Jane, I never saw anything like you. All my old things have turned new, and so pretty. I feel like a bride. That is, I feel like a bride when I ain't thinking of Matilda."

"It looks very nice, surely," said Jane, smiling. "Your things were so pretty, anyhow. But what I was gladdest about was to really get it all opened up and fresh. I didn't want any one to come while it was so gloomy. The whole town may call now."

"They do, too," said Susan, diverted for the minute; "they certainly do. Oh, it is so nice, I so adore to hear all about things again. Matilda just shut everybody out. She didn't like company."

"She was pretty busy, you know."

"She hadn't any more to do than you have. She hadn't so much to do as you have, because she didn't do a thing you do."

"But you were ill. She was always up and down stairs – "

"No, she wasn't, Jane. No, she wasn't."

"Well, she had your meals to carry upstairs."

"I don't call it meals to run with a teacup. Meals! Such meals! It's a wonder I didn't die. She'd turn anything upside down on a plate and something else upside down on that, and call it a meal for me. I was about sick, just from how she fed me. If I said something was cooked too dry, she emptied the tea-kettle into it next time; and if I said anything was too wet, she put on fresh coal and left it in the oven over night. If I said the room was too light, she shut it up as dark as a pickpocket; and if I said it was too dark, she turned the sun into my eyes. She's my only sister and I must humor her, but I've had a very hard time, Jane, and I don't blame myself for waking up with my teeth all of a chatter over the thought of living with her again."

Jane had their breakfast ready now on the table by the window. "Come and sit down," she said; "we'll talk while we eat. It's like I told you last night, – there must be a hitch somewhere. Of course, God has a good reason for you and Aunt Matilda living together. He doesn't allow accidents in His world."

"Perhaps He wasn't thinking. I can't believe that anybody would deliberately put anybody in the house with Matilda – not if they knew Matilda. I didn't know what she'd grown into myself when she first came to take care of me, because I was a little poorly. It was to save spending on a nurse, you know. They're such trying, prying things, nurses are."

"I'm a nurse, you know."

"My goodness, I didn't mean your kind; I meant the regular kind."

Jane was laughing. "But I mustn't laugh," she said, after a minute; "we must go to work. Let's see if we can find out how it all began. Didn't you and Aunt Matilda get on nicely at first?"

Susan considered. "Well, I don't believe we did. She was always so very sparing. Husband was sparing, and of course I'd had a good many years of it, but when your husband's gone and you've got the property yourself and have left it to an only sister who takes care of you, you don't like her being even more sparing, – putting you on skim-milk right from the first and chopping the potato peelings in the hash."

"But there must have been some good in the situation, or it wouldn't have been. When there's a wrong situation, the cure lies in hunting out the good, not in talking over the bad."

"You won't find any good in Matilda and me living together, – not if you hunt till Doomsday." Susan took a big sip of coffee and then shook her head hard.

"There's good in everything."

"I don't know what it was here, then. I was all ready to die, and the doctor said I couldn't live, and when I found out how Matilda was counting on it, I just made up my mind to live just to spite her. But it's been awful hard work."

Jane turned and seized her hand. "Well, maybe that's the reason for the situation, then. You see if she'd been different, you'd have died, but being a person who made you mad, you stayed alive."

Susan laughed a little. "I've been mad enough, I know," she went on; "it's awful to be up-stairs the way I've been and have to prowl down-stairs and run off with your food like a dog in an alley. I was always watching till I saw Matilda over that second fence and then racing for something to eat. I've been very hungry often and often, Jane, very hungry indeed, – and in my own house, too."

The tears came into the girl's eyes. "Poor Auntie!" she said. "Well, it's all over now and won't ever come back. You must believe me when I say so. Old conditions never return. The wheel can't turn backward. That mustn't be."

"But how'll it help it when Matilda's visit gets over?"

Jane rested her chin on her hands and looked out of the window. "I'll have to get you on to a plane where you can't live as you did ever again," she said.

"On a plane! – " Susan stared.

"A plane is a kind of grade in life. We keep going up them like stairs, and the quieter and happier people live, the higher is the plane on which they are. It's very simple, when you come to understand it. It's sort of like a marble staircase built out of a marsh and on up a mountain. You can stand down in the mud, or step higher in the reeds, or step higher in the water (generally it's hot water," Jane interrupted herself to say with a little smile). "Or out on the dry earth, or higher where it's flowers, or higher or higher. But every time you get up a step you leave all the mess of all the lower steps behind you forever. Do you understand?"

"No, I don't."

"Why, don't you see that if you lift yourself higher than your surroundings, of course you'll have other conditions around you and be really living another life? We can't possibly be bound by conditions lower than our souls. It's a law. I'll help you to understand it, and then it will help you to not be at all troubled over Aunt Matilda. You'll be above her. Don't you see? One can always get out of a disagreeable life by lifting one's self above it."

"But I did stay up-stairs," said Susan, with beautiful literalness. "I think it's awful to have to keep a plane above any one, when the whole house is yours."

"I didn't mean that," said Jane. "I meant that mentally you must get above her. It isn't in words or in thoughts, – you must be above her. You must get free. I must help you. You can do it. Anybody can do it. And as soon as you are free in your spirit, your life will change. Our daily life follows our thoughts. Our thoughts make a pattern, and life weaves it. The world of stars that we can't hardly grasp at all is all God's thought. The life in this house was your thought and Aunt Matilda's."

"It wasn't mine," said Susan quickly; "it was hers."

"Well, it's mine now," said Jane. "That's the true business of the Sunshine Nurses. They must get a new thought into a house and get it to growing well. Then they'll leave the true sunshine there forever after."

Susan's eyes were very curious – very bright. "I declare I don't see how you'll do it here," she said. "I can't look at Matilda any new way, as I know of. Whatever she does, she does just exactly as I don't like it."

"I suppose that you try her, too."

"Well, I didn't die; of course she minded that. But I couldn't die. You can't die just to order."

"No, of course not; I didn't mean that." Jane was quite serious. "I don't blame you at all for not doing that."

Susan had finished and rose from the table. "Let's leave the dishes and go out in the yard," she said. "I'm awfully anxious to keep on at this till we find a way out, if you think that you can; I go about wild when I think of her. I'm ready for anything except staying in bed any more."

"Oh, that's all over," said Jane. "You're off the bed-plane now, and don't you see how much higher you've got already? The next step is to fix yourself so securely on this happy one that you know that it's yours and you can't leave it. You see, you feel able to go back down again, and as long as you feel that way, it's possible. One has to bar out the wrong kind of life forever, and then of course it's over."

"But she is coming back," said Susan, "and I can't live any more on gobbles of milk and cold bits swallowed while I'm getting up-stairs three steps to the jump."

Jane looked at her. "I expect that exercise was awfully good for you, Auntie," she said seriously. "You've probably gotten a lot of health and interest out of it. Don't forget that."

"Well, maybe; but I don't want any more." Susan's tone was terribly earnest.

"It's all over then," said Jane, slowly and with emphasis; "if you truly and honestly don't want any more, then it must be all over. The thing to do now is to build a firm connection between ourselves and it's being all over."

"I don't quite understand what you mean," said Susan, "but something's got to be done, of course, because otherwise she'll come home, and oh, my, her face when she sees me up and around!"

Jane knit her brows. "You see, Auntie," she said slowly, "there's only one thing to do. We've got to change ourselves completely; we've to get where we want her to come home and where we look forward to it – "

Susan stopped short and lifted up both hands. "Gracious, we can't ever do that! It isn't in humanity."

"Yes, we can do it," said Jane firmly; "people can always do anything that they can think out, and if we can think this out straight, we can do it."

"How?"

"It isn't easy to see in just the first minute, but I understand the principle of it and I know that we can work it, for I've seen it done. You do it by getting an entirely new atmosphere into the house."

"But you've done that already," interrupted Susan. "It isn't musty anywhere any more, and there's such a kind of a happy smell instead."

"I don't mean that kind of an atmosphere. I mean a change of feeling in ourselves. We've got to somehow make ourselves all over; we must really and truly be different."

"But I am made over, and you were all right, anyhow."

"No, I'm not all right," said Jane firmly. "I'm very wrong. I'm letting silly thoughts with which I've no business torment me dreadfully, and I'm not driving them out with any kind of resolution. Then we're both doing wrong about Aunt Matilda. We're making a narrow little black box of our opinion and crowding her into it all the time. There's nothing so dreadful as the way families just chain one another to their faults. Outsiders see all the nice things, and we have lots of courage to always live up to their opinions, but families spend most of their time just nailing those they love best into pretty little limits. You and I are so happy together, and we're changing ourselves and one another every day, but we never think that Aunt Matilda's also having experience and changing herself, too. We kind of forbid her to grow better."

"You won't find anything that will change Matilda very quick, Jane. She's a dreadful person to stick to habits; she's drunk out of the blue cup and give me the green one for these whole five years."

"The change in the atmosphere of the house," said Jane slowly, "must be complete. We must never say one more word about her that isn't nice, and we mustn't even think unkind thoughts. We must talk about her lots and look forward to her coming back – "

"Oh, heavens, I can't," gasped Susan.

"We'll begin to-day on her room – "

"Then you'll make her madder than a hatter, sure; she can't bear to have her room touched."

"I'm going to make it the prettiest room in the house," said Jane resolutely. "I'm going to brush and clean and mend and fix all those clothes she's left hanging up, and I'm going to love her dearly from now on."

Susan sat still, her lips moving slightly, but whether with repressed feeling or trembling sentiment it would be impossible to say. "She looked awful cute when she was little and wore pantalettes," she said finally.

"Bravo!" cried Jane, running to her and kissing her. "There's a fine victory for you, and now," – her face brightening suddenly, – "I've got an idea of what we can do to lift us right straight up into a new circle of life. What do you say to our making the little back parlor over into a bedroom, and – "

" – taking Mr. Rath to board?" cried Susan joyfully. "Oh, I am sure that he wanted to come all along."

Jane laughed outright. "No, indeed, the very idea! No, what I thought of was inviting that poor old Mrs. Croft here for a week and giving her and her daughter-in-law a rest from one another."

Susan gave a sharp little yell. "Why, Jane Grey, I never heard the beat! Why, she can't even feed herself!"

"It would be a way to change the atmosphere of the house; it's just the kind of thing that would change us all – "

"I should think it would change us all," interrupted Susan; "why, she threw a cup of tea at Katie's back last week. Katie said she couldn't possibly imagine what had come over her, – she was leaning out to hook the blinds."

"It would be a Bible-lovely thing to do," Jane went on slowly. "You or I could feed her, and I'd take care of her. I'm a nurse, you know!"

"Jane! Well, you beat all! Well, I never did! Old Mrs. Croft. Why, they say you might as well be gentle with a hornet."

"Maybe she has her reasons; maybe it's, – Set a hornet to tend a hornet, for all we know. Anyway, it's come to me as some good to do, and when I think of any good that I can do, I have to do it, – else it's a sin. That's my religion."

"That religion of yours'll get you into a lot of hot water along through life." Susan's tone was very grave. "And you've never seen old Mrs. Croft, or you'd never speak of her and religion in the same breath. They've got a cat she caresses, and some days she caresses it for all she's worth. I've heard the cat being caressed when it was quiet, myself, many's the time. You can't use that religion of yours on old Mrs. Croft; she isn't a subject for religion. She's one of that kind that the man in the Bible thanked God he wasn't one of them."

"My religion is what brought me here to you," said Jane gently. "You aren't really sorry that I learned it, are you, Auntie?"

Susan's eyes moistened quickly. She gasped, then swallowed, then made up her mind. "Well, Sunshine Jane," she said resignedly, "when shall we get her?"