The best short stories of 1919, and the yearbook of the American short story
General
The best short stories of 1919, and the yearbook of the American short story
American fiction -- 20th century; Short stories -- 20th century -- Bibliography; Short stories -- 20th century -- Indexes; Short stories, American
"Yes--I suppose so," as if she didn't quite know. It was a funny answer
but there was a funny, secret, joyful look on her face that suddenly
made me take her in my arms and kiss her, and quite surprised to find
myself doing it.
Then she sat down and I went around getting supper; first I thought she
was reading, she was so still. Then my eyes happened to fall on her and
I saw she was _listening_; then suddenly it was like she _heard_. She
had the stillest, shiningest look. All this don't sound like much, I
know, but I won't forget how Moira and Mis' MacFarland struck me that
first day, not till I die.
When I went to bed I couldn't get 'em out of my mind and I found myself
saying out loud:
"There's joy and peace in this house!"
It was quite a time before I sensed what had happened to Mis' MacFarland
and what made her change so toward the sea. She'd sit by the window, a
Bible in her hands and praying, and you would catch the words of her
prayer, and she was praying for those she loved--for the living and the
dead. That was only natural--but what I got to understand was that _she
didn't feel any different about them_. Not a bit different did she feel
about the living and the dead!
They were all there in her heart, the dead and the living, and not
divided off at all like in most folks' minds.
I used to wonder about Moira, too, when she'd have these quiet
spells--like she was _listening_, but not to any sounds. Then next you'd
feel as if she was gladder than anything you'd ever known, sitting there
so still with that listening look on her face--only now like I told you,
as if she'd _heard_. She'd be so happy inside that you'd like to be near
her, as if there was a light in her heart so you could warm yourself by
it.
It's hard to tell just how I came to feel this. I suppose just by living
with folks you get to know all sorts of things about them. It's not the
things they say that matters. I knew a woman once, a pleasant-spoken
body, yet she'd pizen the air about her by the unspoken thoughts of her
heart. Sometimes these thoughts would burst out in awful fits of
anger--but you'd know how she was inside, if she spoke to you always as
gentle as a dove.
I'd like to be near Moira those times and yet it made me uneasy, too,
her sitting so still, listening, and Mis' MacFarland, as you might say,
always looking over the edge of eternity. It was all right for _her_ but
I'd wonder about Moira. I wondered so hard I took it up with Mis'
MacFarland.
"Do you think you're doing right by that child?" I asked her right out
plain.
"Why, how do you mean?" she says in her calm way.
"Teaching her things that's all right for us older people to know but
that don't seem to me are for young things."
"Teaching her things!" says Mis' MacFarland. "I haven't taught Moira
nothing. If you mean them still, quiet, happy spells of hers, she's
always had 'em. _She_ taught _me_. It was watching her when she was
little that taught me----"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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