Part 7 (1/2)
”And to change occupations.”
”Yes, for Mr. Miller is a clergyman, his son a lawyer, and Mr. Angelo has become a foreigner.”
The pencil was moving again and the amused, attentive eyes were steadfastly following.
”The persons inside the coach were Mr. Miller; a clergyman, his son; a lawyer, Mr. Angelo; a foreigner, his lady, and a little child.”
Marjorie uttered an exclamation; it was so funny!
”Now, Mr. Miller's son is a clergyman instead of himself, Mr. Angelo is a lawyer, and n.o.body knows whether he is a foreigner or not, and we don't know the foreigner's name, and he has a wife and child.”
Miss Prudence smiled over the young eagerness, and rewrote the sentence once again causing Mr. Angelo to cease to be a lawyer and giving the foreigner a wife but no little child.
”O, Miss Prudence, you've made the little thing an orphan all alone in a stage-coach all through the change of a comma to be a semi-colon!”
exclaimed Marjorie in comical earnestness. ”I think punctuation means ever so much; it isn't dry one bit,” she added, enthusiastically.
”You couldn't enjoy Mrs. Browning very well without it,” smiled Miss Prudence.
”I never would know what the 'Cry of the Children' meant, or anything about Cowper's grave, would I? And if I punctuated it myself, I might not get all _she_ meant. I might make a meaning of my own, and that would be sad.”
”I think you do,” said Miss Prudence; ”when I read it to you and the children, there were tears in your eyes, but the others said all they liked was my voice.”
”Yes,” said Marjorie, ”but if somebody had stumbled over every line I shouldn't have felt it so. I know the good there is in studying elocution. When Mr. Woodfern was here and read 'O, Absalom, my son! My son, Absalom!' everybody had tears in their eyes, and I had never seen tears about it before. And now I know the good of punctuation. I guess punctuation helps elocution, too.”
”I shouldn't wonder,” replied Miss Prudence, smiling at Marjorie's air of having discovered something. ”Now, I'll give you something to do while I close my eyes and think awhile.”
”Am I interrupting you?” inquired Marjorie in consternation. ”I didn't know how I could any more than I can interrupt--”
”G.o.d” was in her thought, but she did not give it utterance.
”I shall not allow you,” returned Miss Prudence, quietly. ”You will work awhile, and I will think and when I open my eyes you may talk to me about anything you please. You are a great rest to me, child.”
”Thank you,” said the child, simply.
”You may take the paper and change the number of people, or relations.h.i.+p, or professions again. I know it may be done.”
”I don't see how.”
”Then it will give you really something to do.”
Seating herself again on the yellow floor of the porch, within range of Miss Prudence's vision, but not near enough to disturb her, Marjorie bit the unsharpened end of her pencil and looked long at the puzzling sentences on the foolscap. With the att.i.tude of attentiveness she was not always attentive; Mr. Holmes told her that she lacked concentration and that she could not succeed without it. Marjorie was very anxious to ”succeed.” She scribbled awhile, making a comma and a dash, a parenthesis, an interrogation point, an asterisk and a line of asterisks!
But the sense was not changed; there was n.o.body new in the stage-coach and n.o.body did anything new. Then she rewrote it again, giving the little child to the foreigner and lady; she wanted the child to have a father and mother, even if the father were a foreigner and did not speak English; she called the foreigner Mr. Angelo, and imagined him to be a brother of the celebrated Michael Angelo; making a dive into the shallow depths of her knowledge of Italian nomenclature she selected a name for the child, a little girl, of course--Corrinne would do, or it might be a boy and named for his uncle Michael. In what age of the world had Michael Angelo lived? At the same time with Petrarch and Galileo, and Ta.s.so and--did she know about any other Italians? Oh, yes. Silvio Pellico,--wasn't he in prison and didn't he write about it? And was not the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy? Was that one of the Seven Wonders of the World? And weren't there Seven Wise Men of Greece? And wasn't there a story about the Seven Sleepers? But weren't they in Asia? And weren't the churches in Revelation in Asia? And wasn't the one at Laodicea lukewarm?
And did people mix bread with lukewarm water in summer as well as winter?
And wasn't it queer--why how had she got there? But it _was_ queer for the oriental king to refuse to believe and say it wasn't so--that water couldn't become hard enough for people to walk on it! And it was funny for the East Indian servant to be alarmed because the b.u.t.ter was ”spoiled,” just because when they were up in the mountains it became hard and was not like oil as it was down in Calcutta! And that was where Henry Martyn went, and he dressed all in white, and his face was so lovely and pure, like an angel's; and angels _were_ like young men, for at the resurrection didn't it say they were young men! Or was it some other time? And how do you spell _resurrection_? Was that the word that had one _s_ and two _r's_ in it? And how would you write two _r's?_ Would punctuation teach you that? Was _B_ a word and could you spell it?
”Well, Marjorie?”
”Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Marjorie. ”I've been away off! I always do go away off! I don't remember what the last thing I thought of was. I never shall be concentrated,” she sighed. ”I believe I could go right on and think of fifty other things. One thing always reminds me of some thing else.”