Hearts at Ease

HEARTS AT EASE By Minerva Pinkerton Troy The thought that she was selfish had never entered Mazie's pretty little golden head. Life had always brought to her exactly what she wanted, and she had accepted it as her just and rightful portion. Her adored and adoring parents, to whom she had come late in life, had never ceased to marvel, and to wonder if she were not actually only a precious loan, given for a little while that they might taste the rapture Heaven held for them. In her beautiful home she had ruled as an absolute monarch, not as a tyrant, to be sure, that was never necessary, as her slightest wish had been anticipated and obeyed even before she herself fully realized what it was. Then had come Glen, and even now a lovely color spread shyly over her cheeks and her eyes grew misty as she remembered the perf ectN joy of those few short months of courtship which had led to the wonderful day in the great Temple when she had become his wife forever. She was very much in love with her big, handsome, twenty- year-old husband, but, perhaps unconsciously, more in love with her dear, little eighteen-year-old self, and as she walked slowly down the long, shady lane which led to the mail box, a little smile played around her lips as she thought of the care-free, happy life that had been hers. Always before her thoughts had ended with the all-sufficient pres- ent, but today they ran on and on into a beautiful, rosy-hued future, and grew into dreams upon which were founded wonderful air castles, wherein she dwelt with her court of subjects — Glen, her par- ents, and her long train of friends and admirers, which included all of the inhabitants of the rambling little village in which she had been born, and had lived all her life, except for winters of schooling and occa- sional summer visits in the great, near-by city. In her dreams she had been always the central figure, and all else had revolved around her, readv to do her bidding, or come at the motion of her hand. Today, however, she was in fancy, will- ingly, gladly sharing her throne, her homage and her power, and her eyes grew wistful and glowed with a beautiful, new light as she looked into the future and beheld this new regent, to whose wish even she would bow, and feel as if she were receiving a blessing in being granted the service. Sometimes it was a healthy, rugged, rosy-cheeked boy who ruled her fairyland of dreams, and sometimes a fair, delicate replica of her- self, but for perhaps the first time in her life, she had formed no wish in the matter, she had left it in God's hands and felt that his will would be best for her, and — half reluctantly she added — for Glen. She

HEARTS AT EASE 231 had not told her precious secret to any one yet, she wanted to hoard it for herself just a little while longer, to feel that she alone of all the world knew of the great blessing which was to be sent to her and the ones she loved best. • Mazie loved this beautiful, winding lane. Every tree and stone in it brought from the happy past memories of some baby pleasure or girlish joy that she had known here. Even before she could walk so far she had claimed the privilege of getting the mail each evening, and her father had carried her on his shoulder and held her up to get the letters. This quiet walk had always seemed to Mazie like mother's good-night kiss — a sweet, pure benediction, which sealed a well- spent day, and ushered in a calm, peaceful night. The mail carrier had not yet come when she reached the letter box, for both the small gray man and his big gray horse had grown old in the service. Usually this would have delighted Mazie, and she would have walked up the road until she met him, then demanded a ride, in the box-like vehicle back to her home lane, but now she wanted to be alone, to dream her dreams with no alien thoughts to interrupt or infringe, so crossing the road, she opened the sagging gate, and walked slowly down the almost overgrown path which led to "the little brown house." Mazie had always called it "the little brown house" and had peopled it, in her childish imagination, with fairies, goblins, sprites, kidnaped children, gypsies, and every sort of mysterious inhabitant that her busy brain could invent. Even yet, she more than half believed that there was some hidden charm about the tiny, weather- stained cottage hidden among the tall trees in the sheltered hollow, and she always came here to rejoice in and live anew the happiest moments of her life — her graduation with such high honors, Glen's loving her and wanting her for his wife, her father's taking Glen into partner- ship so that she need not leave her old home, and now this glorious new joy, which made all the others seem as stars at the rising of the sun. Still musing, she subconsciously noted that a wagon had re- cently passed along the little-used road, leaving broken plants and bruised vines in its wheel tracks, and she vaguely hazarded a suppo- sition that some beauty-loving home maker had driven through this way to the woods for wild vines or shade trees. Humming softly, she rounded the last turn, and stopped with a gasp of surprise, for smoke was issuing from the squatty rock chim- ney, snowy curtains fluttered from the open windows, and the rich, dark soil before the cottage had been spaded and marked off into queer little zigzag patterns which looked to Mazie like the pictured canals of Mars she had seen in her father's big astronomies. Wonderingly she drew nearer, still studying the odd-shaped plots of cultivated ground. It was very evident that they had been care-

232 IMPROVEMENT ERA fully planned and painstakingly tended, for each angle was sharply defined and every curve accurate, while the level, dark surface showed the result of recent sprinkling, with here and there the print of a smoothing hand. "I'll never doubt fairies again," Mazie whispered, incredu- lously; "but I don't see why even fairies should shape their flower beds like Chinese laundry marks. I wonder — " With Mazie, to wonder had always meant to find out, and with- out a thought of what the consequence might be, she stepped carefully between two of the puzzling plots, walked quickly up to the little house and rapped at the open door. A light step sounded within, and the next moment she found herself looking down into a pair of the bluest eyes which twinkled and gleamed beneath the curliest silver hair, and above the sweetest, most winning smile that Mazie had ever seen or imagined. For an instant she stood, looking deep into the blue eyes and giving smile for smile, while through her mind flashed a line from an old copy-book verse — "And when you smile, another smiles," then, catching her breath, she began, "I don't know what you'll think — I hope you'll pardon my rudeness, but — your flower beds, what strange shapes — I simply couldn't imagine — would you please tell me?" She paused in embarrassment, and in a voice which Mazie declared exactly matched the silvery hair, the little gray lady in the doorway answered, "Sure I'd be telling you in a minute, Dearie, but if you'll just be looking at them from here you'll be finding the answer for yourself, and you know that's always fair and always the better plan." Mazie turned, and from the porch looked again toward the freshly spaded earth; then gave a little cry of surprise and delight, for, viewed from this angle, the hitherto meaningless jumble of curves and lines fell, as if touched by a magic wand, into ten perfect, symmetrical letters which formed a graceful semi-circle before the cottage door. "H-E-A-R-T-S-E-A-S-E," she spelled out, softly, "and I'm just sure," she continued impulsively, "that you have planted pansies. Please don't tell me differently. It would break my heart." "Of course they're heartsease, dearie, pure white ones, and big. velvety purple; every color and shade, but each a beautiful picture by the Great Master. He made the royal rose to please the eye, the sweet clove pink to delight the nose, the buttercups and daisies to fill baby hands, and even the lowly dandelion to brighten waste places; but the pansies, it seems to me, are his own special messengers, they comfort the sorrowing and bring peace to aching hearts." I've never had a real heartache of sorrow, except when my hus- band went away," Mazie smiled, "but I've always loved pansies. They're so plucky and dependable, so all-the-year-roundable."

HEARTS AT EASE 233 "Your husband?" and the old, blue eyes twinkled with merri- ment. "Dear child, you'll be trying to make me believe that you've just tucked your six children into bed, while you slipped out to take the evening air!" "O, no," protested Mazie, laughing, "but I have really been married for almost a year, and two months ago Glen, my husband, was called on a mission. At first I felt rebellious, we were so happy, but when I tried to think of another man in the ward who could have been spared better, I couldn't do it; for you see, I've always been such a baby that I wouldn't hear of leaving father and mother, so Glen simply had to come and live with us. I get awfully lonesome for him, but he writes often, and I try to be as patient as I can. I am sure to have a letter from him tonight, and came early for the mail — that is how I chanced to wander here; this has always been a sort of fairyland to me." "I'm glad that chance led you in my direction, and I hope that finding my pansies and me won't banish the fairy charm for you; but come in, child, come in. You are my first caller, except the good man who sold me the place and helped me to get settled, and here I'm keeping you standing while I talk of my flowers, for all the world like a proud mother telling the neighbors about the only baby's cunning ways." When they were seated in the immaculate, though tiny, sitting room, the little lady resumed in a half chiding, half whimsical voice, "And you're calling it a sorrow to have a dear husband away on an errand for the Great Father, while you bide the time here with loving parents and await his homecoming? I might wish for you, Dearie, that you'll never know worse, but I've lived a long while, and I've come to know that we never. really know life till we've lived it in all its phases, and we never truly love God till we've been to him with our hearts purged pure by great sorrow and much suffering. You know, love, there must always be clouds to make a glorious sunset." "What a beautiful thought," Mazie exclaimed, and repeated softly, "There must always be clouds to make a beautiful sunset, then I'm afraid I'll not have a very gorgeous one, for so far I've never had a real cloud, just a tiny mist now and then, which someone climbs right up and shoos' away for me." "Don't fret about that, little girl- wife, there'll be plenty of time for clouds, before the sun of your life sets. The great thing for you to do is to live these blessed sunshiny days in such a way that, when the clouds do come, you can meet them bravely, and turn them to gold instead of letting their grayness envelop you. I'm not preaching to you, child, I lived in the dull, dreary clouds for years, but I'm trying now, with the help of God and my pansies and my

234 IMPROVEMENT ERA memories and my hopes, to shine through and tinge them with gold and silver." "You have had a great sorrow?" ventured Mazie, timidly, and was surprised at her own question, for she had always shunned even the recitation of anything gloomy or depressing, but now she leaned forward and eagerly awaited the answer, which came, utterly devoid of self-pity, full only of patient resignation and perfect trust. "Life has been full of sorrows for me, dear child; I've seen my loved ones suffer and die, I've faced poverty and want, I've passed through 'most every kind of trial that mortals are heir to, but I've learned one great truth from it all — no sorrow bites deeper nor lasts longer than the one we bring upon ourselves. It seems some- times, even yet, that God could not forgive me, though it's been two years, and I've surely wiped out the sin with the suffering it has brought me." She seemed to have forgotten her listener, and sat, looking through the open door toward the pansy beds, but with such a far- away, dreamy expression that Mazie knew she was seeing in fancy a scene long past or far distant. "He was all I had left," the quiet old voice continued, "and it seemed that I loved him enough to make up for all the ones that had been laid away. I had always taught him to speak the truth and to be honest and honorable, but I could not see the need of joining a church, and of course I expected him to see everything as I did. He was only eighteen years old when he came home one evening and told me he had become converted to a religion which we had always considered a menace to civilization; he asked my consent to his being baptized and tried to explain some of its doctrines to me, but in my outraged pride and blind jealousy because he had put the teachings of someone else ahead of mine, I told him to leave my house and go to some of his new-found associates. I forgot that the house we lived in had been paid for mostly by his earnings; I did not stop to consider that I had taught him from babyhood always to rely on his own judgment, and to choose the right in all things, no matter what the opposition; I knew only that the boy I worshipped with my whole heart and for whom I had planned such a brilliant future, had brought disgrace upon himself and me, by joining — O, you've guessed it, I'm sure, love, by joining the 'Mormons'." Mazie recoiled as if someone had struck her a blow in the face. Never in all her sheltered life had she dreamed that anyone in this day could so hold in contempt the Church to which she had be- longed all her life. She had read of the bitter hardships and trials through which the pioneers had passed, but could not associate in her mind the prosperous, populous Church of which all of her friends and relatives were members with the once despised, persecuted pioneers who had builded the foundation upon which it had grown. More

HEARTS AT EASE ' 235 impossible, it seemed to her, was the thought of connecting this srweet-faced old lady with the cruel, ignorant mobs who had heaped insult and injury upon the first Latter-day Saints. Almost unconsciously Mazie stood up and took a quick step to- ward the door. It never occurred to her to defend the truths and principles which had always formed so large a part of her life, she only wanted to run away, but in her brain was already forming a plan by which her dear, gentle mother and her brilliant, wise father could meet this charming, though hopelessly prejudiced, little lady and prove to her, by their own gracious examples, that they were not the menace to mankind her imagination had pictured them. "Don't run away, dear, and don't look at me with that horrified expression in your innocent eyes. I want to finish my little tale and tell you that I now love your beautiful religion, and am trying every day to be more worthy to be called one of you." "O, I'm so gladT" Mazie cried, breathlessly. "It just seemed as if I couldn't stand it for you to feel so. Tell me the rest, please, I can hardly wait." She dropped again into her chair and leaned eagerly forward to hear more clearly each low-spoken word. "It's no great and thrilling tale, love, I didn't see an angel nor hear a voice from heaven. For weeks I scarcely lived at all, my heart was so full of sorrow and bitterness, and then, little at a time I began remembering how canny and wise my boy had always been in all of his ventures, and to wonder, even against my own will, just what in this new doctrine had so blinded his usually keen sight and benumbed his shrewd judgment. You may smile if you want to, dear, but it was no smiling matter to me then, and I know now that it was because my heart was broken by sorrow and longing, and my spirit was meek and prayerful, that I began to listen and read and learn all I could about the religion which my boy had adopted for his own, and that, as time went on, I found in it the answers to all the old puzzling questions, which mankind had for ages either put aside as too deep for mortal mind, or had answered, each in his own way. "It took months, child, months of groping, study and faith and prayer, for I was stubborn and proud, but at last I came to know the truth, even as my dear son had known it; and I sought out the elders and asked to be baptized." To Mazie the kind old face seemed to shine as with an inner light, but a shadow passed over it, and the brave voice faltered a little as she continued, "Then began the long search for my boy. When I drove him away I forbade him disgracing his father's honorable name, and told him he could pick up anything to be known by among his new crowd. I had forbidden his writing to me, or communicating with me in any way, and to this day, love, I've never heard from or of him."

236 IMPROVEMENT ERA Again the blue eyes filmed over and seemed to be looking at something which Mazie could not see. With an impulsive motion she leaned forward, and taking the wrinkled old hands in her firm, strong grasp, she exclaimed with conviction, "But you will. We'll help you. My father knows everyone, and Glen travels all over the country. Oh, we'll find him for you. Don't you ever worry another mite." The little smile came twinkling back, but the shadow still hovered in the troubled eyes. "Of course we'll find him, dearie, that's why I sold the home in Kilarney, and came away out here to Utah. The kind missionaries at home told me that he had come to America, and scores of good people here have tried to help me, but not knowing what name he took makes it a pretty big task. You see, I digged a pit for my own feet when I took his name away from him." " 'Twas such a bonny name, too," and a gleam of pure mischief shone for a moment in the tell-tale eyes. "His father wanted him called Erin after the land of his birth, and his god-father insisted that we have him christened Ethan, after himself, but it was in the springtime, dear, and my beds of pansies were all abloom, and when I looked at their dear little faces and then at the face of the precious wee bundle in my arms, I felt that I owed them something for helping me to keep plucky and cheerful through it all, and so — " A gurgling chuckle of pure, child-like mirth caused Mazie to stare anew at this dear, queer little woman who could laugh like that even while her heart was breaking. "Yes," coaxed Mazie, softly. "Yes, of course; and so — " "I named him Hart Ethan Erin Rooney, but I called him what he always was, and I hope will be to me again — 'Heartsease'." "O!" cried Mazie, her eyes shining and her breath coming in quick gasps, "Hart and two E's! And that explains the why of the pansies, and the pansies explain the why of you. I've been trying to think ever since I came in who you reminded me of, and it just dawned on me that it isn't a person at all. It's a brave, sweet, happy little pansy." A glance toward the flower beds, and over them to the sky, revealed the almost setting sun, and she hurried on. "Will you just look at that sun? I've been here ages, and mother will worry, but I'm coming again, every day, and bring mother, and I'm going to try to show you just what you've done for me — shown me how selfish and thoughtless I've been about my silly little worries, when you've turned your real troubles into stepping stone9 toward heaven. Why, I've been asleep all my life and didn't even know it, but if you'll just let me come and talk to you, and bring the other girls, and if you'll just come out and tell us and show us what real faith — not mustard-seed, but pansy-seed faith — is, why you'll be a wonderful missionary and convert us all right here in our own Church!"

HEARTS AT EASE • 23 7 "You've a blarneying tongue, child, but even the wisest man loves to be flattered a little, and if you'll just be remembering that pansy-seed faith is perfect faith, first a dark journey into the sun- light, and then a cheerful giving to others all that God has given to them." "Giving! That's it," cried Mazie, contritely, "and here all of my ' life I've just been taking and taking. Why, right now I'm cheating Glen and mother and dad out of the most wonderful hap- piness, and I really thought I was enjoying it more by keeping it all to myself. I want to tell you, too, please, and then I must skip for home." She leaned forward and whispered a dozen words, and then in shy confusion, darted between the pansy beds and down the grass grown path. The flag was up when Mazie reached the mail box, although a little ways up the home lane she saw her father and mother walking slowly, their heads bent over the news items in the four-page local daily. "That means a letter for me," she laughed, happily, "and they left it there so I can read it alone; the blesseds! They worried about me and left it at the box until they saw me coming, and then went on to wait until I've read it and decided whether to share it or not. What a little beast I must have been all my life — so far, but thank goodness it hasn't been very far yet, and," with another laugh and a shake of her curly, bobbed head, "just watch me on the home stretch." The letter bore Glen's flowing scrawl, and as she took it another spasm of contrition seized her. "Glen, honey," she whispered, "I'll never count letters on you again. I'll write every day, whether you do or not. Why, I'll just have to, to tell you all the things I've got to say. Two years'll just zip along." She had skimmed through the opening ^sentences, and was- quickening her pace so as to overtake her parents, when a sentence or two of Glen's letter caused her to stop and read more attentively: "Somehow, till now it has seemed that my work in the mission field has been merely mechanical. I accepted the call and have done the best I could to fill it, simply because it was expected of me because my father and my grandfather had filled honorable missions, but until recently, I had neither looked for nor found any particular joy or satisfaction in the work; and Mazie mine, I've come to realize, in a vague sort of way, that my missionary life has been but the natural result of our home life. You and I, dear heart, have always followed along the line of least resistance. We have our parents to thank that this easiest path has been the right one. Because of their whole-souled faith, courage and integrity, they have chosen the path

238 IMPROVEMENT ERA of duty and righteousness, and have kept it smooth and flower-strewn for our stumbling feet. "We're not children any more, wife o' mine, and we've walked in borrowed light long enough. We've been — sometimes willingly, sometimes protestingly — doing what they know to be right, and be- cause they do know it. "I fear I'm not making this very clear. I can't seem to find just the words I want, but I feel it in every atom of my being and must try to convey my feelings to you, that you, too, may begin truly to live, and not just drift and dream as we have been doing. "Perhaps I may make it plainer this way, for in all of my thinking and praying along these lines, my thoughts always come right back to this question — if we walk always in the light of our parents' good deeds, live in the glory of their faithfulness, and bask in the halo of their holiness, without putting forth any effort to win these for our own, then, should the Lord see fit to give us children — and I feel sure that he will, if we but live and work to make ourselves worthy of them — must they, then, revert back one generation and try to follow their grandparents' example, imitating their worthy deeds and live noble lives because they did, or must they mark out new paths for their own feet, and run the risk of laying their course in the wrong direction? For while we have our parents' example constantly before us; to our children, the strength and fortitude of their grandparents will, in time, become but a tradition — an echo of an echo. "I fear I'm wandering into vagaries again. I can't make my pen quite catch up to my thoughts, but, girl of mine, try to understand, so that we may begin again and together live this wonderful God-given life as he meant that we should." With trembling hands, Mazie turned the pages; wiping away the happy tears that she might read more of this glorious message from her erstwhile careless, happy-go-lucky, boy husband: "I am almost ashamed to tell you what brought about this great awakening, for again words will fail to do justice. You remem- ber in my last letter I told you I was to have a new traveling com- panion, but I little thought that the change would bring me so many companions — strength, determination, will power, faith, joy and love. I wish you could see him — my new co-worker. He's just about my age, a big, handsome, blue-eyed, curly-headed, Irish lad; but he has the faith that moves mountains, the strength of character to follow up his faith with mighty, whole-souled work, and best, perhaps, of all, the power to transmit both of these to his associates. "He heard our gospel for the first time two years ago, and knew at once that it was God's own plan for his children's guidance. I am ashamed to say that he has done more to further the Lord's work

HEARTS AT EASE 239 during the short time that he has belonged to the Church than I have in all my twenty years. "He doesn't talk much about his home life, and he doesn't get any letters, so I know that he walks always in the shadow of a great sorrow, for every night I hear him whispering to a crumpled snapshot of a dear little silver-haired woman, with 'Mother' written on every feature of her face, so I'm praying — and with the world-moving faith that he has given me — that everything will come out all right for him in the end. "Write to him sometimes, and tell your mother to. Nothing any of us can do for him can begin to repay what he has done for me. His name — now don't laugh, I know it sounds like a Fiji Islander's, but our president told me once that it is not his real name, but is only "borrowed" for a time — is Pan Zee, and his ad- dress is the same as mine." With streaming eyes, Mazie breathed a prayer of reverence and thanksgiving, and happily ran back along the path which led to "the little brown house." Perins, Colorado. > Success The other day a man came into my office and during the conversation said he had never been sued in a court of law, nor had he ever sued anyone. When he told me that he had passed his eightieth "mile stone" and had accumulated a fortune of $200,000, it appeared to me to be quite remarkable. I said, "You are an exceptional character." I asked, "How large a family have you?" He answered, "I have upwards of ninety branches on my Tree." I again asked, "To what do you attribute your marvelous success?" He answered thus: "As a boy I was taught to be honest and careful. I learned early in life that most of our difficulties come through mis- understandings and I resolved that I would never allow anything but a thorough understanding in all my deals; 'haziness is a breeder of trouble,' and I have kept that in mind, knowing that honesty would bridge the gaps of weakness by inspiring the confidence of those with whom we deal." This man always dealt with honest and dishonest people under- standing^, and the judgment which he thus developed never duped or deceived him into making "bum investments," but placed him in the true atmosphere of a noble mind and a successful life. "A man is successful who leaves great grand-children to deal with his business associates' great grand-children honestly and understand- ingly." — Don P. Skousen, Phoenix, Arizona,