Dreamland | Page 3

carried all I was able to bear, for I am not very strong nowadays, and I came as often as I could. In fact, I did my best the first thing that came to hand. I want you to do the same. That is duty. I don't bear malice toward you because you were dissatisfied with me. You did not know. If you tried the best you could and people complained, you ought not to let their discontent discourage you. I brought you a whiff of perfume; you can bring some one a sincere effort. By and by, when I am stronger and can blow good gales and send the great ships safely into port and waft to land the fragrant smell of their spicy cargo, you may be doing some greater work and giving the world something it has been waiting for."
"The world don't wait for things," said Larry. "It goes right on; it does n't care. I 'm hungry and ragged, and I have n't no place to sleep; but the world ain't a-waitin' fer me ter get things ter eat, ner clo'es to me back, ner a soft bed. It ain't a-waiting fer nothin', as I can see."
"It does not stand still," replied the voice; "but it is waiting, nevertheless. If you are expecting a dear, dear person--your mother, for instance--"
"I ain't got no mother," interrupted Larry, with a sorrowful sigh; "she died."
"Well, then--your sister," suggested the voice.
"I ain't got no sister. I ain't got nobody. I 'm all by meself," insisted the boy.
"Then suppose, for years and years you have been dreaming of a friend who is to fill your world with beauty as no one else could do,--who among all others in the world will be the only one who could show you how fair life is. While you would not stand still and do nothing what time you were watching for her coming, you would be always waiting for her, and when she was there you would be glad. That is how the world feels about its geniuses,--those whom it needs to make it more wonderful and great. It is waiting for you. Don't disappoint it. It would make you sad unto death if the friend of whom you had dreamed should not come at last, would it not?"
Larry nodded his head in assent. "Does it always know 'em?" he asked. "I mean does the world always be sure when the person comes, it 's the one it dreamed of? Mebbe I'd be dreamin' of some one who was beautiful, and mebbe the real one would n't look like what I thought, and I 'd let her go by."
"Ah, little Lawrence, the world has failed so too. It has let its beloved ones go by; and then, when it was too late, it has called after them in pleading to return. They never come back, but the world keeps repeating their names forever. That is its punishment and their fame."
"What does it need me for?" asked Larry.
"It needs you to paint for it the pictures you see amid the clouds and on the earth."
"Can't they see 'em?" queried the boy.
"No, not as you can. Their sight is not clear enough. God wants them to know of it, and so He sends them you to make it plain to them. It is as though you went to a foreign country where the people's speech was strange to you. You could not know their meaning unless some one who understood their language and yours translated it for you. He would be the only one who could make their meaning clear to you. He would be an interpreter."
"How am I to get that thing you spoke about that 'd take me up to heaven, so's I could bring down the beautiful things I see?" inquired Larry. "Where is it?"
"Inspiration?" asked the voice. "That is everywhere,--all about you, within and without you. You have only to pray to be given sight clear enough to see it and power to use it. But now I must leave you. I have given you my message; give the world yours. Good-by, Lawrence, good-by;" and the voice had ceased.
Larry stretched out his hands and cried, "Come back, oh, come back!"
But the echo of his own words was all he heard in response. He lay quite motionless and still for some time after that, thinking about all the voice had said to him, and when finally he pushed his hat back from before his eyes, he saw the starlit sky smiling down upon him benignantly. And then, from behind a dark cloud he saw the radiant moon appear, and it seemed to him like the most beautiful woman's face he could imagine, peering out from the shadow of her own dusky hair to