The Singing Mouse Stories | Page 2

say things which would make you and
me ashamed and afraid. Pens such as these we do not have.
[Illustration]

[Illustration: The Burden of A Song]
[Illustration]
THE BURDEN OF A SONG
The Singing Mouse came out. Quaintly and sweetly and with wondrous
clearness it began an old, old song I first heard long ago. And as it sang,
back with red electric thrill came the fine blood of youth, and beat in
pulse with the song:

"When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green, And
every goose a swan, lad, And every lass a queen.
"Then hey! for boot and saddle, lad, And round the world away! Young
blood must have its course, lad, And every dog his day!"
And young blood began its course anew. Booted and spurred, into the
saddle again! Face toward the West! And off for round the world away!
"There are green fields in Thrace," sighs the gladiator as he dies. And
here were green fields in the land before us. Only, these were the
inimitable and illimitable fields of Nature. Sheets and waves and
billows and tumbles of green; oceans unswum, continents untracked, of
thousandfold green. Then, on beyond, the gray, the gray-brown, the
purple-gray of the higher plains; nearer than that, a broad slash of great
golden yellow, a band of the sturdy prairie sunflowers; and nearer than
that, swimming on the surface of the mysterious wave which constantly
passes but is never past on the prairies, bright red roses, and strong
larkspur, and at the bottom of this ever-shifting sea, jewels in God's
best blue enamel. You can not find this enamel in the windows. One
must send for it to the land of the unswum sea.
A little higher and stronger piped the compelling melody. Why, here
are the mountains! God bless them! Nay, brother, God has blessed
them; blessed them with unbounded calm, with boundless strength,
with unspeakable peace. You can take your troubles to the mountains.
If you are Pueblo, Aztec, you can select some big mountain and pray to
it, as its top shows the red sentience of the on-coming day. You can
take your troubles to the sea; but the sea has troubles of its own, and
frets. There is commerce on the sea, and the people who live near it are
fretful, greedy, grasping. The mountains have no troubles; they have no
commerce. The dwellers of the mountains are calm and unfretted.
And on the broad shoulders of the mountains once more was cast the
burden of the young man's troubles, and once more he walked deep into
the peace of the big hills. And the mountains smiled not, neither wept,
but gravely and kindly folded over, about, behind, the gray mantle of
the cañon walls, and locked fast doors of adamant against all following,

and swept a pitying hand of shadow, and breathed that wondrous
unsyllabled voice of comfort which any mountain-goer knows. Ay! the
goodness of such strength! Up by the clean snow; over the big rocks;
by the lace-work stream where the trout are--why, it's all come again!
That was the clink made by a passing deer. That was the touch of the
green balsam--smell it, now! And there comes the mist, folding down
the top; and there is the crash of the thunder; and this is the rush of the
rain; and this is the warm yellow sun over it all--O, Singing Mouse,
Singing Mouse!...
[Illustration]
Back again, now, by some impulse of the dog which hasn't had any day.
It is winter now, I remember, Singing Mouse, and I am walking by the
shore of the great Inland Seas. There is snow on the ground. The trees
look black in contrast as you gaze up from the beach against the high
bank. It is cold. It is dark. There is a shiver in the air. There are icicles
in the sky. Something is flying through the trees, but silent as if it came
out of a grave. I have been walking, I know. I have walked a million
miles, and I'm tired. My legs are stiff, and my legging has frozen fast to
my overshoe; I remember that. And so I sit down--right here, you
know--and look out over the lake--just over there, you see. The ice
reaches out from the shore into the lake a long way; and it is covered
with snow, and looks white. I can follow that white glimmer in a long,
long curve to the right--twenty miles or more, maybe. Yes, it is cold.
But ah! what is that out there, and what is it doing? It is setting all the
long white curves of ice afire. It is throwing down hammered silver in a
broad path, out there on the