A CHANGE IN THE FEEL OF THINGS

IT didn't take long for the town to wake up to the fact that some new element had entered into its composition.

"I can't get over it, Susan Ralston's being up and about," Miss Debby Vane said distressedly to Mrs. Mead. "Why, she was 'most dead!"

"Matilda ought not to have gone away," Mrs. Mead said sternly. "Sick folks in bed can't bear a change. A new face gives them a little spurt of strength, and then when they see the old face again, they kind of give up hope and drop right off."

"Yes, I know that," said Miss Debby; "my father had a cousin die that way. There was a doctor going about in a wagon, pulling teeth and giving shocks, and he said he'd give Cousin Hannah a shock and cure her. So they took him up-stairs, and there she was dead of heart disease. They thought of prosecuting him, but the funeral coming right on they hadn't time, and then he was gone to another place, and it seemed too much bother."

"That girl is just the same kind, I believe," said Mrs. Mead; "that dreadful way of making you feel that after all what she says is pretty sensible, maybe. My Emily is awfully took with her, and Father's just crazy about her. He come down on the stage with her, and then he went out to see her. She knows how to get around men; she was frying doughnuts."

"Yes, and Mrs. Cowmull's artist was out there, and they had waffles in the middle of the morning. That's a funny kind of new religion."

"Has she got a new religion?" Miss Debby looked frightened. "I hadn't heard of it."

"Why, yes; Emily says she's got the funniest religion you ever heard of. Whatever she wants to do or don't want to do, she says it's her religion."

"Dear me, but I should think that that would be very convenient," said Miss Debby, much impressed. "Why, my religion is always just the opposite of what I want to do or don't want to do. It says so every Sunday, you know,—'we have done those things,' and so forth."

"Hers is different," said Mrs. Mead.

"Well, I declare," repeated Miss Debby; then, suddenly, "I remember now that Madeleine said that they had waffles because Jane said that she thought waffles would taste good, and it was her religion to do whatever you thought of right off. Well, I declare!"

Both ladies stared in solemn amazement at one another.

"This'll be a nice town to live in, if she sets everybody to doing whatever you like, because it's right," Mrs. Mead said finally. "Father won't put on his coat again this summer."

"It'll make a great difference in the feeling of the town," said Miss Debby, mysteriously, "a great difference. Well, I hope it won't change Madeleine any way her family won't approve. Madeleine's in love, and I suppose it's Mr. Rath. They knew each other before, and her family don't want it. I've pieced it all out of scraps."

"Oh, dear!" said Emily Mead's mother, her face falling; "my, I hadn't heard but what he was a free man."

"Oh, no," said Miss Debby, "your sister isn't sure. But everybody else is. My own view of artists is they're deluders and snares. I give an artist a picture and a dollar once to enlarge, and that was the last I ever heard of them both—of all three."

"I wonder if Emily knows Mr. Rath's engaged," said Mrs. Mead, sadly. "Dear me, I never thought of that."

"Not engaged, but in love," corrected Miss Debby.

"Perhaps he's a real artist and changeable," suggested Mrs. Mead.

"There's no comfort in that for any one, 'cause if he'll change once, he'll change right along."

Mrs. Mead sighed very heavily. "Well, I must keep up for Father and Emily," she remarked, not tracing any very clear connection between word and deed.

"Yes," said Miss Debby, "you must, and we'll all keep a sharp eye on these new kind of ways of looking at things, for we don't know where they'll end."

The "new way of looking at things" had already been very efficacious in the house at the other end of the street. It had assumed an utterly new appearance, both outside and in.

"And I never felt nothing like the change in the feel of it," Susan exclaimed that afternoon, as she re-arranged her belongings in her own room. "Oh, you Sunshine Jane, you, you've just sunshone into every room, and I'm so happy turning my things about I don't know what to do. Matilda wouldn't never let me turn a china cow other end to, and I've lived with some of the ornaments facing wrong for the whole of these five long years."

"It isn't me, Auntie," said Jane, washing shelves with the hearty and happy energy which she threw into every task in which she engaged; "it's the opening of the windows and the letting in of God and His sunshine together. I'll soon have time to clean the whole house, and then we'll have fun re-arranging every room. You've such pretty things, and they must be rubbed up and given a chance to play a part in the world. God never meant anything to be idle,—not even a brass andiron. If it can't work, it can shine and be cheerful, anyway. What can't smile ought to shine, you know."

"I wonder why rubbing things makes 'em bright," said Susan, opening her bonnet-box and hitting her bonnet a smart cuff to knock dust out of the folds. "I never could understand that."

"It's your individuality that you transfer till the poor dull things get enough of it to shine alone, without anybody's help."

"What a good reason," said Susan. "My, to think maybe I'll go to church again in this bonnet! Matilda was always wanting to rip it up, but something made me cling to it. It's a kind of souvenir. I wore it to husband's funeral and my last picnic, and there are lots of other pleasant memories inside it."

"I'll freshen it up with a cloth dipped in ammonia," said Jane. "Dear me, how I do enjoy washing shelves. I love to sop the soapy water over and mop the corners, and dry the whole, and fit a clean newspaper in, and then see the closet in perfect order."

"You like to do everything, seems to me," said Susan.

"Yes, I do. I've been led to see that doing things well is about the finest way in which one can pass one's time. And I'm crazy over doing things well. If I fold a towel, I like to fold it just square, and if I make a bed, I want the fold in the spread and the fold in the sheet to meet even."

"You'll make a fine wife, Jane," said Susan, gravely, "only no man'll ever appreciate the folds lying straight."

Jane laughed merrily. "I'm never going to marry; I'm one of the new sex, the creatures who are born to live alone and lend a hand anywhere. Didn't you know that?"

"That's nonsense," said Susan; "no woman's made so."

"No. It's a big fact. One of the newest facts in the world. The New Woman, you know!"

"Mercy on us," said Susan, "don't you go in for any of that nonsense. The idea of a girl like you deciding not to marry! I never heard of such a thing!"

"It's so, though," said Jane, smiling brightly; "you see, my little Order is a kind of Sisterhood. We're taught to want to help in so many homes and to never even think of a home of our own. We're taught to love all children so dearly that we mustn't limit ourselves to one family of little ones. We're trained to be so fond of the best in every man that we see more good to be done as sisters to men than as wives."

"I don't believe Mr. Rath will agree with you," said Susan, "nor any other real nice fellow."

Jane was cutting paper for the shelves. "Yes, he will," she said, nodding confidently; "men are so scarce nowadays that they are ready to agree with any one."

"Jane, I think he's in love with you already." Susan's tone was very solemn.

Jane merely laughed.

Then the door-bell rang, and she had to run. Presently she was back, a little breathless. "It's Mrs. Mead and her daughter. Can you come down?"

"Yes, in a minute. You say, in a minute."

Jane ran down again with the message.

"Most remarkable," said Mrs. Mead, now dressed for calling, with her black hair put back in three even crinkles on either side, "about your aunt, you know, I mean. Why, we looked upon her as 'most dead. You know, Emily, we've always been given to understand she was nearing her end."

"It does an invalid a lot of good to have something new to think about," said Jane. "I'm very enlivening. Aunt Susan just couldn't help getting up, when she heard me upsetting her house in all directions."

"Yes, I expect it was enough to make her nervous," said Mrs. Mead, sincerely. "How long are you going to stay?"

"Until Aunt Matilda comes back."

"I don't believe she'll like these changes," said Mrs. Mead, gravely. "I should think that you'd feel a good deal of responsibility. It's no light matter to leave a shut-up house and an invalid in bed to a niece and come home to find the house open and the invalid all over it."

"And a man coming in and having waffles in the morning," said Emily Mead, with a smile meant to be arch.

Jane laughed. "That was dreadful, wasn't it?" she said, twinkling—"it was all so impromptu and funny. And everybody had such a good time. It just popped into my head, and you see it's my religion to have to do anything that you think will make people happy, if you see a chance."

"Yes, we've heard about your religion," said Mrs. Mead; "dear me, I should think you'd get into a lot of trouble! Waffles in the morning would upset some folks, except on Sunday."

"Perhaps most people haven't enough religion to manage them week-days," Jane suggested.

"My aunt, Mrs. Cowmull, says Mr. Rath could hardly eat any lunch," observed Emily, smiling some more.

"Oh, dear!" said Jane, "but I'm not surprised. Aunt Susan couldn't, either."

Mrs. Mead coughed significantly. "Susan Ralston's pretty delicate to stand many new ideas, I should think," she began, but stopped suddenly as Susan entered, and viewed her with an expression of shocked surprise.

"Why, Mrs. Ralston, I'd no idea you were so well. Where have you kept yourself these last years, if you were so well?"

"In my own room," said Susan, with dignity. "I didn't see no special call to come down. Matilda knew where everything was, but Jane doesn't, so I've changed my ways for a little."

Jane took her hand and pressed it affectionately. The sunshine seeds were sprouting finely. "Don't you want to come out into the garden with me?" she asked Emily Mead, and Emily rose at once. "I thought auntie would enjoy visiting alone with her old friend," she added, as they passed through the hall.

"What are you, anyway?" Emily asked curiously. "I've heard you were a trained nurse,—are you?"

"I'm one of the brand-new women," said Jane; "not a Suffragette, nor an advanced anything, but just a creature who means to give her life up to teaching happiness as an art."

"Yes, I heard that. But how do you do it?" asked Emily Mead.

"By being happy and thinking happy thoughts and doing happy things."

Emily considered. "But don't you ever have hard things to do?"

"Never. I enjoy them all—I love to work."

Emily looked at her wonderingly. "But washing dishes?—We don't keep a girl, and I hate washing dishes. What would you say to them?"

Jane laughed. "What, those two lovely tin pans and that nice boiling kettle? And all the dirty plates sinking under the soap-suds and then piling up under the clean hot water. And the shining dryness and the putting them on the shelves all in their own piles. And then the knowing that God wanted those dishes washed, and that you've done them just exactly as He'd like to see them done. Why, I think dish-washing is grand!"

Emily opened her eyes widely. "How funny you are! I never heard such talk before! But, then, you've lived in a big city and learned to think in a big way. You wouldn't see dish-washing so if you'd done it all your life and never been told it was nice. You couldn't."

"But you've been told now," said Jane, "and no work need ever seem horrid to you again. Just look at it in my way after this."

"But all work seems horrid to me. I'd like to marry an awfully rich man and never see this place again. I hate it."

Jane thought a minute; then said in sweet, low, even tones: "You won't evolve any man fit to marry out of that spirit, you know."

The other girl stared at her. "Evolve!"

"Yes. Don't you know that every minute in this world is the result of all the minutes that have gone before, and that who we marry is part of a result—not just an accident?"

"What?"

"Don't you know that? Don't you understand?"

"Not a bit. Tell me what you mean?"

"It's too long to explain right this minute, because one can't tell such things quickly, and if you've never studied them, you haven't the brain-cells to receive them. You see brain-cells are the houses for thoughts, and they have to be built and ready before the thoughts can move in. That's what they told me, when I was learning."

Emily looked at her in bewilderment.

"It's very interesting," said Jane. "I think that it's the most interesting thing in the whole world. You see, I didn't have any life at all; I was an orphan and not very bright. And then I happened to get hold of a book that said that all the life there was in the world was mine, if I'd just take it. So I wrote to the man who wrote the book—"

"How did you ever dare?"

"Why, I knew that the man who wrote that book would help any one—he couldn't have written the book if he hadn't been made to help people—and I asked him how I could begin."

"What did he answer?"

"He said: 'Seize every chance to prove your mind the master of your own body first, and when you are thoroughly master of yourself, you can master all else.'"

"What did he mean?"

"Well, I took it that he meant me to do anything that I thought of, right off, and that if I got in the habit of sweeping all work out of my small way, I'd soon be given a chance at big work in a big way."

"And were you?"

"Yes. I began to get through so quick—I lived with an uncle and helped his wife with the sewing and the children—that I had some spare time, and I went into the kitchen and learned to cook. Then one of the children was ill, and the doctor thought I'd make a good nurse, so he got me into a hospital, and I met a woman there who had all the books that I wanted to read and who just took hold and helped me right out. I saw that I didn't want to be a sick-nurse, because there's such a lot of humbug and such a lot that's silly, and my friend said that I was one who would evolve opportunities—"

"What does that mean?"

"Evolve means to sort of develop out of the world and yourself together at the same time."

"I don't understand."

"Why, if you want anything, you want it because it's there, and you can get it if you've got the strength and perseverance to build a road to it."

"What!"

"I mean just what I say. We can get anything, if we have sufficient will-power to build a way right straight to it."

"Suppose I want to marry a millionaire?"

"It would mean a lot of well-directed effort, and the effort would slowly train you to want something much better than to live rich and idle." Jane paused a minute, and Emily looked at her curiously. "If you want to marry a millionaire bad enough to start in and make yourself all over new, you'll have such control over your future that I think you'll get something much better than a millionaire."

"I never heard any one like you in all my life," said Emily Mead.

"I'd be so glad to help you straight along," Jane said. "I've got two books with me, and you can read one and then the other. Then you'll get where you can get the meaning out of the Bible, and then you'll begin to see the meaning of everything. The world gets so wonderful. You see miracles everywhere. You feel so well. The sun shines so bright. Life becomes so lovely."

Emily looked at her with real wonder.

"How did you happen to come here?" she asked.

"Oh, that came long after all the rest of the story. One day I remembered that my mother had two sisters, and I wrote to them. My letter arrived just as Aunt Matilda's arm began to trouble her, and she asked me if I could come for a visit. You see that was another opportunity I evolved."

Emily seized her hand impulsively. "I'm so glad that you came. I'm going to try, and you'll help me?"

"Yes, indeed, I will. Would you like one of the books right now?"

"Oh, I should."

"I'll get it for you, and then I'll tell you some day about the doctor I met and his Sunshine Order."

They went towards the house. "You mustn't expect to understand everything right off, you know," Jane said to her gently. "You see this is all new to you, and that means that you can't any more understand right off than you could paint a picture right off. You have to learn gradually."

"But I mean to learn," said Emily.

They went in the door, and Jane ran upstairs and fetched the book. "There!" she said, "you read it, and I'll help you all I can. You see the thing is to learn with your whole heart to do God's will, and then, in some strange, subtle way, you get to feel what is coming and to sort of shape all. It's so fascinating and thrilling to realize that what you want is marching towards you as fast as you can march towards it."

"What do you want?" Emily asked.

"I want to do exactly what I'm doing," said Jane, very quietly. "I've passed wanting anything else. I want lots of chances to teach and help,—that's all."

"Don't you want to marry?"

"Oh, no,—I want to be able to teach and help everywhere. I don't want things for myself, somehow."

"How strange!"

They went into the sitting-room.

"Oh, Jane," Susan cried, "how I have enjoyed hearing about everybody in town! Sister never told me about Eddy King's running off with the store cash or Mrs. Wilton's daughter going to cooking-school, or one thing."

"We must be going," said Mrs. Mead, rising; "we'll come again, though. It's good to see you up, Mrs. Ralston, and I only hope you may stay up. You know Katie Croft's mother-in-law got up just as you have and then had a stroke that night."

"Oh, is old Mrs. Croft dead?"

"No, she isn't," said Mrs. Mead; "if she was, she wouldn't be such a warning as she is."

"Dear, dear," said Susan, "think of all I've missed. Has she got it just in her legs or all over? Matilda never told me."

"Legs," said Mrs. Mead, "and it's affected her temper. Katie has an awful time with her."

"Dear, dear," said Susan again,—"and, oh, Jane, a boy I've known since he was a baby has had his skull japanned and nearly died. Matilda's never told me a thing!"

"Well, she didn't know much, you know," said Mrs. Mead; "she kept herself about as close as she kept you. We were given to understand pretty plainly that we weren't wanted to call."

"Think of that now," said Susan, "and me up-stairs, feeling all my friends had forgot me!"

"Everybody'll come now," said Mrs. Mead; "folks will be glad to see you so well. We were told you never got up and hardly ate enough to keep a cat."

"An ordinary cat," corrected Emily; "Miss Matilda's always told what a lot your cat ate."

"He is an eater," said Susan, crinkling a bit about the eyes; "but I eat, too, now, I can tell you."

After they were gone, Jane came back into the sitting-room. Her aunt was standing by the window. "It's so beautiful to be down-stairs," she said, without turning. "My goodness, and to think that only a week ago I laid up-stairs wanting to die."

"You can thank Aunt Matilda that you didn't die," said Jane, going and putting her arm around her. "If she had kept you thinking of all the illnesses in town, you'd have died long ago. Sick thoughts are more catching than diseases. But we don't need to talk of that now."

"No, indeed we don't," said Susan, "for there's Mr. Rath coming."

Jane gave a little start. "I wonder what for," she said.

"What for!" Susan's tone was full of deep meaning; "why, he's fallen dead in love with you, Jane, that's what it means, and I don't wonder, for you're the nicest girl I ever saw."

"Oh, Auntie!" said Jane, quite red. "The very idea!"