EMILY'S PROJECT

AFTER dinner that day Emily Mead came with her work. Emily Mead was one of those nondescript girls who seem to spring up more and more thickly in these troublous, churned-up times of ours.

Too pretty to be plain, too unattractive to be beautiful. Too well-to-do to need to work, too poor to attain to anything for which she longed. Too clever to belong to her class, not clever enough to rise above it. Altogether a very fit subject for Jane to "sunshine," as her aunt put it.

"How do you get along with old Mrs. Croft?" she asked, directly she was seated.

"She's asleep yet," Jane said; "she was so restless all night."

"She always sleeps days and is awake all night; didn't you know that before?" queried Emily, in surprise. "Some one ought to have told you."

"It doesn't matter," said Jane serenely. There was never any bravado in her serenity; it was quite sincere.

"That was what made Katie so mad," Emily continued. "She said it gave her her days, to be sure, but, as she couldn't very well sleep, too, all day, she never really had any time herself."

"We'll get along all right," said Jane quietly; "old people have ways, and then they change and have other ways, and the rest must expect to be considerate."

"Mercy on us, I wonder what she'll change to next," said Susan, with feeling. She had just returned from listening at the invalid's door.

"Don't worry, Auntie,—just remember!" Jane's smile was at once bright and also a bit admonitory.

"I'm trying to believe that everything's all right always, too," said Susan to Emily, "but, oh, my!"

They went out on the shady side of the house to where a little table stood, which was made out of a board nailed into a cut-off tree stump. Jane and Emily carried chairs, and Susan brought her darning basket. It was delightfully pleasant. From time to time Jane or her aunt slipped in and listened at the door, but old Mrs. Croft slept on like a baby.

"I do wonder if Katie Croft has really gone for good!" Emily said to Susan, while Jane was absent on one of these errands.

"I can't trust myself even with my own opinions," said Susan reservedly; "I haven't much time to get changed before Matilda comes, you know, and I want to believe in Jane's religion if I can. It's so kind of warm and comforting. I like it."

"Jane," Emily said, turning towards her when she returned, "I've come to-day on an awfully serious errand, and I want you to help me."

"I will certainly, if I can. What is it?"

"Do you really believe that wanting anything shows that one is going to get it? You said something like that the other day."

"I know that one can get anything one wants," Jane answered gravely; "of course the responsibility of some kinds of wanting is awfully heavy. But the law doesn't alter."

"Can you explain it to me?"

"Yes, that's it," said Susan, "you tell us how to manage. I want to get something myself. Or I mean it's that I want something I've got to go away again. Or I guess I'd better not try to say what I mean."

"But you won't either of you understand what I mean, when I tell you," said Jane. "It's just as I said before, it takes a lot of study to get your brain-cells to where they can hold an idea that's really new to you. Heads are like empty beehives,—you have to have the comb before you can have the honey, and every different kind of study requires a different kind of cells just for its use alone. When things don't interest us, it's because the brain-cells in regard to that subject have never been developed. That's all. That's what they taught me."

"I think it's interesting," said Susan. "I always thought that the inside of my head was one thing that I didn't need to bother about. Seems it isn't, after all. Go on, you Sunshine Jane, you."

"I'm like your aunt. I thought that what I thought was the last thing that mattered," said Emily.

"Everything matters. There's nothing in this world that doesn't matter, because this world is all matter. Anything that doesn't matter must be spirit. Don't you see that when you say and really mean that a thing doesn't matter, you mean that to you it isn't material,—that it's no part of your world?"

"Dear me, I never thought of that," said Susan, "then I suppose as long as things do matter to us, it means we just hang on to them and hold them for all we're worth."

"Yes."

"But, Jane, thoughts can't matter much? Or we can forget things."

"There isn't anything that we can think of at all that we are ever free not to think about again—that is, if it's a good thought," said Jane. "If a thought comes to us at all, it comes with some responsibility attached. Either we are meant to gain strength by dismissing it, if it seems wrong, or it's our duty to do something with it, if it's right. Most people's minds are all littered up with thoughts that they never either use or put away. That's what makes them so stupid."

"Goodness!" exclaimed Susan. "Why, I never put a thought away in my life,—not as I know of."

"I've never thought anything at all about my thoughts," said Emily, looking rather startled.

"Lots of people don't," said Jane; "they act just as a woman would in making a dress, if she cut it out a bit now and a bit then without ever laying the pattern back even, and then joined it anywhere any time, and then was surprised when it didn't even prove fit to wear—not to speak of looking all witched."

"Is that what ails some lives?" Emily asked, looking yet more startled.

"It's what ails almost every life. It's what makes 'I didn't think' the worst confession in the world. A man driving a motor with his eyes shut wouldn't be a bit worse. Life's a great powerful force always rushing on, and we swing into the tide and never bother to row or to steer or to see that our boat is water-tight."

"You make me feel awful, Jane. As if I'd been lazy, staying in bed so. And it was the only way."

"You couldn't do any better, Auntie. At least you weren't doing anything wrong. Being moored in a little, quiet cove is better than being adrift and slamming into the boats of others."

"I'd really have had to think more about Matilda's thoughts than my own, if I'd known. I'd never have had time for much thinking as I pleased in the way you say; I was always jumping up and flopping down."

"Jane," said Emily earnestly, "then every thought matters?"

"Yes, or matterates." Jane smiled. "If a thought doesn't produce good, it'll surely produce bad,—it's got to do something. You plant your thoughts in time just as one plants seed in the ground, and any further thoughts of the same kind add to its strength until enough strength causes an appearance in this world."

"You really believe that?"

"I know it. I know it so well that I think that every seed that's ever fallen was a lesson that we were too stupid to learn. Every time a seed fell and germinated, God said: 'There, that's the very plainest teaching on earth. Can't you see?' Sometimes I think the world's all a book for us to learn heaven in, just as our bodies explain our souls to us."

Susan looked at Emily in an awed way. "I guess I can get to believe it all," she said, in a low tone; "it sounds so plain when you stop and think of it."

"I'll try to believe it," said Emily, "but what I care most about is to learn how to get what you want?"

Jane considered. "That comes ever so far along. You have to learn to get what you want out of yourself before you can be upon the plane where you naturally get what you want, because you are too far on to want what you couldn't get."

Emily didn't understand and didn't care. "Do tell me how it's done, anyway," she begged eagerly.

"I don't know whether what I say will have any meaning for you, but I'll say it, anyway. You'll have to know that it's what I believe and live by, and if you're to believe it and live by it, it will come to you quite easily, and if not it's because it isn't for you yet."

"I mean to believe," said Emily firmly. "I want something, and I'll do anything to get it."

Jane shook her head. "That's the very hardest road to come by," she said, "unless it's some overcoming in yourself that you are wanting. You see, the very first step has to be the conquering of ourselves, not the asking for material things. You have to open a channel for the spirit, and then the material flows through afterwards, as a matter of course. But if you've gone on a good ways, you don't think of getting things at all; you just want opportunities to grow, and you know that what you need for life will keep coming."

"But it doesn't with lots of people," said Emily. "Just look at the poor—and the suffering."

"They aren't living according to this law," said Jane. "They're living on another plane. There are different planes."

"Don't you see," interposed Susan, "we asked Mrs. Croft because it would get me on a plane where, when Matilda came back, she wouldn't mind so many changes."

Emily looked inquiring. "A different plane?"

"Yes," said Jane, "you can lift yourself straight out of any circle of conditions by suddenly altering all your own ideas—if you've strength to do so."

"I'd never have asked Mrs. Croft alone by myself, you know," said Susan; "nobody that looked at things the way other folks do, would. But Jane looks at everything different from everybody else. She said it would be a quick way of being different. I guess she's right."

"I never heard any ideas like that."

"But they aren't new," said Jane; "they're older than the hills. God made the world and then gave every man dominion over his world. We all have the whole of our world to rule. This way of looking at things is new to you, but there are thousands and thousands of people proving it true every day. All the old religions teach it, and all the new religions bid you live it or they won't be for you. They don't kill men for not believing now. They just let them live and suffer and go blundering on. Why"—Jane grew suddenly pink with fervor—"why, everywhere I look, almost, I see just lovely chances being let die, because people won't fuss to tend them. People are too careless and too thoughtless. The truth is so plain that the very word 'thoughtless' fairly screams what's the matter to every one, but hardly any one bothers."

"But the people who believe as you do,—do they all get everything that they want?" asked Emily.

"Or else they want what they get," said Jane; "it comes to exactly the same thing when you begin to understand. The beauty of every step nearer God is the new learning of how exactly right his world is managed. All my old puzzles have been cleared up, and it's so wonderful. Why, I used to think that when beautiful, dear little children died it was awful; but now I know that they came to help and teach others, and that when they'd spread their lesson to those others, they didn't need lessons themselves and just left the school and went back into the beautiful world of Better Things. It was such a help to me to know why splendid men and women who were needed went so suddenly sometimes; it's because they're needed much more elsewhere and respond to that call of duty at once. I don't think of death as anything dreadful now; I think of it as a door that will open and close very easily for me."

"It's one door that Matilda liked to keep setting open," said Susan,—"oh, dear me, Jane, I'm trying to grow brain-cells and be a credit to you, and I can't think of anything but old Mrs. Croft. Perhaps she's woke up."

Jane rose and went into the house.

"Do you think you can take it all in?" Emily asked, slowly and thoughtfully.

"I'm doing my best," said Susan, "she's so happy and so good I think she must know what she's talking about."

Jane came back. "She's still sleeping," she said; "don't you worry, dear Auntie."

"I can't help it," said Susan. "I've dodged about for so long and played things were so that weren't so, that I guess I'm pretty much out of tune, and it'll be a little while before I can stop worrying."

"No, you aren't out of tune," said Jane, smiling at her affectionately, "or if you are, just say you're in tune and you will be, right off."

"Do you believe that?" Emily asked.

"Why, of course. I know it absolutely for myself, and I know that it's equally true for others if they have the strength to declare it."

"But how?"

"How! Why, because every declaration of good is spiritual, and proves that you are one with your soul and master over your body, just as false declarations make you one with your body and take away all power from your soul. That's how mental cures work. When anybody says 'I am well,' she declares souls can't be ill, and she makes Truth stronger by adding her strength to its strength. But when a man says 'I am ill,' he declares a lie, for souls can't be ill, and so he's claiming not to be spiritual, but just to be his own body. It's as if a weaver stopped weaving and said: 'I've broken several threads, and I'm going to be imperfect, and I won't bring any price, and I'll only be fit to cut up into cleaning cloths.' What would you think of him? You'd say: 'Why, that's only an hour's work in cloth and can be put aside without further thought. Just go right on and with your skill and judgment make the next piece perfect. It was never any of it you; it was the stuff you were making.' Bodies are the stuff we are making."

Emily laid down her work. "Jane, that's wonderful," she said solemnly. "You put that so that I really got hold of it. I understand exactly what you mean, and if only everybody else did!"

"But nobody else really matters to you," said Jane; "all that matters to you is that you believe. They have their lives—you have yours."

Emily was looking very earnest. "I'm going to try," she said, rising. "I'm going to try. I must go now, but I'm going home to go to work in my world."

Jane walked with her to the gate. "I'll help you all I can," she said, "I'm so glad you're interested. It makes life so splendid."

Emily stopped and took her hand.

"Jane," she said, "I want to tell you something. I want to marry Mr. Rath. I think he's the nicest man I ever saw. Do you really—really—believe that I can, if I learn to think as you do?"

Jane turned white beneath the other's eyes. "Why, but don't you know—don't you see that he's in love?"

"In love! With you?"

"With me,—oh, no. With Madeleine."

"Oh, no, he's not in love with her," said Emily decidedly; "I know that. I know that perfectly well."

"They knew one another before they came here, you know."

"Why, I see them round town together all hours," said Emily; "they're like brother and sister, they're not one bit in love. I thought that perhaps it was you."

"Oh, dear, no—I can't marry. I never even think of it."

"Don't you use any of your ideas with him?"

"No, indeed! I never ask anything for myself any more. I just ask to manifest God's will,—to help in any of His work that offers."

"You're awfully good, dear. But, honestly, do you think that I could surely get him if I tried?"

"Why, the law is certain, but"—Jane spoke gently—"you're so far from understanding it yet. I only told you a little. It takes ever so long to get one's mind built to where it will grasp an ideal and hold it without wavering once. There's such a lot I didn't tell you; I couldn't in those few minutes. I just showed you the picture, and you have to work hard till you learn how to paint it. You see, a wish is like blowing a bubble, and if you add wishes and more wishes, you gradually change the bubble into a solid mold, which is a real thing of spirit but empty of material; then, if you keep it solid and firm, the fact of it is real spiritually, and a vacuum as to matter makes the matter just have to fill it, and it is that filling into the mold shaped by our thoughts that makes what we see and live here in this world. The world is all matter circulating in thought-molds. Anything that you carefully and steadily and consistently think out must become manifest. God manifesting His will means that. We are His will. And the nearer we approximate to the highest in Him, the more we can manifest ourselves. That's why very good people are seldom rich; they want to manifest in deeds and not in things. That's why they never keep money—it only represents to them the need of others. If you really and truly love Mr. Rath, and feel it steadily and steadfastly your mission to make him very happy, of course it will be, even though he loved some one else. But to want a man who loved some one else wouldn't be possible to any one who believed in this teaching. That's where it is, you see. When you get power, you never want to do evil with it. Power from God never manifests in evil. When you are where you can get whatever you want, it simply means that you are living where only good can come, and where you are able to see it coming."

Emily stood perfectly still, looking downwards. Then suddenly she burst into violent sobs. "Oh, I feel so small, so mean—so wicked. It isn't as you feel a bit with me. I just want to get out of this stupid town—and he's so good-looking!"

Jane's eyelids fell.

"I feel so mean and petty," Emily went on, pressing her hands over her face. "I could never be good like you. I can't understand. I just want to be married. I'm so tired of my life."

"Well," said Jane, with steady firmness, "why don't you go to him and talk it all over nicely? As you would with Madeleine or me. Perhaps that would be best."

"Do you really think so?" said Emily, lifting her eyes; "do you believe that a girl can go to a man and be honest with him, just as a man can with a woman?"

"I couldn't," said Jane, "because I wouldn't want to, but if you want to do it, I don't see why you can't."

"But why wouldn't you?"

"Because I get my things that other way,—simply by asking God to guide me towards His will and guide me from mistake."

"Did you do that about asking old Mrs. Croft?"

"Certainly. I do it about everything. I live by that rule now. I've absolute faith in God's guidance."

Emily looked at her. "It must be beautiful," she said, "and you really think that it would be all right for me to go and talk to him, do you?"

"Yes," said Jane slowly. "I think that it would be best all round."

"After all, this is the woman's century," said Emily, with a sudden energy quite unlike her previous interest. "I don't know why I shouldn't."

"I think that the best way to handle all our problems is to let them flow naturally to their finish," said Jane; "dammed or choked rivers always make trouble."

"I should like to say just what I felt to a man just once," said Emily thoughtfully. "It would do me a world of good."

"Then say it," said Jane. "Only are you really sure that he's not in love with Madeleine?"

"Oh, I'm positive as to that."

"Then go ahead."

They parted, and Jane returned to the house. She was not so entirely spiritual that she could repress a very human kind of smile over Emily's project.