When I was a tiny kiddie, I went into a Sunday school library to borrow a book--a book full of dragons, and fair ladies, and brave knights. But when I tiptoed up to the lady in charge and made known my desire, she looked rather surprised until all at once her face brightened and she handed me an old-fashioned, worn little volume.
"This," she informed me with a smile typical of school librarians, "is a nice story for little girls."
I clasped the story to my heart, and rushed home to a nice tight spot between a short squatty table and a long, thin bookcase, which I called my reading-room. Then I began to explore into the story.
Trustingly I opened the book; happily I began to read. To this day I do not remember many important things about the story, the name of it, or the author, or the illustrations; but I think I shall be able to tell you the plot fairly well. Here it is:
There was once a painfully good little girl named (I think) Rosamund. She always did what her mother asked her to, and never found fault, or asked questions, or disobeyed. But one day a serpent crept into her Eden in the shape of some money--to be used in the purchase of shoes.
Rosamund started on her shopping expedition, prim little skirts unwrinkled, prim little mouth pursed up, prim little eyes straight ahead. Then suddenly she saw a druggist's shop. And in the window of the shop she saw a glass jar, apparently of a wonderful blue color. Perhaps Rosamund said: "Retro me, Satanas," and perhaps she forgot it; but to make a long story short, she went into the shop and spent her shoe money for the bowl.
Days went by and the child's slippers grew shabby and full of holes. But she was happy. She still had the beautiful blue thing that continued to dazzle her eyes. Then one day the expected disaster happened: Rosamund tipped over the bowl and the cover came off. Out ran a blue liquid and the bowl became just like an ordinary glass jar.
Whereupon, amid weeping and wailing, Rosamund resolved never to spend her money foolishly again.
At this point I hurled the book across the room and lifted my eyebrows disdainfully. I can remember that I thought deep in my heart, what a silly little girl Rosamund had been. Why, she might have made more color for the bowl by asking cook for some blueing mixed with water. Or she might have filled the jar with a pink liquid made by combining red ink and water. And yet she had cried and written morals at the end of her book.
At times I still think of Rosamund, and I still have a not very exalted opinion of her brain power. Have you ever known any Rosamunds in real life? I have.
There was a girl that went to school with me when I was in the academic department. We were taking up a very stiff course--Latin and French and geometry, and many other things. This girl could have been a good scholar, if she had wanted to. But she never thought of studying until the night before an examination. Then she would come to me and say:
"I know that I won't pass this exam. What shall I do?"
"Cram hard tonight," I generally advised, but she would always shake her head and say:
"I know what I will do. I will pray this evening that I may pass my examinations."
Of course she never passed. She never will if she follows out her rather queer and impractical working plan. Of course her faith in prayer is very wonderful, but prayer alone cannot make a girl understand the geometry that she has never studied.
Another girl that I know had a very pretty new dress. She wore it to several places and then one day she caught it on a sharp nail and tore a long jagged rip in it.
Several of us met at a tea party the next afternoon and she began to tell us about the disaster.
"Such a pretty dress!" she mourned. "And now it is all ruined! I wanted to wear it today, but of course now I can never use it again."
It was then that the practical one of our group spoke up:
"Silly!" she exclaimed, "I don't see why you can't use it. Put a new panel down the front--you can easily match the material. Why, it will be as good as new!"
We all turned to look at the owner of the dress. Her face was flushed a little bit and her eyes were downcast.
"Why," she murmured, "I never thought of that."
She was another Rosamund and she lacked the ingenuity to refill her blue bowl.
I saw a funny cartoon in one of the papers a few days ago. In several successive pictures it showed a man--one of the terrible specimens of humanity that cartoonists delight in--telling a silent but interested family the terrible symptoms of a cold that he was suffering from. In the eighth picture a small woman was shown, speaking to him as he sat disconsolately in an arm chair.
"Why," she asked him, with an awful directness, "why don't you do something to cure it?"
Oh, the number of Rosamunds that I see every day in the city, in my home suburb, in the shops, everywhere! For there are times when the whole world seems thoughtless, and troubled, as if everyone had spilled the joy and light and color from the blue bowl of life and forgotten to refill it.
More Margaret Elizabeth Sangster Short Stories
