II The Eyes That Wept Till They Went Blind
Their conversation has been going on all the while they have sat there on the floor. Listen:
“I wore this on my wedding journey. Brides did that then.”
“A bride wished it known that she was a bride in those days, didn’t she?”
“Yes, indeed. She was proud of it. Not ashamed.”
“It was your first railroad journey?”
“Yes. There was only one railroad in this part of the country then. And it was a long time before the people got reconciled to travelling so fast. Each one expected never to get back alive. But we went all the way to Philadelphia on it. And it took only three days. There was lots of smoke from the engine. Even Hiliary preferred the stage. But I—Here a small cinder burnt a hole.”
The blind one would feel it.
“You looked very pretty then, sis. I saw you—go.”
Sis would not reply. There was not a spark of vanity in her. But she was very pretty at that moment. And there were the Philadelphia daguerreotypes to prove that she was pretty in 1857.
“We were married only three years.”
We! It meant the three of them.
It was this the blind one thought of most. Remember that when we finally get to the story.
“Yes, Hiliary died in 1860.”
And then the memory of the frail one would pass the gulf of all those years and she would touch the blind one with a caress.
“And when we got home again you had lost your sight!”
“Yes.”
“But, sis, it wasn’t because you were so lonely and cried so much! It couldn’t have been that!”
It was the question she had begged a thousand times. And the answer she was to have she had had as often:
“No.”
“For crying, no matter how much, will never hurt the sight?”
“No.”
“I don’t think Doctor Massey ever understood your case.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Well, he let it go until it was too—There are better doctors now. They would know?”
“Perhaps.”
“But it’s too late, isn’t it?”
The answer, too, she had always had to this, while she had always hoped, and always would, for a different one:
“Yes—it’s too late. It was to be so.”
“But you were lonely, dear sis? I wouldn’t like to think that you were not.”
“Oh, yes!”
“The neighbors said that the shutters weren’t opened all the while we were away.”
“What was the use?”
“And they heard you cry.”
“Well, of course! We had never been separated before.”
“And I was so happy that I didn’t even think that you might be unhappy. But you’ve forgiven me for that.”
“I was happy, too—for your happiness, sis, dear.”
“Then why did you cry so? That I never will understand.”
Nay, that the frail one would never understand until she should reach that Heaven where all the secrets of the earth are revealed. For it was here alone that the blind one had never been quite frank. Always she had answered, always she would answer, until they faced each other in that Heaven:
“People cry for joy as well as for sorrow, sis, dear.”
“But not so hard that they lose their eye-sight.”
“When one is worried the weakest part goes first. And the doctor said it was that way with me. My eyes were weak.” And then the fatalistic refrain: “It had to be.”
“But, sis, dear, why did you worry?”
“About you.”
I think she had told this gentle lie more than a thousand times. But I am sure that the recording angel has not got it down against her once.
“But I was happy.”
“Yes—you—were—happy—dear—dear sis.”
“And so you never saw me after that—nor Hiliary, nor the babies—”
“But, sis, dear, I could touch you all, and hear your voices, and there was so much to remember. You know that I was happier after my blindness than before.”
“Yes, I know. And I cannot understand that.”
That, too, she would know only in that One Place where there are no secrets.