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Title: Margaret: A Pearl
   [the ninth story in "A Little Book of Profitable Tales"]
Author: Field, Eugene (1850-1895)
Date of first publication: 1889
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1894
Date first posted: 19 July 2010
Date last updated: 19 July 2010
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #576

This ebook was produced by:
David Edwards, woodie4
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




MARGARET: A PEARL.


In a certain part of the sea, very many leagues from here, there once
lived a large family of oysters noted for their beauty and size. But
among them was one so small, so feeble, and so ill-looking as to excite
the pity, if not the contempt, of all the others. The father, a
venerable, bearded oyster, of august appearance and solemn deportment,
was much mortified that one of his family should happen to be so sickly;
and he sent for all the doctors in the sea to come and treat her; from
which circumstance you are to note that doctors are an evil to be met
with not alone upon _terra firma_. The first to come was Dr. Porpoise, a
gentleman of the old school, who floundered around in a very important
manner and was full of imposing ceremonies.

"Let me look at your tongue," said Dr. Porpoise, stroking his beard with
one fin, impressively. "Ahem! somewhat coated, I see. And your pulse is
far from normal; no appetite, I presume? Yes, my dear, your system is
sadly out of order. You need medicine."

The little oyster hated medicine; so she cried,--yes, she actually shed
cold, briny tears at the very thought of taking old Dr. Porpoise's
prescriptions. But the father-oyster and the mother-oyster chided her
sternly; they said that the medicine would be nice and sweet, and that
the little oyster would like it. But the little oyster knew better than
all that; yes, she knew a thing or two, even though she _was_ only a
little oyster.

Now Dr. Porpoise put a plaster on the little oyster's chest and a
blister at her feet. He bade her eat nothing but a tiny bit of sea-foam
on toast twice a day. Every two hours she was to take a spoonful of
cod-liver oil, and before each meal a wineglassful of the essence of
distilled cuttlefish. The plaster she didn't mind, but the blister and
the cod-liver oil were terrible; and when it came to the essence of
distilled cuttlefish--well, she just couldn't stand it! In vain her
mother reasoned with her, and promised her a new doll and a
skipping-rope and a lot of other nice things: the little oyster would
have none of the horrid drug; until at last her father, abandoning his
dignity in order to maintain his authority, had to hold her down by main
strength and pour the medicine into her mouth. This was, as you will
allow, quite dreadful.

But this treatment did the little oyster no good; and her parents made
up their minds that they would send for another doctor, and one of a
different school. Fortunately they were in a position to indulge in
almost any expense, since the father-oyster himself was president of one
of the largest banks of Newfoundland. So Dr. Sculpin came with his neat
little medicine-box under his arm. And when he had looked at the sick
little oyster's tongue, and had taken her temperature, and had felt her
pulse, he said he knew what ailed her; but he did not tell anybody what
it was. He threw away the plasters, the blisters, the cod-liver oil, and
the essence of distilled cuttlefish, and said it was a wonder that the
poor child had lived through it all!

"Will you please bring me two tumblerfuls of water?" he remarked to the
mother-oyster.

The mother-oyster scuttled away, and soon returned with two conch-shells
filled to the brim with pure, clear sea-water. Dr. Sculpin counted three
grains of white sand into one shell, and three grains of yellow sand
into the other shell, with great care.

"Now," said he to the mother-oyster, "I have numbered these 1 and 2.
First, you are to give the patient ten drops out of No. 2, and in an
hour after that, eight drops out of No. 1; the next hour, eight drops
out of No. 2; and the next, or fourth, hour, ten drops out of No. 1. And
so you are to continue hour by hour, until either the medicine or the
child gives out."

"Tell me, doctor," asked the mother, "shall she continue the food
suggested by Dr. Porpoise?"

"What food did he recommend?" inquired Dr. Sculpin.

"Sea-foam on toast," answered the mother.

Dr. Sculpin smiled a smile which seemed to suggest that Dr. Porpoise's
ignorance was really quite annoying.

"My dear madam," said Dr. Sculpin, "the diet suggested by that quack,
Porpoise, passed out of the books years ago. Give the child toast on
sea-foam, if you wish to build up her debilitated forces."

Now, the sick little oyster did not object to this treatment; on the
contrary, she liked it. But it did her no good. And one day, when she
was feeling very dry, she drank both tumblerfuls of medicine, and it did
not do her any harm; neither did it cure her: she remained the same sick
little oyster,--oh, so sick! This pained her parents very much. They did
not know what to do. They took her travelling; they gave her into the
care of the eel for electric treatment; they sent her to the Gulf Stream
for warm baths,--they tried everything, but to no avail. The sick little
oyster remained a sick little oyster, and there was an end of it.

At last one day,--one cruel, fatal day,--a horrid, fierce-looking
machine was poked down from the surface of the water far above, and
with slow but intrepid movement began exploring every nook and crevice
of the oyster village. There was not a family into which it did not
intrude, nor a home circle whose sanctity it did not ruthlessly invade.
It scraped along the great mossy rock; and lo! with a monstrous
scratchy-te-scratch, the mother-oyster and the father-oyster and
hundreds of other oysters were torn from their resting-places and borne
aloft in a very jumbled and very frightened condition by the impertinent
machine. Then down it came again, and the sick little oyster was among
the number of those who were seized by the horrid monster this time. She
found herself raised to the top of the sea; and all at once she was
bumped in a boat, where she lay, puny and helpless, on a huge pile of
other oysters. Two men were handling the fierce-looking machine. A
little boy sat in the stern of the boat watching the huge pile of
oysters. He was a pretty little boy, with bright eyes and long tangled
hair. He wore no hat, and his feet were bare and brown.

"What a funny little oyster!" said the boy, picking up the sick little
oyster; "it is no bigger than my thumb, and it is very pale."

"Throw it away," said one of the men. "Like as not it is bad and not fit
to eat."

"No, keep it and send it out West for a Blue Point," said the other
man,--what a heartless wretch he was!

But the little boy had already thrown the sick little oyster overboard.
She fell in shallow water, and the rising tide carried her still farther
toward shore, until she lodged against an old gum boot that lay half
buried in the sand. There were no other oysters in sight. Her head ached
and she was very weak; how lonesome, too, she was!--yet anything was
better than being eaten,--at least so thought the little oyster, and so,
I presume, think you.

For many weeks and many months the sick little oyster lay hard by the
old gum boot; and in that time she made many acquaintances and friends
among the crabs, the lobsters, the fiddlers, the star-fish, the waves,
the shells, and the gay little fishes of the ocean. They did not harm
her, for they saw that she was sick; they pitied her--some loved her.
The one that loved her most was the perch with green fins that attended
school every day in the academic shade of the big rocks in the quiet
cove about a mile away. He was very gentle and attentive, and every
afternoon he brought fresh cool sea-foam for the sick oyster to eat; he
told her pretty stories, too,--stories which his grandmother, the
venerable codfish, had told him of the sea king, the mermaids, the
pixies, the water sprites, and the other fantastically beautiful
dwellers in ocean-depths. Now while all this was very pleasant, the sick
little oyster knew that the perch's wooing was hopeless, for she was
very ill and helpless, and could never think of becoming a burden upon
one so young and so promising as the gallant perch with green fins. But
when she spoke to him in this strain, he would not listen; he kept right
on bringing her more and more cool sea-foam every day.

The old gum boot was quite a motherly creature, and anon the sick little
oyster became very much attached to her. Many times as the little
invalid rested her aching head affectionately on the instep of the old
gum boot, the old gum boot told her stories of the world beyond the


sea: how she had been born in a mighty forest, and how proud her folks
were of their family tree; how she had been taken from that forest and
moulded into the shape she now bore; how she had graced and served a
foot in amphibious capacities, until at last, having seen many things
and having travelled much, she had been cast off and hurled into the sea
to be the scorn of every crab and the derision of every fish. These
stories were all new to the little oyster, and amazing, too; she knew
only of the sea, having lived therein all her life. She in turn told the
old gum boot quaint legends of the ocean,--the simple tales she had
heard in her early home; and there was a sweetness and a simplicity in
these stories of the deep that charmed the old gum boot, shrivelled and
hardened and pessimistic though she was.

Yet, in spite of it all,--the kindness, the care, the amusements, and
the devotion of her friends,--the little oyster remained always a sick
and fragile thing. But no one heard her complain, for she bore her
suffering patiently.

Not far from this beach where the ocean ended its long travels there was
a city, and in this city there dwelt with her parents a maiden of the
name of Margaret. From infancy she had been sickly, and although she had
now reached the years of early womanhood, she could not run or walk
about as others did, but she had to be wheeled hither and thither in a
chair. This was very sad; yet Margaret was so gentle and uncomplaining
that from aught she said you never would have thought her life was full
of suffering. Seeing her helplessness, the sympathetic things of Nature
had compassion and were very good to Margaret. The sunbeams stole across
her pathway everywhere, the grass clustered thickest and greenest where
she went, the winds caressed her gently as they passed, and the birds
loved to perch near her window and sing their prettiest songs. Margaret
loved them all,--the sunlight, the singing winds, the grass, the
carolling birds. She communed with them; their wisdom inspired her life,
and this wisdom gave her nature a rare beauty.

Every pleasant day Margaret was wheeled from her home in the city down
to the beach, and there for hours she would sit, looking out, far out
upon the ocean, as if she were communing with the ocean spirits that
lifted up their white arms from the restless waters and beckoned her to
come. Oftentimes the children playing on the beach came where Margaret
sat, and heard her tell little stories of the pebbles and the shells, of
the ships away out at sea, of the ever-speeding gulls, of the grass, of
the flowers, and of the other beautiful things of life; and so in time
the children came to love Margaret. Among those who so often gathered to
hear the gentle sick girl tell her pretty stories was a youth of
Margaret's age,--older than the others, a youth with sturdy frame and a
face full of candor and earnestness. His name was Edward, and he was a
student in the city; he hoped to become a great scholar sometime, and he
toiled very zealously to that end. The patience, the gentleness, the
sweet simplicity, the fortitude of the sick girl charmed him. He found
in her little stories a quaint and beautiful philosophy he never yet had
found in books; there was a valor in her life he never yet had read of
in the histories. So, every day she came and sat upon the beach, Edward
came too; and with the children he heard Margaret's stories of the sea,
the air, the grass, the birds, and the flowers.

From her moist eyrie in the surf the old gum boot descried the group
upon the beach each pleasant day. Now the old gum boot had seen enough
of the world to know a thing or two, as we presently shall see.

"That tall young man is not a child," quoth the old gum boot, "yet he
comes every day with the children to hear the sick girl tell her
stories! Ah, ha!"

"Perhaps he is the doctor," suggested the little oyster; and then she
added with a sigh, "but, oh! I hope not."

This suggestion seemed to amuse the old gum boot highly; at least she
fell into such hysterical laughter that she sprung a leak near her
little toe, which, considering her environments, was a serious mishap.

"Unless I am greatly mistaken, my child," said the old gum boot to the
little oyster, "that young man is in love with the sick girl!"

"Oh, how terrible!" said the little oyster; and she meant it too, for
she was thinking of the gallant young perch with green fins.

"Well, I've said it, and I mean it!" continued the old gum boot; "now
just wait and see."

The old gum boot had guessed aright--so much for the value of worldly
experience! Edward loved Margaret; to him she was the most beautiful,
the most perfect being in the world; her very words seemed to exalt his
nature. Yet he never spoke to her of love. He was content to come with
the children to hear her stories, to look upon her sweet face, and to
worship her in silence. Was not that a very wondrous love?

In course of time the sick girl Margaret became more interested in the
little ones that thronged daily to hear her pretty stories, and she put
her beautiful fancies into the little songs and quaint poems and tender
legends,--songs and poems and legends about the sea, the flowers, the
birds, and the other beautiful creations of Nature; and in all there was
a sweet simplicity, a delicacy, a reverence, that bespoke Margaret's
spiritual purity and wisdom. In this teaching, and marvelling ever at
its beauty, Edward grew to manhood. She was his inspiration, yet he
never spoke of love to Margaret. And so the years went by.

Beginning with the children, the world came to know the sick girl's
power. Her songs were sung in every home, and in every home her verses
and her little stories were repeated. And so it was that Margaret came
to be beloved of all, but he who loved her best spoke never of his love
to her.

And as these years went by, the sick little oyster lay in the sea
cuddled close to the old gum boot. She was wearier now than ever before,
for there was no cure for her malady. The gallant perch with green fins
was very sad, for his wooing had been hopeless. Still he was devoted,
and still he came each day to the little oyster, bringing her cool
sea-foam and other delicacies of the ocean. Oh, how sick the little
oyster was! But the end came at last.

The children were on the beach one day, waiting for Margaret, and they
wondered that she did not come. Presently, grown restless, many of the
boys scampered into the water and stood there, with their trousers
rolled up, boldly daring the little waves that rippled up from the
overflow of the surf. And one little boy happened upon the old gum boot.
It was a great discovery.

"See the old gum boot," cried the boy, fishing it out of the water and
holding it on high. "And here is a little oyster fastened to it! How
funny!"

The children gathered round the curious object on the beach. None of
them had ever seen such a funny old gum boot, and surely none of them
had ever seen such a funny little oyster. They tore the pale, knotted
little thing from her foster-mother, and handled her with such rough
curiosity that even had she been a robust oyster she must certainly have
died. At any rate, the little oyster was dead now; and the bereaved
perch with green fins must have known it, for he swam up and down his
native cove disconsolately.

It befell in that same hour that Margaret lay upon her deathbed, and
knowing that she had not long to live, she sent for Edward. And Edward,
when he came to her, was filled with anguish, and clasping her hands in
his, he told her of his love.

Then Margaret answered him: "I knew it, dear one; and all the songs I
have sung and all the words I have spoken and all the prayers I have
made have been with you, dear one,--all with _you_ in my heart of
hearts."

"You have purified and exalted my life," cried Edward; "you have been my
best and sweetest inspiration; you have taught me the eternal
truth,--you are my beloved!"

And Margaret said: "Then in my weakness hath there been a wondrous
strength, and from my sufferings cometh the glory I have sought--"

So Margaret died, and like a broken lily she lay upon her couch; and all
the sweetness of her pure and gentle life seemed to come back and rest
upon her face; and the songs she had sung and the beautiful stories she
had told came back, too, on angel wings, and made sweet music in that
chamber.

The children were lingering on the beach when Edward came that day. He
could hear them singing the songs Margaret had taught them. They
wondered that he came alone.

"See," cried one of the boys, running to meet him and holding a tiny
shell in his hand,--"see what we have found in this strange little
shell. Is it not beautiful!"

Edward took the dwarfed, misshapen thing and lo! it held a beauteous
pearl.

_O little sister mine, let me look into your eyes and read an
inspiration there; let me hold your thin white hand and know the
strength of a philosophy more beautiful than human knowledge teaches;
let me see in your dear, patient little face and hear in your gentle
voice the untold valor of your suffering life. Come, little sister, let
me fold you in my arms and have you ever with me, that in the glory of
your faith and love I may walk the paths of wisdom and of peace._

1887.




[End of _Margaret: A Pearl_ by Eugene Field]