le to say to them, and bands of
lovely music, more lovely than anything beside, except the sound of the
Lord's own voice. "And what is more wonderful, the angels themselves
come often and listen to us," they said, "when we begin to talk and
remind each other of the old time, and how we suffered heat and cold,
and were bowed down with labour, and bending over the soil; and how
sometimes the harvest would fail us, and sometimes we had not bread, and
sometimes would hush the children to sleep because there was nothing to
give them; and how we grew old and weary, and still worked on and on."
"We are those who were old," a number of them called out to her, with a
murmuring sound of laughter, one looking over another's shoulder. And
one woman said, "The angels say to us, 'Did you never think the Father
had forsaken you and the Lord forgotten you?'" And all the rest answered
as in a chorus, "There were moments that we thought this; but all the
time we knew that it could not be." "And the angels wonder at us," said
another. All this they said, crowding one before another, every one
anxious to say something, and sometimes speaking together, but always in
accord. And then there was a sound of laughter and pleasure, both at the
strange thought that the Lord could have forgotten them, and at the
wonder of the angels over their simple tales. And immediately they began
to remind each other, and say, "Do you remember?" and they told the
little Pilgrim a hundred tales of the hardships and troubles they had
known, all smiling and radiant with pleasure; and at every new account
the others would applaud and rejoice, feeling the happiness all the more
for the evils that were past. And some of them led her into their
gardens to show her their flowers, and to tell her how they had begun to
study and learn how colours were changed and form perfected, and the
secrets of the growth and of the germ of which they had been ignorant.
And others arranged themselves in choirs, and sang to her delightful
songs of the fields, and accompanied her out upon her way, singing and
answering to each other. The difference between the simple folk and the
greatness of the others made the little Pilgrim wonder and admire, and
she loved them in her simplicity, and turned back many a time to wave
her hand to them, and to listen to the lovely simple singing as it went
farther and farther away. It had an evening tone of rest and quietness,
and of protection and peace.