Heathersleigh Homecoming

by Michael Phillips

  She paused briefly as Sister Hope set a pot of fresh tea on the table in front of the fireplace, then returned to the kitchen for another.

  “My father was not a mean man,” Sister Marjolaine continued, “but he had little use for me. I was an oddity. He had his sons to occupy him. I suppose my mother loved me, yet I knew I was odd in her eyes too. So it could not be helped that I thought of myself almost as not one of the family like the rest. Later, I wondered if I had been adopted and they hadn’t told me—adopted, perhaps, from a band of gypsy dwarfs passing through our village. Yet even if that were true, it didn’t stop me from thinking of myself as a mistake on the human family tree, an evolutionary blunder. I don’t know whether you believe in evolution, Amanda. Actually, I don’t know whether I believe in it myself! But if you subscribe to such a theory, that explains how I saw myself—as an evolutionary mistake.

  “For one who is not tiny, it is impossible to describe how shortness affects every aspect of life. People cast you odd looks. In a crowd you can see almost nothing. Everyone looks down to talk to you. Shelves are too high. You must crane your neck up to talk to people. You are out of step with everything in life. It never dawned on me that God might have made me the way I am intentionally. Had someone told me such a thing, I would have laughed in their very face. Nor did I yet know that everyone has something about which they feel exactly as I felt about my shortness, something they do not like about how they look, something they would change if they could. I would learn these truths eventually, of course. And how I began to learn them was through books.”

  Sister Hope appeared again, this time with a second pot of steaming tea, and the story was interrupted once more for a few minutes.

  “I always loved books,” Marjolaine began again after fresh tea was poured. “I dreamed and imagined myself in the stories I read. But as I grew older, I found that I began to grow from them as well.”

  “Grow . . . how do you mean?” asked Amanda.

  “At first I read just for fun, to escape to faraway places and forget my own miseries for a while. When I was a little girl, books helped me pretend I was someone else. In my dream world I could be happy when reading and forget that tiny little Marjolaine Hedvige was funny looking—a mistake that no one could possibly care about.

  “Then came a moment of great revelation, a moment that changed my whole life. I was fifteen at the time and was going through a book of fairy tales. The story I was reading in the book was not exactly a fairy tale, because it was about a young man, French as am I, from a village in the French Alps not so very far from my own hometown. There were no fairies in the story, though perhaps it was a fairy tale after all, because there was a very mean and terrible dragon.”

  “Tell us the story!” said Sister Anika.

  “You have all heard it before!” laughed Marjolaine.

  “I haven’t,” said Amanda.

  “Perhaps I shall tell it again on one of our reading nights, then. But it must be dark and stormy.”

  “Yes, yes!” clamored the others. “You have never heard a scary story like Sister Marjolaine can tell it on a stormy night.”

  “This night is much too calm for a tale like that!” said Marjolaine. “And I mustn’t lose my point. I am telling Amanda my story, not the tale of Michel Archenbaud.”

  “Promise that I shall hear it, then,” said Amanda.

  “I promise. But back to the heroine of tonight’s story—which is me.” The most delightful giggle erupted out of Marjolaine’s mouth as she said the words.

  “So I was reading the story of Michel and the dragon,” she continued. “I suppose to tell you my story I shall have to tell you a little of Michel’s story too. And that is just this—Michel had to save the entire valley from the dragon’s wrath because, like all dragons, this particular one was terrible and ugly and wicked. I don’t know why there aren’t nice dragons in stories from time to time. Perhaps I shall have to write a fairy tale about a nice dragon. But in any case, the dragon bothering Michel’s village was a normal and very wicked creature.

  “Finally the dragon was about to swoop down and breathe his fire on every house and destroy them all and leave the whole village in ruins when Michel Archenbaud strode up to the dragon’s lair on the mountain, drew out his sword, stood in the mouth of the cave, and shouted into the blackness.

  “‘I can feel your evil breath, Dragon!’ Michel cried out. ‘I know you are in there. Come out and prove you are no coward, for today I shall kill you!’

  “Before long Michel heard puffs of fire and the tromping of steps from inside the cave. Slowly they came closer and closer. Gradually he felt warmth breezing toward him, not a pleasant warmth as from a cheery fire inside a cottage, but a noxious warmth, and he knew he was smelling the dragon’s foul, fiery breath. At length he saw the dragon’s two glowing eyes gleaming out of the blackness.

  “‘What feeble squeak did I hear!’ hissed the dragon. ‘Did some little mouse dare threaten me?’

  “‘You heard the voice of Michel Archenbaud say he was about to kill you!’ shouted Michel into the dragon’s face.

  “‘You!’ taunted the dragon, clomping forward another few steps. The end of his green nose now became visible. Out of its two wide black nostrils puffed grey smoke. ‘You are the tiniest man I have ever seen. You are smaller than the boys in your village. You are a mere dwarf. You could not kill a fly!’

  “A great roar sounded from the dragon’s mouth at these last words. Hot flames spewed out of his nostrils like red waves of water, swirling about the cave and out toward the entrance. They singed Michel’s feet. But he bravely stood fast.

  “‘Perhaps I am tiny,’ he replied. ‘But inside my chest I have the heart of a giant because I believe in myself. And inside my head I have the brain of wisdom because I have read the books of a hundred learned men. But you, Dragon, have a heart of stone and a brain the size of a pea. And it is with my heart and my brain that I shall defeat you, not my height. Your size may be fifty times mine, but my sword shall plunge through your wicked skin because my heart and my brain are greater than you.’”

  “What happened next?” Amanda asked.

  “Michel killed the dragon and saved the village,” replied Marjolaine. “That’s what happened in the story of Michel Archenbaud.”

  There was a short pause. Everyone was quiet. A brief gust of wind blew against the window. Amanda shivered but waited, engrossed, for Sister Marjolaine to go on.

  “In my story, something else happened,” she said. “You see, all the time I had been reading, in my imagination I had pictured Michel as a great warrior, as the tallest man in his village. Never in my wildest thoughts did I think he could be a short man . . . like me. When I read those startling words You are the tiniest man I have ever seen, I was so shocked I could not believe my eyes. I had to read them over and over again. The hero, the warrior, the dragon-slayer—a tiny little man, the village dwarf. And when the next words came . . . it is with my heart and my brain that I shall defeat you . . . I felt a great gong explode inside me. It was an instant when all of life changed for tiny little Marjolaine Hedvige.”

  Again she paused thoughtfully.

  “Suddenly I realized that perhaps I could defeat my own dragon too. My dragon didn’t breathe smoke and fire. But he lived deep in a dark place just like the dragon of the tale—the cave of my very own heart.”

  “What was your dragon?” asked Amanda.

  “My dragon was my own doubts and fears, and feeling that I was a mistake. Suddenly I thought that perhaps I might slay those doubts too, with my heart and with my brain! Why could I not have the heart of a giant, just like Michel Archenbaud? I too had read books. Why could I not have the brain of learned men?

  “I did not, at fifteen years of age, suddenly become brave and courageous and strong like Michel. But I began to grow, because I determined to believe in myself as he did. I knew there had been a change. I slowly began to believe in myself, because I saw that I could stand tal
ler on the inside than I may have looked on the outside, just like brave little Michel of the fairy tale. I saw that my heart and my brain could soar with the birds, could climb the high mountain peaks, could dare open dark caves within myself, could imagine and dream high things, and think lofty thoughts. I saw that my thoughts and imagination could be tall. And that was a greater kind of tallness than how big my body was. Who wouldn’t rather be an imaginative, tall-thinking, happy tiny person than a dull-witted, clumsy, unthinking giant?”

  A few of the sisters chuckled. Sister Marjolaine went on.

  “During the next years my reading changed. I wanted to grow and learn—to stretch my brain and heart, so that I could get taller and taller. Taller inside . . . taller in my thoughts, in my imagination. And I began to feel taller too—inside, I mean. Gradually I began to see that people around me every day, whose bodies were taller than mine, were not as tall as I was on the inside, because they had not explored mountain regions of thinking and imagination. They had not read the books of a hundred learned men. They had let themselves become content with their own tiny brains, and thus those brains did not grow and stretch and expand and become taller. Strange as it may seem to say, I began to feel sorry for those I met who were not reading and growing and learning and stretching, who were not taking their hearts and brains on journeys to the high places that minds and hearts are meant to explore.

  “And finally, my dear Amanda, would you like to know the miracle that happened?” Marjolaine asked.

  “Yes, yes, I would,” replied Amanda. She had been sitting on the edge of her seat listening attentively, as had all the others. Sister Marjolaine was indeed a wonderful storyteller.

  “I woke up one day to realize that the most astonishing change had taken place. I suddenly realized that I was thankful for my size.

  “You can imagine how shocked I was. I could not believe it! Happy . . . me? Because I was tiny!”

  Just to hear her tell it so exuberantly made all the sisters smile as they listened.

  “Then I began to laugh!” Marjolaine went on, giggling as she spoke. “And I laughed with pure joy and happiness for several minutes because I realized I was truly happy that I was small—physically small, I mean. I would not have traded sizes with anyone. It was my stature that caused me to read in the way I did. It was my shortness that helped me see that bigness of heart and tallness of brain are so much more important. Had I not been tiny, I might never have discovered these things. You cannot imagine how much I now treasure the words ‘In my weakness I am strong.’”

  “But that still doesn’t tell Amanda how you began our literary evenings,” laughed Sister Hope.

  Marjolaine’s face fell playfully, and she tried to frown. “I do turn everything into a story, don’t I? Shame on me! Then I shall try to finish quickly.

  “I have continued to read all my life,” she went on. “Books are so very special to me. Every book I read, every character I meet, I grow and learn from. I love to meet new people in books. They make me think and learn. For you see, I am still trying to grow taller inside, with that part of me that thinks and imagines and dreams and loves. That part of me I hope will keep growing taller and taller to all eternity.

  “Naturally I want to share my love for books and characters and growth and getting taller and the imagination of a hundred learned men with my friends. So when I came to the chalet, I asked Sister Hope if I could read a book aloud one evening a week. That was more than ten years ago. Now we do it twice a week, and sometimes in wintertime even more often. I think we have all learned to climb a little higher on our heart-mountains together. Books and stories and characters help us look inside ourselves. They help us decide the kind of people we want to be, and how tall we want to become.”

  She fell silent. Sister Regina now spoke up. “When I first made Malcolm’s acquaintance,” she said, “about whom we have recently been reading, you cannot imagine the impact it had on me, just as little Michel Archenbaud did for Sister Marjolaine.”

  “In what way?” Amanda asked.

  “I wanted to be like him,” Regina replied.

  “But he is a man.”

  “So was Michel Archenbaud,” said Marjolaine. “But from him I learned about big hearts and tall brains.”

  “I want to be like Malcolm in character,” Regina added.

  “Men of character are equally good role models for women as are women of character,” said Marjolaine.

  “Who else do we try to pattern our lives after than the Lord Jesus, the perfect man?” added Gretchen.

  Again silence fell. A few yawns went around the room, indicating that the pleasant evening was nearly at its end and that cozy feather beds were calling out to their owners.

  “Unless I am mistaken,” said Sister Hope, “the temperature has been falling as we’ve been sitting here.”

  Gretchen leapt up from her chair and ran to the front door. She opened it to the night.

  “It’s snowing!” she exclaimed.

  25

  Orphaned Kid

  Snow did indeed fall through the night, though still not in the huge quantities winter would eventually bring. When Amanda awoke and gazed out her window the following morning, a fresh blanket of three or four inches covered the landscape.

  A giddy delight seized her. She jumped out of bed, dressed hurriedly, grabbed her coat, and ran downstairs. She saw no one around, although a fire in the stove was already heating up the kitchen.

  Amanda ran outside into the cold morning. The sky was a pale blue. The clouds had passed with the night and the temperature was well below freezing. The sun had not yet made his appearance for the day. But the eastern horizon was bright and he was obviously on his way.

  Amanda charged straight into the virgin white, heedless of the cold and her thin boots. She ran recklessly through it, kicking up fresh bursts of powder with her feet, laughing like a child. The spontaneous outburst of giggling enthusiasm, however, proved of short duration. She found both hands and feet frozen within a minute or two. Amanda turned and made a dash back for the house.

  She ran inside shivering and laughing all at once.

  “Brrr!” she cried. “It’s freezing out there!”

  “It certainly is,” Sister Marjolaine’s voice answered. “Come into the kitchen—it’s nice and warm.”

  Amanda stomped her feet to shake off the snow, then hurried toward the stove, holding out her hands over it.

  “You look like you could use some tea.”

  “Y-y-yes,” stammered Amanda with quivering lips. “I don’t know w-what I w-was thinking.”

  “Snow always does that. You can’t help yourself. You weren’t even the first one out.”

  “I wasn’t? I saw nobody.”

  “Didn’t you notice the footprints across the snow?”

  Amanda ran to the window. “You’re right,” she cried, “and heading straight for the barn. Sister Galiana, no doubt.”

  “There is a mama goat whose time is getting close,” now said Sister Hope, descending the stairs behind her. “If I know Sister Galiana, her first order of business this morning was to check on the mother-to-be.”

  Gradually the other sisters came down in ones and twos until all but Sister Galiana were enjoying morning cups of tea and chocolate, while Sister Marjolaine finished setting the breakfast things on the table.

  Galiana did not appear until well after the others had finished breakfast. She walked into the house carrying a tiny white kid in her arms, obviously newly born. She had a finger in its mouth, upon which it was sucking violently.

  “Oh . . . it’s so tiny and cute and cuddly!” erupted a chorus of feminine exclamations.

  Galiana had tears in her eyes. At first the others thought they were from happiness. The sisters jumped up from the table and ran toward the door to cluster about and fondle the new arrival.

  “And nearly frozen to death,” said Galiana. “Would someone please put a pan of milk on the stove and find one of our feeding bott
les.”

  Hands and feet scurried to the kitchen in response.

  “You look frozen yourself. What happened?” asked Hope.

  “I don’t know,” replied Galiana. “When I got to the barn to check on this poor little baby’s mother, she was gone. I can’t imagine how she got out or why. But that loose latch we’ve been meaning to fix was the culprit. The door was open—”

  Gretchen moaned. “Oh no—I’m sorry. It was on my list for today!”

  “The goat must have gotten out just after the first of the snow,” Galiana went on. “I could barely see the footprints under the two inches that had fallen since. I searched high and low and just found this little kid about ten minutes ago, buried in the snow, her mother on top of her to give what was left of her body’s warmth. I think I reached her just in time.”

  “And the mother?” asked Hope.

  “The mother is dead,” Galiana replied.

  “Oh . . .” went around a few gasps.

  “It’s my fault for the latch!” Gretchen wailed, her eyes filling with tears.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” Sister Agatha said. “I have lived in these mountains all my life, and sometimes animals do foolish things.”

  “But—”

  “What’s good for the sparrow is good for the goat,” added Agatha. “God is sovereign over the beasts, and not even latches or barns can change that . . . or sisters with more to do than they can keep up with.”

  “I will try to remember. Thank you, Sister Agatha,” Gretchen said.

  “The mother goat saved her own kid’s life,” said Galiana. “So we must nurse this little one to health.”

  “She will now depend on us,” said Hope, bringing a bottle with cold milk until that on the stove was warm. “We shall do our best to care for it and feed it,” she added, then gently stuck the nipple into the tiny mouth. Galiana pulled out her finger. “Of course we can never replace her parents,” Hope added, “but we will do our best.”