Love Needs no Formula

Some ten years since, before Christian Science had been named as such in New York State, I was victimized by a most severe thought of chronic illness. One physician, and one only, thought it possible for me to live,—and in my "right mind." To myself the outlook was a dark one, realizing as I did, my own physical and mental condition, and the probable outcome. I had unwittingly fallen into the habit, when alone, of expressing my misery audibly. A dear little child, noted for womanliness of thirty-five at the age of seven, frequently came to my room; and though all about me were kindness personified—she was almost the only caller who really found me when she came. One very hot day in midsummer, when the doors all stood ajar, she strayed silently in, past the foot of the bed, to a seat on my left at the window. I was barely conscious of her coming, and after she was seated it seems, resumed my expressions of suffering. She turned to face me and, in the gentlest, most unaffected manner asked: "Miss G—, why do you say that?" "Say what, Birdie?" absently. "Why, 'Oh-dear-dear' all the time." My attention finally secured, I replied: "If I were to say it ten years, Birdie, it seems as if I could never say oh-dear-dear-dear-dear half enough." "Oh, that's it!" quoth she, in an enlightened, calm satisfaction. Instantly and noiselessly she crossed the room to perch her tiny figure on a chair at the head of the bed, saying in a methodical, businesslike manner: "Well, now, I'm going to help you." "Help me—how?" "Why, to say 'Oh dear-dear.' If you've got to do it ten years all alone, with two of us it will only take five." I must have smiled, for she evidently gained confidence even in the face of my protest that she wouldn't be there five years. "Well, I'm going to begin, anyway, and do as much as I can." With that, her gentle, little face assumed a contortion evidently in imitation of the expression of my own upon which her eyes rested steadily; and, the gleam of the helpful thought visible through it all, she gave the signal to begin in unison. What was there for me to do but to laugh! She gravely admonished me that if we didn't begin, we wouldn't get through; so I started, mainly for the compliance of it; but the sense of amusement got the mastery, and I came to a halt. She gravely assured me that if I had done enough for that time, she herself would keep on a little longer and get some done ahead to apply on our next attempt. On she did keep, until we both joined in the first laugh that had been heard from me in many a day. I never got quite back to that point again. About a month later, however, when the circumstance had faded from my mind, and I was weakly attempting for the first time to take the elevator, with others, to the dining-room, she caught sight of my face from the further end of the long hall and, creeping up softly and sliding her little hand into mine by way of gaining attention, asked in an undertone: "Do you need me to help you to-day, Miss G—?" "I guess so, Birdie; how do you mean — help me at what?" "As I did before. Have you got any more to do? If you have, I'll come in right after supper and we'll get a lot done to-night." The momentary appearance of the same curious look on her face that I had seen but once before enlightened me as to her meaning; and the laugh that ensued completely broke the train of thought I myself, until then, had been unconscious of. Others, near, wished to know the occasion of the sudden and unlooked-for merriment. A partial explanation was dictated by courtesy, but the real merits of the case were preserved in solid "free-masonry " between Birdie and myself. Thereafter, one of those indescribable pantomime-looks, or a half audible "Will we do it now?" broke whatever "spell" seemed laid upon me. Dear child! she must be a woman grown by this time, with every trace of the incident—of myself too, perhaps—effaced from memory; but that simply angelic spirit of helpfulness manifested to one deemed past all help, is with me as vividly and helpfully this moment as on that ever-to-be-remembered August afternoon. I can never forget it—nor would I if I could. Some day, in some way, it must be in store for me to reciprocate with aid as effectual in its way as that received that day direct from the Father, through the open door of that child-woman's consciousness.