THE STORY OF A HELIOTROPE.
By J. L. H.
How would any little girl who reads this like to be the only little girl in a whole town? To be sure Timberline wasn't a very large town; there were but three or four hundred people in it; but Maida Haven was the only little girl in the place. Timberline was the name of a mining town, or camp, away up near the top of one of the most dreary and desolate of the Rocky Mountains. It was on the slope of the mountain just at the point where it was too rocky and barren even for trees to grow, and that was why they called it Timberline. The houses were all of rough logs, and few of them had more than one room, with one door and one window. Mr. Haven, Maida's father, had built a rough little log-cabin about like the others, and had sent back to Ohio for his wife and little girl to come and live in it with him. Few of the miners and prospectors living in the new mining town of Timberline had sent for their families. They said that Timberline "wa'n't no fit place fer wimmin an' childern;" but Mrs. Haven insisted on being with her husband, and, as she was not very strong, the doctor said the bracing air of the mountains would do her good. So one June day when the rumbling old stage slowly made its way up to Timberline, Mrs. Haven and Maida, then ten years old, were among the passengers. Mr. Haven had not seen them for more than a year, and you may be sure they were warmly welcomed; and the novelty of their surroundings, and their joy at meeting Mr. Haven, made them think that Timberline was quite a pleasant little town, dreary as its every aspect was. "What have you wrapped up so carefully in that paper?" asked Mr. Haven of Maida, soon after they arrived at the little cabin. "That," said Mrs. Haven in reply, "is a little slip of heliotrope that the child just would bring with her all the way from home; she had a large, beautiful plant of it all in full bloom, and it was the only thing she cried about leaving. She teased so to bring a little slip of it that I put one in a little pot for her, and she has watched it all the way as if it were a baby. I told her I didn't think it would live in this climate." "I don't know why not," said Mr. Haven. "We have sunshine here almost every day in the year, and the window of our cabin is on the sunny side. I'm glad my little girl brought it. A bit of something green growing in the window will brighten the old cabin up wonderfully, and it reminds me of the old home more than anything else could." So Maida was very glad she had brought the bit of heliotrope, and it was wonderful how the little slip grew; for the sun came in, warm and bright, through the little window, almost every day, and the plant grew steadily. It was never very warm away up there on the mountain-tops, but on the warmest days Maida set the little pot out on a flat rock before the door, where it grew and swayed gently in the soft mountain air. But it had to be taken in every night, for a heavy frost in midsummer was not an uncommon thing up there at Timberline. Mrs. Haven hung a pair of snowy white curtains at the little window, and put the thrifty little plant between them, its dark, pretty leaves showing effectively against the white background. It was the only plant there was in the town. The few women there were in the little, dreary camp, would go out of their way, as they went to and from "the store," to see the plant. It had "such a homey look," one of them said; and the miners going by the cabin noticed the flower, and some of them said to Maida,— "Where'd you git yer posey, little gal?" One of them offered her ten dollars for it; but she said, "No," very soberly, for Mr. Haven was a poor man, and ten dollars was a little fortune in Maida's eyes. The first bunch of delicate, feathery blossoms that came on the plant was cut off very carefully and tenderly by Maida, and carried to a neighboring cabin to lay in the tiny, waxen hand of a little baby boy who had lived but a week. When the next blossoms came, a minister going over the mountains, in a missionary spirit came to Timberline, and began preaching in a deserted cabin. His pulpit stand was an inverted dry goods box with a colored table-cloth over it; and every Sunday, Maida's heliotrope, with its bunches of feathery flowers, added its charm and gracefulness to the little pulpit. When October came, the plant, now tall and thrifty, was one mass of exquisitely beautiful and fragrant flowers. One day the owner of the only valuable mine at Timberline came to the little camp. He brought with him his young wife, a handsome lady, who had begged to come to a real mining camp; and her husband had laughingly consented to bring her, warning her beforehand that she would have to "rough it" for the few days they were to stay in the place. The day after their arrival she was taken dangerously ill. They sent twenty miles for a doctor, and did all they could for the suffering woman, but for several days her life was despaired of, and when she was at last pronounced out of danger, the doctors said it would be several weeks before she could be moved. "She'll have a dreary time of it down there in that little old hotel," said a woman to Mrs. Haven. "It is indeed a poor place for anyone to be sick in," said Mrs. Haven, "but I don't see how it could be fixed up much now. Her husband has sent to Denver for everything he could think of, but it'll be some time before they get here. I've been down and fixed things up the best I could." It was an unusually warm day for October, and Maida's heliotrope was out on the flat boulder in the bright sunshine; she went slowly out to it, and said softly and earnestly:— "Yes, you'll have to go. I don't know how I'm ever to give you up, but she's dreadful sick, and she needs you more'n I do; so you must go." There were tears in her eyes as she said it, and the tears were still there, and her eyes shining, when, ten minutes later, the door of the sick lady's room opened softly, and Maida came in with the beautiful plant in her hands. "Here," she said quietly, "I bring you this. They said there wasn't nothing pretty here; and this is pretty, ain't it? So I brung it to you." "O John!" said the lady, "my favorite flower! Isn't it lovely! Where could the child have found it? And where did the dear little soul herself come from? I didn't suppose there were any children away up here. How beautiful the flower is! You are a dear, good, kind little girl to think of me." "What is your name, little girl?" asked Mr. Lee. "Oh! you're William Haven's little girl? He works at the mine, and is one of our best men. I think you are your father's daughter. Well, you are a very, very kind and good little girl, and we shall not soon forget you." You can't think how your flower brightens the room up," said the lady. "I do believe it has done me good already. You are a real little Samaritan, going about doing good, and you must come and see me again." "A little Samaritan," Maida kept repeating to herself going home. She knew all about the good Samaritan of old, but could not understand how she had been in the least like him. Hers was the good deed done without thought or hope of reward, the little kindness that does not, in our worldly way of thinking, count for much; but God sees it, and records it in the book of his remembrance. The heliotrope came back to Maida again in a few weeks, when Mrs. Lee was well enough to go away. Its next wealth of blossoms was held in the hand of the first bride ever married in Timberline. "I declare," said Mrs. Haven one day, "your heliotrope is a real missionary flower. I don't believe we can know just how much good it has done, or how much better it has made us and others in this dreary little place. It often cheers me up to see its feathery blossoms nodding out there in the sunshine." Slips of the plant were given freely to all who asked for them, and soon there were plants in all the cabin windows where there141were women. Even two or three of the men living alone took slips, and cared for them. "It kind o' reminds a fellow of home," they said; and when men are far away from home and all its restraints, the things that bring home to their remembrance must be good and helpful and comforting to them, so that I rather think myself that Maida's flower was "a real little missionary."—J. L. H., in S. S. Times.