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Courage (Dramatic Reading)

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<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> </SPAN></p> <br/> <h2> L'ENVOI </h2> <p class="pfirst"> <span class="dropcap" style="font-size: 4.00em">Y</span>ou may not happen to know what this “l'envoi” means. Neither do I exactly, only nowadays poets who try to make English poems like French ones put it at the head of their last verse; so I have a notion to follow their example and put it at the head of this last chapter.</p> <p>As to its meaning as the poets use it, I find that even some pretty wise people are not able to enlighten us, so we'll have it mean just what we choose, and say that it stands for the winding up of a story by which you learn what became of all the people in it. At any rate, as that's what this chapter's to be, we'll press this mysterious little L'Envoi into service in lieu of such a long title. Confidentially, however, I have an idea that it isn't “the thing” to wind up a story at all. That to give you merely an intimation as to what probably happened to Courage, and to leave you wholly in ignorance as to the others, would be far more in keeping with modern story-telling; but why try to be modern unless it is more satisfactory? Then I imagine you really would like to know something more of the friends we have been summering with through these eight chapters, and besides, if someday you should yourself go driving over the South Shrewsbury draw, you would naturally expect to at least have a chat with David Starr, feeling that he was a fixture, whatever might have become of Larry and Courage and Sylvia. But alas! that cannot be, and you ought to know it beforehand. The same little house is there, and in summer weather the same boxes of geraniums, verbena, and portulaca line the rail in front of it, but the old man at present employed at the draw is as much of a stranger to me as to you.</p> <p>It is several years now since that eventful night on the bridge, and all this while Courage has been living in Washington Square, for it had been easily arranged with Larry that she should make her home with Miss Julia and Mrs. Everett. Indeed, it had proved an immense relief to Larry's anxious heart to know that her future would be so well provided for, and it all came about at the right time, too, for the very next winter Larry died. He had not been feeling well for a few days, and Sylvia, who had been left behind at the bridge, wrote for Courage; and Courage, losing not a moment, came in time to care for him for two whole weeks before he passed away. His illness was not a painful one, and now that complete darkness had closed in about him, he had no great wish to live. The many mansions of the Father were very real to Larry, and the eyes that were blind to all on earth seemed to look with wondrous keenness of vision toward “the land that is very far off;” while to have Courage at his side in this last illness summed up every earthly desire that remained to him. He was buried in the cemetery over at Shrewsbury, and it was not long before a grave was dug for faithful Bruce, who seemed to lose all heart from the hour his master left him.</p> <p>When Courage went back to Washington Square, the day after the funeral, Sylvia went with her, to assist in the care of a blessed Everett baby that had lately come to gladden every one in the home; and Sylvia was overjoyed to be once more under the same roof with Courage.</p> <p>For a year or two after that David continued to keep the draw, living alone in the same way as before, which must have seemed a more lonely way than ever, with Larry out of the world and Courage and Sylvia quite the same as out of it, as far as he was concerned. But finally David had to give up. “The rheumatics,” as he said, “got hold of him so drefful bad that there was no help for it but that he must just go and be beholden to his daughter,” which, as you can imagine, must have been no little trial to independent old David.</p> <p>And Courage! brave little Courage! just how does the world fare with her? Well, she is quite a young lady by this time, with the beautiful auburn curls twisted into a knot, and dresses that sometimes have trains to them, and yet she is just the same Courage still. It seems to Mr. and Mrs. Everett as though they could hardly have loved their own little Belle more, while to Miss Julia it seems as though she could not possibly live without her; and no one who truly knows Courage wonders at this for a moment. As for Courage herself, she looks up to Miss Julia with all the saint-like adoration of the old sewing-school days, and Miss Julia is every whit worthy of such loyal devotion. At the same time, they are the best of friends.</p> <p><br/><br/><SPAN name="linkimage-0020" id="linkimage-0020"> </SPAN></p> <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0111.jpg" alt="0111 " width-obs="100%" /><br/></div> <h5> <SPAN href="images/0111.jpg"><ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </SPAN> </h5> <p>During these five years of daily companionship Miss Julia has been unconsciously training Courage to be just such another noble woman as she is herself, and so they have been constantly growing nearer and still nearer to each other, if that were possible. They love the same books, they enjoy the same things, and now that regular school-life is over for Courage, they have the happiest sort of time together, day in and day out. Often, indeed, they have a very merry time of it, largely accounted for by the fact that Courage, being well and strong, as well as young, is often brimming over with a contagious buoyancy, sometimes called animal spirits, but to my thinking, it deserves a better name than that.</p> <p>Everywhere that Miss Julia goes Courage goes too that is, if she is wanted (and seldom is she not), and one of the places where they go most frequently, and never empty-handed, is to a great hospital, where, since little lame Joe died, Mary Duff has become one of the sisters who give their lives to caring for sick children.</p> <p>Courage even has a class next to Miss Julia's in the sewing-school where she used to be a scholar. Now and then she feels some little finger pointing at her, and knows well enough what is being said. One Saturday afternoon, when on her way to the chapel, she noticed two rather unkempt little specimens in close conference. “Yes, that's her,” she heard the smaller girl exclaim as she neared them, “and ain't she sweet and stylish! Well, she used to belong down here somewhere, but now she lives in a beautiful house with Miss Julia in Washington Square.”</p> <p>“Like as not she didn't do nothin' to deserve it, either,” said the larger girl enviously, with a sullen shrug of her shoulders.</p> <p>“Didn't do nothin'? Well, perhaps you don't know that she just saved Miss Julia's life; that's something, ain't it?” And with the color mantling forehead and cheeks Courage hurried on, grateful for the championship of her unknown little friend.</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />

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