PEDRO’S MILESTONE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 977, 21 May 1930, Page 16

PEDRO’S MILESTONE

FIRST PRIZE STORY Pedro sat dreaming where the soft green of the grass met the crystal clearness of the river, and where the weeping willows sent long cool shadows over the water, as irresistibly blue as the sky above —the sky which stretched cloudlessly away to the very edge of the horizon. The little intermittent breeze that brushed the leaves carried on its breath the mingled sweetness of summer fragrance and wafted it at inconsequent moments to Pedro —who dreamed. Pedro was old, but he had grown old beautifully. His hair was like snowdust and curled softly where it framed his face —a face that the hand of time had, in passing, marked with a delicate tracery of fine lines beneath the blue eyes, now a little faded like hyacinths washed in rain. But Pedro was sad. He could not see the beauty that shimmered from the turquoise of the river and peeped between the emerald glory of the willows. He was nearing the end of the journey, and he was troubled because he thought no great deed marked the way he had come.

Suddenly as he dreamed there was a stirring in the green depths of the trees, and a bird soared heavenward like a loosed arrow. Pedro turned in the direction of the sound, and liis weary blue eyes looked out at a stranger who had appeared from # nowhere t just as the breeze stirred the willow's. He was tall and as supple as the trees whence he had appeared, and the eyes which answered Pedro’s inquiry were grey and clear and lustrous.

“Why do you sit in such sad meditation, when the birds fill the air with music and the wind whispers of the beauty it has seen?” the stranger asked quietly.

And Pedro answered: “I am nearing the end of my journey, and, though 1 have laboured to help my fellow-men, the milestones bear no mark to show where I have passed. All my dreams have faded into nothingness before they have been made perfect.” The stranger’s eyes softened with compassion as he heard the words of the old man, and taking his hand he said:

“Come with me to the mountain. Hasten lest the sun should set before we reach the peak.” So together they started up the rough pathway that led to the mountain top, and as they reached the summit the sun disappeared behind the distant horizon. To the west lay the forest, massed towers cf vivid green, and above, spreading wings of glory from low horizon to cloudless zenith, the sunset flamed and glowed. Trailing across the splendour of the west came a flock of cloudlets, flec'.ts of rose against the amber and orange, and carmine, of that wonderful sky. And, beyond the pageantry of the dying day, a wondrous light like a single star flashed its beacon of fire.

Softly, the stranger spoke again: “That light,” he said, “is the Light of Faith. It is always shining though sometimes our eyes are shaded by doubts and fears and longings, and we cannot see it. Always, when the road of life seems rough and long, remember the dawn that follows the blackness of the night and the glory of the sunset that follows a day of storm. Then, though dreams for years in the making should prove nought, and there seems no joy shining through the vista of the years, you will see beyond the glory of the sunset the Light of Faith forever shining in the distance clear and bright.”

Pedro turned to answer him, but the stranger had vanished, and where he had stood was a milestone, and on it an indelible mark which his eyes, unopened, had failed to see a mark which told the world that Pedro had passed that way. Green Bough (Norma B. Joll).