LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 Chap..,..^._. Copyriglit ]So. 
 Shelf_i//0[v 
 
 UNJTED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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ROSEMARY AND RUE. 
 
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Rosemary and Rue 
 
 By Amber 
 
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 Chicago and New York: 
 
 Rand, McNally & Company, 
 
 MDCCCXCVI. 
 
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 Copyright, i8q6, by Rand, McNally & Co. 
 
 n- ^isji 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 "Amber" was not to be classed with any 
 society or any creed. In all respects she 
 was an individual. In good-humored con- 
 tempt she held all form, and with deep sin- 
 cerity she revered all simple things. She 
 smiled upon error and frowned upon pre- 
 tense. Her life was largely made up of 
 impulse and sacrifice. She was the con- 
 stant "victim" of her own generosity, need- 
 ing the money and the time which sympathy 
 impelled her to give away. She was so 
 devoted a lover of the moods of nature, 
 noting so closely the changing of the leaf 
 or a new note sounded by the whimsical 
 wind, that her spirit itself must once have 
 been an October day. Year after year she 
 toiled, and her reward was not money, but a 
 letter from the bedside of the invalid, telling 
 of a heart that had been Hghtened, of a care 
 that had been driven from the door. None of 
 the newspaper writers of Chicago was more 
 
6 ^vi^fac^* 
 
 popular. Another column told the news of 
 the day; her column held the news of the 
 heart. Her best thoughts and warmest 
 fancies are scattered throughout her prose. 
 Her verses are pleasant, and many of them 
 are striking, but meter often chained her 
 fancy. But some of her unchained fancies, 
 poetic conceits in the guise of prose, will 
 live long after the clasp, holding the preten- 
 tious verses of a society laureate, shall have 
 been eaten loose by the constant nibble of 
 time. 
 
 When a church was crowded with friends, 
 come to bid "Amber" good-bye, a great 
 thinker, a writer who knows the meaning 
 of toil, said that she had succeeded by the 
 force and the industry of her genius. And 
 so she had. For others, influence searched 
 out easy places, but "Amber" found her own 
 hard place and maintained it, struggling 
 alone. Her words were for the poor and 
 the sorrowful, and they could but give a 
 blessing. But in the end, a blessing from 
 the poor may be brighter than the silver of 
 the rich. Opie Read. 
 
Rosemary and Rue, 
 
 I WONDER. 
 
 I wonder, if I died to-night. 
 And you should hear to-morrow. 
 
 You'd mourn to think this one dear friend 
 Had bid good-bye to sorrow. 
 
 I wonder, if you saw a bird, 
 
 The hunter's dart outflying, 
 You'd lure it back with loving word 
 
 To danger, pain, and dying. 
 
 I wonder, if you saw a rose. 
 Plucked quick in June's surrender. 
 
 You'd wish it back upon the bough, 
 To wither in November. 
 
 I wonder, if you watched the moon. 
 The tempest's rack outstripping. 
 
 You'd grieve to see its silver prow 
 In cloudless ether dipping. 
 
 I wonder, if you heard a thrush 
 
 Laugh out amid the clover, 
 You'd weep because its cage door oped — 
 
 Its captive days were over. 
 
 I wonder, if, some happy day, 
 When you have found your haven. 
 
 You'll mourn to find this one dear friend 
 Had been so long in heaven. 
 
^00etnavvi <»*ti* ^we< 
 
 w 
 
 When I die bury me by the sea. Let my 
 first hundred years in the spirit be spent on 
 a sunny sand-bank watching the sapphire 
 tides break over a bluff of Hfted rocks. 
 What is any earthly trouble but a dissolving 
 dream, when one may bury the face in gold- 
 en moss and sniff the salt spume of the sea! 
 Over the blue verge of the horizon lies 
 Spain, and I build its castles hourly here in 
 my heart. A distant echo rings in my ears 
 of trucks driven over stony streets, of the 
 crack of the cabman's whip and the shout 
 of profane teamsters, but the only semblance 
 to cruel driver and jaded beast of burden 
 seen in the seaside paradise of which I write 
 is a fat huckster and a still fatter donkey 
 who draws the large man where he (the 
 donkey) listeth. Here on this lifted moor- 
 land, if one wishes to go anywhere he rises 
 up and goes forth on a carpet of crimson 
 moss and yelfow grass and is driven by a 
 chariot of untired winds. Behind us are 
 miles of purple moss swept by ragged 
 shreds of September fog, and musical, here 
 and there, with bells of grazing herds ; while 
 before us, behind us, and all around us 
 
stretches the boundless, unfathomable and 
 mysterious sea. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Did you ever hear of the island of Avilion? 
 That enchanted place where "falls not hail, 
 or rain, nor ever wind blows loudly," 
 whose orchard lands and bowery hollows 
 lie lapsed in summer seas? I found it one 
 day when I was sailing on Casco bay in a 
 boat hardly bigger than a peanut shell. Ten- 
 nyson found it long ago in a dream, and 
 to it he sent the good King Arthur that he 
 might "heal him of his grievous wound" 
 within the balm of its heavenly peace. But 
 I found it in reality, and to it I took a care- 
 worn lady and a work-weary brain, that I 
 might perchance renew under its sunny 
 spell a strength that was well-nigh spent. 
 I found my island under another name, to 
 be sure, but I rechristened it within the first 
 hour of my landing. It is not the place, 
 my dear, for featherheads and butterflies, 
 this island of Avilion. It is not the place for 
 the descendants of Flora McFlimsy to go 
 with their new gowns and their French 
 heels. All such would vote my little island 
 
10 Jto^^ntttru anb ^ttje* 
 
 a bore, and run up a flag for the first in- 
 land-bound steamer to put into port and 
 carry them away. It has no ball-room, no 
 promenade-hall under cover, no brass band, 
 no merry-go-round, but instead it has 
 meadow-lands that are brimful of bird 
 songs; it has wild strawberries that bring 
 their ruby wine to the very lips of the laugh- 
 ing sea; it has such sunsets as visit the 
 dreams of poets and the skies of Italy; it 
 has great rocks that are woven all over with 
 webs of wild convolvulus vine, whose airy 
 goblets of pink and blue hold nectar for the 
 booming bee to sip; and it has marguerite 
 daisies by the tens of thousands, and wild 
 roses that carry the tint of your baby's palm 
 and the honey of sugar-sweet dew within 
 the inclosure of their small curled cup. It 
 is hardly bigger than a Cunarder, this little 
 Chebeague island, whose name I changed to 
 Avilion, and from wave-washed keel to flow- 
 ery bowsprit the eye never lights upon a 
 defilement or a stain. It is the only place 
 in all my wanderings where I never found 
 a peanut shell nor a tin can thrown out to 
 defile nature's beauty. 
 
 There was not a single bad odor on my 
 island during the whole ten days of my tar- 
 
^o&exnavvi an^ ^xxe* 
 
 11 
 
 rying, and I am told by those who are old 
 inhabitants that such a thing never was 
 known to it. A soft wind is always blow- 
 ing, but the only merchandise it carries is 
 wild thyme perfume and the fragrant airs 
 that waft from meadows-lands and old-fash- 
 ioned gardens full of spice pinks and cinna- 
 mon roses. Now and then a hunter's fog 
 slips the leash of its viewless hounds and 
 with noiseless "halloo" scours the island for 
 the prey it tracks but seems never to corral. 
 Now and then a sudden tumult seizes the 
 tides that climb and fall on the shiny rocks 
 and the air is full of the throb of soft drums 
 and the music of flutes that are beat and 
 blown a moment, then die away as quick- 
 ly as they came, like a strolling band that 
 marches through a village street, then over 
 the hills and far away. Now and then a 
 troop of crows rise silently from out the 
 shadow of the pines and go sailing between 
 the lazy eyes that follow and the sun, until, 
 settling down upon some meadow stacked 
 with new-cut hay, they break into clamorous 
 laughter that taunts you with its shrill de- 
 rision. Always, from dawn to dewfall, the 
 world about little Chebeague is full of swal- 
 lows that dart and soar and flit like shadows. 
 
12 ^xr^^ntartj antf Jlwe* 
 
 They seldom sing, and yet the few notes 
 they thread upon the air sparkle like dia- 
 monds where they fall. Some strange bird, 
 with a low, sleepy song like the crooning 
 of a child that is half asleep, or like a shep- 
 herd boy's pipe idly blown beneath the noon- 
 day willows, is always haunting the groves 
 of Avilion with an undiscovered presence. 
 I have spent hours looking for him, yet nev- 
 er found him. Sometimes I have been led 
 to half believe the fellow exists only in the 
 fancy of a spellbound idler like you and me. 
 
 Just at sunset a little feathered violinist 
 of the island whips out his fiddle and draws 
 the bow so delicately across its vibrant 
 strings, while the golden sun slips tran- 
 quilly beneath the tinted waters of Casco 
 bay, that the soul of the listener is fairly 
 attenuated like a high C diminuendo with 
 the spell of so much beauty. I don't know 
 the name of the bird either, but he is going 
 to sing for us all in heaven later on. Such 
 performers do not end all here any more 
 than Beethoven did. 
 
 It was my custom during the time I spent 
 at Little Chebeague to devote the entire day 
 to strolling or lying at length upon the 
 rocks — 
 
^0&etnavi^ antf |lw^* i3 
 
 Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky; 
 An emerald and an amethyst stone, 
 Hung and hollowed for me alone. 
 
 I grew to love the solitude with all my 
 heart, and the thought of returning to the 
 mainland with its jargon and its bustle was 
 like the thought of tophet to the poor little 
 peri for whom the gate of paradise had 
 swung. Sometimes I would board the small 
 boat that two or three times a day threads 
 in and out of the blue water-way and visit 
 adjacent islands hardly less beautiful than 
 my chosen home. 
 
 There is Long Island, far more beautiful 
 by reason of its East End, where as yet the 
 tide of a full-fledged summer resort has not 
 come. There is an old-fashioned country 
 roadhouse, such as we knew before the land- 
 scape gardener and the boulevard fiend 
 were turned loose upon our rural towns. To 
 follow their windings is heaven enough for 
 me. A fringe of buttercups to fence the 
 way, thickets of underbrush to darken the 
 near distance, constant little ups and downs 
 where the road slips into hollow to follow 
 the call of a romping brook or climb a hill 
 to watch for the sea. Wintergreen berries 
 and russet patches everywhere, and the 
 
14 ^oitetnavi^ anb ^ne. 
 
 snow of blackberry bushes in bloom far as 
 the eye can travel. 
 
 "There is an old-time rail fence!" cried a 
 visitor from the booming west one day; "my 
 God, let me get out and touch it ! I haven't 
 seen anything but barbed wire since I left 
 New England !" And he did get out of the 
 buckboard in which he was driving and 
 chipped away a big brown fence sliver as a 
 memento. These roads I am talking about 
 lead nowhere in particular. They, as often 
 as not, end in a fisherman's back dooryard, 
 but they are sweet as a young girl's caprice 
 while they last. 
 
 One day we strolled across one of the 
 islands and found a battlement of rocks on 
 the seaside that it would have taken a solid 
 month to explore. Oh, there was enough 
 on the bar at ebb tide at Avilion to while 
 away an age of idle time. 
 
 Sometimes we took it into our heads to 
 ride. Then the choice lay between Charlie 
 the Christian — so named for his good be- 
 havior and gentle ways — and the one road- 
 ster the island produced, a nag in the rough, 
 who held his head high and cavorted with 
 the stride of a jamboreeing boy. 
 
 The choice made, the hour must be 
 
watched to catch the low tide over to Big 
 Chebeague, for there are no wagon roads in 
 AviHon. Six hours of safety, as to the low 
 water mark, is the limit of one day's riding, 
 and much can be done in the way of riding 
 in a half-dozen hours' time. A spin across 
 the bar, the climbing of a rocky road, a sweep 
 of seaward-facing pike, with dips into ferny 
 hollows and ascents to pine-crowned bluffs, 
 make the trip worth recording, and if to the 
 exhilaration of the ride you add a dismount 
 now and then to gather wintergreen and 
 pick roses, with a loiter through a church- 
 yard where many Hamiltons, both pre- 
 Adamite and ante-historic, are sleeping the 
 sleep of the just, you have the wliole mean- 
 ing of an afternoon outing on Big Che- 
 beague. 
 
 Every evening after supper there was a 
 pilgrimage to the west side of the island, 
 not to be dispensed with by descendants of 
 those remnant tribes that once worshiped 
 the sun. Ranging from north to south as 
 far as the eye can sweep, from westward, 
 fronting little Chebeague, lies Casco bay, the 
 loveliest bit of water in all the world. I say 
 unhesitatingly the loveliest, because I do 
 not believe that Naples, nor Sorrento, nor 
 
16 ^o&j^tnavt^ antf gluje* 
 
 any far-famed Italian watering-place can 
 match the coast of Maine for beauty. Into 
 this bay, like petals from a wind-shaken 
 blossom tree, are dropped hundreds of 
 islands. Far to the west the White moun- 
 tains melt upon the horizon in airy outline 
 of blue, and over all each day is repeated 
 the ancient miracle of the sun's decline. 
 Sometimes a single cloud, like a tomb, re- 
 ceives the bright embodiment of day and 
 hides it from our sight behind such draperies 
 as orient never wrought nor monarch 
 dreamed. Sometimes this fair god lies at 
 length upon a bier of purple porphyry, while 
 flakes of crushed gems strew his couch with 
 rainbow dust, and all the air is full of rose- 
 red censers, edged with gold. Sometimes he 
 drops below the verge, holding to the last 
 a wine cup brimmed with sparkling vintage 
 that spills and trickles down the hills. Some- 
 times he returns in an afterglow, as the dead 
 come back to us in dreams, the tenderer and 
 the sweeter for their second coming. How- 
 ever the sun may set in Avilion, each set- 
 ting is the most beautiful and best to be 
 desired. 
 
I heard someone bewailing the death of a 
 friend the other day. The staff on which he 
 had leaned, the bread which had ministered 
 to his needs, the very light that had filled his 
 eyes seemed caught away, and he mourned 
 as one for whom there was no comfort pos- 
 sible. I saw a mother leaning above an 
 empty crib, whose dainty pillow no nestHng 
 head should ever press again. I marked the 
 terrible yet voiceless grief that ate at a be- 
 reaved father's self-control, until no wind- 
 blown reed was ever so shorn of self-reliant 
 strength. I saw a wife whose love had sunk 
 within the grave where her young husband 
 was laid, as the sun sets within a cloud of 
 stormy night. I saw an old man bow his 
 snowy head because the faithful one whose 
 hand had lain in his for more than fifty 
 years had vanished from his sight forever. 
 I heard a little child lamenting at bed-time 
 the lullaby song which its dead mother's 
 tender lips should never sing again. But 
 sadder than all these things, more tragical 
 than any death which merely picks the blos- 
 som of life and bears it onward to heaven, 
 as the gardener plucks the choicest rose to 
 grace some festival of joy, is the scene when 
 a trusted friendship dies ; when faith which 
 
18 ^Cf&j^tnavvi anb ilue* 
 
 has endured the test of years gives up the 
 breath of loyal life and sinks to hopeless 
 unawakened death. Never think that you 
 have shed your bitterest tears until you 
 have stood at such a death-bed. Think not 
 the measurement of any mortal grief has 
 been found until you have sunk the plum- 
 met-line of such a sorrow. That grave shall 
 never burst its sheath to let the soul of 
 friendship's betrayal free, like a lily on the 
 Easter air. That door shall never swing 
 like the bars of a cage to let a murdered 
 faith flash forth like the plume of a singing 
 bird to seek the stars. Over the grave of a 
 dead and buried trust no resurrection-note 
 can ever sound like a bugle-call across the 
 dewy hills to rouse the sleeper from his 
 couch. God pity all who linger by the 
 heaped-up mound where love's forgotten 
 dreams lie buried, and grant oblivion as 
 the only surcease for their bitter sorrow. 
 
 i$^ 
 
 The days and nights swing equally upon 
 the golden balance of time. The year is 
 whitening with its crop of frost-blossoms 
 from which no harvest-home has ever yet 
 
^o&!^tnavvi antf ilu^* 19 
 
 been called. Like an unwritten page, the 
 new year lies before us in untrodden fields 
 of shining snow. God grant the footsteps 
 of Death be not the first to track the un- 
 broken path that lies before us. May joy 
 and peace and love, like the roots of the 
 violets under the snow, quicken and blos- 
 som for all of us as the year advances, and 
 may our progress be, like January's, right 
 steadily onward unto June! 
 
 As I write there is a sudden break in the 
 hush of night, and faint and clear and sweet 
 upon the listening ear falls the sound of 
 "taps" from the camp in Fort Sheridan 
 woods. I drop my pencil and listen to it, 
 as I always do, with almost a spirit of rev- 
 erent awe. The hard day's work is done, 
 the time for rest has come, and over all the 
 busy camp silence falls like the shadow of 
 a brooding wing. The new moon, half hid- 
 den by drifting clouds sends a rippling play 
 of silver through the woodbine leaves, and 
 from the top of the maple tree, a thrush 
 dreams forth a bar of liquid music in its 
 sleep. All the world is going to sleep, and 
 
20 ^0&etnav^ axxtf ^ue* 
 
 God grant, say I, that when the time for the 
 final good-night has come for you and for 
 me the call for "taps," blown from some 
 celestial bugle the other side the mystic gate 
 may fall as sweetly upon our ears and find 
 us as ready to sink to slumber. 
 
 Did you ever hunt for eggs in a haymow? 
 If you did you can remember just how, with 
 bated breath, you crept through the fra- 
 grant glooms of the old barn and searched 
 the dusty place for nests. You can recall, 
 perhaps, the shaft of sunlight that broke 
 through the crevice of the door and showed 
 you old speckle-top in her corner. You can 
 hear again her furious cackle when you dis- 
 lodged her from her nest and gathered the 
 warm eggs she had hovered under her 
 wings. You remember the excitement of 
 the search and the perfection of content 
 which settled within your soul as you gath- 
 ered the basketful of milk-white eggs upon 
 your arm and picked your way down +he 
 steep ladder which led to the main floor and 
 "all out doors." Scarcely any excitement 
 or exhilaration of later years can compare 
 
with the joy of hen's-nest hunting when you 
 were young. 
 
 Did you ever go berrying? With a tin 
 pail swinging from your wrist and your old- 
 est gown upon your back, have you climbed 
 the hill, jumped the fences and sought the 
 side-hill pasture where the blackberries 
 grew purple in the shade? Can you recall 
 much, in all the years that thread between 
 that happy time and this, which can trans- 
 cend the pleasure of those wildwood tramps? 
 Even now I seem to fix my eyes upon a 
 clump of bushes by the old rail fence. They 
 are domed high with verdure and show 
 dusky hollows underneath, where, my 
 skilled eye tells me, lurk spoils fit for Bac- 
 chus and all his nymphs. I part the leaves, 
 a snowy moth flutters out of the green dusk 
 and wavers Hke a snowflake in the warm, 
 sweet air. I carefully reach my hand away 
 inside the fairy bower of crumpled leaf and 
 twisted vine and draw it forth purple with 
 the juice of overripe berries that dissolve at 
 a touch. With these I fill my pail, and all 
 too often, I blush to own it, my mouth also, 
 until twilight sends me home saturated with 
 sunshine, late clover blooms and berry 
 juice. 
 
32 ^00i^tnav7^ an^ ^w«* 
 
 Ah, my dear, all this was fun while it 
 lasted, but there is a more exciting quest 
 than hunting eggs or finding berries, in 
 which we all of us engage as the years of 
 our mortal pilgrimage go hurrying by. It 
 is the search for happiness — a search we 
 never give up nor grow too old to maintain. 
 Forgetting the disappointments and the 
 satieties of the dead years, we look forward 
 to the new as the hidden nestfull of un- 
 chipped shells of fresh experience and un- 
 tried delights. God bless us all, and pros- 
 per us to find the eggs and the berries before 
 we die. Perhaps the service of love we do 
 others shall prove the bush that bears the 
 sweetest and the ripest clusters, and the nest- 
 full that shall develop the whitest store of all 
 life's opportunities. 
 
 
 
 A genuine mother could no more raise a 
 bad boy into a bad man than a robin couFd 
 raise a hawk. When I say "genuine mother" 
 I mean something more than a mother who 
 prays with her boy, and teaches him Bible 
 texts, and sends him to Sunday-school. All 
 those things are good and indispensable as 
 
^o^^maru anb ^w^* 23 
 
 far as they go, but there is a lot more to do 
 to train a boy besides praying with him, 
 just as there are things necessary to the cul- 
 tivation of a garden besides reading a man- 
 ual. To succeed with roses and corn one 
 must prune, weed and hoe a great deal. To 
 make a boy into a pure man, a mother must 
 do more than pray. She must live with him 
 in the sense of comrade and closest friend. 
 She must stand by him in time of tempta- 
 tion as the pilot sticks to the wheel when 
 rapids are ahead. She must never desert 
 him to go ofif to superintend outside duties 
 any more than the engineer deserts his post 
 and goes into th~e baggage car to read up 
 on engineering, when his train is pounding 
 across the country at forty miles an hour. 
 
 A LITTLE GOLDENHEAD. 
 
 Gay little Goldenhead lived within a town 
 Full of busy bobolinks, flitting up and down, 
 Pretty neighbor buttercups, cosy auntie clovers, 
 And shy groups of daisies, all whispering like 
 lovers. 
 
 A town that was builded on the borders of a 
 stream, 
 
24 ^o&mnavi^ an^ ^uje* 
 
 By the loving hands of nature when she woke 
 
 from winter's dream; 
 Sunbeams for the workingmen taking turns with 
 
 showers, 
 Rearing fairy houses of fairy grass and flowers. 
 
 Crowds of talking bumblebees, rushing up and 
 
 down, 
 Wily little brokers of this busy little town. 
 Bearing bags of gold dust, always in a hurry, 
 Fussy bits of gentlemen, full of fret and flurry. 
 
 Gay little Goldenhead fair and fairer grew. 
 Fed on flecks of sunshine, and sips of balmy dew. 
 Swinging on her slender foot all the happy day, 
 Chattering with bobolinks, gossips of the May. 
 
 Underneath her lattice on starry summer eves. 
 By and by a lover came, with his harp of leaves; 
 Wooed and won the maiden, tender, sweet and 
 
 shy. 
 For a little cloud home he was building in the 
 
 sky. 
 
 And one breezy morning, on a steed of might. 
 He bore his little Goldenhead out of mortal 
 
 sight; 
 But still her gentle spirit, a puff of airy down. 
 Wanders through the mazes of that busy little 
 
 town. 
 
 Where shall we go to find the fit symbol 
 of Easter? To the encyclopedia that we 
 
^C0etnavt^ anb glue* 25 
 
 may post ourselves as to word derivations 
 and root meanings? As well send a child 
 to a botanist to find the meaning of a rose ! 
 To fitly understand the true significance 
 of Easter time, find some slope in early 
 April that the sun has found a few short 
 days before you. Lay your ear close to 
 the ground that you may hear the fine, 
 soft stir within the bosom of the warm 
 earth. Note how the mold is filling with 
 its new birth of flowers. There is not a 
 covert in all the awakening woods that has 
 not a little nestling head hidden behind the 
 dead leaves. The breath of a sleeping child 
 is not more peaceful than the sway of the 
 wind flower upon its downy stem. The flush 
 on a baby's cheek is not more delicate than 
 the tint of each gossamer petal. To what 
 shall we liken the grass blades already 
 springing up along the loosened water 
 ways? To fairy bowmen, led by Robin 
 Hood's ghost through winding ways from 
 forest on to the sparkling sea. To what 
 shall we liken the violet buds spread 
 thick beneath the country children's feet? 
 To constant thoughts of God that bloom 
 even in the grave's dark dust. To what 
 shall we liken the twinkling leaves that shine 
 
26 ^o&etnavv^ anlCf ^rnc* 
 
 in the dim depths of the woods? To lights 
 at sea, that tell some fleet is sailing into 
 port. To what shall we liken the shy un- 
 folding of the lilac buds? To the poise of 
 a slender maiden who leans from out her 
 lattice to hearken to a lover's song. To 
 what shall we liken the cowslip's valiant 
 gold? To the shining of a contented spirit 
 with a humble home. To what shall we 
 liken the brooding sky and the warmth of 
 the all-loving sun? To the potency of a 
 gentle nature intent on doing good, and 
 the yearning of a tender heart to bless and 
 save. Is there a nook so dark and forbid- 
 ding that the beautiful Easter sunshine can- 
 not enter and woo forth a flower? Is there 
 a rock so impervious that the April wind 
 may not find lodgment for a seed in some 
 crevice, and there uplift a bannered blos- 
 som? Is there a cold, resentful bank where- 
 in the late snow lingers that shall not finally 
 cast off its disdainful ice and flash into ver- 
 dure in response to the patient shining of 
 the sun? Is there a grave in all the land 
 so new and desolate that Easter time cannot 
 find a violet among its clods and paint a 
 rainbow within the tears that rain above it? 
 To nature's lovers, then, as to the truly 
 
^00!^tnavi^ ant> ilwje* 
 
 27 
 
 Christian heart, the significance of Easter is 
 found in the reviving garden and in the 
 awakening woods. It means resurrection 
 after death, blossom time after the bareness 
 of woe, the cuckoo's cry after the silence of 
 songless days, and the smile of a pitying AH- 
 Father after the orphan time of the soul's 
 bereavement and seeming desertion. 
 
 Another blessed thought to be gained in 
 the contemplation of nature's sure awaken- 
 ing from the long lethargy of her winter's 
 sleep is that, however fearful we may be that 
 death's reign shall be eternal, as constant 
 as day dawn after midnight, or shining after 
 storm, shall be the Easter of the soul. We 
 do not need to pray for April; it comes. 
 Nor do we need to pray for release from 
 the first dark dominion of fear and dread 
 when our beloved are snatched from our 
 arms. Such experience is only the transient 
 reign of winter in the heart, while yet the 
 soft wing of April stirs upon the horizon's 
 misty verge and the promise of violets is in 
 the lingering darkness of the air. Remem- 
 ber this : The same power that sends us No- 
 vember is planning an April to follow, and 
 out of the snowfall evolves the whiteness of 
 the annunciation lily. 
 
28 ^00;entaraj anlCf ^w^* 
 
 It has always seemed to me that, beauti- 
 ful as Christ's birthday ought to be and 
 full of tender significance as we may make 
 the hallowed Christmas time, a deeper ten- 
 derness attaches to these Easter days. The 
 Sinless One had lived out the span of his 
 mortal years; he had suffered and been be- 
 trayed ; had struggled through Gethsemane, 
 up to the thorn-crowned heights of Calvary, 
 and yet, through all, carried the whiteness 
 of a saintly soul, to cast its dying petals, 
 like a white rose, wind-shaken yet yielding 
 perfume even in death, in the utterance of 
 that prayer for universal forgiveness, the 
 most wonderful that ever ascended from 
 earth to heaven — "Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do!" The song 
 that ushered in the birthtime of those sanc- 
 tified years was an invocation of peace and 
 good will, beneath which the morning stars 
 were shaken like banners before the oncom- 
 ing of a glorious prince, but the prayer that 
 ascended from Calvary was the plea of a 
 betrayed and anguished soul for universal 
 charity and forgiveness from God to man. 
 Let us rejoice, then, when Christmas days 
 bring gladness to our hearts and homes, but 
 let us forgive and bless when Easter lays 
 
its stainless lily at our feet. There is con- 
 stant need for charity and forgiveness in a 
 world so full of self-blinded and ignorant 
 evil-doers. They do not always know what 
 they do, these rude and riotous betrayers 
 of Christ; and all the more need, then, for 
 .compassion, and that divine pity that, even 
 from the cross, could invoke heaven's par- 
 doning love. 
 
 If you have a friend who has wronged 
 you, forgive him to-day, for Christ's sweet 
 sake. If you have a boy who has gone 
 astray, reach out your arm and win him 
 back, while yet the Easter violets glow upon 
 the chancel rail. If you have a daughter 
 who has been undutiful, take her in your 
 arms and ask God to forgive you both— 
 you for your lack of sympathy, as well as 
 her for her waywardness. So shall you un- 
 derstand the meaning of Easter, the resur- 
 rection time of love, the fulfillment of its 
 promise from out the icy negation of the 
 grave. 
 
 A few thoughts about death before we 
 turn to other symbolizations of the season. 
 It is all a mistake, it seems to me, to make 
 death a menace and a dread in the minds 
 of the young. Does the farmer go forth 
 
30 ^0&i^ntavvi antf ^u^* 
 
 with tears to plant the seed for the com- 
 ing harvest? Does the scientist mourn 
 above the chrysaHs that lets a rare butterfly 
 go free? Does the navigator rebel when a 
 bark that has been tempest-tossed and 
 storm-driven enters port? Teach the chil- 
 dren that death is all that makes life endu- 
 rable; that it is the sheaf of ripened wheat, 
 or the budding flower, plucked from the 
 earth's dark mold; that it is the flight of 
 the bird, the home stretch of the yacht. 
 We love each other, but what is it that makes 
 human love any nobler than the chirruping 
 of birds if not its duration? And it is only 
 death that makes our loves immortal. Time 
 enthrals them with fear and environs them 
 with alarms ; death lifts them into the region 
 of eternal joy. Take away the reality of our 
 faith in the life to come and Easter would 
 mean no more to us than it means to the 
 browsing cattle that munch the violet buds 
 and trample the bright promises of the year 
 under foot. The comforting view of it all 
 is, that here we are only learning to love. 
 We are like birds that sit upon the edge of 
 the nest, and flutter, and chirp, and dread 
 to fly away. What shall the bough whereon 
 our nest was rocked with many a storm be 
 
^00emavvi anb gluje* 3i 
 
 when we have learned to spread these tire- 
 some wings and rejoice in the blue space 
 of the boundless air? The heroism of love, 
 the faithfulness of love, the grandeur, pa- 
 tience and magnificence of love shall only 
 be revealed when the soul has left the shad- 
 ows and spread its wing in the empyrean 
 of heaven's blue. 
 
 There is a small boy who lives at our 
 house with whom I wage an unending war- 
 fare on the subject of clean hands. The sun 
 never goes down nor yet arises upon a har- 
 monious adjustment of the mooted question. 
 There are more tears shed, more dire 
 threats made, more promises broken, more 
 anguish endured on that one account than 
 upon any other under the sun. 
 
 The boy dwells under a ban as somber as 
 the seven-fold curse of Rome. His sisters 
 nag him, his grandmother prays for him, 
 his mother pleads with him, his girl friends 
 flout him, but in spite of all he continues to 
 wear his hands in half tints. But the other 
 evening he made an announcement that 
 caused even the young person to remark: 
 
32 ^c&jetnav!^ anb ^w^* 
 
 "Well, I'd rather see you with your soiled 
 hands than see you such a dude as that!" 
 
 "Gee !" said the boy, "but some of the kids 
 that go to our school are queer ducks!'' 
 
 "Don't use so much slang," cried his 
 mother ; "why can't you call a boy a boy as 
 well as a 'kid' and a 'duck;' and whatever do 
 you mean by 'Gee?' " 
 
 "They bring little cushions to school," 
 continued the boy with only a swift hug in 
 answer to his mother's question, "and they 
 put 'em under their hands when they play 
 marbles, so's they won't get their hands 
 dirty. Gee whiz, but I'm glad I ain't such a 
 fool!" 
 
 And in spite of her desire to see him a bit 
 more solicitous as to personal elegance his 
 mother could but echo the boy's self-con- 
 gratulatory remark. 
 
 What on earth is going to become of us 
 if this awful wave of efifeminacy which has 
 struck the race does not soon subside? Ear- 
 mufifs and galoshes, heated street cars in 
 April and double windows up to rose time 
 have done their best to make molly coddles 
 out of men, but when we are starting a gen- 
 eration of boys to play marbles with cush- 
 ions to rest their hands on the sex had bet- 
 
^00«ntaru ctnlCf ^rne^ 33 
 
 ter abolish hats and trousers and take to 
 hoods and shoulder shawls. Give me a boy 
 and not a pocket edition of an old woman. 
 He need not be a tough nor a bully, nor need 
 he be cruel nor untender because he is a boy, 
 but I want him jolly and brave and up to 
 every harmless prank that's going. I want 
 him to use slang and wear muddy shoes, 
 slam doors and make all sorts of futile feints 
 at keeping his hands clean, provided, al- 
 ways, he appreciates the opportunity offered 
 to show the gentleman that's in him by never 
 appearing at table looking like a tramp. 
 Even that is better, though, than being a 
 "sissy." Give him time and the untidiest 
 boy in the world will develop into a gentle- 
 man, but eternity itself could not evolve a 
 man out of a boy who plays marbles with a 
 cushion ! 
 
 As I was walking down Dearborn street 
 the other day, close upon the gloaming, I 
 chanced to meet two pretty girls, not the 
 only two in this big city, perhaps, but two 
 of the fairest. One had hair like the tas- 
 sel of ripe corn when the sunshine finds 
 
34 ^0&jctnfxvv[ anh JIm^* 
 
 it; the other's head was crowned with 
 dusky braids, and the eyes of the two were 
 brimful of laughter as a goblet new-filled 
 with wine. Surely such pretty girls should 
 carry queenly hearts, thought I, and with 
 my old trick of catching topics in the air, 
 I loitered a little on my way to hear what 
 such fair lips might be saying. Said one: 
 "I really don't care to marry him; he is 
 such a darned fool! but he will give me 
 everything I want, and I suppose I shall." 
 I stayed to hear no more. If I had caught 
 a yellow-bird swearing, or seen the first 
 robin appear in Joliet stripes, the revulsion 
 from pleasure to disgust could not have 
 been more sudden. Is this all the les- 
 son the world has taught you, my pretty 
 maiden? To soil your lips with slang and 
 sell yourself for fine clothes and the chance 
 of unlimited display! Forecasting the life 
 of such a girl is like forecasting an April day 
 that dawns in tints of purple and gold, and 
 ends in tempest and the blackness of night. 
 Beauty is a glorious heritage, indeed, but to 
 see it worn by such types as you, my pretty 
 dears, is like seeing a queen's crown on the 
 head of a parrot, or a royal scepter in the 
 grasp of a monkey. 
 
^0«:entctru anTCf ^u^» 35 
 
 Niagara Falls! What heart is so stolid, 
 what appreciative spirit so calloused over 
 with the hard crust of stoicism not to rise 
 and shout before the wonder of its magnifi- 
 cence? When a man or woman gets so blase 
 as to thrill no more over Niagara Falls, let 
 them be salted down with last year's hams 
 and hung on a hook in the quiet seclusion 
 of a smokehouse. 
 
 First we took our way over the bridge 
 that leads to the beautifully kept Goat 
 Island and, alighting from the carriage, 
 stood for a time with the full splendor of 
 the American fall in our faces. A fasci- 
 nation that could not be shaken ofif held 
 the eyes upon that never-stayed torrent of 
 sun-illumined jewels. Diamonds they were, 
 and great uncut emeralds, with here and 
 there a rain of fiery rubies, that tumbled 
 from ofif the lifted ledge of imperishable 
 rock. And where the volume widened, un- 
 til it became an avalanche of snowy foam, 
 shot through and through with needles of 
 light, it seemed to us that the law of gravi- 
 tation had been forever abandoned, and fall- 
 
36 ^0&i^tnavvi anh Jluje* 
 
 ing tons of water, losing kinship drop with 
 drop, were floated skyward again to find a 
 home in heaven. Down-shooting rockets of 
 silver foam unfallen, yet always in the air! 
 Canopies of cloud, dissolving into fine dust- 
 like roadside pollen ! Draperies of spray un- 
 rolled in noiseless splendor from the blue 
 background of an endless day! Explosions 
 in mid air of thunderous torrents that turned 
 to carded wool on the way from heaven to 
 earth! While I stood and watched it all 
 somebody profaned the air with a vulgar 
 word, and I looked for a flaming sword from 
 the omnipotent hand to smite him where he 
 stood. To swear, or even to think an un- 
 holy thought in such a holy of holies, de- 
 serves the penalty of death as much as did 
 the desecration of the temple in ancient 
 times. 
 
 Shifting our place from point to point, we 
 found ourselves at last standing on the very 
 verge of the Horseshoe falls, where, crowned 
 with living green, it slips over the crumbling 
 ledge and loses itself in a dazzling whirl of 
 spray. Although I have stood in that same 
 spot many times I am proud to remark that 
 I have never stood there yet without saying 
 my prayers. The sight is too much for the 
 
puny ego that animates this little capricious 
 whiff of dust we call our mortal body, and 
 now, if never before, the soul that retains 
 one particle of the divine within it turns to 
 God as the sunflower follows the sun. 
 While we stood entranced by the sublime 
 beauty of the scene a mighty wind arose 
 suddenly and great clouds were called 
 across the sky to the sending of a swift 
 alarm. Before the breath of the wind the 
 mists were tumbled far and wide like 
 feathers, and a rainbow that arched the 
 whole was demolished into nothingness only 
 to be kindled again as a flame in the whim- 
 sical breath of the riotous air. One moment 
 the atmosphere was a fairy flower garden, 
 full of violets, roses, green feathery ferns 
 and passion-tinted tulips brimming over 
 with gold. The next some giant hand 
 reached forth and plucked and bore each 
 flower away. A suffusion of color followed 
 every flood of sunshine, as a pomegranate 
 runs with juice at the touch of a knife, only 
 to be succeeded by pale wafts of colorless, 
 interminable spray, where a cloud caught 
 the too eager sun within its soft eclipse. 
 
 ^ 
 
38 ^O0etnavt^ antf ^me* 
 
 If the Lord left any snakes in Paradise 
 after the settlement of the primal fuss they 
 took the shape of the man who is a confirmed 
 cynic and pessimist. The man who has no 
 faith, no enthusiasm, no candor, no senti- 
 ment. The man who laughs at the mention 
 of good in the world, or virtue in women, or 
 honor among men. The man who calls his 
 wife a fool because she teaches his little chil- 
 dren to say their prayers, and curls his lip at 
 any belief in the world beyond the grave. 
 The man who never saw anything worth 
 admiring in the sky when the dawn touches 
 it, or the stars illumine it, or the clouds 
 sweep it, or the rain folds it in gray mists of 
 silence. The man who lives in this spark- 
 ling, shining world as a frog lives in a pond 
 or a toad in a cellar, only to croak and spit 
 venom. The man who never saw anything 
 in a rose aglint in the sunlight or in a lily 
 asleep in the moonlight, but a species of 
 useless vegetable, the inferior of the cabbage 
 and the onion. The world is overfull of 
 such men, and if I had the right sort of 
 broom I'd sweep them away as the new girl 
 (Sweeps spiders. 
 
 ^ 
 
^0&^tnavt^ ttn^ |lu:e* 39 
 
 Once I was sailing in a yacht close to the 
 rock-bound coast of Maine. 
 
 It was presumably a pleasure cruise, but 
 if ever a poor wretch in purgatory had a 
 harder time of it I am sorry for him. 
 
 The fog was thick, the ground swell was 
 enough to unsettle the seven hills of Rome, 
 and something was wrong with the boat's 
 machinery, so that for hours we lay in the 
 trough of the sea, making no headway and 
 fearful that each moment would be our 
 last. Added to all this there came at short 
 intervals a demoniac blast from a fog horn 
 which rent the air with the clamor of a thou- 
 sand tongues. 
 
 "Look out!" it seemed to shriek over and 
 over again. "Look out, poor fragile wisps 
 of gossamer! The hour strikes for your 
 destruction. Another wave, a little higher 
 than the last, shall suck you down like a 
 shred of foam into the blackness of the sea's 
 dark vortex. Brace up and meet your 
 doom. Look out! Look out! Look out!" 
 
 I listened to that fog horn for hours, until 
 the soul within me lay like a spent bird 
 weary with futile beating of useless wings, 
 and I came within a hair's breadth of mad- 
 ness. In fact, I think I had commenced to 
 
40 ^cintntavvi anl^ ^ne* 
 
 rave a bit when a brisk wind sprang up that 
 blew the fog away, the crew succeeded in 
 righting the craft and onward we flew out 
 of sound of the terrible fog horn forever. 
 
 There are many things in life that remind 
 me of fog horns ; there are many occasions 
 that beat upon the soul with just such vo- 
 ciferous clamor. 
 
 There are those old-fashioned Bible texts, 
 shouting "hell fire" and "eternal damnation." 
 What are they but fog horns warning us 
 from off a mist-enveloped shore? We can- 
 not shut our ears to them while we lie a 
 furlong ofif the rocks and listen to their 
 woeful reiteration. Perhaps some chance 
 wind may blow us out to sea, there to es- 
 cape for the present the unwelcome climax ; 
 but we know that underneath the shrouded 
 stars and through the hush of midnight for- 
 ever and forevermore sounds the crash of 
 that brazen alarm. We may not heed it, 
 but the fog horn is there, forget and disown 
 it though we may. 
 
 Then there are our birthdays after we 
 grow old enough to understand their sig- 
 nificance ; what are they but fog horns that 
 sound at intervals to denote that we are 
 drawing near to the final doom of all man- 
 kind? 
 
^0&^ntavt^ ctntr ^u^* 41 
 
 "Sport on," they seem to say, "a little 
 longer ; weave your garlands and blow your 
 pretty bubbles while you may, for to-mor- 
 row you shall surely die!" 
 
 Each year the fog horn blows a louder 
 blast, until finally the softened haze of 
 creeping years, like a white fog in the sea 
 air, muffles the sound, and we sink to rest at 
 last, some of us with the wild clamor hushed 
 to the measure of a good-night song. 
 
 Then the holidays. Thanksgivings and 
 Christmases with independence days, like 
 wine-red roses dropped between, what are 
 they but fog horns on the invisible shores 
 of memory? How they mock us with the 
 recollection of vanished joys, and warn us 
 of barren years yet to be. 
 
 Gone forever are the dear ones who made 
 gala times and festival happenings bright, 
 and still we linger like boats in the trough 
 of a sullen sea, our motive power wrecked, 
 our sails rent, and listen, listen, listen to 
 the warning that sounds from far ofif the 
 hazy shore. 
 
 "Gone, forever gone," the fog horn cries; 
 "gone down into the sea, the boats that 
 kept you company when the bright-winged 
 fleet put out from port! Lost forever, in 
 
42 ^jor^jemar^ ttnljr ^u^* 
 
 storms it seems scarce worth the while to 
 have weathered, since here you toss, alone 
 at last, like driftwood on the chilly tide, and 
 listen forever to the mournful warning of 
 my voice from ofif the sandbars, warning 
 you that not even love can withstand the 
 beat of time's relentless years." 
 
 Our desks are full of miniature fog horns 
 in the shape of unanswered letters. 
 
 Our closets hang full of fog horns of 
 varying fabrics. They warn us of the folly 
 of trusting to bargain sales of shoddy goods ; 
 they warn us against extravagant tastes 
 when times are hard; they warn us against 
 the lazy mood that neglects the stitch in 
 time that saveth nine. 
 
 Every time we are ill the occasion is a 
 fog horn. 
 
 Either we have disregarded some law of 
 health and are in the trough of the sea in 
 consequence, or we are flying on to the 
 breakers with ears dulled to the fog horn^s 
 din. 
 
 We speak with cruel harshness to the old 
 mother who loves us, or to the little child 
 who trusts us. We are sorry for it after- 
 ward, and that sorrow is the fog horn that 
 warns us to keep ofif the reef of temper. 
 
"To-day may be the last day for the 
 mother you have pained or the child you 
 have wronged," it seems to say; "the bed 
 they lie down upon to-night may be the bed 
 of death. See to it, then, that you make 
 each day of life, if possible, the last day 
 of love's opportunity." Did you ever stop 
 to think of what would become the instant 
 concern of all this vast human race if a sud- 
 den edict should go forth that only twenty- 
 four hours were left for each man to live? 
 What if an angel should appear to-day at 
 sunset and proclaim in a voice that should 
 reach from world's center to world's rim, 
 "To-morrow at set of sun this globe and 
 all its race of sentient life shall be folded 
 up like a scroll and effaced from heaven's 
 chart!" 
 
 What would we all begin to do then, I 
 wonder? I think that everything would be 
 forgotten but love. Envy and hatred, covet- 
 ousness, jealousy, ambition, selfishness and 
 cruelty would find no place in the hearts of 
 men. We would improve love's latest op- 
 portunity to be kind one to another, tender- 
 hearted and merciful. The husband would 
 not be harsh with his wife, nor the wife 
 show waspish temper to her husband, if the 
 
44 ^o&mnav'^ antf ^u^* 
 
 last day had come for both. The father 
 would not strike his boy in uncontrolled 
 temper, nor the mother rebuke her careless 
 child, if the knowledge that the end of love's 
 opportunity lay between the uplifted hand 
 and the culprit. We should all be loving 
 and fond and sweet if we only knew. My 
 dear, this very thought, carried out, is but 
 another fog horn. Perhaps death is already 
 near, and the brazen clamor in our hearts 
 which takes shape of an uneasy con- 
 science or of a nameless dread is but the 
 warning in the fog that we are close upon 
 the fatal reef. Ah, the air is full of them! 
 They sound in every waking moment, they 
 mingle with our dreams, they greet our 
 opening eyes, they accompany us when the 
 tired lids fall in -slumber. The shore is 
 lined with them and their warning is as 
 ceaseless as the beat of time's receding 
 waves. 
 
 But of what use is a fog horn to a vessel 
 that gives no heed? Why uplift them on 
 dangerous reefs if the ship's crew sleeps 
 through their warning and the unconscious 
 captain ignores their hoarse note of alarm? 
 
 An unheeded fog horn might as well be 
 silenced, and so, I sometimes think, if we 
 
allow our hearts to grow callous to the call 
 that conscience makes, why not be thankful 
 when the warning ceases and silence follows 
 the useless repetition of an unavailing ap- 
 peal? If I am to be shipwrecked at last I 
 think I would rather run upon the reefs 
 without warning than to drift to destruc- 
 tion to the mocking cadence of an alarm I 
 would not heed. To go down with the sound 
 in my ears of an admonition that might have 
 saved me had I but Hstened would be the 
 hardest sort of dying. 
 
 HER CRADLE. 
 
 There are tears on the gentian's eyelids. 
 As they lift them, fringed and fair. 
 
 Do they mourn for the vanished brightness 
 Of my baby's golden hair? 
 
 There's a cloud a-droop in the heavens 
 That shadows their sunny hue. 
 
 Does it dream of the lovelight tender 
 In my baby's eyes so blue? 
 
 The golden rod pines in the forest. 
 
 The aster pales by the brook. 
 Do they miss her fairy footfall 
 
 In each dim and flow'ry nook? 
 
46 ^0&!Ctnavvi anb ^rne* 
 
 Now, all through this beautiful weather, 
 
 Wherever I walk, I weep; 
 For I think of the desolate cradle 
 
 Where my baby lies asleep. 
 
 The other night, as I was hstening to 
 "taps" in a neighboring mihtary camp, a 
 longing came over me for a silver bugle of 
 my own, that I might blow a message to 
 the drowsy world. We all listen to that fel- 
 low up at Fort Sheridan, when he gives the 
 command for "lights out!" just because he 
 blows it through a bugle. He might come 
 out and say what he had to say in tones 
 anywhere between a cornet and a clap of 
 thunder, and the efifect would be nothing to 
 what it is when the notes filter through a 
 silver mouthpiece. And how exquisitely the 
 last strains of that nightly call linger on the 
 ear ! They melt into the starry glooms, and 
 throb through the dim spaces of the woods 
 like golden bubbles or the wavering flight 
 of butterflies. Whenever we hear them we 
 think of Grant, asleep in his grave by the 
 mighty river, of his work well done, and 
 the rest that dropped upon his pain-racked 
 life at last like a soft and rainy shadow on 
 
a thirsty land. We think of hosts of brave 
 men who fill soldiers' graves all over this 
 blood-bought heritage of ours. We think of 
 hearts that once beat high, for long years 
 silent as stones to all our cries and tears. 
 We think of a host of things, solemn and 
 hushed, and sacred, and drop to sleep at 
 last with an indistinct purpose in our hearts 
 to so conduct ourselves that when the Death 
 Angel blows "taps" for us, we shall leave 
 a record behind us to be read through fond, 
 regretful tears, and enshrined in golden 
 characters upon the tablets of memory. 
 
 Now, if I had a bugle instead of a pen, 
 to work with, and if I could stand out under 
 the stars on a hushed summer night and 
 deliver my message through its silver throat, 
 perhaps the world that reads me might be 
 thrilled into earnest purpose more readily 
 than it is when exhorted from a pencil point 
 or a quill. The first message I should ring 
 through that bugle of mine would be the 
 command, "Don't fret!" However comfort- 
 less and forlorn you may be, don't add to 
 your own and the world's misery by fret- 
 ting. There never yet was a sorrow that 
 could not be lived down; there never yet 
 was one that could be cured by worry. 
 
48 ^0&!^tnctvvi atib ^u^* 
 
 When the cows get into the corn and the 
 chickens into the flower-beds, the sensible 
 man chases 'em out first, repairs the dam- 
 age next, and, lastly, fastens up the break 
 in the garden wall by which the marauders 
 got in. What would you think of a farmer 
 who went into his bedroom to pray before 
 he chased out the cows, or of a woman who 
 threw her apron over her head and wept 
 long and loud because the hens were 
 scratching up her pink roots, instead of 
 "shooing" them a half-mile away with a 
 broom? Most troubles come upon us as 
 the cattle and the hens get into the corn and 
 the garden patch, through a broken fence 
 or a carelessly unguarded gate. It is our 
 own fault half the time that we are tor- 
 mented, and the sooner we repair the dam- 
 age and mend the fence, the better. Time 
 spent in useless bewailing, in worry and dis- 
 quietude, is lost time, and while we wait the 
 mischief thickens. Take life's trials one by 
 one, as the handful of heroes met the host at 
 Thermopylae, and you will slay them all; 
 but allow them to marshal themselves on a 
 broad field while you are crying over their 
 coming or praying for deliverance, instead 
 of arming yourselves to meet them, and they 
 
^O0ietnavyi anb ilu^* 49 
 
 will make captives of you and keep you for- 
 ever in the dungeon of tears. Is your hus- 
 band too poor to buy you all the fine clothes 
 you want, or to keep a carriage, or to sur- 
 round you with pleasant society and con- 
 genial friends? Very well, that is certainly 
 too bad, but what's the use of being forever 
 in the dumps about it? Get up and help him 
 keep the cows out of the corn, and perhaps 
 you'll have a golden harvest yet A sullen, 
 discontented wife is a millstone around any 
 man's neck, and he may be thankful when 
 the good Lord delivers him from her. What- 
 soever is worth having in this world's gifts 
 is worth working for, and wedlock is like an 
 ox-team at the plow. If the of¥-ox won't 
 pull with the nigh one, it has no claim with 
 him upon the possible future of a comforta- 
 ble stall and a full bin. Out upon you, then. 
 Madam Gruntle, if you sulk, and pout and 
 fret your days away because your husband 
 is a poor man and spends most of his time 
 chasing the cattle, calamity and failure out 
 of his wheat patch. He may possibly be one 
 of fortune's numerous ne'er-do-wells, but in 
 that case all the more reason you should not 
 fail him. Bent reeds need careful handling, 
 and smoking flax gentle tending, else they 
 
 4 
 
50 ^xx0«ntaru anb ^ne* 
 
 will perish on your hands and disappoint 
 both you and heaven. All the more reason 
 that you should be cheery and strong and 
 ready to do your part, if the man you mar- 
 ried, because you dearly loved him (remem- 
 ber!) is unable to do all that he promised. 
 That is, always provided he is weak and un- 
 fortunate, rather than desperately wicked. 
 A woman has no call to stand by any man 
 if he is a wretch and shows no desire to be 
 anything else. The Lord himself never 
 helped a sinner until he showed some desire 
 to be saved. Less repining, then, a little 
 more forbearance with one another's short- 
 comings, and a little more loyalty to the 
 promise "for better or for worse," will ease 
 up much of the burden of dissatisfied and 
 disappointed wedlock. 
 
 Another message that I should blow 
 through that bugle, if I had it at my lips 
 to-night, would be: "Be true!" And I 
 should ring it out so long and loud, I think, 
 that the moon would stop to listen, and the 
 sleepy heads in every home in the land 
 would rise from their pillows like night- 
 capped crocuses out of the snow. For heav- 
 en's sake, if you have a principle or a friend, 
 be true to them. Make up your mind, 
 
^o^^marH ant> ^u^* 51 
 
 whether or no your principle is solid and 
 has God and justice on its side, and then be 
 true to it right down to death, or, what is 
 harder, through misunderstanding and ob- 
 loquy. And if you have a friend, such as 
 God sometimes gives a woman or a man, 
 faithful through all betiding, staunch in 
 your defense and tender in your blame, 
 stand true to that friend until the grave's 
 green canopy is spread between you. He 
 may be unpopular and unfortunate, and all 
 the feather-headed crew of society may ig- 
 nore him, but if you have ever tested his 
 worth as a friend, stand up for him, and 
 stand by him forever. The sun may go 
 down upon his fortunes, and calumny may 
 cloud his name, and you may know in your 
 heart that more than half the world says 
 about him is true, but stand by the man 
 who has once been your true friend. In- 
 gratitude is the blackest crime that preys 
 upon the human soul. The forgetfulness of 
 a favor, or the effacement of a bond sealed 
 with an obligation, is capable only to weak 
 and cowardly natures. 
 
 If you have a conviction, and are con- 
 scientious in the belief that you are right, 
 be true to your professions. If you are a 
 
62 ^0&^tnavvi atttf ^ue* 
 
 rebel, be a rebel out and out, and don't be 
 a goat to leap nimbly back and forth over 
 the fence. Never apologize for either your 
 faith or your profession, unless you have 
 reason to be ashamed of it; and, if you are 
 ashamed of it, renounce it and get one that 
 will need no apology. 
 
 There are lots of other messages I would 
 like to stand on a hill and blow through a 
 bugle, but the weather is too warm to admit 
 of further efifort just now; so we'll postpone 
 the topic for another hearing. 
 
 I sat in a fashionable church the other day 
 and listened to a sermon on "The Prodigal 
 Son." How often I have heard the same 
 old story told in the same old way. How 
 familiar I have become with the kind father, 
 the bad son, refreshingly human heir, the 
 veal and the ring! But the last time I 
 heard the story I felt an almost uncontrol- 
 lable impulse to rise up in meeting and ask 
 the question, "How does the treatment ac- 
 corded to the prodigal son match the treat- 
 ment we mete out to the prodigal daugh- 
 ter?" 
 
How far out of our way do we go to ac- 
 company his sister on her homeward faring 
 after a season spent among the swine and 
 the husks? 
 
 Do we put an i8-karat ring on her poor 
 Httle soiled finger and place her at the head 
 of our table, even if by good chance she 
 gains an entrance to the home? Do we not 
 more often meet her at the back door when 
 nobody is looking, rush her through the 
 hallway and consign her to the little third 
 story rear room, taking her meals to her our- 
 selves, on the sly, that the neighors may 
 not find out the dreadful fact that she is at 
 home again? 
 
 "Keep yourself very close," we say to her, 
 "and by no manner of means be seen at any 
 of the windows, and you may stay here. 
 You can wear some of your virtuous sis- 
 ter's cast-ofif clothing, and sleep on the 
 lounge in the nursery, where the servants 
 never think of going since the little folks 
 have grown up, but you must be very peni- 
 tent, and very humble, and very thankful to 
 God for the mercy you so little deserve." 
 
 I think somebody had better write a new 
 parable and call it "The Prodigal Daughter." 
 Perhaps a sermon might be preached from it 
 to touch the unmoved heart. 
 
54 ^0&!^tnavi^ attJCf ilu^* 
 
 After all there are two sorts of prodigals 
 — the prodigal who comes home because the 
 cash gives out, and the prodigal who comes 
 because his heart turns back to the old home 
 with such longing as the thirsty feel for 
 water. Neither boy nor girl who comes 
 back for the first-named reason should find 
 a maudlin love awaiting, nor partake of any 
 banquet that the old folks have had to pay 
 for, but the prodigal who returns because 
 there is something left in his or her heart 
 like the music in a shell, which nothing can 
 destroy or hush away to silence, be that 
 prodigal sinful man or erring woman, 
 should find not only the home doors swung 
 wide in welcome, but every doorway in the 
 land wreathed with flowers to bid him 
 enter. 
 
 How few people know when to stop. If 
 the preacher knew when to stop preaching, 
 how much more satisfactory the result of his 
 sermon might be. If the genial fellow knew 
 just when to stop telling his good stories, 
 how much keener their relish would be. If 
 the moralizer knew just when to stop mor- 
 
alizing, how much longer the flavor of his 
 philosophy would endure. If the friend 
 knew when to keep still, how grateful his 
 silence would be. If the candid creature 
 who so glibly tells of our foibles knew when 
 to hold his tongue, how much less strong 
 our impulse to slap him would be. If the 
 high-liver knew when to stop eating, how 
 much less sure dyspepsia would be. If the 
 popular guest knew when to withdraw, how 
 much more regretfully we should see him 
 go. If the politician knew when to retire 
 into private life, how much whiter his record 
 would be. If we all knew just when to die, 
 and could opportunely bring the event 
 about, how much truer our epitaphs would 
 be. The court fool who prayed, "Oh God, 
 be merciful to me, a fool!" prayed deeper 
 than he knew, and the man who prays, "Oh 
 God, teach me to know when I have said 
 enough," prays deeper still. 
 
 w 
 
 You may talk about California all you 
 will, but match, if you can, the beauty of 
 spring as it comes to us in these northerly 
 latitudes. There is the coy advance and re- 
 
56 ^jcr^jemaru antf ^u^* 
 
 treat of a woman hard to win; there is the 
 crescendo and diminuendo of heavenly har- 
 monies; there is the dissolving view that 
 glimmers and glows like an opal, or like the 
 mirage of a misty sea. I was in California 
 a year ago, in April time. I found the month 
 that poets love in full splendor, like a queen 
 who never doffs her crown. Violets, roses, 
 lilacs and carnations came all together in a 
 riotous rush. One did not have to woo the 
 season; it was already won. Like a matron 
 crowned with the mid-splendor of her years, 
 the earth received the homage that is due 
 achievement. Nobody caught the sound of 
 the first robin on a rainy morning and her- 
 alded it with a shout; the first robin, like 
 the first principle in creation, never exist- 
 ed, for the reason that he was always there. 
 There were no foretellings of green along 
 the watercourses; no prophetic thrills of 
 violets in the air; no uplifting of the hypati- 
 ca's dow^ny head above the lattice of fuzzy 
 leaves ; everything was right where you dis- 
 covered it, and had been all the year round. 
 Without beginning and without end, spring 
 exists forever, like a picture bound within a 
 book, in the lovely land of the Gringos. 
 But walk out some April morning in the 
 
suburbs that surround Chicago. Catch the 
 tonic of the air, Hke wine ever so delicately 
 chilled with ice. View the lake, Hke a gen- 
 tian flower fringed with a horizon fine as 
 silk. Scrape away the leaves and hail the 
 valiant Robin Hood in his suit of green, 
 leading his legion upward to the sun. With- 
 out the sound of a footfall or the gleam of a 
 lance, they come to take possession of the 
 earth. Woo the violet to turn her dewy 
 eye upon you, and listen to the minstrel in 
 the tower, where the winds are harping to 
 the new buds. Mark the maple twigs, like 
 silhouettes cut in coral, and the sheath of 
 the wood lily, like a ribbon half unrolled. 
 Rejoice in the flash of the blue bird's wing 
 as it startles the still air, and then say to me, 
 if you dare, that you prefer any other climate 
 to this one that belts the zone of these north- 
 ern lakes. 
 
 Thank the Lord, all ye who can call your- 
 selves healthy. The day has gone by for 
 physically delicate women. This age de- 
 mands Hebes and young Venuses with am- 
 ple waists and veritable muscles. Specked 
 
58 ^0&i^tnavi^ antf ^u^* 
 
 fruit and specked people go in the same 
 category in the popular taste. To the ques- 
 tion, "How are you to-day?" I for one, al- 
 ways feel like replying in the words of an 
 old Irish servant we once had (God rest her 
 faithful soul wherever it be this windy day!), 
 "First-rate, glory be to God !" It is such a 
 grand thing to be well and strong, to feel 
 that your soul is riding on its way to glory 
 in a chariot, and not in a broken-down old 
 mud-cart. Talk about happiness ! Why, a 
 well beggar has a better time of it than a sick 
 king, any day. If, then, like a bird, your 
 strong wing uplifts you above the countless 
 shafts of pain which that grim old sports- 
 man. Death, is ever aiming at poor humani- 
 ty, count yourself an ingrate if the song of 
 thanksgiving is not always welling from 
 your heart like the constant song of a bobo- 
 link singing for very joy above the clover. 
 
 What would be thought of a ship that was 
 launched from its docks with flourish of 
 music and flowing wine, built to sail the 
 roughest and deepest sea, yet manned for 
 an unending cruise along shore? Never 
 
leaving harbor for dread of storm. Never 
 swinging out of the land-girt bay because 
 over the bar, the waters were deep and 
 rough. You would say of such a ship that 
 its captain was a coward and the company 
 that built it were fools. 
 
 And yet these souls of ours were fash- 
 ioned for bottomless soundings. There is 
 no created thing that draws as deep as the 
 soul of man; our life lies straight across 
 the ocean and not along shore, but we are 
 afraid to venture; we hang upon thte coast 
 and explore shallow lagoons or swing at 
 anchor in idle bays. Some of us strike 
 the keel into riches and cruise about therein, 
 like men-of-war in a narrow river. Some of 
 us are contented all our days to ride at 
 anchor in the becalmed waters of selfish 
 ease. There are guns at every port-hole 
 of the ship we sail, but we use them for pegs 
 to hang clothes upon, or pigeon-holes to 
 stack full of idle hours. We shall never 
 smell powder, although the magazine is 
 stocked with holy wrath wherewith to fight 
 the devil and his deeds. When I see a man 
 strolling along at his ease, while under his 
 very nose some brute is maltreating a horse, 
 or some coward venting his ignoble wrath 
 
60 ^o^^ntctru anlf ^nz* 
 
 upon a creature more helpless than he, 
 whether it be a child or a dog, I involuntarily 
 think of a double-decked whaler content to 
 fish for minnows. Their uselessness in the 
 world is more apparent than the uselessness 
 of a Cunarder in a park pond. 
 
 What did God give you muscle and girth 
 and brain for, if not to launch you on 
 the high seas? Up and away with you then 
 into the deep soundings where you belong, 
 oh, belittled soul ! Find the work to do for 
 which you were fitted and do it, or else run 
 yourself on the first convenient snag and 
 founder. 
 
 Some great writer has said that we ought 
 to begin life as at the source of a river, 
 growing deeper every league to the sea, 
 whereas, in fact, thousands enter the river 
 at its mouth, and sail inland, finding less and 
 less water every day, until in old age they 
 lie shrunk and gasping upon dry ground. 
 
 But there are more who do not sail at all 
 than there are of those who make the mis- 
 take of saiHng up stream. There are the 
 women who devote their lives to the petty 
 business of pleasing worthless men. What 
 progress do they make even inland? With 
 sails set and brassy stanchions polished to 
 
the similitude of gold, they hover a Hfe- 
 time chained to a dock and decay of their 
 own uselessness at last, like keels that are 
 mud-slugged. It is not the most profitable 
 thing in the world to please. Suppose it shall 
 please the inmates of a bedlam-house to see 
 you set fire to your clothing and burn to 
 death, or break your bones one by one upon 
 a rack, or otherwise destroy your bodily 
 parts that the poor lunatics might be enter- 
 tained. Would it pay to be pleasing to 
 such an audience at such a sacrifice? But 
 the destruction of the loveliest body in the 
 world is nothing compared to the demorali- 
 zation of soul that takes place when women 
 subvert everything lofty and noble within 
 their nature to win. the transient regard of 
 a few worthless men of the world. They 
 learn to smoke cigarettes because such men 
 profess to like to see a pretty woman afifect 
 the toughness of a rowdy. They drink in 
 public places and barter their honor all too 
 often for handsome clothes in which to 
 make a vain parade, all to please some 
 heathen man, who in reality counts them a 
 great way inferior to the value of a good 
 horse. The right sort of a sweetheart, my 
 dear, never desires to bring a woman down 
 
62 gt00^mtttru tt«^ ^uje* 
 
 to his own level. He prefers to put her on a 
 pedestal and say his prayers to her. Never 
 think that you are winning an admiration 
 that counts for much if you have to abate 
 one whit of your womanhood to win it. 
 Every time I see a woman drinking in a 
 pubHc resort, making herself conspicuous 
 by loud talk and louder laughter, I think of 
 some fair ship that should be making for 
 the eternal city, with all its snow-white 
 canvas set, rotting at its docks, or cruising, 
 arm's length from a barren land. We were 
 put into this world with a clean way bill 
 for another port than this. Across the ocean 
 of life our way lies, straight to the harbor 
 of the city of gold. We are freighted with 
 a consignment from quarter-deck to keel 
 which is bound to be delivered sooner or 
 later at the great master's wharf. Let us 
 be alert, then, to recognize the seriousness 
 of our own destinies and content ourselves 
 no longer with shallow soundings. Spread 
 the sails, weigh the anchor and point the 
 prow for the country that lies the other side 
 a deep and restless sea. Sooner or later the 
 voyage must be made ; let us make it, then, 
 while the timber is stanch and the rudder 
 true. With a resolute will at the wheel, and 
 
^0&etnavvi anh gtu^* 63 
 
 the great God himself to furnish the chart, 
 our ship shall weather the wildest gale and 
 find entrance at last to the harbor of peace. 
 
 * 
 
 When you look at a picture and find it 
 good or bad, as the case may be, whom do 
 you praise or blame — the owner of the pic- 
 ture or the artist who painted it? When you 
 hear a strain of music and are either lifted 
 to heaven or cast into the other place by its 
 harmonies or its discord, whom do you 
 thank or curse for the benefaction or the 
 infliction, whichever it may have proved to 
 be — the man who wrote the score or the 
 music dealer who sold it? You go to a 
 restaurant and order spring chicken which 
 turns out to be the primeval fowl. Who is 
 to blame — the waiter who serves it or the 
 business man of the concern who does the 
 marketing? And so when you encounter 
 the bad boy, whom do you hold responsible 
 for his badness — the boy himself or the 
 mother who trained him? I declare, as I 
 look about me from day to day and see the 
 men and women who play so poor a part in 
 life, it is not the poverty of their perform- 
 
64 ^o^ientavt^ anb ^u«* 
 
 ance that astonishes me so much as the fact 
 that it is as good as it is. 
 
 I 
 
 I did think I would keep out of the con- 
 troversy on the low-neck dress question. 
 But there is just one thing I want to say. 
 Did you ever know a sweet young girl yet, 
 one who was rightly trained and modestly 
 brought up, who took to decollete dresses 
 naturally? Is not the first wearing of one 
 a trial, and a special ordeal? It is after the 
 bloom is off the peach that a young wom- 
 an is willing to show her pretty shoulders 
 and neck to the crowd; and who cares much 
 for a rubbed plum or a brushed peach? 
 I cannot imagine a sweet, wholesome-heart- 
 ed woman, be she young or old, divesting 
 herself of half her clothes and thrusting 
 herself upon the notice of ribald men. I 
 can sooner imagine a rose tree bearing 
 frog. The conjunction is not possible. The 
 cheek that will blush at the story of repent- 
 ant shame, that will flame with indignant 
 protest when the skirts of a Magdalene 
 brush too near, yet deepens not its rose at 
 thought of uncovering neck and bust in a 
 
crowded theater or public reception is not 
 the cheek of modest and natural woman- 
 hood. It is not necessary to be a prude or 
 a skinny old harridan either, to inveigh 
 against the custom. I know full well how 
 contemptible the affectations and hypoc- 
 risies of life are. Half that is yielded to evil 
 was meant for good. The high chancellor 
 of Hades has put his seal on much that was 
 originally invoiced for the Lord's own peo- 
 ple. But there are some things so palpably 
 shameless that to argue about them is like 
 trying to prove by demonstration that a 
 crow is white. It needs no argument. 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE VETERANS. 
 
 Scarce had the bugle note sounded 
 For the call of their last defeat; 
 
 And still on the lowland meadow 
 Lie the prints of their quick retreat. 
 
 Above us the bright skies sparkle, 
 And around us the same winds blow 
 
 That rippled their golden banners 
 In that battle so long ago. 
 
 When the southwind challenged winter. 
 And the rose-ranks routed the snow. 
 
 And the hosts of tiny gold coats 
 Sprang up from their campfires below, 
 5 
 
66 ^00^maru anlf ^uje* 
 
 To charge on tlie insolent frost king, 
 And shatter his lance of ice, 
 
 While back to the desolate northland 
 They wheeled him about in a trice. 
 
 The battle is hardly ended, 
 
 The victory only begun. 
 Yet I saw the gray-bearded vet'rans, 
 
 To-day, sitting out in the sun. 
 
 They nod by wind-rippled rivers, 
 They shake in the shade of the oak. 
 
 And all the day long they murmur 
 And whisper, and gossip, and croak. 
 
 And often in wondering rapture. 
 They recount the charge they made, 
 
 When down from the windy hillsides, 
 And up through the dewy glade. 
 
 The sheen of their golden bonnets 
 Shone out from the green of the leaves. 
 
 Like the flight of a glancing swallow. 
 Or the flash of a wave on the seas. 
 
 They muse in sleepy contentment. 
 Or flutter in endless dispute. 
 
 For this was a brave cadet, sir. 
 And that one a crippled recruit. 
 
 Fight over again your battles, 
 O veterans, withered and gray; 
 
 For a band of northwind chasseurs 
 To-morrow shall blow you away. 
 
Once upon a time it came to pass that a 
 woman, being weary with much running to 
 and fro, fell asleep and dreamed a dream. 
 
 And in her dream she beheld a mighty- 
 host, more than man could number. And 
 of that host, all were women, and spake 
 with varying tongues. 
 
 And they bent the body, and sitting on 
 hard benches wailed mightily, so that the air 
 was full of the sound of lamentation, like a 
 garden that wooeth many bees. 
 
 And the woman who dreamed, being ten- 
 der of heart and disposed kindly toward 
 the suffering ones, lifted up her voice say- 
 ing: 
 
 "Why bendest thou the body, oh, daugh- 
 ters of despair, and why art thine eyelids 
 red with tears? 
 
 "Yea, why rockest thou like boats that 
 find no anchor, and like poplars which the 
 north wind smiteth?" 
 
 And one from among the host greater 
 than man could number made answer, say- 
 ing: 
 
 "Wouldst know who we are, and why we 
 spend our days like a weaver's shuttle that 
 flitteth to and fro in a web of tears? 
 
 "Behold we are the faithless and unregen- 
 
68 ^jcr^jentttru anb ^u^* 
 
 erate handmaids who have served thee, and 
 women like unto thee, bringing desolation 
 unto thy larders, and gray hairs among the 
 braids with which nature hath crowned 
 thee. 
 
 "Yea, verily, by reason of our misde- 
 meanors lift we the voice of lamentation in 
 a land that knoweth not comfort." 
 
 Now, the woman who dreamed, being 
 full of amazement, replied anon, and these 
 were the words that fell from her lips : 
 
 "Say est thou so? And dwellest thou and 
 thy sisters in Hades by reason of the evil 
 thou hast wrought?" 
 
 "Nay, not forever," repHed she who had 
 spoken. "We remain but for a season, that 
 our remorse may cleanse our record before 
 we go hence to sit with the blessed ones 
 in glory. 
 
 "Not from everlasting unto everlasting is 
 the duration of the penalty we pay for what 
 we have done unto thee, else were there no 
 peace between the stars by reason of our 
 torment and our tears." 
 
 And the woman who dreamed beheld 
 many whose fame yet lingered within the 
 shadows of her home. 
 
 There was Ann, the fumble-witted, who 
 
^O0^tnaxv^ antf ^we* 69 
 
 piled the backyard high with broken china, 
 yet stayed not her hand when rebuked 
 therefor. 
 
 There was Sarah, the high-headed, who 
 refused to clean the paint because she had 
 dwelt long in the tents of such as hired the 
 housecleaning done by other hands, that 
 the labors of the handmaid might be few ; 
 
 Yea, verily, with such as believed that 
 Sarah and her ilk might have time wherein 
 to be merry rather than toil. 
 
 There was Karen, the Swede, who 
 wrapped the bread in her petticoat and re- 
 fused to be convinced of the error of her 
 ways. 
 
 There was Jane, the Erinite, who broke 
 the pump, and Caroline, the Teuton, who 
 combed her locks with the comb of the 
 woman who dreamed. 
 
 There was Adaline, the hoosier, who 
 failed to answer the summons of the strang- 
 er who knocked at the gates unless she were 
 in full dress and carried a perfumed hand- 
 kerchief. 
 
 There was Louise, who smote the young- 
 est born of the household because he prat- 
 tled of her deaHngs with the frequent cousin 
 who called often and sought to deplete the 
 larder. 
 
70 ^00^matry anb ^ue* 
 
 There was the girl who desired her even- 
 ings out and never came home before cock 
 crow. 
 
 There was the girl who threw up her 
 place in the family of the woman who 
 dreamed because she was asked to hurry 
 her ways. 
 
 There was the girl who wore the hose of 
 her mistress, and took it as an affront when 
 asked to desist. 
 
 There was the girl who swore when the 
 chariot of the sometime guest drew nigh, 
 and likewise the girl who refused to remain 
 over night in a dwelling where she was sum- 
 moned to serve by means of a call bell. 
 
 There was the girl who found it too lone- 
 some in the country and left the garments 
 in the washtub that she might hie her to the 
 great city, the social center of which she 
 was the joy and the pride. 
 
 There was the girl who was made mad 
 by means of the request that she wash her 
 hands before breakfast. 
 
 There was the girl who entertained her 
 callers in the drawing-room while the fam- 
 ily was afar of¥, sojourning in the hills or by 
 the waves of the sea; 
 
 Yea, who thought it no evil to bring forth 
 
the flesh-pot and the brandied comfit, that 
 the heart of the district poHceman might 
 leap thereat, as the young buck leapeth at 
 sight of the water courses. 
 
 There was also the girl who wasted, and 
 the girl who stole ; the girl who never tried, 
 and the girl who never cared. 
 
 And seeing the multitude the spirit of the 
 woman who dreamed arose within her and 
 she asked of a certain veiled one who 
 seemed to be in charge: 
 
 "Tell me, O shrouded one, is there never 
 to be any diminution in the throng that 
 cometh to take their abode in these halls of 
 penitential regret?" 
 
 And the spirit in charge made answer, 
 saying: 
 
 "No, nor never shall be while fools live 
 and folly thrives. 
 
 "It is by reason of the babbling of busy- 
 bodies that havoc has overtaken the land 
 of thy forefathers. 
 
 "There is honor in faithful service, and 
 an uncorruptible crown awaiteth the fore- 
 head of her who serveth well. 
 
 "It is no disgrace to the comely daugh- 
 ters of men who toil and are put to that they 
 bring in the wherewithal to fill the mouths 
 of the children who call them father — 
 
72 ^o&jenxixv^ ^^n^ ^ue* 
 
 "It is no disgrace, I say unto you, if such 
 maidens take unto themselves the position 
 of servants in the family of him who pros- 
 pereth, 
 
 "Remembering that one who lived long 
 since and has slept these many years in the 
 tomb of his fathers, spake truly when he ut- 
 tered these words, albeit framed in rhyme: 
 
 "Honor and shame from no condition rise; 
 Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 
 
 And it came to pass that the woman who 
 dreamed took comfort to herself by reason 
 of her dream. 
 
 And she arose from slumber like a strong 
 man who desireth to run a race. 
 
 And buckling on more tightly the armor 
 wherein she moved, yea, even with a free 
 hand buttoning the boot and drawing the 
 string, she cogitated unto herself, and these 
 were the words of her cogitation: 
 
 "Behold, I will learn a new wisdom that 
 I may be unto my handmaids a friend rather 
 than a taskmistress, that in so doing I may 
 win unto my household the damsel who hath 
 intelligence. And my treatment of her shall 
 be such that many wise ones who call that 
 damsel friend shall decide to do even as she 
 
hath done and choose domestic service with 
 a woman who is kind even to the showing of 
 interest in her handmaid's affairs, rather 
 than linger in bondage with the shop girl 
 and her who rattles the tinkling keys of the 
 typewriter machine. 
 
 "So doing, my days shall increase might- 
 ily in the land, as also the days of her who 
 cometh after me." 
 
 Women are either the noblest creation 
 of God or the meanest. A good woman is 
 little less than an angel; a bad woman is 
 considerably more than a devil. And by 
 bad women I do not mean women who 
 drink, or steal, or frequent brothels. The 
 chief weapon of a bad woman is her tongue. 
 With a lie she can do more deadly work 
 than the fellow in the bible did with the 
 jawbone of an ass. Untruth is the funda- 
 mental strata of all evil in a bad woman's 
 nature, and with it she is more to be dreaded 
 than many men with revolvers. There is 
 absolutely no protection from a lie. The 
 courts cannot protect from its venom, and 
 to kill a defamer and a falsifier is not yet 
 adjudged as legalized slaughter. 
 
74 ^o&i^tnavvi atitf ^me* 
 
 There is one awfully homely woman in 
 Chicago. I met her the other day over in 
 Blank's art gallery. Our acquaintance was 
 brief but sensational. I looked at her, 
 tucked her into my handbag and wept She 
 didn't seem to mind it, and when, a few 
 hours later, in the seclusion of my chamber, 
 I took her out of the bag and looked at her 
 again, she was more hideous than before. 
 
 "You horrible creature!" said I. "If you 
 look like me, better that the uttermost 
 depths of the sea had me." 
 
 "But I do look like you," said she, and 
 her voice was weak and low by reason of 
 prolonged exposure to the sun and air, "and 
 Mr. Blank says I will finish up very nicely." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," I asked, "that 
 my nose is as big as yours?" 
 
 "Of course it is," said she; "pictures can- 
 not lie. But comfort yourself with the as- 
 surance that a large nose is always an indi- 
 cation of intelligence." 
 
 "Intelligence be blessed!" said I, for I was 
 getting excited; "intelligence without 
 beauty is like bread without butter, or a pea- 
 
cock without a tail ! If I possess such a nose 
 as yours, madam, I shall take to tract-dis- 
 tributing, galoshes and a cotton umbrella, 
 and forget that I was ever human." 
 
 "You talk wildly, as all the rest of them 
 do," said my thin companion. "Listen, for 
 my time on earth is short, I am rapidly 
 fading away, and what I say must be said 
 briefly. If you look about you you will see 
 that there exists, more or less hidden in 
 every breast, the belief of one's own beauty. 
 The mirror, although a faithful friend, can 
 never quite disabuse the mind of that belief, 
 and when the honest camera holds up the 
 actual presentation of one's self as an in- 
 controvertible fact, the disappointment is 
 keen and hard to bear." 
 
 "All that may be true," said I, "but not all 
 your assertions can ever make me believe 
 that that dusky mass of hair, brushed back 
 so wildly from those beetling brows, is like 
 my own. You know that mine is soft and 
 brown, and yours looks like the bristles of 
 an enraged stove brush." 
 
 "That's the way they all talk," responded 
 the dissolving view, "but you do not stop to 
 consider that under the artist's pencil the 
 shadows will all be toned and softened. 
 
76 Itjcr^jentaru anh ^u^* 
 
 And let me say right here, that that 'beetHng 
 brow' is a sign of rare intelHgence, much 
 more to be desired than the lower and 
 
 more " 
 
 "Stop, right there!" I interrupted. "It 
 is not necessary to have a brow like a 
 plate-glass show-window, or like an over- 
 hanging cliff, or like a granite paving-stone, 
 to denote intelligence! No, my friend, do 
 not try to lift this shadow from my soul. 
 That mouth that looks like a dark biscuit, 
 that nose that looks like a promontory over- 
 hanging an unseen sea, that hair that looks 
 like the ruff of an excited chicken, that brow 
 that looks like a skating-rink, all make me 
 sad. I shall never have my picture taken 
 again. If I look like that it is time I died. 
 In the round of an eventful life I may forget 
 that I even saw you, but until I do I am a 
 tired woman. My mirror may assuage my 
 sorrow, for that either lies or catches me 
 from a different point of view. Vanish then, 
 oh, yellow shade of an unhappy reality. 
 Back to oblivion with you, and heaven 
 grant I never look upon your like again!" 
 So saying, I calmly held the poor but hid- 
 eous creature in the flame of a gas-jet and 
 smilingly cremated her. 
 
^00etn(xvi3 ttnJ» line, 77 
 
 ^ 
 
 A fairer day than last Sunday was never 
 cradled to rest behind the curtains of night. 
 It began with a flute obligato of sunrise, 
 orbed itself into a full orchestra wherein 
 color took the part of first and second vio- 
 lins, and declined at last into the hush of 
 sunset like the mellow notes of a cello under 
 old Paul Schessling's master touch. Such 
 days visit the earth rarely. They are ad- 
 vance sheets of a story that is going to be 
 told in heaven; preludes to a song that we 
 shall hear in its perfection only when we 
 have got through with the clattering dis- 
 cords of time. Thank God for all such days. 
 They do us more good than we know. The 
 sight of the woods, adorned as only queens 
 are adorned for the court of the king, the 
 sound of falling leaves and lonely bird 
 songs, of hidden lutes, of unseen brooks, 
 tremulous and sweet and low under the rus- 
 set shadows, uplift our souls and help us to 
 forget, for the time being at least, how tired 
 we are, how worn with the fret of sordid toil 
 and how tormented and misjudged and ca- 
 lumniated we are by those who fain would 
 
78 ^00!^ntavv[ antf ^u^* 
 
 do us harm. I think if I had time to do 
 some of the things I want to do the first 
 consummation of that happy time would be 
 to build me a little cabin in the woods, 
 where, in utter loneliness, I could forget 
 how full the world is growing to be of folks 
 and how prone they are to do each other 
 harm and hinder rather than help each other 
 on the stony way to heaven. 
 
 The other evening, while sitting in the 
 gallery of the Auditorium and looking over 
 the balcony edge at the crowd waiting for 
 the curtain to rise, a strange thought came 
 to my mind. How could hell be more 
 quickly created than by the unmasking of 
 such a crowd as this? Suddenly remove 
 from humanity all power of self-control and 
 conventional dissimulation; force men and 
 women to be natural, and act out every evil 
 impulse latent in their souls, and could Dante 
 himself portray a blacker Inferno? The 
 man whose heart is full of murderous ha- 
 tred — tear off the mask that hides his per- 
 turbed soul, and what a demon would look 
 forth! The woman behind whose amiable 
 
seeming lurks malicious envy and snarling 
 temper and crafty deceit — what a pande- 
 monium would ensue when such passion 
 broke forth like straining dogs from the 
 leash! The old man with the saintly face 
 and the crown of hoary hair — could an open 
 cage of foul birds send forth a blacker 
 brood than should fly out from his soul 
 when some omnipotent hand unlatched the 
 bars of its prison and let the unclean 
 thoughts go free? The young man with the 
 perfumed breath and the suave and courtly 
 manner — does any storied hell hold captive 
 blacker demons than the cruel selfishness, 
 the impurities and the secret vices that walk 
 to and fro in his soul Hke tigers behind 
 their bars? The young girl with face like 
 a rose and the form of a Juno — could any- 
 thing that hades holds strike greater dismay 
 to the hearts of men than the unmasking of 
 her hidden thoughts? Ah, when the hour 
 strikes for unmasking time in life's parade 
 ball, when death steps forth and with cool, 
 relentless touch unties the knot that holds 
 the silken thing in place that has hidden our 
 true selves from our beautiful seeming, we 
 shall find no more fiery hell awaiting us 
 than that we have carried so long in our 
 hearts. 
 
80 ^o^jetnatry attJCf ^u^* 
 
 I would not like to be regarded as a pes- 
 simist from the writing of such a paragraph 
 as the above. Sometimes I seek to turn 
 my thoughts upon the crowd and unmask 
 the angel as well as the demon. But I find 
 that the angels, as a general thing, wear 
 no face concealers. They go disguised in 
 poor clothes and scant bravery of attire, 
 but the angel within them is like a singing 
 bird rather than like a silent and chained 
 beast. It reveals itself in songs, like a caged 
 lark. It looks from out the window of the 
 eyes in loving glances and tender smiles; 
 it manifests itself in sweet and cheerful ser- 
 vice, like the sunshine that can neither be 
 hidden nor concealed. 
 
 Of all the pleasant things to look upon in 
 this fair earth, I sometimes query which is 
 the best, a little child, a fruit orchard in 
 early June, or a young girl. I think the 
 latter carries the day. Did you ever watch 
 a flock of birds sitting for a moment on the 
 mossy gable of a sloping roof? How they 
 flutter and fuss and chirp; how they preen 
 their delicate feathers and get all mixed up 
 
^o^^maru anb Jlw^* 8i 
 
 with the sunshine and the shadow, until 
 which is bird and which is sunbeam one 
 can scarcely tell. There is a flock of girls 
 with whom I ride every morning, and they 
 make me think of birds and sunbeams. 
 They are so bewitching with their changeful 
 moods and graces that I sit and watch them 
 as one listens to the twitter of swallows. 
 They sweeten up life, these girls, as sugar 
 sweetens dough; they fill it with music as 
 sleigh bells fill a winter night. God bless 
 the girls, the bonnie, sweet and winsome 
 girls, and may womanhood be for them but 
 as the "swell of some sweet time," morning 
 gliding into noon, May merging into June. 
 
 There are so many things in this world 
 to be tired of! The poor little persecuted 
 boy in pinafores, sent to school to get him 
 out of the way, doomed to dangle his plump 
 legs all day long from a hard bench, rubbing 
 his grimy knuckles into his sleepy blue eyes 
 and wondering if eternity can last any longer 
 than a public school session, grows no more 
 tired of watching the flies on the ceiling and 
 the shadows on the wall than some folks get 
 
82 lioe^maru ant> ©««♦ 
 
 of life. Let me mention a few of the things 
 I, for one, am horribly tired of, and see if 
 before my bead is half strung you do not 
 look up from the strand and cry, "Amber, I 
 am with you!" 
 
 My dear, I am tired to-day of civilization 
 and all modern improvements. I am tired 
 of the speaking tube within my chamber 
 where the new girl and myself wage daily 
 our battle of the new Babel. She speaks 
 Volapuk, and I do not, consequently she 
 takes my demand for coal as an in- 
 sult or an encouraging remark, just as 
 the mood may be upon her, and pays 
 no more attention to my request for 
 drinking water than the unweaned child 
 pays to the sighing wind. I am tired 
 of sewer gas and what the scientists call 
 ''bacteria" and "germs." I am tired of going 
 about with frescoed tonsils, the result of the 
 three. I am tired of gargling my own throat 
 and the throats of my helpless babes, and 
 the throat of the casual visitor within my 
 gates, with diluted phenic acid to ward ofif 
 deadly disease. I am tired of nosing drains 
 and buying copperas and hounding the 
 latent plumber that he adjust the water- 
 pipes. I am tired of boiling the cistern 
 
gljcr^^mam ctnt> |lu:e* 83 
 
 water and waiting for it to cool. I am tired 
 of skipping from Dan to Beersheba daily for 
 men to remove the tin-cans, the ashes and 
 the unsightly rubbish that have emerged 
 from long retirement underneath the snow. 
 I am tired of imploring the small boy to 
 keep his mother's chickens ofif my porch. 
 I am tired of digging graves upon the com- 
 mon wherein to bury useless potato-parings, 
 the unsightly cheese-rind, and the shattered 
 egg-shell. I am tired of being told that my 
 neighbor's calf and my neighbor's pet cat, 
 and my neighbor's blooded stock of poultry 
 are dying because of the copperas I scatter 
 broadcast about the mouth of drains. I am 
 tired of being a martyr to hygiene and a 
 monomaniac on the subject of sanitary 
 science. I am tired of sharpening lead pen- 
 cils. I am tired of speaking pleasantly when 
 I want to be cross. I am tired of the ceaseless 
 grind of Hfe, which like the upper and nether 
 mill-stones, wears the heart to powder and 
 the spirit to dust. I am tired of being told 
 that the mark on my left ear is a spot of soil, 
 and of being implored in thrilling whispers 
 to wipe it away. I am tired of last year's 
 seed-pods in spring gardens and of all two- 
 legged donkeys. I am tired of awaiting a 
 
84 |ijci0«maru atitf ^nc* 
 
 change in the methods of doing business 
 around at the postoffice, and for the dawn 
 of that blessed day when I shall be permitted 
 to dance upon the grave of the aged being 
 who peddles stamps at the retail window. 
 I am tired of hosts of things besides, but 
 have no time to enumerate them all to-day. 
 
 I have tested the rainy weather dress re- 
 form. It was pouring when I started from 
 my humble home in the morning, and in 
 spite of the prayers of the Young Person 
 and the sobs of the ''Martyr," I arrayed my- 
 self in my new, highly sensible and demoni- 
 acally ugly suit and weathered the elements. 
 Within two hours it stopped raining; the 
 sun came out and the streets filled with 
 festively attired men and women, and where 
 was I ? Stranded on a clear day in garments 
 befitting a castaway! My flannel dress, 
 short skirts and top-boots wasted on fair 
 weather. "In the name of heaven," ex- 
 claimed a friend, as I bore down upon him 
 beneath a cloudless sky, "what have you got 
 on?" "Go home! for the love of humanity, 
 go home !" said another. And what was I to 
 
^oistietnavvi an^ ^ne* 85 
 
 do? Await another storm like a crab in its 
 shell, or venture forth and become the by- 
 word of an overwrought populace, the scorn 
 of old men and matrons? Next time I start 
 out in a reform dress I will take along the 
 robes of civilization in a grip-sack. 
 
 There is something that is getting to be 
 awfully scarce in this world. Shall I tell 
 you what it is? It is girls. That is what is 
 missing out of the sentient, breathing, living 
 world just now. We have lots of young la- 
 dies and lots of society misses, but the sweet, 
 old-fashioned girls of ever so long ago are 
 vanished with the poke bonnets and the cin- 
 namon cookies. Let me enumerate a few 
 of the kinds of girls that are wanted. In 
 the first place we want home girls — girls 
 who are mothers' right hand; girls who can 
 cuddle the little ones next best to mamma, 
 and smooth out the tangles in the domestic 
 skein when things get twisted; girls whom 
 father takes comfort in for something bet- 
 ter than beauty, and the big brothers are 
 proud of for something that outranks the 
 ability to dance or shine in society. Next, 
 we want girls of sense— girls who have a 
 
86 lljor^^ntatrtj antf glu^* 
 
 standard of their own regardless of con- 
 ventionalities, and are independent enough 
 to live up to it; girls who simply won't 
 wear a trailing dress on the street to gather 
 up microbes and^ all sorts of defilement; 
 girls who won't wear a high hat to the 
 theater, or lacerate their feet and endanger 
 their health with high heels and corsets; 
 girls who will wear what is pretty and be- 
 coming and snap their fingers at the dictates 
 of fashion when fashion is horrid and silly. 
 And we want good girls — girls who are 
 sweet, right straight out from the heart to 
 the lips; innocent and pure and simple girls 
 with less knowledge of sin and duplicity 
 and evil-doing at twenty than the pert little 
 school girl at ten has all too often ; girls who 
 say their prayers and read their Bibles and 
 love God and keep his commandments. 
 (We want these girls "awful bad !") And we 
 want careful girls and prudent girls, who 
 think enough of the generous father who 
 toils to maintain them in comfort, and of the 
 gentle mother who denies herself much that 
 they may have so many pretty things, to 
 count the cost and draw the line between 
 the essentials and the non-essentials; girls 
 who strive to save and not to spend; girls 
 
^o&i^tnfxvvi antf ilue. 
 
 87 
 
 who are unselfish and eager to be a joy and 
 a comfort in the home rather than an ex- 
 pensive and a useless burden. We want 
 girls with hearts — girls who are full of ten- 
 derness and sympathy, with tears that flow 
 for other people's ills, and smiles that light 
 outward their own beautiful thoughts. We 
 have lots of clever girls, and brilliant girls, 
 and witty girls. Give us a consignment of 
 jolly girls, warm-hearted and impulsive 
 girls; kind and entertaining to their own 
 folks, and with little desire to shine in the 
 garish world. With a few such girls scat- 
 tered around life would freshen up for all of 
 us, as the weather does under the spell of 
 summer showers. Speed the day when this 
 sort of girls fill the world once more, over- 
 running the spaces where God puts them as 
 climbing roses do when they break through 
 the trellis to glimmer and glint above the 
 common highway, a blessing and a boon 
 to all who pass them by. 
 5,1 
 
 ^ 
 
 Is there any flower that grows that can 
 compare with the pansy for color and rich- 
 ness? Others appeal more closely to the 
 heart with fragrance that like a sweet and 
 
88 ^0^etnavxii an^ ^nc. 
 
 pure soul more than compensates for lack 
 of exterior beauty, but in all the gorgeous 
 category none rank this velvet flower that 
 lies just now upon my window-sill. There is 
 the purple of Queen Sheba mantled in its 
 soft and shiny texture; the gold of Ophir 
 was not more sumptuous; the light that 
 breaks at dawn across a reef of dove-gray 
 clouds was never more deHcate than the 
 violet heart of this lovely blossom. When I 
 want to think of the ideal court of kings, of 
 a royal meeting-place for blameless scions 
 and unsullied princes of the blood, I do not 
 think of old-world palaces and coronation 
 halls — I think rather of a pansy bed in June 
 in full and perfect bloom, a soft wind just 
 bending bright heads crowned with crowns 
 that never yet were pressed on aching 
 brows, and fluttering mantles of more than 
 royal splendor that never yet were wrapped 
 above a corrupt and breaking heart. 
 
 MY ROSE AND MY CHILD. 
 
 I held in my bosom a beautiful rose, 
 All gay with the splendor of June; 
 
 Its dew-laden petals like sheen of soft snows, 
 Its blush like the sunshine at noon. 
 
^o^ttnavvi antf ilu^> 89 
 
 But e'en as I held it I knew it must fade; 
 
 Its bloom was as brief as the hour. 
 The dews of the evening like soft tears were 
 laid 
 
 On the grave of my beauteous flower, 
 
 I held in my bosom a beautiful child, 
 The splendor of love in her eyes; 
 No snow on high hills was more undefiled 
 * Than her soul in its innocent guise. 
 
 But I knew that my angel in heaven was missed; 
 
 I knew, like my rose, she must go; 
 So with heartbreak and anguish her sweet lips 
 I kissed — 
 
 She sleeps with my rose in the snow. 
 
 It was not so very long ago that I 
 chanced to overhear a lively young woman 
 make this remark about her mother: 
 
 "Oh, mamma is nearly always taken for 
 my sister. She never seems like anything 
 more than one of my girl friends." 
 
 Poor child, thought I, your state is only 
 another phase of orphanhood, for the young 
 life that has no counsel of motherhood is 
 bereft indeed. 
 
 No girlish comradeship, however juvenile 
 and delightful it may be, can possibly take 
 the place of protecting, counseling, mother- 
 
90 ^0&etntxvvi antf ^uie* 
 
 love. Not but what the sweetest relation- 
 ship possible exists where the mother keeps 
 her heart young and in sympathy with her 
 daughter, but there is something else requi- 
 site to mother-love. 
 
 The best mothers are those who have 
 roomy laps where the big girls love to sit 
 while they whisper the confidences they 
 never could reveal to sister-mothers. They 
 have all-enfolding arms, these right kind of 
 mothers, wherein they gather the tired girl, 
 yes, and the tired boys, too, and rock them 
 to rest and peace, long after their "feet touch 
 the floor." 
 
 They used to tell me I must never sit on 
 anybody's lap after my feet reached the car- 
 pet, but, thank God, that rule never applied 
 to my mother. 
 
 You are never afraid of disturbing moth- 
 er's "beauty sleep" when you come in late 
 at night if she is of the good reliable sort, as 
 far removed from frisky girl companion- 
 ship as the moon is from its reflection. 
 
 No matter how tardy your home-faring 
 may be she is always up with a lunch and a 
 warm fire in winter or a glass of something 
 cool and fresh in summer to soothe your 
 overexcited nerves, a thing she cannot do if 
 
^0&etnavi^ antf Jlw^* 9i 
 
 she is forever dancing about with you in 
 your youthful larks. She has a way of calm- 
 ing your tempers with a joke and a caress, of 
 which the sister-mother never dreams. She 
 has also a way of smoothing your hair, 
 which your girl comrade never caught the 
 trick of, for the reason that she is kept too 
 busy curling her own love-locks. When 
 your head aches, the right sort of mother 
 knows just how to pet you to sleep and 
 leave you in a darkened room with a rose 
 on your pillow to greet your waking eyes; 
 if you have a bad cold she knows the cuddly 
 way to coax you to take bitter medicine. 
 She bathes your feet and dries them on nice 
 warm towels. She keeps the younger chil- 
 dren from guying you, because your nose is 
 red; in short, she does a thousand nice 
 things of which the sister-mother has no 
 knack whatever. 
 
 When great trouble falls to your share, 
 when sharp betrayal pierces your heart, and 
 trusted affection turns to ashes in your hold 
 of what good is the juvenile mother with 
 her girlish tremors and tears? You want 
 somebody next in tenderness to God, to 
 hold you fast and tight. You want some- 
 body who has suffered and grown strong, 
 
92 ^o&^etnavti^ anh Jlw^* 
 
 to soothe your breaking heart. Somebody 
 who can be silent and brave and steady 
 until your fever is passed. The shipwrecked 
 sailor wants a rope rather than a feint of 
 throwing one; the shipwrecked soul wants 
 a heart like rock, rather than a handclasp 
 and a promise. The sister-mother may be 
 all right to go to parties with, but you want 
 something stronger and more steadfast to 
 lean upon in time of perplexity. You want 
 a mother in all the holy significance of the 
 name. However sweet the tie of sisterhood, 
 it cannot be so blessed as the bond of pa- 
 tient, long-suffering, sanctified motherhood. 
 Seek to keep yourself in sympathy with 
 your girls, then, mothers, but be content to 
 occupy a generation removed from the path 
 they tread. Don't make up in emulation of 
 their beauty; don't seek to win away their 
 beaus and outdress them. Don't go decol- 
 lete to parties where your girls should be 
 the reigning belles; don't aim to vie with 
 them in fascination or in charm. Be guider 
 and ready counselor, but don't try to be 
 rival. If God has given you a girl child, and 
 that child has grown to womanhood, accept 
 the condition of things and give over being 
 a society belle yourself, abdicating your 
 
^a^jemaru an^ ^uje* 93 
 
 place for the infinitely sweeter one of moth- 
 er. You cannot be the right sort of mother 
 and ignore your duty to your child. That 
 duty lies in giving her her rightful place in 
 the line of march from which you are crowd- 
 ed out. Let her carry the banner while you 
 fall back a little. Watch over her, make 
 things easy for her, smooth the little diffi- 
 culties out of her way, be on hand when she 
 comes home tired and excited to soothe 
 her to rest and calm; counsel her how to 
 pick her way through the snares that are 
 laid for youth and beauty, be a refuge where 
 she can run when the rainy weather sets 
 in, which is sure to fall in the summer time 
 of youth, somewhere and somehow. In 
 short, be just as sympathetic and chummy 
 and sociable as possible, but at the same 
 time make your daughter feel that you are 
 older and stronger and wiser than she, by 
 reason of your motherhood, and that next 
 to God you stand ready to shield her, to 
 guide her, to receive her in time of trouble, 
 to forgive her if she needs forgiveness, and 
 to shrive her if she needs confessing. Teach 
 her that your love can never fail, that your 
 heart is a rock and a fortress and a shield 
 for her to seek in all life's bewilderment, far 
 
94 ^o^j^tnavv^ an^ ^u^* 
 
 surer and more steadfast than any other love 
 beneath the stars can ever yield. 
 
 When I think of all it means to be a moth- 
 er I tremble to think how far short of the 
 standard the best of us fall. I would rather 
 have it said of me when I die, "She was a 
 good mother," than that men should get 
 together and exploit my deeds as poet, re- 
 former, artist or story-teller. I would rather 
 feel the dewfall of a child's loving tear upon 
 my face than wear a laureate's crown. 
 
 Don't be critical, or censorious, or re- 
 served with your daughters; don't hold 
 them far ofif and cultivate respect and fear 
 rather than love; don't be self-assertive and 
 cause them to feel their dependence upon 
 you in an unpleasant way; don't be too 
 eager to keep them in the background in 
 little things relating to the home, such as 
 giving them no voice in the arrangement 
 of the room and the domestic regulations. 
 Indeed, I have known more attrition caused 
 in the home circle from this last mentioned 
 point of difference between mother and 
 daughters than almost any other. I know 
 a family, presided over by a good, unselfish 
 woman, who, as a mother, is the most com- 
 plete failure I ever ran across. Her daugh- 
 
^oaemavt^ anb ^u^* 95 
 
 ter is of mature age and pronounced opin- 
 ions, but she is kept in the background and 
 her Hfe rendered most unhappy by the dom- 
 inant will of the mother whose old-fashioned 
 views as to running the house are directly 
 opposed to more modern customs. The two 
 wrangle continually over the establishment 
 of a dinner hour, the disposal of a light, the 
 drapery of a window, the adjustment of fur- 
 niture, until there is less harmony under the 
 roof than there is music in a hurdy-gurdy. 
 How much better it would be if that mother 
 would yield a little to the wishes of her 
 daughter; give the latter a chance to display 
 her own taste and carry out her inclination. 
 I don't beHeve in the mothers and fathers 
 of grown-up daughters always insisting 
 upon the occupancy of the front seats and 
 the leadership of the orchestra. 
 
 The mother who can preserve the respect 
 of her children without chilling their love; 
 who can be one with them, and yet apart, 
 in the sense of guiding, aiding and consol- 
 ing, who can hold their confidence while she 
 maintains the superiority of her wisdom, is 
 the happy and successful mother. The title 
 is a sacred one, made by the chrism of 
 pain and suffering, sanctified by the hu- 
 
96 ^00^tnav\^ anlf ^u^* 
 
 inanity of Christ and set apart as one of the 
 three of earth's tenderest utterances: "Moth- 
 er, home and heaven." 
 
 r 
 
 Now that the days draw nigh for the re- 
 turn of the birds to our northern woods and 
 dales it is borne in upon me to hold a little 
 'iove feast" with the boys. You know what 
 a love feast is, if there was ever a Methodist 
 in your family. It is a good, cozy talk 
 among the brethren and sisters in regard 
 to the best way of putting down the devil, 
 and giving the good angels a chance. And if 
 there was ever need of downing the devil it 
 is in the particular instance of a boy's in- 
 humanity to birds and beasts. I have ex- 
 pressed myself as to horses, and to-day I 
 shall talk about birds. On these spring 
 mornings, when the world is enveloped in a 
 golden halo, from out of which, like angel 
 voices from the quiet depths of heaven, the 
 birds are singing their impromptu of praise, 
 imagine a lot of half-grown men and brutal 
 boys going forth with guns and sling-shots 
 to break up the concert and murder the 
 choristers. I would as soon turn a lot of 
 
sharp-shooters into a cathedral at early mass 
 to bring down the surpliced boys and the 
 chanting novices. I tell you, O race of 
 good-for-nothing fathers and mothers, 
 whom God holds directly responsible for 
 the bad boys who desecrate this beautiful 
 world, you are no more fit for the training 
 of immortal souls than a hawk is fitted to 
 teach music to a thrush. You ought to have 
 had a bear-skin and been the trainer of cubs. 
 That your boys develop into brutes and go 
 to state's prison, and perhaps die at the end 
 of a rope eventually, is nobody's fault but 
 your own. If you chance to own a horse 
 or a dog you show some care in its training, 
 but God gives you a boy and you let him 
 run wild. There is no more reason why a 
 boy should be cruel than that a properly- 
 broken colt should kick. The tendency 
 may have been born with him, but good 
 training eliminates it to a great extent, if 
 not entirely. When I was a woman and 
 lived at home, in the happy days before I 
 entered the arena to fight for bread and but- 
 ter, to say nothing of shoe leather and fuel, 
 I used to gather the village boys about me 
 every spring and try to sow the good seeds 
 
 of tenderness with one hand, while carefully 
 7 
 
98 ^0&]^tnavt3 anh ^xxe^ 
 
 eliminating the tares with the other. I of- 
 fered prizes for the best record at the end 
 of the summer. I formed classes, the mem- 
 bership of which pledged themselves, to a 
 boy, to abstain from sling-shots, to cultivate 
 the birds' nests and to withhold their hands 
 from the commission of a single deed of 
 cruelty. Many is the gallon of ice-cream 
 I have paid for to keep those youngsters 
 in the narrow path of rectitude, and many 
 is the time that I have patroled the woods 
 with my boy comrades, keeping watch over 
 the family of a blue-bird or a robin, when the 
 alarm went forth that some unregenerate 
 boy was on the rampage. All the boys 
 whom I could get to join the club I was sure 
 of, for I know the way to a boy's heart, if I 
 can only get the chance at him. For what 
 other purpose did nature turn me out a born 
 cook? And why did she make me a master 
 hand at doughnuts and turnover pies? I 
 have a large and undying faith in the boys, 
 if you will only start them right. The first 
 thing a boy needs is a good mother . He 
 can get along without a father — and I was 
 going to say without a God — for the first 
 few years of his life, but he needs a mother. 
 Not a mere nurse maid to look after his 
 
^00i^tnav^ anb ^uje* 99 
 
 clothes and see that he has plenty to eat 
 at the right intervals, but a good, sweet, 
 companionable mother, with a good, soft 
 breast for him to cry on and two arms to 
 hug him with. He needs a mother who 
 can talk with him and answer his questions, 
 who is not stern and severe, but responsive 
 and get-at-able. With such a mother our 
 boys will be gentle and our birds will be 
 safe. 
 
 Try to think, boys, what a world this 
 would be without any robins, or larks, or 
 thrushes; without any songs in the apple 
 trees getting all tangled up with the sun- 
 shine and the blossoms; without any ca- 
 naries to sing in the window, or any meadow 
 larks to whip out their flutes among the clo- 
 ver heads. If you should wake up some 
 morning and experience the ghastly silence 
 of a songless world you would want to hire 
 somebody to thrash you that you ever used 
 a sling-shot. Do you remember the minis- 
 ter down New York way whom they fined 
 for shooting robins? I never wanted to get 
 up on a mountain top so much in all my 
 life and shout glory as I did over that ver- 
 dict. I have heard of immorality among 
 ministers, and I have heard of hypocrisy 
 
100 ^o&ietnavi^ anb Jlu^* 
 
 and lying and all sorts of offenses against 
 good taste and morals, but I never heard 
 of anything so contemptibly and causelessly 
 mean as for one of God's especial teachers 
 to get up in the morning, put on top boots, 
 cross the river in the sunshine and dew of 
 early morning, lift his gun, take deliberate 
 aim and bring down a robin. If I was the 
 Lord I would never forgive it. Men are not 
 to blame sometimes when their blood gets 
 too warm and they do impetuous things, but 
 to deliberately descend to the ignominy of 
 shooting a robin and calling it sport is to 
 sink too low for justification. 
 
 Whatever else you be, boys, be brave. 
 If you must sail in and fight, if your super- 
 fluous zeal is too much for you, go out in 
 the field and square off at a bull. There is 
 some glory in whipping anything bigger and 
 stronger than yourself, but to show fight 
 to a bird is a little too much like sneaking 
 out and tripping up a cripple in the dark. 
 I am going to write down a verse for you 
 to write in your copy books this very day, 
 and then good-night to you : 
 
 "The bravest are the tenderest; 
 The loving are the daring." 
 
^O0^tnavi^ ant> ^w^* loi 
 
 Isn't it heavenly to see the primrose 
 around again? And the daffodils? And 
 the hyacinths? Last night I went home with 
 a rose in my button which cost me just five 
 cents. At that rate, by careful abstaining 
 from anything more expensive than a ten- 
 cent lunch, one can go on wearing roses un- 
 til next November. The robins have come 
 back, too, and this morning a couple of them 
 awoke me with their "Cheer-up" song. The 
 indications are that they are prospecting for 
 spring housekeeping. If the cat kills them 
 I shall kill the cat. I shall close my eyes 
 and do the deed in the name of mercy, for I 
 detest cats, both two-legged and four- 
 legged, and I love robins both feathered and 
 human. 
 
 I wonder why it is that the average 
 woman can walk and talk, breathe and 
 laugh, suffer and cry, and finally die and be 
 buried, and all the way through make such 
 a botch of her life! Why is it that we fall 
 in love, so many of us, just on the verge of 
 
102 ^jcr^^mtttry antf ^u^* 
 
 a life that opens like a summer's day, and 
 change that life thereby, as a June morning 
 is changed when great clouds rush into the 
 sky and obscure the sun? Why are girls so 
 proud to parade an engagement ring upon 
 their finger, when the diamond is too often 
 the danger-light thrown out above the 
 breakers? Now and then, about as rarely as 
 one picks up a ruby on the highway, or finds 
 an enchanted swan circling over the duck 
 pond, there is a happy marriage — at least 
 such is the popular inference — as to the ab- 
 solute certainty of the statement, ask the 
 skeleton closet. I have lived a varied sort of 
 life. I have wandered to and fro over the 
 earth to some extent; I have known a great 
 many people, and have found happiness in 
 many ways, but looking back over all the 
 path to-night and turning my little bull's-eye 
 lantern of experience up to the present mo- 
 ment, I can neither remember nor record a 
 dozen truly happy marriages. What consti- 
 tutes happiness? Peace. What brings peace? 
 Content. Who is contented? Not you and 
 not I. What man or woman of all whom we 
 know can we bring out into the full light 
 of day and say of them, "Behold the con- 
 tented one! The restful one! The happy 
 
^0&^mavvi antf glu:e* io3 
 
 pair!" You, my dear, have attained the am- 
 bition of your youthful dreams. You have 
 married a man who dresses you splendid- 
 ly, who gives you diamonds and never mur- 
 murs when the bills come in. But are you 
 happy? Do you never walk to and fro with 
 the restless countess in the sad old ballad, 
 dreaming of "Alan Percy?" Do you never, 
 when all is still, go down into that cemetery 
 where life's "might have beens" lie buried 
 in graves kept green forever with your tears, 
 and walk and dream alone? And you, my 
 friend, have married the man of your choice. 
 Is there nothing in the handsome exterior 
 that palls a bit now and then when you find 
 how sordid and meager the soul is behind 
 the smile you used to think so charming? 
 Do you never find scorn creeping into your 
 heart in place of adoration when you mark 
 the unpaid bills and the shiftless endeavor 
 that strew his idle way? And you, sir, have 
 a merry and a pretty wife and the world calls 
 you a lucky fellow. How many know of the 
 sharp tongue that underlies her laughter and 
 the feather-filled head that never yet has do- 
 nated an earnest thought to the domestic 
 economy? And you, my good sir, have mar- 
 ried a blue stocking in the old acceptance 
 
104 ^o^^maru txnlf ^we* 
 
 of the term. She can swing off a leader 
 or make a speech on a rostrum at short no- 
 tice, but how would you like to rise right up 
 here, poor dear, and tell just what comfort 
 lies in being mated to a superior being who 
 busies herself with work which shall be re- 
 membered perhaps when the dust on the 
 center table, the holes in your stockings, the 
 discomfort of the larder, and the untidiness 
 of the household are forgotten? And you, 
 my good fellow, have married a woman of 
 "good form." She never does an indiscreet 
 thing. She is "icily faultless" and splendidly 
 stupid. She has the neck of a swan, the 
 arms of a goddess, the foot of a patrician, 
 and the soul of a mouse! The scent of a 
 wayside lilac, perhaps, is sadder than tears 
 to you, old comrade, when you look back 
 across the years and see again the sweet 
 dead face of one you trifled with, or whom 
 you deserted for this woman with heart and 
 body of snow, a purse filled with gold and 
 a brain filled with feathers. 
 
 ^ 
 
 There is entire hopelessness to many 
 women in the blank monotony of life after 
 
^0&i^tnavvi atib ^w^* 105 
 
 youth is past. An emotional nature, mercu- 
 rial and restless, full of aspirations and long- 
 ings, as the trees this perfect month are full 
 of blossoms, and, like the trees, bearing a 
 thousand blooms to one fruition, finds the 
 destiny prepared for it almost unendurable, 
 and often longs for death that shall end all. 
 Because poverty grinds and hosts of menial 
 duties accumulate, because the walls of an 
 unquiet home, made unlovely perhaps by 
 skeletons that no skill can quite conceal, 
 close like a dungeon upon hope and all the 
 sweet promises of youth, bright natures 
 grow morose and bitter, warm hearts chill 
 into apathy and gloom, and sunny brows 
 darken under the cloud of almost perpetual 
 irritability and discontent. It is useless to 
 preach sermons to such cases — as useless 
 as to read a book of etiquette in a prison 
 ward or comfort the victims of a railroad dis- 
 aster with a treatise upon reform in the 
 management of roads. The worn, the 
 wasted, the erring, and the cruelly maimed 
 lie thick about us. Our business is to en- 
 courage, to love, to bind up, and cheer. 
 God, in His own time, shall lift the discon- 
 tented head above the power of conspiring 
 cares to vex. It is for us to lend a helping 
 
106 Jlxx^^tnttru <^it^r ^«^* 
 
 hand down here where the "slough of de- 
 spond"is deepest. When tides forget to obey 
 the moon, or leaves to answer the will of the 
 wind, then, and not sooner, shall these rest- 
 less hearts of ours learn to be still, whatso- 
 ever destinies confront, or limitations 
 thwart. In looking upon the lives of some 
 women, the mother of six children, for in- 
 stance, who takes boarders and keeps no 
 help ; the widow supporting her little brood 
 by endless drudgeries; the big-hearted 
 woman in whom the frolicsomeness and wit 
 of girlhood die hard amid the sordid mis- 
 eries of a poverty-stricken life ; the sensitive, 
 poetic soul, doomed to uncongenial com- 
 panionships and the criticisms and ridicule 
 of the unfriendly — I am reminded of the 
 score of eagles I saw lately, chained in a 
 dusty inclosure of Central Park. With 
 cHpped wings, and grand, homesick eyes, 
 they sat disconsolate upon their perches, 
 and moped the hours away. Would any 
 sane being have reviled those sorry beings 
 for a lack of spirit? Would not the gentle- 
 hearted spectator have proffered a handful 
 of fresh leaves rather, and turned away in 
 pity that sympathy could do no more? 
 For these unhappy sisters of mine, the dis- 
 
contented, yearning "Marthas," troubled 
 with many cares, wherever my letter may 
 find them between the great seas, I have a 
 word of comfort in my heart to-day. In the 
 first place, do not think, because you so 
 often fall into irritability and impatient 
 speech, that God despises you as a sinner. 
 He understands, if friend, husband, or 
 neighbor do not. Strive not to yield to 
 fretfulness then, but, when overcome by it, 
 remember always God understands it all. 
 You may be able to see no light in all the 
 shrouded way, no Hfting of the shadow, no 
 promise of the dawn; but rest assured, how- 
 ever long the probation, the infinite content 
 of Heaven awaits us very soon, if we strive 
 as much as lies within us to overcome the 
 infirmities of our temper, and keep our faces 
 set towards the shining of His love. I know, 
 dear heart, indeed I do, that to-morrow and 
 to-morrow are just alike to hopeless fancy — 
 full of dish-washing, and drudging, and 
 back-bending toil — that the sparkle and 
 song of life were long ago merged in the 
 humdrum beat of treadmill years; but 
 through just this test is your character 
 building — through just its hard process is 
 shaping the conqueror's crown flashing with 
 
108 ^O0j^nttxvvi ixnlCf ^ne* 
 
 splendid light. As the root tarries in the 
 dark mold to burst by-and-by into radi-, 
 ant bloom above it, so your poor life is 
 hidden now to bloom to-morrow. You are 
 not wicked because you sometimes murmur, 
 but try and think so much of what is going 
 to be that you shall forget what is. The 
 Tender Heart above absolves your beaten 
 spirit from willful sin, though you are some- 
 times swept away on currents of doubt and 
 unfaith; but try and keep your eye fixed 
 upon the headlight of His love, whatever 
 currents drift you away. Remember how hu- 
 man parents deal with their children, and 
 learn a lesson of God's dealings. If my lit- 
 tle girl has the ear-ache, or any other tor- 
 menting ailment of childhood, do I stand 
 over her and exact songs and smiles? And 
 do you think that when God, for some good 
 reason of his own, lays heavy burdens upon a 
 life. He is going to demand unswerving 
 sweetness of speech or ethereal mildness of 
 temper? When I see one scrubbing who 
 was fitted to adorn the drawing-room, wash- 
 ing dishes who was created an artist or a 
 genius, darning small boys' linsey pants 
 and homespun stockings who was intended 
 by nature to reign the crowned priestess of 
 
^o^etnavi^ anb ^u^* 109 
 
 some high vocation; when I mark the fur- 
 rows and zigzag footprints that an army of 
 besieging cares have left on the cheek that 
 in girlhood outblushed the wayside rose, or 
 note how the hands that once drew divinest 
 music from obedient keys have twisted and 
 warped in the performance of homely duties, 
 I feel impelled to kiss the faded cheek with 
 a love surpassing a lover's, to fold the poor 
 hands in a reverent grasp, for I tell you, 
 however often she may faint and falter by 
 the way, however "fretty," and worn, and 
 peevish she may become, the woman who 
 perseveres in the performance of uncon- 
 genial duties, who struggles through the 
 flatness of monotonous drudgeries, con- 
 quering adverse circumstances, poverty, and 
 destiny, by patience, love, and Christian 
 faith, is a heroine fit to rank with martyrs 
 and saints. Remember, I am not talking to 
 women who find the burdens hard to bear 
 and do not bear them ; to mere whimperers, 
 who, because the road is full of stones, sit 
 down and refuse to travel ; but to the brave, 
 true hearts who "press onward" although no 
 rose blossoms and no bird sings, content to 
 faithfully perform the task of life, hoping 
 that the fullness of time shall read the riddle 
 
110 ^0&ietnavvi antf ^i«* 
 
 of incongruous destiny. I have seen the 
 time when household work seemed newly 
 cursed — the very dew of the primal maledic- 
 tion upon it; when to charge upon the 
 dinner dishes, attack the lamps, or descend 
 into the vortex of family patching, seemed 
 to call for greater courage than average hu- 
 man nature possessed. And when I imagine 
 that shrinking carried on through dry years 
 of monotonous experience, the same formu- 
 las to be observed, the same distaste to be 
 overcome throughout a lifetime of toil, yet 
 no duty shirked, no obligation set aside, I 
 wonder if Heaven holds a crown too bright 
 for such faithful lives. 
 
 ^ 
 
 The time of the year for violets and also 
 for tramps is drawing near. Did you ever 
 stop and think just what it means to be a 
 tramp? It means no work, no money, no 
 home, no shelter, no friends. Nobody in all 
 the world to care whether you live or die like 
 a dog by the roadside. It means no heaven 
 for such rags to crawl into, no grave to hide 
 them out of sight and no hand stretched out 
 in all the world to give the greeting and the 
 
good-by of love. It means nobody in all the 
 world to feel any interest in you and no 
 spot in all the world to call your own, not 
 even the mud wherein your vagrant foot- 
 print falls, no prospect ahead, and no link 
 unbroken to bind you to the past. I tell 
 you, when we sit down and figure out just 
 what the term means, it will not be quite so 
 easy next time the wretched tramp calls at 
 our door to set the dog upon him or turn him 
 empty-handed away. Let them work, you 
 say. Look here, my good friend, do you 
 know how absolutely impossible a thing it is 
 getting to be in this overcrowded country for 
 even a willing man to find work? It used to 
 be that "every dog had his day," but the dogs 
 far outnumber the days in free America. I 
 know well educated, competent men who 
 have been out of employment for months 
 and years. I know brave and earnest women, 
 with little children to support, who have 
 worn beaten paths from place to place seek- 
 ing, not charity, but honest employment, 
 and failed to find it. What chance is there 
 for a ragged tramp when such as these fail? 
 Remember, once in a while, if you can, that 
 the most grizzled and wretched tramp that 
 ever plodded his way to a pauper's grave 
 
112 ^a^^ntarjj attlf ^u^* 
 
 was once a child and cradled in arms per- 
 haps as fond as those that enfolded you and 
 me. Remember that your mother and his 
 were made sisters by the pangs of maternal 
 pain, and perhaps in the heaven from which 
 the saintly eyes of your mother are watching 
 for you his mother is looking out for him. 
 Perhaps — who knows? — the footfall of the 
 ragged and despised tramp shall gain upon 
 yours and find the gate of deliverance first, 
 in spite of your money and your pride. 
 
 ^ 
 
 THE BROOK. 
 
 Lifting its chalice of sun-kiseed foam 
 
 Far up the heights where the wild winds roam. 
 
 Weaving a web of shadow and sheen 
 
 In lowland meadows of dewy green. 
 
 Murmuring over the mossy stones, 
 In cool green dells where the gold bee drones, 
 Sudden and swift the showery fall. 
 Startling the wood bird's madrigal. 
 
 Orbing itself in a crystal lake 
 Set round with thickets of tangled brake. 
 In waveless calm, an emerald stone. 
 In the lap of the dusky forest thrown. 
 
^00etnavvi anh ^u^^ 113 
 
 Silver flakes of tremulous light 
 Showering down from the fields of night, 
 Where the great white stars like lilies glow — 
 Tossed on its tide as feathery snow. 
 
 Hastening onward through troubled ways. 
 Forgotten for aye its woodland days, 
 Sullen and silent its banks beside 
 The free brook wanders, a mighty tide. 
 
 Beyond where the forest's purple rim 
 Belts the horizon, hazy and dim, 
 Thundering down from the frowning steeps, 
 Into the arms of the sea it leaps. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Did it ever strike you, I wonder, this 
 marvel of our individuality? Alone we are 
 born, alone we live, alone we die, alone we 
 pay the penalty or reap the reward of our 
 evil or well doing. In the troubles that as- 
 sail us we stand singly, however many coun- 
 cillors may flock to the door of our tent. 
 Not one in all the world, the nearest, the 
 dearest or the best, can bear one pang of 
 life's experience for us, love us as they may. 
 We often hear a mother say: "My child 
 is so headstrong; she will not take my ad- 
 vice ; she will go her own way." Of course 
 
 8 
 
114 ^0&jetnavvi an^ ^ne* 
 
 she will, and she will not, simply because in- 
 dividual tact is the law of all experience. It 
 is not being headstrong, it is merely ful- 
 filling destiny. 
 
 In the fight we wage we do not fight by 
 platoons or squads, under a common leader, 
 a thousand at a charge. We enter the lists 
 one by one and fight single handed. We 
 choose our own colors and there is little of 
 pageantry or show. When we fall we fall 
 as travelers disappear who walk across a 
 coast that is honeycombed with quicksand. 
 We vanish, not in crowds like men who are 
 jostled out of life by earthquakes or flooded 
 like rats by tidal waves, but we slowly suc- 
 cumb to the inevitable in solitudes where 
 only the stars watch us and the spaces of a 
 dim, unsounded sea catch the fret of our 
 mortal moan. 
 
 I have always thought that I should love 
 to have the world come to an end, with a 
 grand final bang, while I was yet living and 
 sentient on the surface. I would like to be 
 flashed out of being in the conglomerate of 
 a mighty swarm, like the covey of birds a 
 huntsman's rifle brings down or the multi- 
 tude a Pompeiian doom overtakes. Such 
 dying would be like riding out of an elec- 
 
^a^^ntartj anh ^u^* us 
 
 trie-lighted station, by the car full, rather 
 than sneaking a place on the back platform 
 like a tramp. But after all, death would not 
 lose its awful individuality even then. Mar- 
 shal the whole world, and aim a single bul- 
 let at a hundred million souls, with power to 
 still use each pulse beat in the same rifle 
 flash of time, yet each man would die alone. 
 There is one final lesson to be gained 
 through the doleful contemplation of the 
 world's flood-tide of sorrow, and that is the 
 lesson of how to bear our troubles so as to 
 react as little as possible upon those with 
 whom life throws us in daily contact. Be- 
 cause the gobhn bee has stung our own 
 souls, shall we seek to share the pain of its 
 stateless sting with all we meet? No more 
 than we should endeavor to carry contagion 
 in our garments or put poison in our neigh- 
 bor's well. I knew a man once, a gallant, 
 light-hearted soldier, who honored the blue 
 and brass of his country's uniform by wear- 
 ing it. An awful sorrow suddenly smote his 
 life, like an Indian sortie from an ambush. 
 Wife and children were swept from his 
 arms by a swift disaster and he was left 
 alone. His friends said: "He is a wrecked 
 man! He will never lift his head again!" 
 
116 ^00^ntaru antr ^ue^ 
 
 How did he fulfill this prophecy of woe? He 
 entered the chamber of his darkened home 
 and denied himself to everyone. He neither 
 ate nor slept. He fought by himself a great- 
 er battle than call of bugle ever summoned 
 to any field. He mastered his own soul, 
 and emerged from that chamber after a 
 certain number of days a conqueror over 
 his own sorrow. His smile was as ready, 
 his heart as tender, his genial speech as wel- 
 come at home and abroad as it had ever 
 been, and only when the gobhn bee of mem- 
 ory stung him in the silence of the compan- 
 ionless night did he live over again the ex- 
 perience of his sorrow. None knew when 
 that sting came, or how it tarried; he bore 
 it silently like a soldier and a man. The 
 trifling world called him light of love and 
 easily consoled, but I think he was a grand, 
 unselfish hero, a benefactor rather than a 
 destroyer of mankind. 
 
 When we get so that we can hide our sor- 
 row in a smile we attain that attitude that 
 brings us closest to the divine. The man or 
 the woman who goes up and down the ways 
 of the world with a groan on his lips and a 
 weed on his arm is an infliction worse than 
 an out of tune hand organ. If the bee 
 
^00i^tnavvi anh ^w«* ii7 
 
 stings, hold still and bear the hurt by your- 
 self as best you may, but don't talk it over 
 with everyone you meet, like an old woman 
 petitioning a recipe for a bad cough and 
 flaunting her physical ailments forever in 
 your face. When you have bright things to 
 talk about and comforting things to say, 
 talk; otherwise hold your peace. The rea- 
 son, I think, why animals are never wrinkled 
 and drawn of feature and gray like mankind 
 is because they cannot talk. If they had the 
 power of speech they would go around as 
 humans do and disseminate unpleasant top- 
 ics, as idle winds start thistle pollen. Silence 
 is golden when you can find nothing bet- 
 ter to do than to clamor your own troubles ; 
 speech only is blessed when, like a bird, it 
 evolves a song or wings a feathered hope. 
 
 It seems hardly the thing to do, perhaps, 
 to single out the unhappy folks in a present 
 world so full of jollity and talk with them 
 awhile to-day. This bright autumn weather 
 is so crowded with sights and sounds to 
 dazzle and enchant that to obtrude the leaf 
 of rue within the garland or breathe a 
 minor tone into the music seems almost out 
 of place. And yet, for some reason or other, 
 as I sit here at my desk to-day, the thought 
 
118 ^o&ietnavt^ antf ^we* 
 
 of the hearts that are heavy in the midst of 
 all the world's fair pageant, and the eyes 
 that cannot see the banners by reason of 
 their tears, come to me with a strong and 
 resistless force. 
 
 Alas, for the goblin bee that stings, yet 
 all too often may not "state its sting" ! We 
 walk with a crowd, and yet are conscious 
 that our w^ay is not theirs. It lies apart, 
 we know not why, and evermore dips into 
 shadow and threads the dark defiles of 
 gloom. There are so many more reasons 
 for being sorry than for being glad, we 
 think. Try to count the causes for laugh- 
 ter, and then, over against them, set the 
 reasons for sorrow and see which way the 
 balance falls. I take my seat on a bench 
 out at the big show and watch the crowd 
 for an hour. Do I see many faces that do 
 not bear the scar of the "goblin bee"? From 
 the little four-year-old who is bitterly cry- 
 ing because somebody has jostled its toy 
 from its hand, to the woman whose eyes are 
 sunken with sorrow because death has 
 jostled the one whom she loved into his 
 grave, everybody who passes, with but few 
 exceptions, shows the scar of that stateless 
 sting. 
 
^Cf&i^tnavvi anb ilu^* ii9 
 
 Look at my window-garden, yonder! 
 The sunshine, stealing in from the south, 
 has wooed a dozen pansies into bloom — 
 "Johnny-jump-ups," they used to call them 
 when I was a girl. How bright and cheery 
 and chatty they look. We have those sort 
 of faces (some of us) every day about our 
 breakfast tables. The little folks, God bless 
 'em! with their shining hair, their bright 
 eyes, and the soft velvet of their cheeks, are 
 the blessed heartsease of our home. And 
 there is a fuchsia, turbaned like a Turk, be- 
 hind the pansies. Just such sumptuous, 
 graceful women we see every day. Like the 
 fuchsia, they are beautiful and that is all. 
 They yield no fragrance. They attract the 
 eye but fail to reach the heart. Who 
 wouldn't rather have ^mignonette growing 
 in the window? There is a yellow blossom 
 in the window that reminds one of the pa- 
 tient shining of certain homely souls I know, 
 making sunshine in humble homes; cheer- 
 ful old maid aunts, sweet-hearted elder sis- 
 ters, yielding the honey of their hearts to 
 others. A cluster of fading violets sets me 
 
120 ^o^etnavvi anb |lu^* 
 
 thinking of frail invalids and the host of 
 "shut-in" ones, whose delicate and dying 
 beauty fills our eyes with unstayed tears and 
 our hearts with the shadow of coming sor- 
 row. 
 
 There are gates that swing within your 
 life and mine from day to day, letting in rare 
 opportunities that tarry but a moment and 
 are gone, like travelers bound for points re- 
 mote. There is the opportunity to resist 
 the temptation to do a mean thing; improve 
 it, for it is in a hurry, like a man whose ticket 
 is bought and whose time is up. It won't 
 be back this way, either, for opportunities 
 for good are not like tourists who travel on 
 return tickets. There is the opportunity to 
 say a pleasant word to your wife, sir, or you, 
 madam, to your husband, instead of venting 
 your temper and your "nerves" upon each 
 other. Love's opportunity travels by light- 
 ning express and has no time to dawdle 
 around the waiting-room. If you improve 
 it at all it must be while the gate swings to 
 let it through. 
 
^a^^mat^U anh $lu^* 121 
 
 My dear, let me implore you, whatever 
 else you let go, hold on to your enthusiasm. 
 Grow old if you must; grow white-headed 
 and bent and care-furrowed, if such must 
 needs be the process of years, but don't grow 
 to be a stick. If you must pass on from the 
 green time of your freshness, change into 
 sweet hay and keep your fragrance. If the 
 cage must grow rusty and lose its bright- 
 ness, there is a bird within, that it were a 
 pity to strangle to keep it from singing to 
 the end. I don't care how successful, or 
 rich, or learned a man becomes, if he main- 
 tains a grim repression of all romance and 
 enthusiasm, and what some hard old 
 "Gradgrinds" call the "nonsense" within 
 him, he is nothing more than a fine cage 
 with a dead bird in it. When I hear a per- 
 son say of another, "Oh, he is a substantial 
 fellow; no nonsense about him!" I picture 
 a gold-fish in a glass globe. A glittering 
 cuticle that covers anything so bloodless as 
 the anatomy of a fish is not worth much. 
 There are a good many types of men to be 
 detected, but the bloodless, emotionless, 
 heart-paralytic, is the worst. Polish up a 
 golden ball all you like. It may ornament 
 your mantel, or serve as a useless bit of 
 
122 ^jcr^^maru ttnb ^ne* 
 
 glitter in some corner, but when you begin 
 to feel hungry and faint, and in need of so- 
 lace and cheer, you will turn from the golden 
 ball and pick up the veriest old rusty coat 
 apple from an orchard's windfall, that has 
 mellowed under summer noon, and sweet- 
 ened in summer rains and dews, praising 
 God for its flavor and its juices, even if you 
 can buy forty bushels of its counterpart, for 
 the price of one of your polished golden 
 balls. Cultivate the "nonsense" in you, 
 then, if it tends to enthusiasm of the right 
 sort. It is the sympathy we get from peo- 
 ple, the heartsomeness and cheer that keep 
 our souls nourished, rather than the mere 
 dazzle of intellectual attainment, or the 
 greatness of any worldly achievement. 
 Heart rather than head ; nature rather than 
 art; genuineness rather than pretense; ro- 
 mance rather than absolute reaHsm; enthu- 
 siasm rather than petrifaction, will make a 
 man rather than a gold fish, a juicy apple 
 rather than a ball of metallic and glittering 
 nothingness. 
 
 We were gathered at the Norfolk Sta- 
 tion awaiting the train that was to carry us 
 
^OiSietnavvi anb ^w^* 
 
 123 
 
 over the marshes to Virginia Beach and the 
 sea. The crowd that surrounded us was 
 very different from a Chicago crowd. There 
 was no pushing, no bold assertiveness, no 
 elbows. There were lots of pretty women, 
 and as for me everybody knows I simply 
 adore the open sky, a tree in blossom and a 
 pretty woman. There were young girls with 
 velvety brown eyes within whose dusky 
 shadows one might look fathom deep as in- 
 to a well of limpid water; girls with blue 
 eyes Hke fringed gentians; women with 
 grand free curves of figure that would have 
 made Hebe look commonplace; women with 
 shapely shoulders and long, aristocratic 
 hands, tinted at the finger-tips as though 
 fresh from picking ripe strawberries; girls 
 all in white (for the day was warm), like 
 June lilies; women with snowy teeth and 
 adorable smiles to disclose them; little tots 
 of girls with braided hair and soft, question- 
 ing eyes ; queenly girls, like tulips in bloom, 
 all chatting together in subdued but merry 
 tones and laughing as deUcately and airily 
 as thrushes sing. Oh, I lost my heart to 
 you, my pretty southern maidens, and count 
 the time well spent I devoted to the contem- 
 
124 ^o&jetnav^ antf ^xxe^ 
 
 plation of your many graces away down in 
 that little station by the torrid bay. 
 
 If I was a liar and wanted to reform I 
 shouldn't quit lying all at once. I would 
 start out with a covenant to occasionally tell 
 the truth. By and by this spasmodic truth- 
 telling, like the grain blown by the wind 
 among stones, would, perhaps, yield suf- 
 ficient harvest to send me not quite empty- 
 handed up to St. Peter's gate. If I drank 
 whisky I would commence to reform by 
 swearing ofif on one glass out of three, and 
 perhaps the manhood within me, having so 
 much more chance to grow, would elbow its 
 way into heaven. If I was a gossip I would 
 try to hold my tongue from speaking evil 
 half the time, and in that blissful interval 
 perhaps my dwarfed soul would get a start 
 skyward. It is not by sudden achievement 
 that we consummate a long journey. It is 
 step by step and mile by mile over a stony 
 road that brings us to the goal, and it is 
 not by mere resolving that we renounce the 
 old and attain unto the new. He who travels 
 but a few steps and keeps his face heaven- 
 
ward is on the way, and every small decision 
 for the right, faithfully adhered to, is a no- 
 table step toward a consummated journey. 
 
 I am often struck with the selfishness dis- 
 played by people who are fortunate enough 
 to be provided with umbrellas in time of sud- 
 den showers. They calmly behold hosts of 
 unhappy beings battling their way through 
 the storm, drenched to the bone, and with 
 ruined garments, yet never think of saying, 
 "Accept a share of my umbrella," or "Walk 
 with me as far as our ways He together." 
 If I should hear such a speech I might drop 
 senseless with surprise, but all the same I 
 should hail it as the bugle note that heralded 
 a new era of courteous kindness. 
 
 We are not put into the world to be sus- 
 picious of one another. We were put here to 
 make the world pleasanter for our tarrying, 
 and to cultivate a fellowship with souls. If 
 the guests at a mountain inn, sojourning to- 
 gether for a stormy night, spend the time in 
 reviling one another, or in calling attention 
 to each other's blemishes, we write them 
 down as snobs; but what shall we call the 
 tenants of transitory time who spend the 
 
126 ^00ictnavi^ antr ^uje* 
 
 span of mortal life in doing all they can to 
 make one another uncomfortable? We have 
 only a watch in the night to tarry together ; 
 let us try to make that hour a profitable one 
 and a pleasant memory for others when we 
 have journeyed on. 
 
 I have often wondered how Christian peo- 
 ple got round the gospel command, "Love 
 thy neighbor as thyself." It doesn't say 
 love him (or her) after a proper introduction, 
 or if agreeable, or congenial, or of good 
 family and established reputation — it sim- 
 ply gives the command on general princi- 
 ples. I don't pretend to be good enough to 
 obey the mandate myself, for I honestly 
 think it is a species of hypocrisy to say you 
 love everybody. One might as well say one 
 were fond of all fruit alike, whether specked, 
 wormy or rotten. But let my good orthodox 
 professor put this in his pipe and smoke it. 
 Let him remember it next time he sees his 
 neighbor plunged into an extremity, or han- 
 dicapped by an annoyance of any kind. If 
 we love our neighbor we are bound to help 
 him, and neighbor in this sense means any- 
 one who chances to be near us, whether 
 black or white, raggedly disreputable or 
 sanctimoniously frilled. 
 
There is more selfishness perpetrated in 
 the world under guise of family ties than in 
 almost any other way. The man who does 
 good and unselfish deeds only for his own 
 children and for the immediate circle housed 
 beneath his roof, forgetful of the claims of 
 the great, tormented, harassed and strug- 
 gling world, is a selfish man and account- 
 able to heaven for a great deal of mean- 
 ness. I don't care how much he puts on his 
 children's backs, or how many luxuries he 
 surrounds them with, the Lord will not hold 
 him guiltless if he does nothing for the 
 stranger who tugs by him in the stress of 
 life's uncertain weather, or for the neighbor 
 who sits disconsolate outside his gates. 
 
 I wish that vagabond and his dog who 
 were brought before a west side justice yes- 
 terday for vagrancy would travel up my 
 way. I like that sort of thing that leads a 
 man to be faithful to his dog. It goes with- 
 out saying that the dog is faithful to the 
 man, but it is not often that the master 
 shows the same spirit to the fond and stead- 
 fast brute. If the two should journey my 
 way I think they would have one white day 
 in the calendar. Good heavens, my dear, do 
 you ever stop long enough in the midst of 
 
128 ^o^etnavvi anb ^u^* 
 
 your golf-playing and your tennis tourna- 
 ments, your yachtings and your outings to 
 think what it is to be a tramp? To be unable 
 to find a stroke of work; to be sick and 
 starved and homeless ! Like "poor Joe," to 
 be told to "move on" every time you stop to 
 rest; to eat the grudgingly given crust of 
 charity, and have no friend under the sun, 
 moon or stars but a flea-bitten dog? Did 
 you ever stop to think, my Christian friend, 
 that that tramp is a neighbor whom you are 
 to love? And if you are going to love him 
 I will love his dog! No doubt the latter is 
 the better man of the two. 
 
 Did you ever read of a battle siege in 
 olden times? There were the full-armored 
 warriors, resplendent in shining metal and 
 plumed crests; there were the mighty 
 battering rams, and the flash of battle axes, 
 the thunder of advancing feet and the trum- 
 pet call before the gates. But more potent 
 than all else in the doomed city's destruc- 
 tion was the secret work of the sappers and 
 miners — the patient forces which wrought 
 their work out of sight and hearing. And 
 
I have been thinking to-night, as I sit here, 
 where the firehght weaves its deHcate tapes- 
 try within the beautiful walls of home, that 
 it is not going to be the pompous ones who 
 shall march triumphant at last into the "City 
 of Gold," but they who have worked pa- 
 tiently and humbly out of sight and with 
 no meed of praise. The man who has held 
 to the dictates of his own conscience, not 
 conforming to the company he marched 
 with; the man who has dared to be himself 
 in a world where men are labeled in lots; 
 the man who has held it high honor to sufifer 
 for a principle or to be loyal to an unpopular 
 friend or cause ; the man who has erected a 
 standard made up between his own heart 
 and heaven, and, independent of the world's 
 verdict of praise or blame, followed it to 
 the end, is going to wear a crown by and 
 by, when the epauletted general and the 
 pompous staf¥ are forgotten. Prayer is not 
 always a genuflexion and an address. It is 
 oftener hard work. The farmer praying at 
 his weeds, the pilot praying from every 
 spoke of his wheel, the mother whose daily 
 life of unselfish toil and far-reaching influ- 
 ence is a prayer, do 'more to stir the divine 
 
 heart, to keep the world's prow headed for 
 9 
 
130 
 
 ^Cf&^tnavvi anb ^we* 
 
 heaven than half the solicitations or apolo- 
 getic addresses made in our churches under 
 the name of prayer. 
 
 ^ 
 
 When you and I get rich, my dear, as 
 some day we surely shall, what are we going 
 to do with all our money? We will hunt up 
 some of the improvident ones, those who 
 could never make the two ends meet, those 
 who through good heartedness, or lack of 
 forethought or unselfish desire to make 
 other folks happy, have never laid by a cent, 
 and we will give those silly people such a 
 good time they will carry its impress all 
 through their after lives, as a pat of butter 
 carries the print. We will slyly pay the 
 bills for improvident ones who have grown 
 gray in the efifort to make a decent funeral 
 for dead horses. They shall forget how to 
 spell "care" and their new and happy dia- 
 lect shall know no such words as "monthly 
 payments," "righteous dues" or "can't afford 
 it." I am convinced that as a rule it is not 
 the sweet-hearted people who take on this 
 world's gain. There is many a poor beggar 
 with not a change of linen to his back who 
 
^00«ntctru anb Jlu^* i3i 
 
 would make a more royal host, had the 
 smiling face of fortune turned his way, than 
 the rightful owner of the vast estates at 
 whose gate he stands and begs. The big 
 hearts too often go with the empty purse, 
 and the little, wizened, skin-flint souls, that 
 it would take a thousand of to crowd the 
 passage through the eye of a needle, gain all 
 the golden favors of the god of plenty. 
 
 After dinner I said to the little folks, "Be- 
 hold, I will buy me a pair of stockings and 
 hire a bathing suit, and the afternoon shall 
 be devoted to froHc and thee." So we went 
 to the small booth, where an exceedingly 
 meek young man sold ginger pop and fancy 
 shells, and paralyzed him with a demand for 
 ladies' hose. He didn't know what we meant 
 until I came out boldly and unblushingly 
 and asked for women's stockings. He 
 said he didn't keep 'em. "Have you a 
 mother?" said I. "No." "Have you a sis- 
 ter? Or is there a nearer one yet and a 
 dearer, from whom I could buy or borrow 
 a pair of stockings that I may go in bath- 
 ing?" He didn't understand that either, but 
 
132 ^a^^emttr^ antf ^w^* 
 
 finally, with the aid of ktcre, I made the 
 matter clear so that he got me a pair of 
 canary-striped woolen hose, evidently laid 
 by for some farmer's winter use, and I 
 bought them for a sum that made his eyes 
 grow dim with rapture. We went down to 
 the beach, and after a season of prayer with 
 the young person to induce her to put on 
 some horrid tights, we all went in and en- 
 joyed such a dip as only salt water yields. 
 In the midst of it we had to go on shore 
 several times to stand the boy on his head 
 and pump the ocean out of him, as he was 
 constantly getting drowned in the surf, and 
 one of my expensive and expansive stock- 
 ings was captured out at sea and brought 
 back by a son of BeHal, who seemed greatly 
 affected by its size, but in spite of such small 
 drawbacks we had a glorious time. 
 
 "What is the matter, my darling?" asked 
 John, the newly married, to the wife of his 
 bosom. 
 
 "Nothing whatever," replied Mrs. John. 
 
 *'But you look like a funeral," exclaimed 
 he. 
 
Jt00^ntarij anh ^ne* 133 
 
 "I am not aware that I look more than 
 usually unamiable; I certainly never felt 
 better," replied his wife, placidly folding 
 down meanwhile the hem to a distracting 
 little apron she is making. John seizes his 
 hat, pushes it down over his eyes and rushes 
 forth distracted with the conjecture as to 
 what terrible thing he has been guilty of to 
 make his wife look so like an injured mar- 
 tyr. For the time being love is dead, joy 
 wiped from the face of the earth, hope cru- 
 cified and peace assassinated, all because of 
 bottled thunder. A word would have ex- 
 plained all, a look has ruined everything. 
 
 "Don't put on your fresh muslin this 
 afternoon," suggests the prudent mother. 
 
 "But why not?" repHed the sprightly Jane; 
 "it is the only endurable dress this warm 
 weather." 
 
 "Oh, very well, do as you Hke, of course," 
 meekly replied the parent in a tone that 
 suggests a serpent's fang, a hoary head and 
 a broken heart all in one. 
 
 Now, in my opinion it is not conducive to 
 domestic harmony to have too much of this 
 sort of repression. It is like living in an 
 exhaust chamber. One would be certain to 
 choke up and burst very soon. Self-con- 
 
134 ^0&etnavi^ anb ^ne* 
 
 trol does not consist in forever keeping 
 one's mouth shut, alone. A look, a sneer, 
 a drooping mouth, a tilted nose, will do as 
 much mischief as a loosened tongue. Why 
 I should go about like a disagreeable old 
 martyr or like a sneering Saul of Tarsus, 
 and call myself pleasant to live with, sim- 
 ply because I don't talk, is something not 
 easily understood. 
 
 I would far rather be a target for flying 
 saucepans every time I popped -my head 
 into the kitchen than have a cook there 
 who never says a word, but is sullen and 
 ugly enough to carve me up like cold meat. 
 I would rather be a constant attendant at 
 funerals, a nurse in a fever-ward, a girl in a 
 circus, or a street car horse, than live with 
 proper folks who never make blunders, or 
 commit indiscretions either of speech or 
 manner, but look at you every time you 
 sneeze as though your featherheadedness 
 was the only thing that made life unbeara- 
 ble. Out with it then if you have cause for 
 offense. Don't let the clouds hang a single 
 hour, but turn on the weather faucet and let 
 it rain. If your neighbor has insulted you, 
 either ask her why or ignore it. Ten to one 
 the fancied insult is only a wind cloud, and 
 
sunshine will break it away. If you feel mad 
 sail right in for a tempest and have done 
 with it. Thunder and lighten, blow and 
 hail if you want to, but don't be a non-com- 
 mittal dog-day. Bottled thunder is a bad 
 thing to keep on the family shelves. It is 
 likely to turn sour on your hands, and before 
 you get through with it, you will wish you 
 had died young. 
 
 Yonder goes a small and worthless yellow 
 dog. He is young; you can tell that from 
 the abnormal size of his paws, and a certain 
 remnant of wistful trust in human kind, 
 which displays itself in the furtive wag of his 
 tail and the cock of his limp and discouraged 
 ear. He is as absolutely friendless as any- 
 thing to which God has granted life can be. 
 Of his existence there is no thought in the 
 mind of any man or woman beneath the 
 stars. The boys grow mindful of him now 
 and then, though, and their manifested in- 
 terest has made of his life one terrible spec- 
 ter of cringing fear. He hears the hurrah 
 of their cruel chase in every tone of sudden 
 speech; he sees the menace of a blow in 
 every shadow. Do you know, my dear. 
 
136 ^0&^tnixvt^ txntf ^u^* 
 
 that I never spoke a truer word in all my 
 life than when I say that underneath the hide 
 of that forlorn and friendless little yellow 
 dog there is something more valuable than 
 beats under the broadcloth vests and silken 
 waists of many of the men and women who 
 pass him by! A grateful heart mindful of 
 the smallest kindnesses, a faithful instinct 
 which keeps dogs loyal even to cruel mas- 
 ters. I sometimes think I would rather 
 take my chances with honest dogs than with 
 half the men who own them. They may not 
 be able to pass up the stamped ticket which 
 transfers the human passenger from the 
 earthly to the celestial railroad and carries 
 him through on the passport of an immortal 
 soul; but no ticket at all is quite as good as 
 a forged or fraudulent one, as some of us 
 will find out, I am thinking, when we hand 
 up our worthless checks ! 
 
 ^ 
 
 Which would you rather be in the orches- 
 tra of human life, a flute or a trombone? 
 To be sure, the latter is heard the farthest, 
 but the quality of the flute tone reaches 
 deeper down into the soul and awakens 
 there dreams without which a man's life 
 
is like bread without leaven, or a laid fire 
 without tinder. I don't Hke noisy people, 
 do you? People who talk and bluster and 
 swagger. People who remind us of blad- 
 ders filled to the point of explosion with 
 wind. We like sensitive people, quiet- 
 voiced, deep-hearted, earnest people, 
 with the quality of the flute rather than 
 that of the fog-horn in their make-up. And 
 yet how much greater demand there is for 
 bluster than there is for force. Sometimes 
 I am inclined to think that life is a farce 
 played with an earthly setting for the de- 
 lectation of the angels, as we serve minstrel 
 shows and burlesques. It isn't the shy and 
 the timid who get the applause; the clown 
 in tinsel and the end man in cork divide 
 easy honors. And yet, thank God for 
 flutes! Thank God the orchestra isn't en- 
 tirely composed of trombones and bass 
 drums. 
 
 WHAT I MISS. 
 
 I can get used to my darling's dress 
 That hangs on the closet door; 
 
 And the little silent half-worn shoes 
 That patter no more on the floor. 
 
138 lla^^ntctru ctntr ^me* 
 
 I can get used to the hopeless blank 
 
 That greets my waking eyes, 
 As they meet the sight of the empty crib 
 
 Where no little nestling lies. 
 
 I can get used to the dreary hush, 
 In the home which my darling blest 
 
 With her prattling speech and her rippling 
 laugh, 
 Ere we laid her away to rest. 
 
 But, ah! the touch of those little hands 
 
 That wandered o'er my face. 
 Like the wavering fall of rose-leaves soft. 
 
 In some sunlit garden place. 
 
 Those dimpled caressing baby hands! 
 
 I feel them again at night. 
 And in dreams I gather them back again 
 
 From their harp in the City of Light. 
 
 My hungry heart will claim them still; 
 
 I cannot let them depart. 
 So I gather them back again in dreams 
 
 To my desolate, breaking heart. 
 
 The other day my strolling took me into 
 a second-hand furniture shop. I wanted to 
 find an ice chest. "Have you any second- 
 hand chests?" I asked of the hoary-headed 
 son of Erin who tended the place and raked 
 
in the shekels. He didn't answer a word, 
 but silently arose and beckoned me to fol- 
 low. Through ranks of withered tables 
 and bUghted chairs I picked my way until 
 my guide dived down a gruesome stairway 
 and then I stopped. Presently his head 
 emerged like a grimy Jack-in-the-box. 
 
 "Is it an ice chist yez want?" asked he. 
 There was mold on his faded cheeks and a 
 cobweb on his brow as he awaited my 
 answer. 
 
 "Must I go down there to find it?" I in- 
 quired. He replied in the affirmative. 
 
 "Old man, I will go no further," said I, 
 "but come back here and tell me the price 
 of this lovely desk." So saying, I desig- 
 nated a delightful old claw-handled, brass- 
 mounted, spider-legged piece of furniture, 
 which might have been used by Adam to 
 cast up his accounts on. There was a sug- 
 gestion of secret drawers about it that was 
 quite ravishing. The doors were oddly 
 shaped little panes of mirror glass, within 
 which I gazed pensively at a soot blemish 
 on my nose. "Is it the price of that yez d 
 be afther knowing?" said the old man, in 
 the tone of one who dealt with a harmless 
 lunatic. "I thought it was ice chists yez 
 
140 ^jcr^^mctrij anlf glu^* 
 
 was afther." "Yes," said I, drawing out 
 two long slabs as I spoke, such as were used 
 to support the shelf of the desk I remem- 
 bered in my grandmother's house. "That 
 bit of fumichoor," said the old man, gazing 
 sadly meanwhile at the grime of ages which 
 I could not rub from ofif my nose, "is more 
 than two hundred years old." He stopped 
 for a moment to see if I would believe him, 
 then went on: "Yis, ma'am, that same is 
 nearer three hundred years old, all told." 
 
 Here I gave him a look which stopped 
 him at the threshold of the fourth century. 
 
 " Yez may have it for $25," says he. 
 
 "I'll give you five," says I. 
 
 He turned away as one who found his 
 mother tongue inadequate to express the 
 deep-seated scorn of his soul. I followed. 
 
 "Did yez say twenty?" he asked stopping 
 abruptly and facing me with the blurred 
 photograph of what was once an engaging 
 smile. 
 
 "I said five," I answered. 
 
 "Well, take it thin," said he, "but it would 
 be dirt chape at fifty. It's not a day less 
 than four hun — " 
 
 "Stop," said I, "if you add another cen- 
 tury I'll only pay you two and a half for it." 
 
^o&j^tnav^ attlCf ilu-e* i4i 
 
 And so to-night it comes to pass that I 
 am writing at my new old desk. I am half 
 conscious, as my pencil glides along the 
 paper, of a laughing face, half-hidden by 
 showers of falling hair, that flickers like a 
 shadow in and out of the soft gloom that 
 enfolds me. Fingers, light as air, seem to 
 follow the motion of my own, and the ghost 
 of the mistress who thought and wrote at 
 this same desk, one, two, three, four hun- 
 dred years ago, seems whispering in my ear. 
 I wonder what will be the effect if I read to 
 that sweet, gentle woman of "ye olden time" 
 a few bits from the morning paper. 
 
 Madam, are you aware that a man kicked 
 his wife to death yesterday because she 
 failed to have his supper ready for him? 
 Are you not to be congratulated that you 
 are out of reach of this latter day develop- 
 ment of the human brute? Do you know 
 that the Blank concerts began this last 
 week, and that the melodies that throng 
 the beautiful hall yonder on the avenue are 
 like bands of singing angels charming a 
 world's sorrows to rest? Do not the gentle 
 caprices of the flutes and the swing of the 
 fiddles make even you, flake of airy noth- 
 ingness that you are! dance like a thistle- 
 
142 ^0&!^tnavt^ antr glujc* 
 
 down in a summer breeze? Madam, do 
 you know, and how does it affect you to 
 know, that there are bargain sales in town 
 where you can buy a gown for a song, and 
 a pair of all-wool blankets for the worth of 
 a dream? In your long time disembodied 
 state have you yet reached a point, I wonder, 
 when such news as this can no longer thrill 
 a woman's heart? If so, madam, you are 
 truly and undeniably dead, and your room 
 is better than your company. I bid you a 
 gentle good evening. 
 
 Among the many things I shall be glad 
 to find out some day will be why, in spite of 
 heroic effort to keep it straight, my hat 
 always gets crooked and my hair becomes 
 disordered on the march. I thoroughly de- 
 test the sight of a typical "blue-stocking," 
 or a literary woman who affects a sublime 
 superiority to appearances, and yet Mrs. 
 Jellyby was nowhere as to general de- 
 moralization of raiment compared to my 
 unfortunate self. Taking my seat in a 
 down-town restaurant the other day, I 
 found myself surrounded by half a dozen 
 
girls as bright and pretty and jolly as girls 
 go. No sooner was I seated than the whis- 
 per went round that a newspaper woman 
 had invaded the party. "Looks like one," 
 murmured the plumpest one of the lot, and 
 I could have cried. "Girls," I wanted to 
 say, "judge not by appearances. The best 
 christians sometimes have red noses, just 
 as the j oiliest literary folks have frowsy hair 
 and abandoned hats. They can't help it, my 
 dears, any more than a black cat can help 
 being somber. It is never safe to condemn 
 anybody, not even a poor, miserable scrib- 
 bler for the press, on circumstantial evi- 
 dence. You see a crooked hat, electric 
 hair, and that is all. Put on Titbottom 
 spectacles and look deeper. Perhaps you 
 will then see an anguish-stricken woman ris- 
 ing at 5 a. m. to make herself smart for 
 the day. You will note how carefully she 
 adjusts the feeble adjuncts to her toilet, how 
 she places her hat on straight and secures 
 it with a cast-iron cable! How she combs 
 out her curls and sticks a feathery kerchief 
 within her belt. Two hours later the cable 
 hat-pin has been struck by a tidal-wave and 
 swept from its anchorage; the curls have 
 degenerated into wisps of wind-tossed hay; 
 
144 ^o&jetnav^ antJr glu^* 
 
 and the kerchief? Gone as a feather is 
 gone when the summer te»mpest gets be- 
 hind it! We mean well, girls. We want 
 to look trim and slick and span. All of us 
 poor literary people do, but we can't bring it 
 about. Life is so everlastingly full, any- 
 way, that it seems preposterous to spend 
 more than half one's time in getting fixed 
 up. Sometimes I am foohsh enough to be- 
 lieve that good St. Peter, when we come 
 toiling up to his gate, won't look so much to 
 the condition of our hats and our hair as 
 he will to the way we wear our souls. If 
 they are tip-tilted and frowsy it may go a 
 little bit hard with us. Of course, it is a 
 good thing tO' be able to wear a hat straight, 
 and be remarked for your pretty hair and 
 generally pleasing appearance, but I declare 
 to you if it comes to a question of mental 
 array and soul-correction as opposed to 
 style and good form, I am willing to choose 
 the former and be laughed at now and then 
 by saucy girls." 
 
 I 
 
 That's right. Stand on shore and beat 
 him back when he attempts to make a land- 
 
^0&emav^ antf ^ne* 145 
 
 ing. If necessary, club him under water 
 and congratulate yourself that you are so 
 self-righteous and everlastingly holy that 
 nobody can get a chance to swing a club at 
 you. What is this half-de.ad thing that is 
 trying to force its way onto dry land from 
 the whelming waters of temptation and 
 misery? A rat? Oh, no; only a human 
 creature like yourself. Sin overtaken and 
 subdued by evil. He is young, perhaps, 
 and never had a mother's care or a father's 
 training. He has drifted with easy currents 
 into dangerous waters, and the devil, who 
 lurks beneath the flood, is trying to snatch 
 him down to hell! Raise your club and 
 give him a clip! The audacity of such a 
 boy trying to be anything with such a rec- 
 ord behind him ! Oh, I am sick of you all, 
 you omniverous feeders on reputation, you 
 unveilers of past records of shame! I hope 
 in my heart that if ever you get your own 
 foot on the threshold of some haven of 
 relief, after a tight tussle with danger and 
 death, an angel will stand over against 
 the doorway with a flaming sword and de- 
 mand to see your credentials. No hope of 
 tliat, though. Angels are not up to that 
 sort of work; it is left to men, and some- 
 times — God pity us all ! — to women. 
 
 10 
 
146 ^0sietnavis attii ^ns. 
 
 w 
 
 If you expect to escape criticism, girls, in 
 this world, you will put yourselves very 
 much in the plight of flower-roots that ex- 
 pect to grow without the discipline of the 
 hoe. Before we can amount to anything 
 either in blossom or as fruit, we must un- 
 dergo much honest criticism, and of such 
 we need never be afraid. A candid and 
 above-board enemy is of far -more benefit, 
 often, than a timid friend, who, seeing our 
 faults, is afraid to tell us of them. The fact 
 that boys stone certain trees and pass others 
 by, is explained when we find that the 
 stones are always thrown at the fruit-bear- 
 ing trees. And so with character; the fact 
 that we are criticized proves that we are 
 something better than scrub-oak saplings. 
 But all criticism that does not make us 
 grow, and put forth fairer and richer blos- 
 soms, is like a hoe made of wood, or a cul- 
 tivator without power applied to cause it 
 to destroy the weeds. If the unanimous 
 verdict of the community in which we live 
 asserts that we are proud, or ill-natured, or 
 lazy, we may be pretty sure that there is 
 
^xx^^ntctru an^ ^«^* 147 
 
 some cause for the application of that par- 
 ticular stroke of the hoe, and the sooner we 
 set about seeking to remedy the evil, the 
 better for our next world's crop of blos- 
 soms. Nobody (save One) was ever yet 
 maligned without some little cause. Those 
 who come in contact with you at home may 
 not see little blemishes upon your conduct 
 or character which those who meet you 
 in business may detect. For instance, to 
 the folks at home you never put on that 
 indifferent and languid air to which you 
 treat the customer who drops in to buy 
 ribbon, or the woman who asks you a ques- 
 tion at your office desk. The customer and 
 the questioner go away with an estimate 
 of your behavior very unlike the one held 
 at home, where you are frank and cheerful, 
 and willing to please. And, on the other 
 hand, the party with whom you associate 
 casually in business, or with whom you ride 
 daily to and from your office and your home, 
 has no conception how snappy and snarly 
 you can be when none but familiar ears are 
 open to your surly complaints. 
 
 The statement from your little brother or 
 sister that you are a "cross old thing" would 
 hardly be believed by those who meet you 
 
148 ^00ietnavvi an^ ^u^* 
 
 away from home. And yet the hoe in the 
 little hands strikes at a weed that threatens 
 to make havoc in the garden. Better look 
 to it, dearie, before the ugly thing quite 
 overtops the mignonette and the pinks! 
 Whenever you hear of an adverse criticism 
 set to find the weed somewhere in your 
 character. I believe firmly that every one 
 of us was born into the world with capa- 
 bilities for almost every evil under the sun 
 if environment favors the development. 
 Like a garden patch, the roots of the weeds 
 lie already deep, the flower seeds must be 
 sown. And no gardener ever struggled 
 with "pusley" and burdock as we must strug- 
 gle with the evil crop, heredity-sown. 
 Thanks be to the quick eye, then, be it of 
 friend or foe, who discerns the weed before 
 we do, and whips out the hoe to attack 
 it. We are not exactly pleased when it is 
 borne in upon us through the criticism of 
 some acquaintance or neighbor, that we are 
 selfish in little things. Our folks don't say 
 so, and we try to believe the charge is a 
 libel. Next time you throw your banana 
 skin heedlessly on the pavement, or crowd 
 into a seat without a "by your leave," or 
 refuse to move up in a crowded car, or 
 
^a^^marij antf glu^* 149 
 
 open your window without asking if it be 
 agreeable to the person behind you, or eat 
 peanuts and throw the shucks on the floor 
 instead of out of the window, or see a lady 
 going by with a disarranged dress and don't 
 tell her of it, or return an indifferent answer 
 to a civil question, or refuse the sweet ser- 
 vice of a smile and a gentle look to the hum- 
 blest wayfarer that jostles you on the road, 
 just remember the criticism, and see if there 
 is not occasion for it. Set about correcting 
 the little faults, and the great ones leave to 
 God. He will keep you, no doubt, from theft, 
 and murder, and perjury, but you don't 
 ask or seem to stand in need of His help 
 in getting rid of temptations to be mean and 
 selfish, and discourteous and lazy. 
 
 What would you think of a gardener who 
 went about with a spade seeking to exter- 
 minate nothing but Canada thistles, and let 
 all the rest of the weeds go? It is not often 
 that so big and determinate a thing as a 
 Canada thistle gets in among the roses, and 
 when it does it is quickly disposed of. But 
 oh, the wee growths! The tiny shoots that 
 come up faster than flies swarm in dog- 
 days, and need to be forever stood over 
 against with a steady hand and a hoe. If my 
 
150 ^O0jemaria: ctnlf |luje* 
 
 neighbor comes out and charges me with 
 stealing a barrel of flour from her store- 
 house, or attacking her first-born with a 
 meat-axe, I can quickly disprove that sort 
 of a charge; but when she says that I am 
 unprincipled because I steal in and coax her 
 girl away from her with the ofifer of higher 
 wages — how is that? Or that I am selfish 
 because she sees me let my old mother wait 
 on me to what I am able to get myself; 
 or cross, because I am untender to the chil- 
 dren; or untruthful, because I instruct the 
 servant to say I am "not at home" when I 
 am, how am I going to dispose of those 
 charges? Sure as you live, there are weeds 
 in front of such hoe strokes, and with heav- 
 en^s help we'll get rid of 'em. 
 
 Cultivate your critics, then, provided they 
 be honest and fair-dealing. Avoid only 
 such as strike in the dark. The man who 
 goes out to hoe weeds in the night time is 
 not to be trusted, and the enemy who resorts 
 to the underhand methods of backbiting 
 and scandal to do his work, is not worth 
 talking about, much less heeding. Take 
 criticism that is fair and open, as you occa- 
 sionally take quinine, to tone up the system 
 and dissipate the malaria of sloth and iner- 
 
tia. Only they shall come into the festival 
 by and by, bearing garlands of roses, and 
 wreaths of hearts' delight and balm, who 
 have welcomed the strong stroke of the hoe 
 at the root of every blossom to bear down 
 the weeds and loosen the tough and sun- 
 baked soil. 
 
 As Charles Kingsley says : 
 
 "My fairest child, I have no song to give you; 
 No lark could pipe 'neath skies so dull and 
 gray; 
 Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you 
 For every day: 
 
 "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be 
 clever; 
 Do noble things, not dream them, all day long, 
 And so make life, death and that vast forever 
 One grand, sweet song." 
 
 See that half-grown man? He never will 
 know as much again as he does now at 
 the ripe age of twenty. When he gets to 
 be fifty, when his hair is grizzled and his 
 hopes are like the dead leaves that cHng 
 to November trees, he will look back upon 
 these years of rare wisdom and colossal 
 
152 ^o&0tnavvi antf ^ue* 
 
 effrontery and blush a little, perhaps, at the 
 recollection. Now he has no reverence for 
 a woman or for God. He sneers at good 
 in a world whose threshold he has barely 
 crossed, as a year-old child might stand in 
 the doorway of his nursery and denounce 
 what was going on in the drawing-room. 
 Most of the scathing things that are said 
 about domestic felicity, and the sneers that 
 are bestowed on love, and the gibes that 
 are flung at purity, and the scoffs that are 
 launched at established rehgions; all the 
 jokes at the expense of noble womanhood 
 and the witticisms that are lavished upon 
 the old-fashioned virtues, spring from the 
 gigantic brain of the youth of the period. 
 
 Often as I pass along the streets of this 
 town I notice certain places which I do not 
 burn down, nor tear down, nor otherwise 
 demolish, merely because of inherent cow- 
 ardice and inadequate strength. If I had a 
 wide-awake, growing boy I would no more 
 turn him loose in your town, Mr. Alderman, 
 than I would cut his throat with my own 
 hand. Not, certainly, if there was a spark 
 
^00ietnavvi anh gltt^* 153 
 
 of human nature within him, and a boy 
 without such a spark is hardly worth rais- 
 ing. And more than that, I will say this, 
 that what with your saloons and your wide- 
 open gambling resorts, and your doorways 
 of hell, wherein sit spiders luring flies, it 
 has come to pass that every mother whose 
 boy encounters harm thereby should be en- 
 titled to damages at least as great as juries 
 award a careless pedestrian who gets his 
 legs cut oflf at a railway crossing. You say 
 that laws are inadequate to cope with evils 
 of this kind ; if that is so, then an outraged 
 citizenhood should rise superior to law, and 
 enter upon a crusade to destroy the infa- 
 mous dens that decoy our boys. On a cer- 
 tain downtown street there is a newly opened 
 resort, the windows of which are closely 
 draped, and before the door of which a 
 placard is suspended which invites only men 
 to enter within. Now and then a hideously 
 ugly man, with a yellow beard, comes to the 
 ticket window and looks out like a taran- 
 tula from its hole, but in the main the place 
 seems absolutely unfrequented. 
 
 Take your stand and watch for awhile, 
 though, and you will see young men and 
 small boys, old men and slouching repro- 
 
154 ^xx^ematn^ antJr |lu^* 
 
 bates of all conditions and colors going in 
 and coming out by dozens. Why doesn't 
 some good citizen enter a complaint of that 
 place and break it up? We would pounce 
 upon a smallpox case soon enough wherever 
 it might lurk, but we are strangely indiflfer- 
 ent where the menace is only to the soul. 
 
 How can we expect to keep our boys 
 pure and raise them to lives of usefulness 
 when such iniquitous places are run wide 
 open on public streets at noonday, granting 
 admission to all masculinity between the 
 ages of 7 and 70? 
 
 A well-guarded youth is supposed to be 
 at home in the night time and not to be fre- 
 quenting shy neighborhoods at any hour. 
 So that we might feel comparatively safe 
 about the boy we send out into the world 
 at an early age to begin his career as errand 
 boy or messenger if these pernicious decoys 
 were maintained only at night and in low 
 vicinities. When the trap is set, however, 
 right in the business center of the town by 
 daylight, what safety have we? Whenever 
 I look into the face of an eager, bright, 
 curious, thoroughly alive boy I feel like 
 shaking every other duty of life and going 
 forth to do battle with the devil for that 
 lad's soul. 
 
^o&^xnavvi antf ^xxc* 155 
 
 Why should evil have so much greater 
 chance than good? For one reason I don't 
 beUeve we make the good attractive enough. 
 The devil has stolen the trademark of light 
 for half his wares. Why not have more 
 fun and frolic in the home? Why not add 
 a gymnasium and dancing hall to the Sun- 
 day school and filter some of the world's 
 innocent sunshine inside its gloomy walls? 
 Why may not the eager, active heart of 
 youth find its good cheer and jollity some- 
 where else than in forbidden places and 
 among smooth and unscrupulous knaves? 
 If we made our churches less austere and 
 their gatherings more alluring to the young, 
 these low and vicious resorts might close 
 for lack of patronage. 
 
 God bless the boys. I love them next 
 best to girls, and sometimes even a little 
 better, when they are especially frank and 
 brave and true. I am not going to see 
 them harmed without a protest, either, and 
 I would be one of a crowd this very day 
 to march upon the resorts of evil that lie 
 in wait, all over town, to destroy the bonnie 
 fellows. If I had my way, every man or 
 woman who makes money by pandering to 
 the curiosity of a boy's nature, inciting to 
 
156 ^0^^tnavvi ttnlr ^u^* 
 
 unworthy passion by means of lewd pic- 
 tures and the like, should be consigned to 
 instant perdition. The earth is too hal- 
 lowed to receive their vile dust! 
 
 m 
 
 Dear girls, if you would be beautiful with 
 the beauty that strikes root in heaven, first 
 of all be natural. Be true to something 
 within you higher than any conventional 
 code or worldly wise mandate. If it is your 
 natural impulse to be courteous, and sym- 
 pathetic, and sweet (and blessed be the fact, 
 it is the natural impulse of most girls so 
 to be!), don't let miserable conformity and 
 its tricksters exchange }^our genuine blos- 
 som for a mere shred of painted muslin, 
 fashioned though it be after even so perfect 
 a similitude of a rose. The birds of the air 
 nor the angels in heaven will ever be fooled 
 by any artificial rose, let me tell you, how- 
 ever much dudes and society feather-heads 
 :may pretend to desire it. Grow for some- 
 thing better than this world; wear your 
 sweetness in your heart rather than on your 
 pocket handkerchief. 
 
^<t««ntctru itn&r ^ne, 157 
 
 ^ 
 
 The great drawback to domestic felicity 
 often lies in the fact that we get too familiar 
 with one another. There should be a cer- 
 tain reserve in the most intimate relation- 
 ships. Sisters and brothers have no right 
 to burst into one another's private rooms 
 without knocking. Wives have no more 
 right to search their husband's pockets than 
 they have to do the same little service for a 
 distant acquaintance. I have no right to 
 read the Young Person's letters without per- 
 mission, although I have a right to win her 
 confidence so that she shows them freely. 
 The Captain has no more right to visit the 
 Boy's bank for pennies because he is her 
 brother, than she has to abstract money from 
 the grocery-man's till. You have no more 
 right to obtrude your conversation upon 
 your wife, nor she upon her husband, when 
 either is in the middle of a thrilling story, 
 than you or she would have to interrupt the 
 Queen of England at her devotions. An 
 "excuse me," if a mother is obliged to in- 
 terrupt her youngest child's babble, is quite 
 as good a way to teach the baby manners 
 
158 ^o&j^ttxixvvi anlf ^u^* 
 
 as a course of lectures later on etiquette. The 
 man who gets up and slams shut the ven- 
 tilator in a crowded car to suit his own con- 
 venience, or the woman who throws open 
 a car-window regardless of the occupants 
 of the seat behind her, is no ruder than Bess 
 is when she ignores brother Tom's com- 
 fort at home, or Tom is when he pounces for 
 the biggest orange on the plate when only 
 Bess and he are at table. When either 
 makes rude remarks to the other, they sin 
 against the true code of etiquette more than 
 when they are discourteous at a party or 
 boisterously unkind with a comrade, just as 
 he is more criminally careless who pounds 
 a piano to pieces with a hammer than he 
 who batters the pine case it was brought 
 in. The greater the value of the article, 
 the choicer we are supposed to be of it, 
 and in the same line of argument, the 
 dearer and closer the tie that binds us, the 
 more considerate we should be in the han- 
 dling of it. I may hurt the feelings of a 
 society acquaintance, and there is restitution 
 and forgiveness, but when I stab the dear 
 old mother's heart with an unkind word, 
 or wound my child's feelings with an injus- 
 tice or a cruelty, or ridicule the sensitive 
 
^00!^tntxvvi anl^ ^me* 159 
 
 feelings of a brother or a sister, not eternity 
 itself shall be long enough to extract the 
 sting from my memory when my dear ones 
 are dead and love's opportunity is vanished 
 forever. 
 
 Study politeness, then, which is the body- 
 guard of love, and build up for yourself 
 the structure of a happy home. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Has it been borne in upon you what radi- 
 ant mornings and September nights the last 
 two weeks have brought in? Have you 
 stopped, Mr. Busyman, to note the wonder 
 of the skies, never so glorious as of late? 
 Did you see the sunset the other evening 
 when a gigantic cloud stood almost zenith 
 high against the flaming west, and took on 
 for a time the panoply of a king? Did you 
 notice the purple center and the dazzling 
 edge, with the rose blush that fringed its 
 borders? Did you sec it pale to gray and 
 vanish like a ghost into the starry night? 
 Do you ever stop, Mrs. Featherhead, to 
 mark the beauty of our wayside clover or 
 the sparkle of a buttercup in the dew? Have 
 you found the nooks where, like shy chil- 
 
160 ^o&i^tnavi^ antjr ^u^* 
 
 dren, the violets cluster? Did you mark a 
 certain day, a week or so ago, when the 
 heavens were full of cloud battalions, tak- 
 ing new shapes every minute, and often dis- 
 solving in long lines of purple rain, shot 
 through with stitches of golden light? 
 Have you seen the lake lately, as blue as a 
 heather bell, as wild as a wood-bird, as 
 peaceful as a brooding dove? Where were 
 you the other night when out of the sullen 
 storm cloud the "light that never was on 
 land or sea" enfolded us, and the world 
 hung like an emerald in a topaz sky? 
 
 
 
 No law of morals should be less arbi- 
 trary for men than it is for women. An 
 impure heart, a riotous appetite, a profane 
 tongue, are no more excusable in a man 
 than they are in a woman. If a man is 
 supposed to shrink from selecting his wife 
 among the unclean in thought and immoral 
 of practice, why should not a young girl be 
 allowed an undefiled selection? When 
 girls grow so queenly natured that they 
 demand that their lover should be of the 
 royal stock and never demean themselves 
 
to stoop to mate with impurity and profli- 
 gacy just because it carries a handsome face 
 and a well-filled pocketbook, there will be 
 some chance for happiness in the married 
 estate. It is this placing white flowers in 
 smutty buttonholes, or, in other words, 
 the wedding of pure women to blase and 
 wicked men, that sows the seed of the tare 
 in what was meant by the primal law to be 
 a harvest of golden grain. Do you pick 
 slug-eaten roses and wind-fall blossoms? 
 When you go forth to buy material for 
 a new gown do you choose cotton warp 
 fabrics and colors that will fade in the 
 first washing? Your answers to all these 
 question are prompt enough, but when I 
 ask you what choice you make of gentle- 
 men friends, you are not quite so ready 
 with a reply. Do you choose the young 
 man who has a clean record, who neither 
 drinks nor wastes his money in riotous 
 practices? How about the tobacco chew- 
 ers and the swearers? How about the lewd 
 jesters and the low-minded? Provided he 
 wears fine clothes, can dance well and make 
 a good appearance in society, and above all 
 can give you a handsome diamond for an 
 engagement rmg, are you not willing to 
 
162 ^0&i^tnavv[ txnb ^txe* 
 
 accept a lover in spite of his known repu- 
 tation as a fast young man about town? 
 Girls, you had much better choose a specked 
 peach for canning than such a man for a 
 husband. Do you imagine that by and by 
 at the upper court, whither we are all has- 
 tening as quickly as the old patrol wagon of 
 time can carry us, there will be any dis- 
 tinction made between men and women? 
 Think you a man is going to get ofif easier 
 than a sorrowful and sinful woman merely 
 because the world falsely taught him that 
 the exigencies of his nature demanded 
 greater latitude than hers? 
 
 ^ 
 
 You may retouch a faded picture, you 
 may patch up an old piano, you may mend 
 a shattered vase, but you cannot make a 
 plucked rose grow again; it will wither and 
 die in spite of every efifort to restore it to the 
 stem from which it fell. And so with the 
 heart from which a low desire in the guise 
 of an alluring temptation has snatched the 
 flower of innocence. That heart will fade 
 into hopeless loss unless a greater love than 
 yours or mine intervenes to save. An im- 
 pure soul never started out impure from the 
 
^0^ietnavv[ antf ^wje* 163 
 
 first any more than a peach was decayed 
 in the blossom. It is the small beginnings, 
 dear girls, that lead up to the bitter end- 
 ings. The impure book read on the sly, 
 the questionable jest laughed at in secret, 
 the talk indulged in with a schoolmate or 
 a friend which you would be unwilling for 
 "mother' to hear, the horrible card circu- 
 lated under the desk or behind the teacher's 
 back, those are the beginnings of an ending 
 sadder than the blight of any desolation 
 that storm or drought or frost can bring 
 upon the blossoms. If I only could, how 
 gladly I would dip my pen to-night in a 
 light that should outshine the electric splen- 
 dor of our streets and write a message 
 against the dark background of the sky, to 
 startle young girls into the realization of the 
 danger that lurks in the first indulgence of 
 thoughts and companionships that are not 
 pure. Avoid all such as you would avoid 
 the contagion of small-pox, and a thousand 
 times more. Small-pox, at its worst, can 
 only mar the body, but the friend who lends 
 you bad books or tells you "smutty" stories 
 profilers a contagion to your soul which all 
 the fountains of all your tears can never 
 cleanse away. 
 
164 J^^^jentttru antf 5Ku^* 
 
 THIS BABY OF OURS. 
 
 There's not a blossom of beautiful May, 
 Silver of daisy, or daffodil gay, 
 Nor the rosy bloom of apple tree flowers, 
 Fair as the face of this baby of ours. 
 
 You could never find, on a bright June day, 
 A bit of fair sky so cheery and gay; 
 Nor the haze on the hills in noonday hours, 
 Blue as the eyes of this baby of ours. 
 
 There's not a murmur of wakening bird— 
 The clearest, sweetest, that ever was heard 
 In the tender hush of the dawn's still hours- 
 Soft as the laugh of this baby of ours. 
 
 There's no gossamer silk of tasseled corn, 
 Nor the* flimsiest thread of the shy wood fern — 
 Not even the cobwebs spread over the flowers — 
 Fine as the hair of this baby of ours. 
 
 There's no fairy shell by the sounding sea, 
 No wild rose that nods on the windy lea, 
 No blush of the sun through April's showers, 
 Pink as the palm of this baby of ours. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Don't you get awfully tired of people who 
 are always croaking? A frog in a big, 
 
^00etntxv^ ant:f Jlw^* i65 
 
 damp, malarial pond is expected to make 
 all the fuss he can in protest of his surround- 
 ings. But a man! Destined for a crown, 
 and born that he may be educated for the 
 court of a king ! Placed in an emerald world 
 with a hither side of opaline shadow, and a 
 fine dust of diamonds to set it sparkling 
 when winter days are flying; with ten mil- 
 lion singing birds to make it musical, and 
 twice ten million flowers to make it sweet; 
 with countless stars to light it up with fiery 
 splendor, and white, new moons to wrap it 
 round with mystery; with other souls within 
 it to love and make happy, and the hand of 
 God to uphold it on its rushing way among 
 the countless worlds that crowd its path: 
 what right has a man to find fault with such 
 a world? 
 
 When the woodtick shall gain a hearing, 
 as he complains that the grand old century 
 oak is unfit to shelter him, or the bluebird 
 be hearkened to when he murmurs that the 
 horizon is off color, and does not match his 
 wings, then, I think, it will be time for man 
 to find fault with the appointments of the 
 magnificent sphere he inhabits. 
 
 "It is a fine day!" remarks Miss Cherry- 
 lips. 
 
166 ^o^etnavvi antf ^me* 
 
 ''Too cold," says the croaker; "beastly 
 wind, not fit for a dog to breathe." 
 
 Oh, yes, my dear, I heard him say it this 
 very morning, and while I sat and listened 
 to him I could but think to myself, "What 
 would become of the croaker without the 
 weather topic to fall back upon?" When all 
 else failed him,he is sure to have something 
 to find fault with within the range of this 
 universal and inexhaustible topic. It is too 
 warm or too cold; there is too much rain, 
 or there is a drought; the winters are chang- 
 ing and microbes are on the increase; the 
 peach buds are blighted by a cold snap in 
 spring, and the potatoes have failed or are 
 about to fail, owing to a wet June. 
 
 That is the way the croaker holds forth 
 whenever he can get anybody to listen to 
 him. I sometimes wonder what he would 
 do if he really had great things to fret about; 
 if one of his beautiful children were to die, 
 or the faithful wife he loves so well in his 
 heart, perhaps, but never takes the trouble 
 to acquaint with the fact, were to weary of 
 his endless faultfinding and steal away from 
 it all into the quietude of the grave. I won- 
 der if he would not then look back upon 
 these days of "croaking" with amazement 
 that he was ever so blind and stupid a fool. 
 
I knew a woman once who was very, very 
 charming. She could sing "Allan Percy" in 
 a way that would melt the heart within you. 
 She could paint on china and decorate the 
 panels of doors, and on the whole she was 
 calculated to enjoy life and make it enjoya- 
 ble for others. But her home, on the con- 
 trary, was utterly devoid of peace and com- 
 fort. Her husband took no pleasure there, 
 although he was lavish in the expenditure 
 of money to render the place attractive. Her 
 children were glad to get away from their 
 home and find otherwhere the freedom and 
 gaiety denied them there. Why was all 
 this, when the mother was so eminently 
 fitted by grace and accomplishments to 
 create a beautiful and happy home? Sim- 
 ply because she was always fretting and 
 fussing about trifles. She was a croaker and 
 always finding fault. She fought flies until 
 life was a burden to everybody who watched 
 her. She said that they would spoil the paint, 
 poison the food and ruin the curtains. She 
 was after them at early dawn nor gave over 
 the chase until late at night. She would 
 leave the dinner table to chase a fly and kill 
 it with a folded paper. She would stop the 
 lullaby song she was singing to her pretty 
 
168 ^0&^tnixvvi anb ^u^* 
 
 baby, to get up and call somebody to come 
 in and hunt a stray blue-bottle that was 
 bunting its stupid head against the window 
 screen. She said that her hfe wasn't worth 
 a farthing to her if the flies got into her 
 home, and she would sooner jump in the 
 river than submit to the pestilential inflic- 
 tion. Then she was forever prophesying 
 some dreadful fate for herself by reason of 
 the muddy footprints that occasionally 
 found their way onto the carpets. 
 
 "I declare," she would say, "if you boys 
 don't stop tracking dirt into the house I'll 
 die before my time. If there is anything I 
 hate it is a careless boy!" 
 
 And the boys took her at her word and 
 stopped tracking mud. But they were 
 gradually lured to stay away from home, and 
 the soil they took into their hearts was per- 
 haps harder to efiface than the footmarks 
 they left upon the floor of mother's neatly 
 kept hallways. 
 
 She was always anticipating trouble that 
 never came. She knew the girl was going 
 to leave. She was simply too great a treas- 
 ure to keep. She was absolutely certain 
 that the milkman was watering his imilk, and 
 the baby would get sick. She had no doubt 
 
^a^^ntctrtj fxnlf ^ne* 169 
 
 whatever but what her husband was going 
 to ruin himself on 'Change, and then what 
 would become of them all? So she worried 
 and fretted and fumed, until patience, like 
 a hunted bird, spread its wings and flew 
 away, and what might have been a happy 
 home became a stranded wreck upon the 
 rocks of contention. 
 
 Oh, I tell you right now, girls, if you can 
 only cultivate one accomplishment out of 
 the many that wait to crown a perfect 
 womanhood, cultivate a pleasant temper and 
 cheerful disposition. The ability to speak 
 many languages, to paint, to dance, to sing, 
 or even to wield a graceful pen is nothing 
 compared to the ability to make a lovely 
 home. Nobody ever yet succeeded in that 
 noblest endeavor without abjuring needless 
 faultfinding, croaking and fretting. 
 
 As a general thing I don't believe in ser- 
 mons served as restaurants serve beef — in 
 slices. I believe in teaching truths, rather, 
 as one whips cream, dropping in the moral 
 as an almost imperceptible flavoring. But I 
 tell you there are times when I feel like 
 
170 ^0&i^tnavt^ txntf ^ue* 
 
 mounting a pulpit and thundering with old 
 Calvin, until the air emits sulphur. Espe- 
 cially when I see the inhumanities and out- 
 rages practiced upon children by witless 
 parents, do I feel stirred to my soul's depths. 
 If we treated our flower beds as we do our 
 children there wouldn't be a blossom left in 
 the world. If we served our meals as we do 
 our children, there would be rampant indi- 
 gestion and black-browed death at the heels 
 of every one of us. Now and then you see 
 a wise mother and sensible father, but the 
 biggest half of humanity receive their chil- 
 dren as youngsters receive their Christmas 
 toys, to be played with when in a good 
 humor, and bundled anywhere out of sight 
 when out of sorts or engrossed with more 
 important matters. We forget, half of us, 
 that a little child's sense of injustice and sor- 
 row and wrong is compatible with its own 
 growth and experience rather than with our 
 own. What to us is a paltry trial is the 
 cause of keenest, unalleviated woe to the 
 child of five. The possession of uncounted 
 gold at forty will not be more precious than 
 the possession at three of the apple or the 
 book we so rudely snatch from the little 
 hands without a word of apology. Take 
 
^o^ietnavvi an^ ilw^. 
 
 171 
 
 the time to explain to the little fellow why 
 you deprive him of some cherished pos- 
 session and you will save the tender bit of a 
 heart a vast amount of unnecessary aching. 
 
 I have many things to be thankful for this 
 stormy winter night. One is that the coal 
 bin is full and the lock on the outer door 
 secure. Another is that the rooftree bends 
 above an unbroken band, and that disease 
 with its fell touch lingers the other side of 
 the threshold of the little home. Another 
 is that, as a family, we all have straight backs 
 and moderately developed intellects; that 
 we are neither dime museum freaks, luna- 
 tics, nor half-wits. Another is that none of 
 us chew gum, carry around dogs, nor make 
 expectoration the chief business of a day's 
 outing. Another is that I am getting so 
 used to the alarm clock that I sleep through 
 its wild clamor and escape the duties that 
 fall to the lot of that other member of the 
 home circle whose ear and conscience are 
 not so sadly seared as mine. Another is 
 that I know enough to detect butter from 
 oleomargarine, and am not roped in by 
 
172 3t^o0etnartj anb Kw^* 
 
 Blank street vendors with their dollar and 
 a half tubs. Another is that I am not the 
 sort of fellow to be always hitting another 
 fellow when he has been down and is try- 
 ing to stand steady again. Another is that 
 I am modest enough to question whether I 
 could run a grip any better than he does? 
 Another is that I got one answer to the 
 "ad." wherewith I sought to capture a gold 
 watch. It would have been an embarrass- 
 ing thing to have received not one solitary 
 little nibble. Another is that the elevator 
 boy who occasionally carries me to the top 
 floor and intermediate stations around at 
 Blank's is kind and does not treat me with 
 the haughty scorn he bestows on others. 
 Another is that I have the serene equipoise 
 of nerve which renders me calm and even 
 cheerful under the knowledge that there is 
 nothing in the house to eat, and two invited 
 guests gently sleeping the happy hours away 
 in the chamber above, dreaming perchance of 
 toothsome viands not to be. Another is that 
 in spite of weather I take no colds, and am 
 as impervious to catarrhal or pneumonic af- 
 fections as an eagle is impervious to the at- 
 tack of tom-tits. Another is that I live in a 
 town where people sell no beer; they may 
 
steal and backbite, and raise the old lad gen- 
 erally, but thank goodness the baleful glit- 
 ter of a glass beer bottle has never yet 
 eclipsed the moral splendor of the scene. 
 Another is that I have been enabled to pre- 
 serve a few staunch and trusty friends 
 through the evolution of that rainy-weather 
 costume which a few of my sex have joined 
 me in essaying. I cannot speak for future 
 tests, but so far my henchmen have stood 
 firm. And right here let me say that any 
 friend, man, woiman or babe, who can re- 
 main loyal to you after you have been seen 
 in public in a dress-reform garment is worth 
 cultivating, and should be made the theme 
 of special psalms of praise. Another is that 
 the picture I had taken the other day looks 
 worse than I do, and when I send it ofif to 
 unsuspecting admirers I am not torn with 
 the thought that when they see the original 
 they will drop scalding hot tears of disap- 
 pointment. This idea of raising false hopes 
 in the minds of confiding strangers savors 
 too much of Ananias and Sapphira. Anoth- 
 er is that so far in life I have preserved a 
 stern and unshaken resolution not to wear 
 a false front. A woman in a store bang is 
 next worse to a chromo in an art gallery. 
 
174 ^o^etnavvi artiCf ^w^* 
 
 or a muslin rose among American beauties 
 fresh from the rose gardens. ArtificiaUty, 
 my dear, pretense and assumption, are hard- 
 er to put up with than anything else in the 
 world, unless it is corns. But far ahead of 
 all the above enumerated causes for grati- 
 tude is one which thrills me most profound- 
 ly, and which can be summed up in half a 
 dozen words, the echo of which, perhaps, 
 will find a lodgment in some other hearts. 
 I am thankful, very, very thankful, that I 
 am not the mother, nor the aunt, nor the 
 half-sister, nor the first cousin, nor even the 
 next-door neighbor, of the boy who kills 
 sparrows for two cents bounty on the little 
 heads. If I had such a boy within range of 
 my voice to-night I should say to him, "Be 
 poor, my man; be unsuccessful in business, 
 and not up to bargains all your life, but don't 
 be shrewd and sordid and cruel in seeking 
 your gains. Better go by the name of 'mol- 
 lycoddle' and 'baby' among the other boys 
 than get to be a little ruffian with your arrow 
 and your sling-shot, and the name of a keen- 
 killer tacked on to yourself. Let the spar- 
 rows alone, or if you really feel that they are 
 the nuisance they are made out to be, kill 
 them if you like, but do it in a gentlemanly 
 
way (if such a paradox is possible), and 
 don't take money for the job." The boy 
 or the man who will take a life for sordid 
 ends, or, in other words, who will seek to 
 enrich himself on "blood money," is pretty 
 low down in the human scale. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Laughter is a positive sweetness of life, 
 but, like good coffee, it should be well 
 cleared of deleterious substance before use. 
 Ill-will and malice and the desire to wound 
 are worse than chicory. Between a laugh 
 and a giggle there is the width of the hori- 
 zons. I could sit all day and listen to the 
 hearty and heartsome ha! ha! of a lot of 
 bright and jolly people, but would rather 
 be shot by a Winchester rifle at short range 
 than be forced to stay within earshot of a 
 couple of silly gossips. Cultivate that part 
 of your nature that is quick to see the mirth- 
 ful side of things, so shall you be enabled 
 to shed many of life's troubles, as the plum- 
 age of the bird sheds rain. But discourage 
 all tendencies to seek your amusement at 
 the expense of another's feelings or in aught 
 that is impure. It was Goethe who said: 
 
176 ^O0j^tnavv^ txntfi ^u^* 
 
 "Tell me what a man laughs at and I will 
 read you his character." 
 
 
 
 I'll take my chances any day to find 
 heaven on earth, if I can have the run of 
 the woods up along our northern lake shore 
 in early springtime. I want no companions 
 either, unless, perhaps, it be a child or a 
 dog, for artificial women and dudish men, 
 let loose in the woods, are harder to endure 
 than gad-flies. It was scarcely more than 
 sunrise, the other morning, when I left the 
 house and took my way toward the forest 
 shrine undesecrated as yet by surveyors or 
 wood-choppers, the advent of either of 
 whom in a country town means good-bye 
 to heaven on that particular spot of earth! 
 We found the air so full of sweetness, the in- 
 stant we struck the depths of the woods, that 
 one could almost fancy the wise men of the 
 East had been there before us to greet the 
 new-born Spring with spices as they greeted 
 another Heaven-born child a score of cen- 
 turies ago in Bethlehem. Every shrub held 
 a softly-tinted leafbud half unfolded, like a 
 listless hand. The maple leaves were pink 
 
and glossy, like rose petals wet with rain. 
 The hickory trees were unfolding great 
 creamy buds that looked like magnolias. 
 The hawthorns were all afloat with silver 
 blossoms, like loosened sails. The earth 
 seemed singing to the heavens, "God is 
 here!" and from the blue depths of quietude, 
 where a few clouds spread their soft wings 
 like brooding birds, came back the answer, 
 "He is here!" The lake claimed Him, and 
 a thousand azure waves 'murmured His 
 presence on the deep. Wherever we looked, 
 at our feet where the June lilies whitened the 
 ground like perfumed snow, and the moss 
 was bubbling like a wayside spring with 
 sunshine in place of water; at the misty fo- 
 liage overhead, like shadowy spirit wings; 
 at the circle of blue that bounded the earth, 
 or into the very heart of heaven above us, 
 it seemed as though God, visible and mani- 
 fest, was there to give us greeting. Finally, 
 we found a point of high land, touched here 
 and there with shadows flung down from 
 budding birches, and starred with dande- 
 Hons in flocks, like golden butterflies. Here, 
 leaving the material part of me leaning up 
 against a tree-trunk to rest, as one thrusts 
 a cumbersome garment on a nail, my soul 
 
 12 
 
178 ^o&jentavvi anb ^me* 
 
 went wandering off into Paradise, and for- 
 got awhile its environment and its earth- 
 born responsibilities. Next time the world 
 has failed to use you well and you are smart- 
 ing from the sense of injury undeserved, or 
 the frets of domestic life have worn you 
 down to the minimum, like a blade that is 
 eternally upon the grindstone, start for the 
 woods. Take a big basket with you and fill 
 it full of lilies, and, ten to one, before you 
 get home again the lilies will have taken 
 root in your heart and your basket will be 
 full of contentment. 
 
 m 
 
 Educate the children to the expectation 
 of isorrow, not as a monster who is to devour 
 them, but as an angel who is to meet them 
 on the way and lead them gently home to 
 heaven. Teach them to hold themselves in 
 readiness for whatever life has in store, as 
 soldiers are trained for a battle whose end 
 is certain peace. Teach them to endure all 
 things, only striving to sweeten and soften 
 rather than to harden under the discipline 
 of sorrow. Unselfishness is the most rare 
 and at the same time the most Christian vir- 
 
tue possible for human nature to attain to, 
 but did anybody ever yet grow unselfish 
 through a life of indolent self-indulgence 
 and ease? Did fruit ever amount to any- 
 thing that was left unacquainted with the 
 sharp discipline of the gardener's shears? 
 I tell you, all the way up from an apple to 
 a man it takes lots of pruning and lopping 
 ofT of superfluous branches to bring out the 
 flavors and sweeten the fiber of the fruit. 
 
 
 I can imagine a lot of way-worn pilgrims 
 drawing up to heaven's gate. 
 
 "What will you have?" asks old St. Peter, 
 standing idle and calm in the perpetual sun- 
 shine that Hes beyond the swinging portal. 
 
 "I will have my crown," says one. "I 
 have earned it." 
 
 "And I will have my harp," says another ; 
 "my fingers are eager to pick out the heav- 
 enly tunes." 
 
 "And I will hie me at once to my heavenly 
 mansion," says a third. "Long time I have 
 plodded, foot-sore and weary, to gain the 
 habitation of its enduring rest." 
 
 But if you can imagine "Amber" piping 
 forth her small request, I think you might 
 
180 ^00^matru anlf ^w^* 
 
 hear her say : "Conduct me, oh, aged friend, 
 to the nearest sand-bank, where I may He 
 face downward in the sunshine for fifty years 
 to come, and hear the surf break on 'Scon- 
 sett's reef." That is what I have been doing 
 for the past fortnight, and both soul and 
 body have waxed strong in the process. 
 
 What a tired passenger we carry around 
 with us, sometimes, in this marvelous Pull- 
 man coach of ours, wherein the soul takes 
 passage for its overland trip from the cradle 
 to the grave. How restless it gets, and how 
 troublesome. How it turns from compan- 
 ionship, even that of books, and finds no 
 panacea for its torment, until some kind fate 
 side-tracks it and lets the noisy world rum- 
 ble on with the clatter and clash of conflict- 
 ing cares beating the hours to dust beneath 
 their flying wheels. 
 
 When I went away for my yearly outing 
 I was so cross that there was no living with- 
 in six miles of my own shadow. I hated 
 everything on earth, and everything on earth 
 hated me. But I have come back as sweet- 
 ly as the breath of a rose steals through a 
 lattice. That is the effect of a jaunt, my 
 dear; and let me say right now that if you 
 are holding on to your money in the hope 
 
^o&i^xnavvi anb ^u^* i8i 
 
 of getting rich sometime, or if you are 
 traveling in a rut because you think you are 
 too poor to avoid it, or if you are grinding 
 your soul into fine dust in the process of lay- 
 ing up against a rainy day, just stop right 
 where you are and listen to me. Any money 
 that is gained at the expense of health, either 
 physical or mental ; any duty held to in the 
 face of nervous breakdown; any gain se- 
 cured at the expense of peace of mind and 
 growth of soul, is not worth the holding. 
 You cannot be of any use in the world if you 
 are worn out or sick. You may persist in 
 holding on, but your grip is weak, and your 
 efifect on affairs and people is simply that of 
 an irritant. You owe it to yourself, as well 
 as to others, to go away and get rested. If 
 it costs money to do so, consider money well 
 spent that gains so fair an equivalent as rest 
 and change, and renewed vigor. I tell you 
 there are few better uses to which you may 
 put your dollars than in a yearly outing. 
 Your pockets may be lighter when you get 
 back, but so will your heart be, and the few 
 sacrifices necessary in the way of less expen- 
 sive clothes and cigars, or less frequent 
 gloves and bonnets, will be well worth the 
 making for the result gained. 
 
182 ^0&^mavvi an^ ^u^* 
 
 I wish Columbus had never discovered 
 us. I wish that he had never steered his 
 old bark westward and found the "land of 
 the free and the home of the brave." For 
 with discovery came civilization, and I be- 
 lieve we would have been better of¥ without 
 it. If we only could have been left to our- 
 selves and gone on sitting under lotus trees 
 unaffected by dressmaker and tailor bills, I 
 believe the sum total of happiness would 
 have been far greater in the world than it is 
 to-day. I would love to return to my alle- 
 giance to nature and forever desert the 
 haunts of civilization and the marts of trade. 
 I want to gather together a picked band of 
 kindred souls and go out and pitch tent by 
 the Gunnison River. Ever been there? 
 Imagine a stream of gold flowing through 
 hills colored like an apple orchard in May, 
 with a sky bending down above them like 
 the wing of an oriole. I want to forget the 
 insolence of a class who may be as good as 
 I am in the eye of the law, but whom it 
 would take a ton of soap and God's grace to 
 make my equal in point of cleanliness and 
 
^0&emavvi antf glue 
 
 183 
 
 decency. I want to forget forever the 
 clang of the cable car and the rumble of its 
 wheels. I want to return to the heathendom 
 that worships gods instead of dollars and 
 loves mankind simply because it knows 
 nothing of faithlessness and fraud. 
 
 "Plaze, sor," said a servant to the head 
 of a certain suburban household the other 
 morning, "the gintleman who sthole the 
 chickens left his hat in the hincoop." Just 
 so, Bridget. And the lady who attends to the 
 affairs of the kitchen has her foot upon the 
 neck of the miserable woman who is nom- 
 inally at the head of the house. Oh, no! I 
 am not going to enter into a disquisition 
 upon the merits of the servant question. 
 Years ago, when I cantered lightly in my 
 ride against windmills, I might have under- 
 taken it, but the question has grown too 
 large to be settled by talking. The state of 
 things in this free country is growing just a 
 trifle too free. There are no longer any ser- 
 vants in this proud land. It is not ladylike 
 to serve. The person who superintends the 
 domestic affairs of our home merely conde- 
 
184 ^o&^tnavvi ctn^ glw^* 
 
 scends for a consideration. We no longer 
 have any rights as employers. The wind 
 has tacked to another quarter. Should we 
 wish to discharge our lady cook or dispense 
 with the services of a gentleman artisan it 
 stands in place for us to approach them in 
 a respectful manner, put the case before 
 them clearly and ask them humbly, without 
 offense to their delicate sensibilities, if they 
 will kindly allow us to forego their so-called 
 services. Question yourself seriously, my 
 dear; are you sufficiently considerate? 
 Think how these defenseless ladies and 
 thin-skinned gentlemen who fill positions of 
 trust in your establishment must suffer 
 sometimes from your boorish impetuosity. 
 Are you always cordial in your greeting 
 when the worn face of the cook appears at 
 the delayed breakfast hour and she places 
 before you the hurried pancake and the un- 
 derdone steak? Do you stop to think how 
 the poor creature has danced all night at 
 a ball and has crept home after your stiff- 
 necked and rebellious husband has bounded 
 away to catch the early train, breakfastless 
 and profane? And when the low-voiced and 
 timid second girl tells you that, as a lady 
 who knows her place, she really cannot de- 
 
^0&etnavvi txntf ^w^* 185 
 
 mean herself to wipe off the paint or sweep 
 the front steps, do you take her by the hand 
 and acknowledge the indiscretion of your 
 coarser nature in expecting her to do such 
 menial service? How many of us, clods 
 that we are, have raged when the mild-man- 
 nered laundry maid has appropriated our 
 underclothing, or remonstrated when the 
 number seven foot of the blue-blooded cook 
 has condescended to stretch our silken hose? 
 It behooves us to join the ranks of the "phi- 
 lanthropic fiends" and look to it that we im- 
 prove our methods of treating the delicate 
 gentry who tarry with us so briefly. 
 
 W 
 
 By the way, I think I occasionally hear a 
 feeble pipe from a man to the effect that the 
 girls are responsible for all the tomfoolery 
 in the world. Don't you know that you are 
 the very ones who tend to make them so — 
 you men? You follow after and woo and 
 wed just that sort of girls. You won't look 
 at a sensible little woman who can make 
 ''lovely" bread, abjures bangs, can't dance 
 and has no "style." You laugh at and make 
 sly jokes at the expense of our big hats and 
 
186 ^o&!^tnavi^ an^ ^ne* 
 
 our pronounced fashions, but when you 
 choose your company, and often your wives, 
 I notice you pass right by the home-keeping 
 birds and take the peacocks. Of course, 
 no one Hves in this age who doubts for a 
 moment that woman's chief aim in life and 
 purpose of creation, as well as her hope of 
 a blessed hereafter, is to please the men and 
 get a husband. If you won't have her mod- 
 est and simply gowned she is willing to 
 make a feather-headed doll and a travesty 
 of herself to get you and win heaven ! You 
 know perfectly well, you men, that you don't 
 care half so much for brains as you do for 
 general "get-up," and the woman you honor 
 with your choice is selected for a pretty face 
 and form, and a becoming costume rather 
 than for a clever head and an honest heart. 
 I am not talking to old fogies who cling to 
 old-fashioned notions, but to young men 
 who ridicule the customs of their grand- 
 mothers, who shake their heads at salaries 
 of two and three thousand a year as inade- 
 quate to support wives; who rail against 
 woman's extravagance, yet do their best to 
 maintain her in it. When you, my fine and 
 dapper gentleman, begin to seek out the 
 modestly appareled and the sedate girls, 
 
^0^^tnavvi an^ Slu^. 
 
 187 
 
 then shall folly and vain show fly over seas 
 for want of encouragement and the grand 
 transformation of sawdust dolls into women 
 and pleasure-seekers into home-keepers take 
 place. 
 
 W 
 
 TWO DAYS. 
 
 I said to myself one golden day 
 
 When the world was hright and the world was 
 gay, 
 "Though I live more lives than time has years 
 Either in this or the infinite spheres, 
 
 I will fear no blight and I'll bear no cross. 
 
 Against my gains I will write no loss. 
 But I and my soul, twin lilies together, 
 Shall whiten in endless summer weather!'"' 
 
 I said to myself one weary day 
 When the world was old and the world was gray, 
 "Has God forgotten Hie wandering earth? 
 Are its tears His scorning, its groans His 
 mirth? 
 There's no blue above where the torn clouds lly. 
 There's no bloom below where the dead leaves 
 lie; 
 Would I and my soul were at rest together 
 Wrapped from the chill of this wintry 
 weather." 
 
188 Jjo^jentarij ctntr Ktt^* 
 
 There are some people who Hve in this 
 world as a cucumber grows in a garden. 
 They cling to their own vine and serve no 
 higher end than rotundity and relish. There 
 are others who live in the world as a sum- 
 mer breeze lives in a meadow; they find out 
 all the hidden flowers and set the perfumes 
 flying. There are others who live as the sea 
 lives in a shell; their existence is nothing 
 but a sigh. There are others who live as 
 the fire lives in a diamond; they are all 
 sparkle. And there are others, and they out- 
 number all the rest, who live as a blind mole 
 lives in the soil ; they see nothing, feel noth- 
 ing, suffer and enjoy a little now and then, 
 perhaps, but know nothing to all eternity. 
 Such people walk through life as the mole 
 walks through the glory of a summer day, 
 or burrows beneath the dazzle of a winter 
 storm. They are as irresponsive to the 
 voices all about them as the mole is to the 
 singing of April robins. They are as un- 
 touched by the myriad influences of life as 
 the mole is by the light of a star or the 
 flash of a comet. Their only interest is in 
 the question, "Wherewith shall we be 
 clothed, and what shall we have to eat?" 
 They gather the ripened hours from the tree 
 
of life as a child gathers fruit, merely for the 
 gratification of an instant appetite, not as 
 the careful housewife does, who garners 
 in a store for wintry weather. Life to them 
 is merely a fattening process. They remind 
 one of prize beef at a county fair; to-mor- 
 row brings the shambles and the butcher's 
 axe, but in the serene content of a well-filled 
 stall and a full stomach, they take no thought 
 of the future. We meet such people every 
 day and everywhere. On the streets they 
 may see a brute tyrannizing over a helpless 
 beast of burden, or a mother (?) yanking a 
 sobbing child along by the arm, as full of 
 ugliness herself as a thunder-cloud is of elec- 
 tricity, or a man following an innocent 
 young girl with the devil in his heart, or a 
 big boy tyrannizing over a smaller one ; and 
 they pass it all by as indifferently as the mole 
 would sneak across a battlefield the morning 
 after a battle. They have too much to do 
 themselves to waste time in remedying other 
 people's grievances. They think too much 
 of personal reputation to involve themselves 
 in an altercation with defilers of the inno- 
 cent, and tramplers of the weak. They are 
 too respectable to get mixed up in brawls, 
 even if the disturbance is brought about by 
 
190 glxx^^tnctru antf |lu^* 
 
 the devil's own drummers looking up re- 
 cruits among the championless and defense- 
 less working-girls, or the parentless and 
 homeless children of a great city. We meet 
 them traveling through the mountains or 
 loitering by the sea. Their only use for 
 mountains is that they may carve their 
 precious initials on the highest peaks, pick 
 winter-greens and blue-berries and display 
 their fashionable suits and striped stock- 
 ings. They look upon the sea as a big 
 bathing-tank, and the sky, with all its splen- 
 dor of cloud and its glory of sunrise and 
 sunset, as a barometer to forecast the weath- 
 er. We meet them in business relations, 
 and they never believe that courtesy and 
 business can go together. A merchant in 
 his office or a lady in her parlor will bluntly 
 refuse to buy of a worn-out, discouraged, 
 heart-sick book-agent, ignoring the fact that 
 a smile accompanying even a refusal acts 
 like a spoonful of sugar in bitter tea, and 
 costs less. Even a "lady" clerk, behind a 
 counter, will be haughty and unaccommo- 
 dating and insolent to the woman who 
 comes to buy, forgetful that a customer will 
 go a long distance out of her way to deal 
 with a polite and well-mannered clerk, and 
 
^O0!ctnav^ anb ^u^* i9i 
 
 that, like honesty, poHteness is ever the best 
 poHcy. And, on the other hand, a woman 
 shopper will be whimsical and captious and 
 trying, forgetting that the girl who serves 
 her has human blood in her veins, and often 
 carries a troubled heart behind her smile or 
 her frown. 
 
 They have come! Without the sound of 
 a bugle, the bright hosts have marched down 
 and taken possession of the land. The 
 southern slopes are all alive with their wind- 
 shaken tents, and when the sun comes out 
 warm and glowing from the cloudy pavil- 
 ions of the April sky, he finds a million blos- 
 soms on the hills that yesterday were white 
 with snow. Some of them are tinted like 
 the flush that lingers in the evening sky 
 before the stars find it; some of them are 
 stainless as unfallen snow; some of them 
 are purple as a nautillus sail adrift upon a 
 twihght sea; and all of them are joyfully 
 welcome to hearts that are weary of Win- 
 ter's long reign. And after the hypatica 
 shall come the violet, and after the violet the 
 trillium, and after the trillium the wild-rose, 
 
192 ^o^^ntctrtj ctnlr ^u^* 
 
 and after the wild-rose the cardinal-flower 
 and the wood-lily, and after them the gentian 
 and the golden rod, to mark the wane of the 
 year. Oh, who would not live in a world 
 whose dial-plate is made of flowers and 
 whose circling seasons are told over with 
 blossoming trees and gentian-buds? 
 
 I saw a great many things on the way 
 this morning as I was coming to town. Sup- 
 pose, as the weather is too warm for preach- 
 ing, I enumerate them and let you strike the 
 balance at the close, to see which way the 
 world is jogging. I saw a father, drunk, be- 
 side his Httle blue-eyed daughter. His head 
 was laid in maudlin sleep upon her shoulder, 
 and with blushes that came and went across 
 her face like cloud shadows on the slope of a 
 hill, she sat and bore the burden of her child- 
 ish shame like a little angel. I saw a hard- 
 faced, labor-grimed man step out of his way 
 to pick a wild rose that grew by the side 
 of the road. I saw a young man lash his 
 horse because his own bungling driving 
 came near colliding his vehicle with a cable 
 car. I saw a policeman spring to the rescue 
 
Ilxx^^mary: anb glu^* 193 
 
 of an old beggar woman who stumbled on 
 a street crossing, and saw him fall and tram- 
 pled upon in the discharge of duty. I 
 saw a pretty girl reach out her white fingers 
 and feed a discouraged street-car horse the 
 banana she was eating as she passed by. I 
 saw a beaten dog turn and fawn beneath his 
 master's brutal kick, and I thought to my- 
 self, where is a more faithful friendship than 
 that? I saw a little golden-headed boy at 
 the window of a house as I rode by, and when 
 I waved my hand he kissed his in return. I 
 saw a tired mother stoop to hug the child 
 who fidgeted at her knee in the tedious depot 
 waiting-room, and I saw another slap her 
 baby because its sticky fingers sought to fon- 
 dle her cheek. I saw a little girl get up, 
 without suggestion from her mother, and 
 yield her seat to an older person. I saw a 
 lamed and dying bird just brought down by 
 a boy's sling-shot. (I saw that same boy in 
 Sabbath-school last Sunday!) I saw one 
 woman in fifty thousand wearing the dress- 
 reform. I saw eleven girls out of nineteen 
 with tightly-laced waists! I saw a hurt 
 kitten tenderly attended to by a soldier in 
 blue, as I passed Fort Sheridan Camp, and 
 involuntarily I said to myself: "The brav- 
 
194 ^a^^ntartj antf |lit^* 
 
 est are the tenderest; the loving are the dar- 
 ing." I saw a small boy beating his mother 
 with both fists because she carried him over 
 the crowded and dangerous way, and so, 
 I thought, we treat the tender God who 
 sometimes lifts us, against our will, from 
 evil ways. I saw a little coffin in an under- 
 taker's window, and thought, what child in 
 this busy, bustling city is doomed to fill that 
 casket? What love-watched home shelters 
 the head that shall one day sleep upon that 
 satin pillow? I saw a teacher in one of our 
 public schools and overheard a gross bit of 
 slang as she passed by. I see myself send- 
 ing a child of mine to such a teacher if I 
 knew it! I saw a father wheeling his baby 
 in a perambulator, with the sun blazing 
 straight into its blinking eyes. I saw one 
 man out of every ten dodge into a liquor 
 saloon when he thought nobody was look- 
 ing. I saw a homely girl transformed into 
 a beauty by a service of love accorded a 
 stranger. I saw a woman lean out of a 
 Marshall Field 'bus to laugh at another who 
 wore shabby clothes and walked with a 
 drooping head. I saw lots of things besides, 
 but how does the balance strike? 
 
flosenttttry; anif ^ne* 195 
 
 If we have been living on bad terms with 
 a neighbor; if we have been maintaining a 
 chilHng silence and a forbidding reserve with 
 anybody thrown often in our way, let us have 
 done with such nonsense and live in the 
 world as God meant we should. 
 
 Out of the exuberance of a merry heart 
 the housekeeper has loosened the tacks in 
 the parlor carpet, and the epoch of house- 
 cleaning begins. The head of the family, 
 pro tern, dweller in the land of desolation 
 and sojourner in the valley of wrath, hies 
 him to town and wishes vainly for the return 
 of the days when he had no wife save in 
 Spain and no family outside of Elia's land 
 of dreams. The calciminer comes and drops 
 leprous splashes all over the hallways and 
 the bannisters. One paperhanger taketh 
 unto himself another, and the two scatter 
 ringlets of snipped paper all over the bed 
 chambers, and cumber up the floors with 
 sticky paste-pots and brushes. The scrub 
 
196 ito^^ntartj ctntf ^u^* 
 
 woman breathes hard and devastates the ap- 
 proaches of the front steps, while the hired 
 girl skips playfully here and there with damp 
 cloths and bars of silvery soap. There is no 
 breakfast, no lunch, no dinner. We take 
 what provender the gods deliver to us in out 
 of the way places, like stalled oxen or un- 
 complaining army mules ! We sleep by night 
 in beds loosely put together and smelling of 
 soap. We awake betimes to the rattle of the 
 scrubbing brush and the sharp overthrow of 
 stovepipes. We see the young person, like 
 McStinger, on the rampage from morn till 
 night. We watch her hand to hand encoun- 
 ters with the pictures that have been wont to 
 hang upon the walls. How she swoops upon 
 them, bears them down, bufifets them with 
 dusters and heaps them high like stumbling 
 blocks in the path of the righteous! How 
 she sneers at our feeble, yet apt, suggestion, 
 and pharisaically "thanks goodness that she 
 is good for something besides standing 
 around and giving unsolicited advice !" How 
 she charges upon our cherished books and 
 whacks them together vindictively to loosen 
 the dust and the bindings! How she tosses 
 the piano like a feather in her strength and 
 probes its sensitive heart-strings with a knit- 
 
ting needle in search of dirt and pins ! How 
 she rebukes the Captain for idHng away her 
 time at doll-playing while there is so much 
 work to do, and drives that gallant young 
 field officer forth to do battle with the unre- 
 sisting tomato can in the backyard ! What a 
 pandemonium reigns over all the domain of 
 yesterday's content! Carlo, the dog, whose 
 flippant youth is getting its first severe taste 
 of life's discipline, retires to an adjacent 
 covert and howls a fitful protest. The cat 
 blinks sleepily in the sunshine and dreams of 
 a future unmarred by suds and a slippery 
 foothold. When she has occasion to walk 
 across the kitchen floor she shakes her hind 
 foot gingerly, like a pilgrim delicately re- 
 moving the dust of the enemy's land from 
 his members. The goblin brood of chickens 
 chuckle with amazement while the hired 
 man beats the rugs like a snare drum and 
 charges upon the carpet that hangs like a 
 vanquished foe across the clothesline. But, 
 like everything else, my dear, we take the 
 trials of spring housecleaning as the tourist 
 takes the storms in the Alps or the sailor 
 meets the tempest on the sea. It has not 
 come to stay ; the sun-lighted peaks of deliv- 
 erance lie just ahead ot us, and there is fine 
 
198 ^0&exnavvi txntf ^ne* 
 
 sailing for another year when the squall is 
 weathered. 
 
 k 
 
 I am tired of the endless dress parade of 
 the great alike — aren't you? I am tired of 
 walking in file, as convicts walk together in 
 stripes — aren't you? I glory in cranks who 
 have enough individuality to refuse to be 
 sewed up in the universal patchwork, like 
 the calico blocks we used to overcast with 
 our poor little pricked fingers ever so long 
 ago when we were children — don't you? 
 The onward sweep of progress in this age 
 has prepared the way for non-conformists, 
 and, glory be to God ! they are swinging into 
 line Hke beacon lights up the Maine coast. 
 I confess I have no heart-pining for eman- 
 cipation that shall place me alongside of 
 Dr. Mary Walker or others of her ilk. I 
 would like to retain my womanliness, but I 
 would like also to make a distinct mark upon 
 my times, be it ever so small and insignifi- 
 cant, as an individual and an intelligence 
 quite as distinct from the conventional 
 masses as a blackbird is when it leaves the 
 flock and silhouettes itself in solitary state 
 
^o&jenxavvi ttntf ^me* 199 
 
 against the deep blue sky from the top of a, 
 windy elm tree — wouldn't you? 
 
 I want one good square fling on earth be- 
 fore I die. I want the chance to know what 
 it is to have enough money to be able to buy 
 silk elastic occasionally instead of cotton, 
 and to have my teeth filled with gold instead 
 of concrete without feeling as though I had 
 been robbing hen-roosts for a month after. 
 I want to go to the theater in a swell car- 
 riage, and sit in the best box, with a pale 
 pink ostrich boa draped about my shoulders 
 and the opera-glasses of the entire house 
 leveled at me for a stunning beauty. I want 
 the sensation, for once, of knowing that I 
 am as nandsome as I am bright, and as well- 
 dressed as I am virtuous. I want to have 
 ice cream seven times a week and "Pommery 
 Sec" by the dozen in the cellar. I want to 
 own a silk umbrella with a golden crook, 
 and wear a diamond ring on every finger. 
 I want to buy candy whenever I feel like it 
 without having to register it in the family 
 account book under the head of "sundries" 
 and "cough drops." I want to see the time 
 
200 ^o^etnavvi an^ itu^e* 
 
 when I can call the average shop-girl out 
 into the alley and have it out with her with 
 none to interfere. I want to settle with her 
 for the indignities I have long suffered with 
 the pusillanimity of a meek nature. I want 
 to ask her between clips why she has always 
 sold -me just what I didn't want, and sneered 
 at me because I didn't buy more of it. I 
 want also to engage in hand to hand conflict 
 with the female gum-chewer. I want to con- 
 vince her that I have endured all I will of her 
 facial contortions, and that the time has 
 come for the extinction of her type from the 
 face of the blooming earth. I want the pow- 
 er to consign every man who even mentions 
 "nose bag" to a horse, to the guillotine, and 
 to imprison for life every brute who carries 
 a snake-whip or uses a check-rein. I want 
 to solder the man or woman who objects to 
 fresh air inside a tin can and label them "sar- 
 dines." I want to shoot on sight the first 
 human being who mentions the word 
 "draught" in my hearing, and set my dog on 
 the fiend who blots the face of nature with 
 his ear-muffs. I want to live for a while in 
 a country where there are neither thunder- 
 storms nor cyclones, but where I can sleep 
 nights right through, from March until No- 
 
^o&iexnavi^ antf ^n^* 201 
 
 vember, without getting up to look for fun- 
 nels or shooing the whole family down cellar 
 as a hen gathers her chickens from the 
 swooping hawk. I want to live in a com- 
 munity made up of people who mind their 
 own business. I want to be able now and 
 then to receive a letter from out of town (it 
 is generally a bill!) without having the vil- 
 lage postmaster regard me as a burning 
 fagot. I want to find a recipe for making 
 buckwheat cakes that do not taste like sand. 
 I want to be able to detect a hypocrite and a 
 traitor on sight, without waiting for a broken 
 heart to evidence the fact that I am sold 
 again. I want to rise out of the range of 
 small annoyances, and fly above the aim of 
 inferior people to disturb. I want to grow 
 to be more like an eagle that wings its way 
 out of the habitat of gadflies, and less like a 
 trembling hare pursued by hounds. I want 
 to take the lesson to my heart that the soul 
 that is constant to itself and aspires towards 
 heaven shall never be left a prey to care and 
 unrest. I want to strike a dress reform 
 which shall make women look less like guys, 
 and to encounter a rainy day in which I shall 
 not bite the dust, I and my umbrella, and my 
 flippety -floppety skirts, and my nineteen 
 
202 ^a^^nta^ij anh ^u^* 
 
 bundles. I want to cut down the ballot priv- 
 ilege and make it impossible for an immi- 
 grant to vote before he is a twenty-one-year 
 resident of America. I want to convince the 
 woman sufifragist that the greatest curse she 
 can precipitate upon her sex is the ballot. I 
 want to teach my sisters that if they will pay 
 more attention to their homes and less to 
 outside issues American institutions will be 
 more of a success. If the career of a poli- 
 tician will spoil a man what would it do for a 
 woman? On the principle that a strawberry 
 will decay sooner than a pumpkin, or that 
 a violet is more fragile than a sunflower, it 
 would take about one election day to change 
 a woman into a harridan. I never knew but 
 one out and out politician who preserved in- 
 tact the amenities of a gentleman, and he 
 died early of heart trouble. The thing 
 killed him physically before it destroyed him 
 morally. If any politician reads this and 
 wants to challenge the point I want to meet 
 him and either convince him or be slain. 
 
 If you are not glad to be alive such weath- 
 er as this it is because you are a clod and not 
 
a sentient being. Why, I never open my 
 door these radiant mornings and walk out 
 into a world that is more golden than any 
 topaz and more radiant than any diamond 
 that I do not hug myself for very joy that I 
 am alive! The grave has not got me yet! 
 And, though I be poor and quite alone and 
 go hungry for the fleshpots that make my 
 neighbors great about the girth, I am happy 
 as a queen and quite content to cast my lot 
 with clovers and birds and wayside weeds 
 that feel the vigor of summer weather in 
 every fiber of prodigal life. To-night the 
 sky was like the flame of King Solomon's 
 opal — did you see it? And just as the glory 
 was growing and deepening into an intensi- 
 ty of beauty that made you want to shut 
 your eyes and say Oh — h — h! as the little 
 boys do at the circus when the elephants go 
 round, a thrush whipped out his mellow flute 
 and gave us a vesper song that made one 
 think of heaven and bands of singing angels ! 
 And yet we are discontented and feel our- 
 selves misused because we happen to be a 
 little poverty-stricken now and then, and it 
 is hard work to find the plums in our pud- 
 ding! 
 
 ^ 
 
204 ^0^enxav%^ anbr ^me* 
 
 The other morning, before the town clock 
 struck 7, I was riding over country in a 
 hack, driven by a courtly mannered colored 
 boy and drawn by a couple of discouraged 
 mules. I was going over to Hampton and 
 Chesapeake City to see the sights. A robin 
 was quarreling with a sparrow for possession 
 of a nest in a treetop hung with blossoms 
 thick as Monday's washing, and a small 
 pickaninny stood in a doorway and held his 
 breath with terror as our driver slashed the 
 air with his long whip. The morning was 
 superb. The sea lay like an opal with a 
 dark setting of hills shadowed like oxidized 
 silver, the birds were out like blossoms of 
 the upper air with song in place of perfume, 
 and the world seemed altogether too jolly 
 and bright a spot to link with thoughts of 
 sorrow and pain and death. We drove over 
 to the soldiers' home, where from four to five 
 thousand veteran warriors have found shel- 
 ter from the bombarding storm of mundane 
 care. Under the shadow of great willows in 
 half-leaf and still golden with April sap, in 
 sunny corners of broad piazzas, on benches 
 by the slope of sluggish streams, or walking 
 about the well-kept paths, these old and bat- 
 tle-scarred warriors pass the time away. 
 
"What a hero I might have been," says each 
 
 one to himself, "if only !" or, "What a 
 
 narrow miss I made of glory when that pre- 
 mature shell took off my legs and stranded 
 me here !" Peacefully they behold hfe's sun 
 decHne, and peacefully in turn they take pos- 
 session of the narrow beds awaiting them in 
 the near cemetery, where so many 
 soldiers are sleeping the unheeded years 
 away. Without motive or purpose their life 
 is scarcely more eventless than their death 
 shall finally be. Some way the grounds 
 where these patient old graybeards sit day 
 after day with nothing to do but muse upon 
 the past remind me of the human heart with 
 its pensioned hopes, its stranded intentions 
 and its crippled endeavors ! What heroisms, 
 what subtle intents for good, what preten- 
 tious desires were frustrated and made 
 worthless by the destiny which changed life's 
 battlefield into a "soldiers' home" and the 
 scene of action for the shaded seat under the 
 willows of a long regret! 
 
 I wonder if Eve, looking over the battle- 
 ments of heaven now and then, and seeing 
 
206 ^a^^tnartj ttn^ ^ue* 
 
 how tired we get down here and how dis- 
 couraged and broken-hearted we often are, 
 is ever sorry for the heritage she left us, all 
 for the sake of an apple ! Does she not curse 
 the memory of the earth fruit whose flavor 
 has so embittered humanity ! Think of it, oh 
 far-removed and perverse ancestress, if it 
 were not for you we might have lived in a 
 world where dinners walked into the pot and 
 boiled themselves over fires that called for 
 no replenishing; where rent stockings lifted 
 themselves on viewless hands and were deft- 
 ly darned by sunshine needles in the air; 
 where last year's garments glided into this 
 year's styles without the snip of scissors or 
 the whirr of sewing machine wheels; where 
 brooms swept and dust-cloths dusted unas- 
 sisted by human hands; where windows 
 cleaned themselves as fogs lift from the lake, 
 and washing and ironing were spontaneous, 
 like the growth of flowers. I for one am 
 heartily tired of having to sufifer for Eve's 
 heartless stupidity. Hard work has too 
 much of the blight of the primal curse about 
 it to suit me, and no matter what philosophy 
 we call to our aid the fact remains that 
 labor of a certain sort is the heritage of sin, 
 and sin was, is and ever shall be accursed. 
 
But there is something a great deal worse 
 than hard work, and that is laziness. The 
 man who toils until the great muscles of his 
 arm stand out like cords and his broad shoul- 
 ders are bent like the branches of a pine 
 under the force of a strong wind from the 
 north is a king among his kind compared to 
 the shiftless do-nothings of life, between 
 whose feet are spun the cobwebs of sloth 
 and within whose lily-white fingers nothing 
 more burdensome than a cigar finds its way. 
 Give me a blacksmith any day rather than a 
 dude. Work is hard and sometimes thank- 
 less, but, Hke tough venison served with jelly 
 sauce, it is spiced with self-respect and 
 smacks of honest independence. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 THE STORY OF A ROSE. 
 
 A white rose grew in a garden place, 
 On a slender stem, with a royal grace; 
 The nursling of June and her gentle showers, 
 Fairest and sweetest of all her flowers. 
 
 The south wind was out one day for a sail. 
 
 In a cloudy boat, so fleecy and frail. 
 
 And he chanced to spy, where musing she 
 
 stood. 
 My dear little rose in her snowy hood. 
 
208 Jsia^^marn ttntf 3au^* 
 
 Oh, softly he whispered and tenderly sighed, 
 "Starry Eyes, Starry Eyee, I wait for my hride." 
 But she laughed in his face, and told him to go; 
 She didn't see why he bothered her so. 
 
 A dewdrop fell in the starry hush, 
 Lured from heaven by her dreamy blush; 
 But the tender kiss of his balmy lip 
 She gave to a bee, next morning, to sip. 
 
 A bobolink left the bloom of a tree 
 
 To tell her tale of whimsical glee; 
 
 The moon dropped a pearl to wear in her breast; 
 
 Dawn wove her a cloak of silvery mist. 
 
 But her hard little heart was colder than ice. 
 She sent every suitor away in a trice; 
 Till the wind drew nigh, with a terrible roar, 
 And said: "Pretty Rose, your playtime is o'er." 
 
 He shook her with might, and he drenched her 
 
 with rain, 
 Till the poor little rose swooned away with her 
 
 pain; 
 And her shiny crown, with its moonbeam glow, 
 He tossed far and wide, like the feathery snow. 
 
 And all that is left of that splendid bloom, 
 The diadem gay, and the spicy perfume. 
 Is a handful of dust, that once was a rose — 
 The eport of the wind, as it fitfully blows. 
 
^0&!^tnavvi anb ^u«* 209 
 
 Once upon a time there lived a woman. 
 She was not very young, nor was she very 
 old. She was neither handsome, homely, a 
 genius, nor a fool. She was just a common- 
 place, good-intentioned, fair type of the aver- 
 age woman. This woman prided herself but 
 little upon the various accomplishments that 
 contribute to the modern woman's popular- 
 ity. She could not dance a step, save in front 
 of a northeast gale, or in a game of romps 
 with her little folks. She could not decorate 
 a tea cup to save her life, nor hand-paint 
 a clam shell, nor embellish a canvas with 
 fleshy cupids and no less corpulent rosebuds. 
 She could sing a few insignificant ballads, 
 such as "Annie Laurie," "Twilight Dews," 
 and "Nearer, My God, to Thee." These 
 with a number Hke them, she was always 
 ready to furnish in a manner to bring down 
 the house, but I doubt if she would have 
 been a success either in a comic opera or a 
 church choir. She could make bread and 
 pieplant pie after a fashion that would make 
 a man wish that he had been born earher to 
 enjoy more of them. She could tidy up a 
 room quicker than a cat could wink its eyes, 
 and in the matter of housecleaning she 
 was a regular four-in-hand coach and a 
 
 14 
 
210 ^o&^tnavvi anb Jluje* 
 
 tiger. If you had asked her to lead a class 
 in ethical culture or make a speech on suf- 
 frage or score a point for reform, this woman 
 would have ignobly turned her back and run 
 away, and yet perhaps she wielded an influ- 
 ence in the world quite as strong as many a 
 woman whose name is recorded on the roll 
 call of noisy fame. But there was one thing 
 this woman abhorred with all the might and 
 strength of her soul, and that was slang. 
 She had been brought up to consider the use 
 of anything more pronounced than the "yea" 
 and "nay" of the Quaker vernacular an out- 
 rage to refinement, and although drifting far 
 from her childhood's faith in many ways still 
 preserved an innate shrinking from the ex- 
 uberance of vain speech. She allowed no 
 little boys to slide the cellar door with her 
 own precious yellow-heads who could be 
 positively convicted of using naughty lan- 
 guage. Her husband left his worldly ways 
 in town and only carried home to this nice 
 little woman the aroma of propriety and 
 coriander seeds. But who ever yet was as- 
 sured of a firm foothold upon the pinnacle of 
 self-righteousness that the old boy did not 
 whip out an arrow and bring them low? It 
 becomes my painful duty to chronicle the 
 
^a^^ntaru an^ ^vte* 211 
 
 temptation and downfall of the upright 
 woman. 
 
 It was a tempestuous day of early autumn. 
 It not only rained, it poured! It not only 
 blew, but it tore, howled, twisted, cavorted! 
 The woman had to go to town. At the elev- 
 enth hour the family umbrella was kid- 
 naped by a demon. (When the prince of 
 evil has nothing else to do he sends out his 
 imps to hide umbrellas, handkerchiefs, thim- 
 bles, scissors, and other domestic essentials.) 
 The woman had no time to track the um- 
 brella to its lair, so she pinned a newspaper 
 over her bonnet and leaped for the train. Ar- 
 rived in town she bought a 50 cent umbrella 
 from a man who was peddling them on the 
 street corner, and from that moment we 
 date her downfall. The umbrella proved to 
 be fashioned of gum arabic and cobweb. It 
 leaked, it exuded, it faded away like a frost- 
 flake in her hands, so that ere half an hour 
 had passed she gave it to a newsboy, and 
 laughed to see him kick it into an alley. 
 Then she took off her plumed hat and 
 pinned it underneath her cloak, wrapped 
 a lace scarf about her head and proceeded 
 on her way. Remarking the pleased ex- 
 pression on the faces of all she met, she 
 
212 ^0&etnctv\^ antf ^uje* 
 
 wondered at it, with an Indian outbreak so 
 imminent. Small boys danced by her in the 
 rain to the sound of their own bright laugh- 
 ter; strong men seemed overcome as she 
 drew near, and even the stern policemen 
 at the street crossings turned aside to hide 
 a 9x14 smile. The woman lunched at a pop- 
 ular restaurant in the midst of a mysterious 
 carnival of glee, and finally took the train 
 for home and, leaving the city limits, skirted 
 the northern shores of the lake to the sound 
 of mufifled mirth. Reaching home and look- 
 ing into the mirror she was confronted by 
 a countenance that bore all the seeming "of 
 a demon that is dreaming." The sea-green 
 warp of cotton in the gum-arabic umbrella 
 had melted and run in long lines over brow 
 and nose and chin. For one moment the 
 woman gazed at her frescoed charm, and 
 as to what follows we will drop the curtain. 
 Suffice it to say, she fell, and the shocked 
 echoes of that little home put cotton in their 
 ears and fainted into lonely space at being 
 called upon to repeat the strong language 
 that rent the air. Who shall blame the 
 woman if she said "darn" with an emphasis 
 that might have made a pirate wan with 
 envy? Who shall cast the first stone at her 
 
until the day dawns that releases my sex 
 from the thralldom of its bondage to those 
 demons who walk abroad and plot her down- 
 fall in rainy weather? 
 
 Wear this bead upon your heart, girls; 
 have nothing whatever to do with so-called 
 "fascinating" or "magnetic" men. Put no 
 faith in mystery when it comes to a question 
 of the man you think you love. Rapt 
 glances and tender sighs that lead to noth- 
 ing in the way of an honest declaration are 
 as despoiling to your womanhood as the 
 breath of a furnace is to a flower. There is 
 no mystery in genuine love, and there is no 
 counterfeiting it, either. It is open-faced, 
 ready-tongued and clear-eyed. It is a vir- 
 tue for heroes, not a platitude in the mouth 
 of fools. It is undefiled and set apart, like 
 the snow on high hills. Allow no man to 
 make you a party to anything clandestine. 
 A man who is afraid to meet you at your 
 own home, and appoints a tryst in the park, 
 or a down-town restaurant, is as much of 
 a menace to your happiness as a pestilence 
 would be to your health. Remember, in all 
 
214 ^xjr^^mctraj anb Slu^* 
 
 your experience with so-called love, that the 
 fewer adventures a young woman has, the^ 
 fewer flirtations and the fewer "affairs," the 
 more glad she will be, by and by, when she 
 is a good man's wife and a brave boy's or 
 sweet girl's mother. A gown oft handled, 
 you know, is seldom white, and each ro- 
 mance you weave with idle fellows who roll 
 their eyes and talk love, but never show you 
 the respect to offer you their hand in honest 
 marriage — these fascinating "Rochesters'* 
 and wicked "St. Elmos," already married, or 
 steeped to the lips in evil-doing — deprive 
 you of your whiteness and your bloom. 
 
 m 
 
 Do you ever get discouraged and feel like 
 saying: "Oh, it's no use! I want to amount 
 to something! I have it in me to do great 
 and grand things, but the circumstances of 
 poverty are against me. I can be nothing 
 but a drudge and the sooner I get over 
 dreaming of anything higher, the better!" 
 Of course you have just such times of think- 
 ing and talking, but did you ever comfort 
 yourself with the thought that though all 
 these things you can not be, you are, really, 
 
in the sight of God? A diamond is no less a 
 diamond because it has been mislaid, and 
 passed off through ignorance as common 
 glass. A tulip seed is no less the sheath of a 
 flower because through mistake somebody 
 has labeled it as common timothy. A silk 
 fabric is no less the product of the mulberry- 
 feeding worm because somebody has 
 wrapped it in a brow^n paper parcel and 
 valued it as domestic jeans. What you are, 
 you are, and there is no power on earth can 
 gainsay it. Other folks may ignore it in 
 you ; half the world, nay all the world, may 
 fail to see it, but if nobility, and strength, 
 and sweetness are there you are worth just 
 that much to God ! Blessed thought, isn't 
 it, you poor, overworked clerk, with your 
 brain always in a muddle with the dry de- 
 tails of a business you hate! Blessed 
 thought, isn't it, you dear, tired woman with 
 more burdens to carry than a maple tree has 
 leaves! No matter how impossible it may 
 be for you to live out what is in you, that 
 something true and grand and beautiful is 
 deathless and shall have its chance of de- 
 velopment by and by. 
 
 I shall never again meet the pretty maid 
 with the larkspur eyes and the corn silk hair 
 
216 ^o&^mavii^ antf ^ne* 
 
 who traveled with us a part of the way, but 
 wherever she goes, joy go with her! She 
 was so modest and unspoiled and sweet, I 
 declare the sight of such a girl in this day 
 of dancers and high-steppers is like the 
 sound of "Annie Laurie" between the 
 carousals of a break-down jig, or the taste 
 of a wild strawberry after pepper tea. God 
 bless the old-fashioned girl with her helpful 
 ways, her arch face and her blithe and hearty 
 laugh. May her type never vanish from the 
 face of the earth, and may the mold after 
 which her soul was fashioned never get mis- 
 laid and lost in the heavenly work-shop. 
 
 ^ 
 
 I think I shall be a little sorry when the 
 commanding officer sends out the word to 
 break camp and leave this dear old earth 
 forever. For I love this world. I never 
 walk out in the morning when all its radi- 
 ant colors are newly washed with dew, or 
 at splendid noon, when, like an untired 
 racer the sun has flashed around his mid-day 
 course, or at evening, when a fringe of shad- 
 ow, like the lash of a weary eye, droops over 
 mountain and valley and sea, or in the ma- 
 
jestic pomp of night when stars swarm to- 
 gether Hke bees and the moon clears its way 
 through the golden fields as a fickle through 
 the ripened wheat, that I do not hug myself 
 for very joy that I am yet alive. The cruel 
 grave has not got me! Those jaws of dark- 
 ness have not swallowed me up 'from the 
 sweet light of mortal day ! What matter if I 
 am poor and unsheltered and costumeless? 
 Thank God, I am yet alive! People who tire 
 of this world before they are seventy and 
 pretend that they are ready to leave it are 
 either crazy or stuck full of bodily ailments 
 as a cushion is of pins. The happy, the 
 warm-blooded, the sunny-natured and the 
 loving cling to life as petals cling to the 
 calyx of a budding rose. By and by when 
 the rose is over-ripe, or when the frosts come 
 and the November winds are trumpeting 
 through all the leafless spaces of the woods, 
 will be the time to die. It is no time now, 
 while there is a dark space left on earth that 
 love can brighten, while there is a human 
 lot to be alleviated by a smile, or a burden 
 to be lifted with a sympathizing tear. It 
 will be time to die when you are too old or 
 too sick to be a comfort in the world, but 
 if God has given you a warm heart and a 
 
218 ^00^ntartj anh ^w^* 
 
 ready hand, look about you and be glad He 
 lets you live. Yesterday I was passing 
 through the street and I saw a woman stoop 
 down and pick up a faded lilac from the mid- 
 dle of a crossing and transfer it to a corner 
 where it would not be trampled under foot. 
 The world wants such people alive in it, not 
 buried under its green sods. The heart that 
 is not unmindful of a crushed flower will be 
 a royal hand in the ministrations of life. May 
 the day tarry long on its way that lays in 
 the grave such helpful, tender hands that 
 seek to do good. 
 
 The good book says, "Love thy neighbor 
 as thyself," but it don't say, Tell thy neighbor 
 all thy secrets. We can love one another 
 without establishing an unsafe intimacy. In 
 an age when so little remains set apart and 
 sacred, keep the treasury of your inmost 
 heart intact. It is a hard thing to believe 
 that in every present friend is hidden a pos- 
 sible future enemy, but it is safer to shape 
 the conduct of our life upon that belief than 
 to live to see our inmost thoughts and the 
 sanctities of one's heart of hearts hawked 
 
about like green peas in a street vender's 
 basket by a spiteful and treacherous enemy. 
 The safest course to pursue in a world so full 
 of unfaith and desertions is to be friendly and 
 sweet and helpful to all, but communicative 
 and confiding to none. 
 
 Once when I was a child, with two long 
 yellow braids down my back, and a very 
 great capacity for happiness in my heart, I 
 lived in a remote country with an aunt who 
 didn't believe in any one having too good a 
 time here on earth. She thought they would 
 appreciate the new Jerusalem all the more, 
 perhaps, for having a dismal experience here 
 (there are lots like her, too, in the world to- 
 day). Well, once afterward when I came 
 hoime from school (and, ah! as I write how 
 I can see the old road where I walked, wind- 
 ing its way under silver birches by the side 
 of a trout-brook), somebody came out of the 
 house and beckoned wildly, madly for me to 
 hurry up. It was my little cousin, and she 
 looked as though she had just skipped out 
 of heaven ! Her cheeks were all aglow and 
 her eyes were shining like stars. "Oh, come ! 
 
220 ^00i^tnavvi axxlf ^ne* 
 
 Come quick!" she shouted. "There's some- 
 thing in the parlor." I made haste to enter, 
 and there before me sat a doll, the biggest 
 and most splendid it had ever entered my 
 young heart to imagine. It was dressed in 
 pink tarletan, and had a pair of jeweled ear- 
 rings in its exceedingly life-like ears. At 
 once I became embarrassed. Self-conscious- 
 ness sprang into full being. I was painfully 
 aware that my own dress and general appear- 
 ance suffered by contrast with the doll. Nor 
 have I ever since experienced a keener sen- 
 sation of embarrassment than overcame me 
 as I faced that gaudy image in wax. My 
 aunt's sarcastic remark, "No wonder that 
 child's mother can't lay up a cent for a rainy 
 day when she throws away her dollars on a 
 doll like that!" gave me the sad impression 
 that my darling mother was a spendthrift, 
 something after the pattern of the prodigal 
 son. From the first moment the doll was 
 a source of disappointment and sorrow to 
 me. I never could play with it with any 
 comfort because I was afraid of soiling its 
 splendid clothes, losing its earrings, or feel- 
 ing myself and my calico and homespun 
 abashed by its superior attire. That doll did 
 me no good, and just what it did for me its 
 
costly and extravagantly dressed sisterhood 
 is doing for hundreds of little girls to-day. 
 Too fine to be played with, rigged out in all 
 its paraphernalia of empty headed flesh and 
 blood women, with powder, puf¥ and bustles, 
 real jewelry and costly lingerie, the mod- 
 ern doll is a demoralizer, a torment. 
 
 Protracted broiling is, I think, on the 
 whole, more wearing to the sensibilities than 
 sudden conflagration. A lightning stroke 
 is soon over, but who shall deliver us from 
 the torments of dog-days? A bull of Bashan 
 encountered in a ten-acre lot may be out- 
 run, but who shall escape from a cloud of 
 mosquitoes on a windless night? Give me 
 any day a life to live with a tempestuous, 
 gusty sort of person, and I can endure it, 
 but deliver me from existence with one who 
 bottles up his thunder and looks like a storm 
 that never breaks. A hearty shower, beat- 
 ing down the flowers to call them up again 
 in fresher beauty, brightening the hills and 
 swelling the brooks, treading with musical 
 footfall the dusty streets, and lashing the 
 violet-tinted lake into a foam-flecked sea. 
 
222 Ita^^ntttr^ anb ^u^* 
 
 veining the hot air with sudden fire, and call- 
 ing out a thousand echoes to answer the 
 thunder's call, is it not far better than lower- 
 ing skies that look rain and won't yield 
 it, dragging, sultry days of neither sunshine 
 nor storm? 
 
 ^ 
 
 LINES TO MY LOVE. 
 
 When the salt has left the ocean, 
 And the moon forgets the sea. 
 When with gay and festive motion 
 Ox shall waltz with bee. 
 
 When we wash our face in cinders. 
 
 And bake our meat on ice. 
 When tender mercy hinders 
 
 The cat from eating the mice. 
 
 When gray heads grace young shoulders 
 
 And icicles form in June, 
 When Quakers all turn soldiers. 
 And bull frogs sing in tune. 
 
 Then, and not till then, my treasure. 
 My darling, tender and true. 
 
 My heart shall claim the leisure 
 To think no more of you. 
 
The other morning, lured by the splendor 
 of a golden day, I started to walk to town, 
 a distance of twenty-four miles. But after 
 the tenth mile the truth was so forcibly and 
 increasingly borne in upon me that "all flesh 
 is grass," and that the strength of a man (or 
 woman either) "Heth not in his heels," that 
 I postponed the finish until another day. But 
 who shall take from me the glory of the 
 start? Shall anybody forget that a sunrise 
 was fair and full of promise because the noon 
 was clouded and the evening declined into 
 rain? Although my twenty-five-mile walk 
 ended at the tenth in a rocking-chair, yet 
 those ten miles were beautiful and full of 
 glory. 
 
 "It will certainly kill you!" wailed the 
 martyr as I bade her good-bye. "Oh, will 
 it kill her?" echoed the poor little Captain, 
 and lifted up her voice in lamentation as I 
 vanished from her sight and struck for the 
 bluff road. The morning was so beautiful 
 that I could imagine the world nothing but 
 a big bunch of tulips standing within a crys- 
 tal vase in the sun. The maples glistened 
 like gold, and were flecked with ruby drops 
 that burned and glowed like spilled wine. 
 The oaks were russet brown and dusky pur- 
 
224 ^00ietnavv[ anb ^ne* 
 
 pie, cleft here and there with vivid green, like 
 glimpses of a windy sea through shadowed 
 hills. The leaves that had fallen to the earth 
 were musical underneath the foot, and gave 
 forth a faint fragrance that made the air as 
 sweet as any bakeshop. The odor of fallen 
 leaves and wood shrubs sinking into decay 
 is not like any other fragrance so much as 
 the scent of well-baked bread, browned and 
 finished in summer's ruddy heat. 
 
 The lake — but what can I say to fitly de- 
 scribe that translucent sapphire, over which 
 a mist hung like a gossamer web above a 
 blue-bell, or the haze of slumber upon a 
 drowsy eye? As I stood upon the blufif, be- 
 fore the road struck landward through the 
 woods, I could but extend my arm to the 
 glorious expanse of waters and bless the 
 Lord with all my soul for so lovely a place 
 to tarry in between times. If this world is 
 only a stopping-place, a country through 
 which we march to heaven, as Sherman 
 marched overland to the sea, then thank 
 God for so glorious a prelude to eternity; 
 and what shall the after harmonies be when 
 the broken sounds of idly-touched flutes and 
 harps are so divine? 
 
 After leaving Ravinia I proceeded to get 
 
^o^etnavvi antf ^nic* 225 
 
 lost in the woods. A very small boy and a 
 very large dog- were standing by a fence. 
 "Does that dog bite?" I asked. "Yes'm," 
 promptly replied the sweet and candid child. 
 So I climbed a fence and struck for the tim- 
 ber. I soon found that all knowledge of 
 the points of the compass had failed me. "If 
 I am going east," I mused, "I shall soon 
 strike the lake ; if west, the track ; south will 
 eventually bring me to the Chicago River; 
 but a northerly direction will restore me to 
 the sleuth-hound. I will say my prayers and 
 endeavor to keep to the south." The way 
 grew denser. My hat gave me some trou- 
 ble, as it insisted upon hanging itself to 
 every tree in the wilderness. The twigs 
 twitched the hair-pins from my hair and 
 poked themselves into my eyes. A few 
 corpulent bugs toyed with my ankles and a 
 large caterpillar passed the blockade of my 
 collar-button and basked in the warmth of 
 my neck. I nearly stepped on a snake and 
 was confronted by a toad that froze me with 
 a glance of its basilisk eye. So I changed 
 my course and suddenly entered a little 
 woodland graveyard — a handful of neglect- 
 ed mounds of earth and silence. No tomb- 
 stones marked the graves. A rudely-con- 
 
 15 
 
226 ^0&i^xnavv[ anb ^u^* 
 
 structed cross of wood, gray with lichens, 
 alone told of consecrated ground. There, 
 away of¥ from the road in the silence of the 
 woods, a few tired hearts were taking their 
 rest. Silently I stood a moment, then stole 
 away and left the place to its hush of lonely 
 peace. What right had I, with my frets and 
 feathers, my twig-punctured eye-balls and 
 my toad-perturbed nerves, to bring an un- 
 quiet presence within this abode of silence 
 and of rest? I sat down on a fence-rail a 
 moment while, like Miss Riderhood, I deftly 
 twisted up my back hair and mused briefly. 
 When the time comes, oh, intensely alive 
 and happy Amber, for your feet to halt in 
 the march, ask to be buried in the woods, 
 where your grave will be forgotten and the 
 constant years with falling leaves and driv- 
 ing snows may have a good chance to ob- 
 literate the earthly record of your misspent 
 years. 
 
 "Sooner or later the shadows shall creep 
 Over my rest in the woods so deep ; 
 Sooner or later — " 
 
 But enough of this, my dear. I did not 
 intend to incorporate a whole cemetery, an 
 obituary discourse, and "lines to the depart- 
 
ed" in my '^ Glints." After leaving the little 
 graveyard I allowed my instincts to carry 
 me in a new direction, and soon a rustling 
 among the dead leaves, and the sound of 
 hushed breathing, convinced me that I was 
 approaching a living presence. I felt for my 
 revolver. It was there, but unloaded. (I 
 would sooner walk arm in arm with death 
 than carry loaded firearms.) I advanced 
 bravely and became speedily aware of a 
 score or so of large and startled eyes, all 
 fixed upon me. A half-score of woolly 
 heads were lifted, and a flock of sheep stood 
 ready to take instant flight if I showed sign 
 of battle. "My dear young friends," said I, 
 "it is a relief to meet you, and I give you 
 good morrow. I fully expected to encoun- 
 ter a band of cutthroat tramps who should 
 toss pennies for my heart's blood. The bless- 
 ings of a rescued woman rest upon your 
 crinkly coats, my beauties." A half-hour's 
 walk through the woods brought me to a 
 clearing where a flock of bluebirds were 
 holding council together among the falling 
 leaves. They seemed inclined to start south- 
 ward, but tarried for one last frohc. How 
 beautiful they were as they flitted in and out 
 among the golden underbrush no eye but 
 
228 ^00ietnavvi antf Kw^* 
 
 mine shall ever know. Bluebirds have al- 
 ways been associated with thoughts of 
 spring and apple-blossoms heretofore. I 
 could hardly believe my senses to find them 
 here amid the late and falling leaves. For 
 a while I loitered in their midst and wished 
 for a fairy to change me into one of their 
 winged company, that I might forget care 
 and find no need of revolvers; but time, as 
 sternly announced by my exquisite Water- 
 bury, admitted of no delay, so I hied me on- 
 ward. At this point in my walk I approached 
 a broken gate and a stretch of shockingly 
 muddy road. The vanity of confidence in 
 any strength that emanates alone from the 
 "heels of a man" was by this time beginning 
 to make itself felt. I longed to sit down in 
 the miry way and go to sleep. A child could 
 have played with 'vne despite my revolver, 
 and a day-old lamb have gained the 
 victory in a personal encounter. At 
 this moment, while I Hngered, picking 
 my way daintily from tuft to tuft of 
 the swamp, I was confronted by a 
 tall, gaunt woman. Of course you don't 
 believe this; it reads too much like a 
 dime novel. You think I am painting my 
 picture in lurid tints for public exhibition, 
 
but in spite of your incredulity I repeat that 
 I was confronted by a tall, gaunt woman, 
 who appeared as suddenly as though in- 
 voked by an evil spell from the mud. The 
 woman was shabbily dressed and wore an 
 old-fashioned scoop bonnet. She had a 
 bundle on her arm, and was dragging by 
 the hair of the head, as it were, an indescrib- 
 able umbrella. My voice sank out of sight, 
 like a stone in the sea, and my feet grew too 
 heavy to Hft I stared in silence. "Is your 
 name Maria Hopkins?" asked the woman. 
 
 "Indeed it is," I replied, prepared to get 
 down on my knees and swear to the truth 
 of what I said, if need be. "I thought so," 
 said my companion; "let us pray." But I 
 didn't stop for prayers. Convinced that my 
 time had come, and that I was in the pres- 
 ence of a lunatic, I fell over the fence and 
 ran. When I was out of breath I looked 
 over my shoulder, but the woman was no- 
 where in sight. To pursue my walk seemed 
 unnecessary, especially as I was nearing the 
 house of a friend, so summoning what 
 strength was left me I toddled onward, com- 
 pleting my tenth mile in five hours from the 
 starting. After my sympathizing friend had 
 emptied her camphor bottle upon me I 
 
230 ^00etnavvi ant> |ltt^* 
 
 asked her if she knew a party of the name 
 of Hopkins anywhere in town, and if there 
 was any resemblance between such a person 
 and myself. I saw she thought I was de- 
 lirious, and no explanation has ever dis- 
 pelled that belief. Some day I shall com- 
 plete the walk and write up the finish. 
 
 Said some one to me the other day: 
 "Amber, you have lots of good friends 
 among the girls." "Good," said I; "then I 
 am all right." Anybody who gains the 
 friendly approval of the right sort of girls 
 has a passport right through to glory! I 
 mean it. There is nothing on earth I love 
 better than a good, sweet girl. I would rath- 
 er watch a crowd of them any day than all 
 the pictures Fra Angelica ever painted of 
 saints in paradise. But there are girls and 
 girls. There is as much difference between 
 them as there is between griddle cakes made 
 with yeast and griddle cakes in which the 
 careless cook forgot to put the leaven. Shall 
 I tell you the kind of girl I especially adore? 
 Well, first of all, let us take the working girl. 
 She is not a "lady" in the acceptance of the 
 
|l<x^^tnaru an^ glu^* 231 
 
 term by this latter day's hybrid democracy. 
 She is just a blithe, cheery, sweet-tempered 
 young woman. She may have a father rich 
 enough to support her at home, but for all 
 that she is a working girl. She is never idle. 
 She is studying or sewing or helping about 
 the home part of the day. She is romping 
 or playing or swinging out of doors the 
 other part. She is never frowsy ncr untidy 
 nor lazy. She is never rude nor slangy nor 
 bold. And yet she is always full of fun and 
 ready for frolic. She does not depend upon 
 a servant to do what she can do for herself. 
 She is considerate to all who serve her. She 
 is reverent to the old and thoughtful of the 
 feeble. She never criticises when criticism 
 can wound, and she is ready with a helpful, 
 loving word for every one. Sometimes she 
 has no father, or her parents are too poor 
 to support her. Then she goes out and 
 earns her living by whatever her hands find 
 to do. She clerks in a store, or she counts 
 out change at a cashier's desk, or she 
 teaches school, or she clicks a typewriter, or 
 rather a telegrapher's key, but always and 
 everywhere she is modest and willing and 
 sweet, provided she doesn't get that meddle- 
 some little "bee" of "lady"-hood in her bon- 
 
232 ^o&ttnavvi anb ^n^» 
 
 net If she tries to be a lady at the expense 
 of all that is honest and frank in her nature, 
 she is like a black baby crying for a black 
 kitten in the dark — you can't tell what she is 
 exactly, but you know she is mighty dis- 
 agreeable. She has too much dignity to be 
 imposed upon, or put to open affront, but 
 she has humility also, and purity that differs 
 from prudishness as a dove in the air differs 
 from a stuffed bird in a showcase. She is 
 quick to apologize when she knows she is 
 in the wrong, yet no young queen ever car- 
 ried a higher head than she can upon justi- 
 fiable occasions. She is not always imagin- 
 ing herself looked dow^n upon because she 
 is poor. She knows full well that out of her 
 own heart and mouth proceed the only wit- 
 nesses that can absolve or condemn her. If 
 she eats peanuts in public places, and talks 
 loud, and flirts with strange boys, and chews 
 gum or displays a toothpick she is common, 
 even though she wore a four-foot placard 
 emblazoned with the misnomer, "lady." If 
 she is quick to be courteous, unselfish, gentle 
 and retiring in speech and manner in public 
 places, she is true gold, even though her 
 dress be faded and her bonnet be old. You 
 cannot mistake any girl any more than you 
 
^o^etnav^ anb ^ne* 233 
 
 can mistake the sunshine that follows the 
 rain or the lark that springs from the haw- 
 thorn hedge. All things that are blooming 
 and sweet attend her! The earth is better 
 for her passing through it and heaven will 
 be fairer for her habitation therein. God 
 bless her! 
 
 ^ 
 
 Some day I am going gunning. In a re- 
 form dress suit, with the right to vote in my 
 pocket, and a shotgun delicately poised upon 
 my enfranchised shoulder, I shall start forth 
 on my "safety" and proceed to lay low for 
 a few victims. The first to perforate with 
 my murderous bullet shall be the fiend in 
 human guise who toys with my "copy" from 
 time to time and makes me spell whether 
 without an "h," or so distorts the sense of 
 what I write that my best friends wouldn't 
 know me from Martin Tupper. I shall show 
 no mercy to him. I shall continue to shoot 
 until he is perforated like a yard of mosquito 
 netting, and I shall leave a little note pinned 
 to the lapel of his coat saying that I have 
 more bullets left for his "successor in trust." 
 If there is one thing that has survived the 
 
234 ^00^tnavy[ antf ^ne* 
 
 buffetings of a harsh and somewhat discon- 
 certing bout with fate it is the knowledge 
 that I know how to spell. But even of this 
 the fiend in question would deprive me. He 
 has brought his fate upon himself and will 
 excuse me if I remark that I thirst for his 
 gore. 
 
 m 
 
 Dominated by that superfluous energy 
 which has, so far, rendered my earthly career 
 cyclonic, I called together a confiding 
 band during the height of the recent snow 
 carnival for the purpose of a sleigh ride. 
 The opening up of that sleigh ride was pro- 
 pitious. The caravan moved due north, 
 bound for a destination that shall be name- 
 less. We tried to look upon the attention 
 we attracted as a public ovation, but it was 
 far more suggestive of the way they used to 
 accompany outlaws beyond the limits of a 
 mining town, or of the children of Israel 
 chased by Pharaoh's mocking hosts. It was 
 cold. Our noses, in the light of a wan old 
 moon, looked like doorknobs. Our ears 
 cracked to the lightest touch, like harp 
 strings in the wind. Patient, long-sufifering 
 
"doctor!" Shall I ever forget how, turning 
 to him when the carnival of sport was at its 
 height, I murmured: "Are you enjoying 
 yourself, dear?" And he replied, with 
 ghastly sarcasm: "Tumultuously, my love!" 
 So might an arctic frigate, ice-bound, have 
 hailed a polar bear. Suddenly, when all 
 seemed progressing serenely, we came to a 
 standstill, something like what might be ex- 
 pected from a runaway horse checked by 
 the newly patented electric button. What 
 was the matter? Bare ground. Now, under 
 ordinary circumstances, the term "bare 
 ground" is not synonymous of disaster. But 
 if ever in the dispensation of providence it 
 falls to your lot to be one of a band of sleigh- 
 riding imbeciles then shall those two words 
 be to you what snags in the channel are to 
 seaward-hastening keels. The driver shout- 
 ed and became distinctly profane. "Would 
 you please get out and walk over this bad 
 place?" said he. With such speed as our 
 petrified men.bers would allow we all got 
 out, and the women sat on a wayside fence, 
 while the men "heaved to" and dragged the 
 chariot over about a mile and a quarter of 
 bare ground. 
 
 "Shall we make for the nearest line of 
 
236 ^o^i^xnavy^ an^ ^ne* 
 
 street cars?" asked one of the party, whose 
 well-known position as Sunday-school 
 superintendent kept him in a state of ab- 
 normal calm. "What will become of the 
 sleigh and the poor, tired horses?" asked 
 that one of the party directly responsible for 
 this mad jubilee. 
 
 *'Oh, you women can lead the horses while 
 we men carry the old band wagon on our 
 shoulders back to shelter." "It is no time 
 for jokes," cried one, "I am going home," 
 and we all followed suit, to vow later, in the 
 shelter of our happy homes, that our future 
 attempts at sleigh riding should be confined 
 to wheels and the time of roses. 
 
 T^ 
 
 I think I would rather lose this serviceable 
 old right hand of mine than have it write 
 a word that could be construed into defense 
 or encouragement of loud and blatant wom- 
 en. The over-dressed and slangy sisterhood 
 who parade in public places and storm the 
 land these latter days will meet with nothing 
 from Amber and her pen but wholesale de- 
 nunciation while the lamp of an insignificant 
 life holds out to burn. I hate them as a 
 
Quaker hates gunpowder, and I am more 
 than half incHned to beheve that the total 
 extermination of the stock would be one of 
 the supremest blessings that could be vouch- 
 safed to man. The tendencies toward bold- 
 ness and effrontery which characterize the 
 present day, the unabashed speech and action 
 and the manifest lack of old-fashioned cour- 
 tesy and the reserve that springs from gentle 
 breeding are evils that grow rather than 
 diminish. A gentlewoman, a pure, correct 
 and lovely gentlewoman, occupies a loftier 
 place than any throne, and wields an in- 
 fluence more potent than the swing of a 
 jeweled scepter. Yet it is never by vulgar 
 assumption that she enters into her king- 
 dom. The parrot is not a bird we prize, 
 although its plumage is resplendent with 
 green and purple and gold. In the proud 
 breast of the homely and unpretentious 
 thrush is hidden the heavenly song. Wher- 
 ever gentle forbearance is found, wherever 
 patience and tenderness and love idealize 
 and sweeten life, there you will find woman 
 as heaven meant she should be — the 
 crowned queen of hearth and home. And in 
 saying all this I do not wish to be under- 
 stood as advancing the idea that a woman 
 
238 ^0&ietnttv%i antf ^ne* 
 
 has no wider scope than home, or that she 
 must be all sugar, without any spice. Next 
 to the loud and bold-mannered woman as 
 a specimen to be detested I would put the 
 meek Griselda, with less spirit than a 
 boneless herring and less sparkle than tepid 
 tea. There is no charm left to femininity 
 when you add idiocy to a pretty woman's 
 make-up. A fool may be very docile, but a 
 fool is not good company. Of the two, per- 
 haps, if a man were forced to choose a com- 
 rade to share a life that was to be cast on a 
 South Sea island, he would do better to take 
 the "loud" type. Either would drive him to 
 the "cups," if such relief were to be found 
 upon an island of the sea. But who would 
 not rather go to wreck in a storm than 
 founder in becalmed waters? Or, to bring 
 it nearer home, who would not rather be 
 drowned away out in the middle of Lake 
 Michigan in a howling gale than in a gentle 
 7x9 cistern? If circumstances call a woman 
 out into the thickest of the old bread-and- 
 butter fight that has been waging ever since 
 Eve ran afoul of the apple, it is to her credit 
 if she rolls up her sleeves and goes into the 
 thickest of the scrimmage and holds her 
 own with the pluckiest of them all. It is 
 
^0&^tnavtiS cttxt:f ^rnc* 239 
 
 no disgrace to her to be quick to seize an 
 opportunity and shrewd to find a point of 
 vantage. Let her rank with the men, and 
 make ever so fine a name for herself in what- 
 ever business vocation she chooses to make 
 her own, it will not detract one whit from 
 her womanliness, provided she keep herself 
 unsullied of soul and tender of heart. The 
 moment she lends herself to practices that 
 lead men to forget to touch their hats when 
 she passes by she becomes unsexed, and a 
 sexless woman is worse than a pestilence, 
 a cyclone and a strike condensed into one 
 vast calamity. No sensible man will think 
 any less of a woman if she has spirit enough 
 to get downright mad at injustice, insult or 
 iniquity. I don't know, though, why we 
 women should always get together and com- 
 pare notes as to what course of conduct will 
 best please the men. They don't He awake 
 nights to conform their behavior to ways 
 and manners that shall please us; but, even 
 putting our argument on the basis of what 
 shall win approval from men, I repeat that 
 I don't believe that there are many of them 
 who would object to a woman knowing how 
 to use a pistol or to her carrying one in case 
 of an unprotected walk, or a night spent in 
 
240 ^o&etnavt^ anh ^ne^ 
 
 an unguarded home. There would be few- 
 er tales to tell of assaults and woful disap- 
 pearances of young women if all our girls 
 were versed in the ethics of the revolver. 
 Ah, my dear, you can never get a more ador- 
 able portrait of a woman to hang upon the 
 walls of glorified fancy than the pen-portrait 
 drawn by the master hand of Robert Brown- 
 ing when he wrote of beautiful Evelyn 
 Hope: "God made her of spirit, fire and 
 dew." There is the swiftest and most splen- 
 did stroke of the artist's brush ever given to 
 literature. And yet half the world would 
 substitute "putty" for "spirit," "feathers" for 
 "fire" and "dough" for "dew." 
 
 
 The only way to rid the world of bubble- 
 marriages — ^^marriages that turn out empti- 
 ness with one drop of water as the residuum, 
 and that drop a tear — is to educate our girls 
 and boys to something higher than playing 
 with pipes and soapy water. Give them 
 something more earnest to do, and see that 
 they do it. Compel men and women to 
 choose their life companions with at least a 
 tithe of the solemnity they bring to the se- 
 
gtae^ntartj anlf ^rne* 241 
 
 lection of a carriage horse or a ribbon. Leg- 
 islate laws against early marriages. "I 
 can't tolerate children," said a little idiot to 
 me the other day, "but I adore dogs!" And 
 yet that girl had an engagement ring on 
 her finger. There should be a special se- 
 clusion for such girls until they develop 
 some instinct of womanliness, and they 
 should no more be allowed to marry than a 
 Choctaw chief should be allowed to take 
 charge of a kindergarten. You nor I can 
 hope to turn a bubble into substance after 
 it is once blown. 
 
 Last week I moved. At least I tried to, 
 but I haven't fully accomplished the feat yet. 
 If it costs one woman a desk and an um- 
 brella, the pangs of a seven-horse torment 
 to move one block, what must it cost a fam- 
 ily of fourteen to move seven wagonloads a 
 mile? There is a problem that will keep you 
 awake nights. When they said to me : "Oh, 
 it will be nothing for you to move !" When 
 they pointed with derision at my few be- 
 longings I said to myself: "All right; per- 
 haps it will be easier than my fears." So I 
 packed up my penknife, my mucilage pot, 
 
 16 
 
242 ^0&]^tntxvvi txnlf ^ui?* 
 
 my paper cutter, my eleven dozen pencils 
 and my assortment of stub pens, my violet 
 ink, my clock, pictures, calendars, Japanese 
 fans, scraps of poetry, magazines, books, 
 lemons, buttercups, blotting pads, and sun- 
 dry trifles it were waste of time to enumer- 
 ate, and sallied forth to find a son of wrath 
 to transport them to new quarters. "How 
 much will you charge to move two articles 
 of furniture one block?" I asked a guile- 
 less Scandinavian teamster. "Three dol- 
 lars," repHed he with touching promptitude. 
 I passed him by, and after two days' search 
 found a down-trodden African who said he 
 would undertake the job for $1.50. I wish 
 you could have seen the look in the darky's 
 face when he tried to lift the desk. "Gor-a- 
 mighty. Missus, what's in that ar desk?" 
 cried he. I had to unpack every blessed 
 article but the penknife and a postage stamp 
 before he would move the thing, and all the 
 long day I trotted back and forth with mar- 
 ket baskets full of the original contents of 
 that desk. When at last I had them moved 
 I couldn't find anything. I wanted my pen- 
 cils, but haven't seen 'em yet. The paper- 
 weight had smashed the ink bottle, and the 
 mucilage had formed a glassy pool in which 
 
^00!^tnavvi ttntf ^u^* 243 
 
 my buttercups were anchored like islands. 
 The frizzes and hairpins and other little 
 what-nots that I kept in the right hand 
 drawer had dabbled themselves in the ink 
 and mucilage and fused themselves into one 
 indistinguishable horror. I haven't been 
 able to find one thing that I wanted since I 
 moved but a toothpick, and that don't look 
 exactly natural. The overshoes, and gos- 
 samer, and jersey waists, soap and chamois 
 skins that I secreted in the left hand drawer 
 haven't been seen since they left in the mar- 
 ket basket under convoy of the Ethiopian. 
 He has probably opened a costumer's shop 
 on Halsted street with them. When I move 
 again I shall carry my pencils behind my ear 
 and my penknife between my teeth. I'll 
 never be found a second time stringing my 
 beads with a toothpick and relying for time 
 upon a clock with the hour hand missing. 
 When next I move may it be straight 
 through to glory, where the lease is long 
 and the landlord never sublets. 
 
 W 
 
 Let anybody in this world really under- 
 take to thoroughly do his duty; to do it in 
 
244 JiSio^^tnavvi anb 3Klu^* 
 
 the face of opposition, prejudice and the 
 ■meddling interference of fools, and he be- 
 comes a target set upon a hill for the conven- 
 ient aim of popular scorn. It is harder for 
 a man to be true to a principle than it is 
 to face a gun. If an employe in the daily 
 discharge of duty aims to be prompt, faith- 
 ful and fearless he is boycotted by his asso- 
 ciates in almost as conspicuous a way as 
 was poor little David Copperfield with the 
 pasteboard motto on his back. We all of us 
 have known in early life the "pet scholar" 
 of the school, the dear little virtuous prig 
 who never did anything out of the way, who 
 never played a prank or accomplished any- 
 thing but a pattern pose. Small wonder 
 that we hated him! Good behavior, which 
 has for its aim merely the disconcerting of 
 others and the aggrandizement of one's self, 
 is snobbery and should be loathed as such. 
 But there is a courage of over-conviction 
 which leads a man to hold himself honest 
 among thieves, pure among libertines and 
 faithful among time-servers and strikers. It 
 was such a spirit as this that made dear lit- 
 tle "Tom," at "Rugby," loyal to his mother's 
 teachings, and led him to kneel amid a 
 crowd of jeering boys to say the prayers she 
 
taught him. It is such a spirit as this that 
 holds a man or woman true to the sense of 
 justice in an unjust world, and keeps them 
 undaunted in the midst of enemies, who hate 
 them for doing their duty and caring as 
 much for the work as they do for the wages 
 that work commands. The man who can 
 hold himself beyond the reach of bribery, 
 uncorrupted in corruptible times, and sure 
 to keep his colors flying, with never a chance 
 to trail them in the dust for politic purposes, 
 is a greater hero than many a blue-coat who 
 marches to battle. Give us a few more such 
 heroes, oh, good and merciful dispenser of 
 destinies, and sweep ofif the track a hundred 
 thousand or so of the eye-servants, time- 
 servers and money-graspers who keep the 
 profitable places of the world's giving away 
 from honest men and faithful women. 
 
 
 A BOBOLINK'S SONG. 
 
 The earth was awake, and like a gay rover. 
 His knapsack of sunshine loose strapped on 
 his back. 
 Through mists, and through dews, and through 
 fine purple clover 
 Was faring his way down the summer's green 
 track. 
 
246 ^o&ietnavvi antf ^rne* 
 
 I sat all alone 'neath the shade of a willow, 
 And saw the old earth blithely jogging along, 
 
 While over the fields, like the foam on a billow. 
 The morning was breaking in blossom and 
 song. 
 
 O, list! and, O, hear! like the wing of a swallow, 
 Updarting from fields that are golden with 
 corn; 
 With the ring and the swing of a huntsman's 
 "view hallo," 
 Some fairy is winding his sweet elfin horn. 
 
 Now up like a fiame, and now down like a 
 shower; 
 Now here and now there in its sparkle and 
 gloom; 
 It rings and it swings like a bell in a tower. 
 Wide casting its notes as a wind-flower its 
 bloom. 
 
 'Tis a bobolink singing among the sweet clover; 
 
 A bobolink whimsical, happy and free, 
 And its voice like new wine makes earth, the 
 old rover. 
 Half tipsy with jollity, clean daft with his 
 glee. 
 
 It fell to my lot the other day to witness 
 a scene that I shall not soon forget. Death 
 has myriad ways of coming to the sons and 
 
daughters of men, and it chanced that death 
 had drawn near to a certain dear woman 
 in a way that well might blanch the cheek 
 of the bravest hero. As surely condemned 
 to die as is the murderer when he hears the 
 judge's sentence, with absolute hopelessness 
 of any cure, and with the certainty of no 
 more than a brief span of weeks wherein 
 to live, this brave woman faced her doom 
 with all the condemned man's certainty, and 
 yet without his shame. Grown old in a life 
 of peculiar usefulness, with not a single 
 abated enthusiasm and with a heart as keen- 
 ly attuned to nature's as is the flute to the 
 master's touch, this dear old heroine calmly 
 renounced the world she had so loved and 
 turned her face direct to "headquarters," 
 with no friend to interfere between herself 
 and God. For one bitter hour, perhaps, 
 she wept and watched alone in her Gethse- 
 mane, then turned about to await the chariot 
 wheels of her deliverance with a heart as 
 glad and a faith as warm and bright as a 
 little child's who waits in the shadow the 
 coming of a loving father to lead her home. 
 Taken to the hospital to die, knowing that 
 those doors swung for her last entrance with- 
 in any earthly home, fully realizing that from 
 
248 ^0iktmixvvi anif ^u^« 
 
 beneath that roof her soul should ascend to 
 its home beyond the stars, bidding good-bye 
 forever to the sunset skies and the rural 
 walks that she had so loved, to all the bright 
 company of wild flowers she had known by 
 name, to the pomp of seasons and the com- 
 munion of happy homes, she took up her 
 abode in the ward of the incurables. Every 
 day she sits in the sunshine and reads her 
 books or indites letters to her friends. Every 
 day she struggles with devastating pain, and 
 every day she grows a little thinner and a 
 little weaker in the body, while her soul 
 springs heavenward like a white flower from 
 the dust, which no earthly blight can reach. 
 As I sat by her side the other morning and 
 held her wasted hand in mine it seemed the 
 most natural thing in the world to send a 
 message by this sweet soul to the unseen 
 land, and we almost forgot the pain of part- 
 ing in the bright anticipation of the many 
 who would throng to meet the gray-headed 
 voyager when at last her sail should beat 
 across the blue waters into the heavenly har- 
 bor. And as we talked there came a mes- 
 sage that a very old friend had called to see 
 the sufferer; one who had been the closest 
 comrade of her brilliant youth and the com- 
 
panion of her maturer years. Slowly the 
 guest entered the shrine wherein a soul 
 awaited the sacrament of death, silently she 
 stretched out her arms and gathered that 
 wasted frame within their close embrace. 
 As a mother comforts the baby at her breast, 
 so they comforted one another with tender 
 words. The years of their life fell away 
 from them as petals from a rose which the 
 wind lightly rocks, and they were girls 
 again. "Oh, my dear child, how sweet, how 
 brave, how grand you are!" said the guest. 
 "My precious girl, my poor, dear one, how 
 can I bear to see you here !" she cried again 
 and yet again, while her tears fell like rain, 
 and the turmoil of her sobs rent her very 
 inmost heart. I shall live long before I see 
 so touching a sight again. In the presence 
 of a love so perfect and so true I felt to be 
 almost an interloper and an alien, so I quiet- 
 ly stole away and left these two old women, 
 bowed with the weight of many years, sus- 
 taining and sustained by the trust that the 
 portals of the tomb, within whose shadows 
 they stood, were but the gates that usher the 
 soul into the full affluence of life and love. 
 
250 ^ojskj^mavx^ antf ^tt^* 
 
 It is almost impossible to get the average 
 young person past the florist's window now- 
 adays. She has a way of clasping her hands 
 and pursing her lips over the roses that 
 would make the average young man shed his 
 last dollar, as the almond tree shakes its 
 blossoms. I am always sorry for a poor 
 young man in love with a pretty girl. He 
 longs to buy the world for her and she longs 
 quite as ardently to receive it as a gift, and 
 so he is hurrying along his bankrupt career 
 until matrimony or estrangement checks 
 him. Have you not a pitying remembrance 
 in your own heart of a certain youth of the 
 long ago who deluged your house with 
 roses, confectionery and novels until his sal- 
 ary was wildly wasted in the unequal con- 
 tests? Girls, be a little less receptive, as it 
 were; be just a bit more thoughtful and deli- 
 cate in your orders at the restaurant and 
 your selection from the florist's window, and 
 I think your matrimonial chances will be 
 the better for it. How often have I seen 
 a young woman order a costly dinner when 
 some young man whom she well knew to be 
 the recipient of a small salary was to foot 
 the bill, yet when ordering for herself I 
 am told she never goes higher than beans 
 
and bread and butter. Now, girls, don't 
 think Amber is an everlasting old grand- 
 mother! Not a bit of it, but she has tossed 
 about the world so much and heard so many 
 "little birds" teUing their secrets that she has 
 taken unto herself quite a pack of knowledge 
 of the ways and manners of mankind. I 
 positively adore a young girl, and always 
 have, and, what is more, expect I always 
 shall. But admiring and loving them as I 
 do, from the tip of their bangs to the click 
 of their boot heels, I cannot bear to see them 
 do unlovely things. I want to see them help- 
 ful, lovable, sweet. I want to see them slow 
 to wound another's feelings, and quick as 
 sunshine after rain with tender smiles and 
 womanly ways. I want to see them brave, 
 yet gentle; gay, yet kind; fun-loving, yet 
 never loud and rude. I want to hear the 
 young men in speaking of them speak of 
 something besides their extravagance and 
 their greed. I want the very air to be the 
 sweeter for their passing, as when one car- 
 ries roses through a room their fragrance 
 lingers. And what shall make you sweet, 
 dear girls? Not fashionable gowns and 
 dainty clothing; not beauty nor grace nor 
 wealth so much as womanliness and unsel- 
 fish thought for others. 
 
252 JlSic&ietnavt^ atitf Slu^* 
 
 The woman who can wear an arctic over- 
 shoe over a No. 5 shoe and make no moan 
 ought to have been born a Joan of Arc or a 
 Charlotte Corday. She is made of the 
 "dust" that heroines have a corner on. At 
 one time in my Hfe I owned a dog — a guile- 
 less pup — whose darling aim on earth was to 
 drag my colossal arctics before admiring 
 gentlemen callers and lay them by the fire- 
 side, where they overshadowed the big base- 
 burner with their bulk. I was rid of the 
 dog long before I was rid of the feeling that 
 it was a disgrace for a woman to wear the 
 feet God gave her. The most colossal over- 
 shoe is neither so big nor so objectionable 
 as an early grave, and that is just what lies 
 before some of you girls if you don't quit 
 wearing French heels and going about in 
 damp and chilly weather without protection 
 for your feet. Burn up the high-heeled slip- 
 pers, then, with their atrocious shape ; culti- 
 vate health and common-sense rather than 
 the empty flattery of a world that cares noth- 
 ing for you. So shall you be as beautiful as 
 houris, as healthy as Hebes, as long lived as 
 
^0&ictnavvi anli> |lw^* 253 
 
 Sarahs and as light-footed as the shadow 
 that dances to a wind-blown Columbine. 
 
 m 
 
 A graveyard never saddens me. It seems 
 nothing more than one of the flies behind 
 the scenes when the actors have gone on in 
 front. What matters the room where we 
 doff our toggery when we are once out of 
 it? So, not long since, when in rambling 
 about one of the Apostle Islands, away up 
 in Lake Superior country, I ran across a 
 sunshiny little graveyard, and I was glad 
 to loiter about for an hour and read the 
 inscriptions on the age-worn stones. It 
 was a blue day — blue in the sky above and 
 blue in the haze on the hills, blue in the 
 sparkling waters of the lake and bluer yet 
 in the far distance that marked a score of 
 miles from shore. Before the gateway of 
 the graveyard a clump of golden rod stood, 
 like an angel barring the way with a sword 
 of light. A tangle of luxuriant vines had 
 curtained most of the graves from sight. 
 A few, more carefully tended than the rest, 
 stood bravely out from behind fences of 
 ornamental woodwork, but most of them 
 
254 ^o&!Ctnaxv[ ttn^ ^ne* 
 
 were sheltered and peaceful within their ne- 
 glected bowers of green. When my time 
 comes to lie down in my narrow home, I 
 pray you, kind gentlefolks, grant me the 
 seclusion of an unremembered grave rather 
 than the accentuated desolation of a painted 
 fence and a padlocked gate. There is rest 
 in neglect, and nature, if left alone, will nev- 
 er allow a grave to grow unsightly. She 
 folds it away in added coverings of mossy 
 green from year to year as a mother when 
 the nights are long will tuck her sleeping 
 children under soft, warm blankets. She 
 appoints her choristers from the leafy belfry 
 of the woods to keep the chimes ringing 
 when the days are long and slow and sweet, 
 and lights her tapers nightly in the wavering, 
 shimmer of the stars. In a secluded corner 
 we found a handbreadth space where a baby 
 was laid to rest many a year ago. No 
 chronicle of the little life remains, and yet a 
 stranger stands beside its grave and drops 
 a tear. I don't know why, I'm sure, for why 
 should we cry when a baby dies? So roses 
 are picked before the frost finds them! 
 Another stone was erected to a young bride 
 who died at twenty. Looking about at the 
 stoop-shouldered, care-lined and premature- 
 
ly old women who toiled in those island 
 homes, we could not feel very sorry for the 
 young bride who died, perhaps, while life 
 still held an illusion. With lingering step at 
 last we left the graveyard, repassed the gold- 
 en sentry at the gate and sought the little 
 boat that awaited us on the beautiful bay. 
 Long after other details of that pleasant out- 
 ing are forgotten the memory of that blue 
 day among the quiet graves on the island of 
 the great lake shall linger like a song within 
 our hearts. 
 
 ^ 
 
 "If I had two loaves of bread," said Ma- 
 homet, "I would sell one of them and buy 
 white hyacinths, for they would feed my 
 soul." I came across that delightful saying 
 the other day, and I thought to myself: 
 There is another one to be hunted up when 
 I get over yonder! I shall have to make 
 the acquaintance of a man, prophet or not, 
 who gave utterance to such a sentiment as 
 that. How many of us, poor earthworms 
 that we are, would rather spend our dollar 
 for white hyacinths than for a big supper? 
 How many of us ever stop to think that there 
 
256 ^o^^ntarij anh Jluje* 
 
 is something under the sleek rotundity of 
 our girth that demands food quite as eager- 
 ly as our stomach does, and fails and faints 
 and dies quite as surely without it? Take 
 less of the food that goes to fatten the perish- 
 able part of you, and give more sustenance 
 to that inner guest who, like a captive, sits 
 and starves with long and cruel neglect. 
 Buy fewer glasses of beer and more "white 
 hyacinths." Smoke less tobacco and invest 
 in a few sunsets and dawns. Let cheap 
 shows alone and go hear music of the right 
 sort. So shall your soul lift up its droop- 
 ing head and grow less and less to resem- 
 ble one of Pharaoh's lean kine. I adore a 
 man or a woman who has enough sentiment 
 to appreciate what dead and gone Mahomet 
 said, and hereafter will make it a point 
 to buy less bread and more hyacinths. 
 
 ^ 
 
 I wonder if, when we get to the other 
 world, we shall not occasionally stroll into 
 some sort of a celestial museum, where the 
 relics of our foregone existence, its wasted 
 days and misspent years, may stare back at 
 us from glass cases where the angels have 
 
ticketed them and put them all neatly on ex- 
 hibition! There will be necklaces of ill- 
 spent moments, like the faded brilliants ex- 
 humed from old Pompeii, with lots of brok- 
 en hopes and thwarted destinies. There 
 will be odd little freaks and unreasoning 
 caprices, like the "What is it?" and foolish 
 deeds of daring to turn our pulses faint with 
 the old-time terror. There will be those 
 tendencies which kept us heavy-footed like 
 the fat woman, and others that made us 
 bhnd, although the world was full of light. 
 There will be the disloyal deeds that made 
 us a constant source of care and wonder- 
 ment to the angels who watched us, and 
 the cowardice that kept us in leading strings 
 to conformity. There will be shelves full 
 of the little white lies we have told, all la- 
 beled and dated, like pebbles from the Med- 
 iterranean or bits of shell from the sea. 
 There will be fragments of blighted lives 
 ruined by wagging tongues and shafts of 
 tea table gossip. There will be the old-time 
 masks wherein we masqueraded, and the 
 flimsy veils of deceit behind which we hid 
 our individuality. There will be the mem- 
 ories of little children we might have kept 
 had we been wiser, and snatches of lullaby 
 
 17 
 
258 Itjcr^^tnttrtj ant> ^tt^* 
 
 songs. There will be jars full of love 
 glances and pots of preserved and honeyed 
 kisses. There will be whole bales of mis- 
 takes, a Gobelin tapestry to drape the world, 
 and stacks of dead and withered "might- 
 have-beens." There will be peacock feath- 
 ers of pride tied together with faded rib- 
 bons of regret, and whole cabinets full of 
 closet skeletons and family contentions. 
 There will be pedestals whereon shall stand 
 the "white days" we can never forget, and 
 panorama chambers wherein shall be un- 
 rolled the pictured scroll of our journey 
 heavenward. In cunningly devised music 
 boxes we shall hear again the melody of our 
 youthful laughter and the patter of life's un- 
 counted tears. I think the shelves of that 
 celestial museum would yield some odd sur- 
 prises to the most of us, like the finding of 
 a bauble we counted worthless and threw 
 away glittering in the diadem of a crown, 
 or the prize we bartered honor for turned 
 to worthless glitter and tinsel paste! 
 
 I 
 
 There is no use sitting here by this win- 
 dow any longer and trying to believe that 
 
^o&]^tnavi^ fxnb ^u^* 259 
 
 life is worth living. If I looked for five 
 minutes more at this November landscape I 
 should shave my head and hie me to a 
 Carmelite convent. Dame Nature has for- 
 gotten her housewifely duties and gone off 
 to gossip with the good ladies who have 
 charge of the other planets. Where but yes- 
 terday the late asters bloomed in long rows 
 of splendor, and the chrysanthemums 
 fringed the sunny borders with feathers of 
 white and gold, the unsightly stalks grovel 
 in the clayey mold, and the frost-nipped 
 vines drop their dismantled tendrils in the 
 chilly wind. Fragments of old china lurk 
 in the discovered spaces underneath the de- 
 nuded lilac bushes, and out by the oleander 
 tub a cruel cat is worrying a large and dis- 
 couraged rat. That oleander tub reminds 
 me an ordeal that is ushered in with every 
 change of season. Twice a year we are 
 compelled to carry that large vegetable in 
 and out of its winter lair. About the last 
 week of September we begin to wrap it in 
 bed-quilts every night, and from that time 
 on until late autumn no delicate babe was 
 ever more tenderly guarded. Then, as 
 there is no man in the country who for love 
 or lucre will condescend to the job, we begin 
 
260 ^u^^mary an^ ^tt^* 
 
 to worry the Doctor. We tell him the 
 oleander will be blighted by the frost, and 
 he pays no heed. Then we ask him if he 
 would just as lief bring in the oleander after 
 supper. He sneaks ofif and is gone until the 
 II p. m. train. Next we take to tears, and 
 declare that we love that oleander as one 
 of the family, and it breaks our heart to see 
 it perish for want of care. We grow pale 
 and wan and gray-headed as the days go by, 
 and finally with flashing eyes and muttered 
 oaths the Doctor yanks the tub and its co- 
 lossal growth into the cellar, and we rest 
 on our arms until the advent of another 
 spring. 
 
 Well, the summer has gathered up her 
 corn-silk draperies, put on her rose- 
 trimmed hat, and tripped over the border 
 land at last. From the bend in the road that 
 shall hide her from our view forever she 
 lingers a moment to throw back a sunny 
 glance at September, as he comes whistling 
 down the lane, with plume of golden-rod 
 in his hat. A glad good-bye to you, long- 
 to-be-remembered summer of 1890! We are 
 
gta^^ntctru ixnt:f glu^* 26i 
 
 so glad to see you go that we are willing 
 to forego your blossoms and your bird songs 
 to be well rid of you. For three long months 
 we have endured heat without precedent, 
 drought and discomfort, flies and mosqui- 
 tos, threatened thunder gusts and devastat- 
 ing cyclones, and we are so tired that we 
 feel like shaking a stick at you now, to see 
 you lingering to coquet with September. 
 Hasten on, oh bright autumn weather, with 
 your comfortable nights for sleep, and your 
 royal days of sunshine and frost. We are 
 longing for the time to come when the 
 lamps shall be lighted early in the parlor, 
 and the fire-glow shall once more shed its 
 glory upon grandma's lovely hair and upon 
 the gold of the children's restless heads; 
 when the cat shall have leave to lie on the 
 best cushion, and the voice of the tea-kettle, 
 droning its supper monologue, shall alter- 
 nate with the efforts of the older sister at the 
 piano. By the way, do you know there is 
 lots of solace to be found in an old music 
 book of twenty years ago? Don't tell me 
 that the music of to-day is as sweet all 
 through as the melodies of long ago. Who 
 sings such soul-ravishing duets to-day as 
 "She Bloomed with the Roses," "Twilight 
 
262 ^c^i^ntavvi an^ ^u^* 
 
 Dews," or "Gently Sighs the Breeze"? I 
 declare to you, my dear, that although I 
 shall be considerably older some day than 
 I am now, and although I have not fallen 
 so far into the "sere and yellow" as to count 
 myself among the old-fashioned and the 
 queer, yet any one of those songs just men- 
 tioned will start the tears from my eyes as 
 showers start from summer clouds. 
 
 Two little motherless children! Do you 
 know the thought of a baby without a moth- 
 er to cuddle it always brings the tears to my 
 eyes? Traveling to distant New England 
 with a father who, although kind, seemed 
 some way unfitted to his duties, as a straight- 
 legged chair might if used for a lullaby 
 rocker, were two bits of folks, a boy and a 
 girl, one four, the other two years old. The 
 careful father brushed their hair very nicely 
 and washed their mites of faces with great 
 regularity. When he told them to sit still 
 they sat still, and nobody was annoyed by 
 their antics, but, oh, how it made my heart 
 ache to watch the motherless chicks! If 
 mamma had been there they would have 
 
^o^i^tnavvi antf ^«^* 263 
 
 climbed all over her, and bothered her a 
 good deal, perhaps, with their clinging arms 
 and kisses (it's a way babies have with their 
 mammas!), but in the presence of their dark- 
 eyed and quiet papa they behaved like little 
 weasels in the presence of a fox. "Papa 
 says we mustn't talk about mamma any 
 more," lisped the boy. " 'Cause she's gone 
 to heaven." In the name of love, whose 
 apostle I humbly claim to be, I longed to 
 gather those little ones in my arms and have 
 a dear, sweet talk about the mamma who 
 had left them for a little while, and I wanted 
 to say to the proper and punctilious papa: 
 "Good sir, if you attempt to bring up these 
 motherless mites without the demonstration 
 of love you will meet with the same success 
 your gardener would should he set out roses 
 in a pine forest. Children need love as flow- 
 ers need the southerly exposure and sun- 
 shine. When that boy of yours bumped 
 his head, sir, it was your place to comfort 
 him in something the way his dead mother 
 might have done, rather than to have bade 
 him 'sit up and be a man.' " 
 
264 |lo0^tnarij anb glu^* 
 
 SLEEP'S SERENADE. 
 
 In cadence far, 
 
 From star to star, 
 Sleep's mellow horns are faintly calling; 
 
 Through dreamland halls 
 
 Sweet madrigals, 
 In liquid numbers drowsy falling. 
 
 Noiseless and still, 
 
 O'er star-watched hill. 
 Beneath the white moon's tender glances, 
 
 A host of dreams. 
 
 By wind-blown streams, 
 March on with gleam of silver lances. 
 
 A captive thou; 
 
 Then, yield thee, now, 
 While mellow horns are nearer calling; 
 
 And ringing bells. 
 
 And poppy spells, 
 Thy senses all in sleep enthralling. 
 
 O, hark;0, hear, 
 
 My lady, dear. 
 O'er woods and hills and streamlets flying, 
 
 The winding note 
 
 Of horns remote. 
 In softest echo dying— dying. 
 
 I had a dream the other night which was 
 like, and yet unlike, the vision of fair women 
 
of which a poet once wrote. I dreamed that 
 I sat within a court-room. Before me passed 
 the meanest men and women God ever per- 
 mitted to Hve, and upon them I was to pass 
 the verdict as to which should carry off the 
 palm. The scandal-monger came first, he 
 or she who sits like a fly-catcher on a tree, 
 snapping up morsels of news. He or she who 
 is swelled full of conjecture whenever any- 
 body commits an innocent indiscretion, as 
 an owl blinks and ruffles up its feathers 
 when the bobolink sings. He or she who 
 goes about the world like a lean cat after 
 a mouse. He or she who is always looking 
 for clouds in a bright June sky, and slugs in 
 roses and flies in honey. He or she whose 
 heart is made of brass, and whose soul is 
 so small it will take eleven cycles of eternity 
 to develop it to the dimension of a hayseed. 
 I was about to hand this specimen the ban- 
 ner without looking further when a being 
 glided by me with a noiseless tread. She 
 wore felt shoes and a mask. She spoke 
 with the voice of a canary, yet had the talons 
 of a vulture. She wore a stomacher made 
 from the fleece of a lamb, and between her 
 bright red lips were the tusks of a wolf. I 
 recognized her as the hypocrite, the false 
 
266 ^00!etnavvi antu ^tt^* 
 
 friend; she who hands over your Hving 
 bones for your enemies to pick, while you 
 beheve she is your champion and your de- 
 fender. Following her came the man who 
 keeps his horse standing all day with its nose 
 in a nosebag. There was a groan like the 
 sighing of wind in the poplars as he went by. 
 Then came the merciless man who oppresses 
 and torments the helpless and grinds the 
 faces of the poor; and following him I be- 
 held yet another monster — the worst of all 
 in male attire. He came sneaking around 
 a corner, with a smile on his lips and a devil 
 in his eye, seeking to entrap innocent girl- 
 hood and unsuspecting womanhood. Then 
 came the woman who gives her children to 
 the care of servants while she goes down- 
 town with a dog in her arms. Then came a 
 lean-faced, weasel-eyed creature with the 
 general expression of a sneak thief. I dis- 
 covered her to be the representative of that 
 type of women who coaxes her neighbor's 
 hired girl away with promises of better 
 wages. Then came the envious person 
 whose evil passions are kindled like the fires 
 of sheol at the prosperity of others, and who, 
 because his own cup of life holds vinegar, is 
 determined no other shall contain wine. I 
 
suddenly awoke without having bestowed 
 the palm on any. Perhaps some of my read- 
 ers may find it easy to do that for themselves. 
 
 it 
 
 Do you know which, of all the sights that 
 confronted me yesterday in my rambles 
 through the rainy weather, I pigeon-holed 
 as the saddest? Not the little white cas- 
 ket, gleaming like the petal of a fallen flower, 
 through the undertaker's rain-streaked win- 
 dow; not the woman with the lack-luster 
 eye and the flippety-floppety petticoats who 
 went by me in the rain silently cursing her 
 bundles and the fact that she was not three- 
 handed ; not the poor old cab horse with his 
 nose in a wet bag, and his stomach so tightly 
 buckled in that he couldn't breathe below the 
 fifth rib; not the man out of a job, with his 
 gloveless hands in his pockets, trying to 
 solve the problem of supper; not the little 
 child under convoy of a stern and relentless 
 dragon who yanked it over the crossings by 
 the arm socket; not the starved and abso- 
 lutely hopeless yellow dog, who sat in a 
 doorway and wondered to himself if there 
 was indeed a canine life that included occa- 
 
268 J^jcr^jemartj ant> Ku^* 
 
 sional bones and no kicks; no, not any of 
 these impressed me as the most gruesome of 
 a great city's many sights. As I passed the 
 corner of Washington and Dearborn streets 
 I came face to face with a red-cheeked, 
 wholesome boy of barely twenty years of 
 age. He was leaning upon the arm of an 
 elderly man, and at first I thought him ill, 
 but it took but a second glance to see that 
 he was drunk. Now, I consider that the 
 very saddest sight a great city has to offer. 
 When the old men are wicked there is some 
 comfort in the thought that their day is 
 nearly spent, and their worthless places may 
 be soon filled with a nobler and a better 
 stock, but a drunken and dissolute boy 
 means just what it means for the fruit har- 
 vest when the blight gets into the blossom. 
 The gathered apple that rots in the bin is 
 bad enough, but the worm that destroys the 
 fruit in the germ makes greater loss. Be 
 thankful that the grave has taken to its pro- 
 tecting shelter the boy you loved so dearly, 
 and of whom you were so proud, rather than 
 that he should have grown to be a drunkard 
 before his twentieth birthday. 
 
^0&enxaxt^ axx^ ^xxc^ 269 
 
 We are each of us missing constant 
 chances to bestow a kindness upon some 
 needy soul for the reason that we dread 
 being imposed upon by a case of causeless 
 complaining. Is it worth while to keep our 
 hearts stolid merely because we may be 
 cheated in the bestowal of a nickel's worth 
 of alms? I think not. You looked up 
 from your work a few minutes ago and saw 
 a little boy not much bigger than your 
 thumb looking through the open doorway. 
 He began at once a sing-song tale of woe 
 about a sick mother and a father out of 
 work — or in his grave, it doesn't much 
 matter. At the same time he held out 
 a paper of cheap pins to tempt a nickel from 
 your store. 
 
 "I have no time to bother with such as 
 you," you said, and turned your eyes back 
 to your ledger. But still the boy droned on. 
 You looked at him again and noticed that 
 the small hand that held the pins was well 
 kept and very, very thin. Then your eyes 
 followed the diminutive form down to the 
 feet; they, too, showed signs of somebody's 
 care, although the shoes were shabby and 
 the stockings thin. 
 
 "He is not an ordinary little beggar," you 
 
270 ^0&J^tnav1i^ ^^n^ $ltt^* 
 
 said to yourself. And then your gaze trav- 
 eled upward again until it met his long- 
 lashed Irish eyes, so full of trouble and of 
 entreaty that they looked like twin Killar- 
 ney lakes getting ready for rain. 
 
 "Poor little chap," you said, "of course I'll 
 buy a paper of pins," and in so doing you 
 stooped over and patted his head, perhaps, 
 or called him "dear," so that he went away 
 with the twin Killarney lakes all ready for 
 a sunburst to follow the rain. That was an 
 opportunity you nearly missed, but it 
 brought a blessing sweeter than a Crawford 
 peach. You didn't want the pins, but the 
 little desolate heart wanted the kind word 
 bestowed along with your nickel, and per- 
 haps its bestowal shall be an impulse to- 
 ward the light to a soul that cross words 
 and constant refusals had already given a 
 downward trend. 
 
 ^ 
 
 There stands a very young girl at the 
 door of a drug store. She hesitates a mo- 
 ment and enters. "May I sit here and wait 
 for a friend?" she inquires of the dapper 
 clerk. "Certainly," he answers, and places 
 a chair for her near the window. 
 
^o^i^mavt^ antJr ^u^* 271 
 
 That girl's father told her last night to 
 have nothing more to do with young Solo- 
 mon Levi. "He is a worthless fellow," said 
 he, "and I have forbidden him the house." 
 "Very well," said she, and this morning she 
 has made the excuse to go to the grocery 
 for yeast, and is waiting here for the grace- 
 less Solomon. By and by he will come, and 
 she will listen to him and form plans for 
 clandestine meetings. My dear, there is 
 a stairway whose top lies in the sunshine, 
 but whose lower steps lead down to endless 
 shadow. Your pretty foot is poising on the 
 upper stair — beware! And yet I think the 
 father has been to blame also. These stern, 
 non-explanatory parents are responsible for 
 much of the ruin wrought in young people's 
 lives. If the old rat would go with the young 
 one now and then to investigate the smell of 
 cheese, his restraining presence would do 
 more good than all the warnings and threats 
 beforehand. Temptations are bound to be- 
 siege the girls and bewilder the boys. Don't 
 let us make a pit-fire out of moonshine and 
 forbid every bit of innocent fun and frolic 
 because there is a gayety that takes hold on 
 death. Give the young folks a little more 
 license, mingle with them in many amuse- 
 
272 ^Jd&etntxvi^ anlf ^u^* 
 
 ments which you have been wont to frown 
 upon, do not be so frightened if their light 
 feet go dancing off the path now and then, 
 and ten to one the end of the journey will be 
 Beulah Land and peace. A good deal less 
 faultfinding and a good deal more sympathy 
 would be better all around. 
 
 ^ 
 
 There is no lot on earth so hard to bear 
 as the lot of wedlock where love has failed. 
 The slave's life is not comparable to it, for 
 the manacles that only bind the hands may 
 be laid aside, but those that fetter the heart 
 not death itself holds the key to loosen. It 
 fairly makes me tremble when I see the 
 thoughtless rush young people make to en- 
 ter what is by far the most solemn and re- 
 sponsible relation of Hfe. They are like 
 mariners who put to sea in flimsy boats, or 
 like explorers who fit themselves with Prince 
 Albert suits and buttonhole bouquets. Be- 
 fore you get through the voyage, my dears, 
 you will encounter tempests as well as bon- 
 nie blue weather, and God pity you when 
 your pleasure craft strikes the first billow, 
 if it was made of caprice and put together 
 
^o&i^tnavi^ anlr ^n^* 273 
 
 with mucilage instead of rivets ! As for the 
 explorer and his dress suit, where will he 
 be when the tigers begin to scent him and 
 the air is full of great sorrows and little 
 frets like flying buzzards and cawing crows? 
 Be an old maid in its most despised sig- 
 nificance then ; be a grubber and a toiler all 
 the days of your life rather than rush into 
 marriage as a hunted fox flies into a trap. 
 There is some chance for the fox that flies 
 to the hills, and for the bird that soars above 
 the huntsman's aim, but what better off is 
 the fox in the trap or the lark in a cage? 
 There is a love so pure and ennobling that 
 eternity shall not be long enough to cast its 
 blossom, nor death sharp enough to loosen 
 the foundation of its hold. Such love is born 
 in the spirit rather than forced in the hot- 
 house of the senses. It is an impulse toward 
 the stars, a striving toward things that are 
 pure and perfect and true. It grows in the 
 heart as a rose grows in the garden, first a 
 slip, then a leaf and finally the perfect blos- 
 som. No rose ever put forth a flower first, 
 and then bethought itself of rooting and 
 budding. Pray, dear girls, that this love 
 may come to you rather than its poor proto- 
 type, so current in a world of shams and 
 
 18 
 
274 ^c^etnavt^ ant> |lu^* 
 
 pretenses, whose luster corrodes with daily 
 usage and turns to pewter in your grasp. 
 
 Once there was an old woman who died 
 and went to glory. Now a great many old 
 women have died and gone the same way, 
 but this one was very tired and very glad to 
 go. She had worked hard ever since she 
 could handle a broom or flirt a duster. 
 She had probably washed about 91,956,045 
 dishes in her life, had baked something less 
 than a million of pies, and turned out any- 
 where between a quarter to half a million 
 loaves of bread, to say nothing of biscuits. 
 These figures are steep, but I am writing 
 under the invigorating impulse of the grip ! 
 She had darned socks and hemmed towels 
 and patched old pantaloon-seats between 
 times, until her fingers were callous as agate. 
 She had borne and reared lots of children 
 and tended to their myriad wants. 
 For forty-seven years she had done a big 
 washing every week, and laundried more 
 collars than a Canada thistle has seed-pods. 
 At last she died. The tired old body burst 
 its withered husk and let the flower free. The 
 
rusty old cage flew open and out went the 
 bird. And when they buried her I suppose 
 they were fooHsh enough to shed tears and 
 put on mourning! As well expect all the 
 birds to wear crape when dawn sets out its 
 primrose-pot on the ledge of the eastern sky! 
 But one friend of quicker perception than 
 the rest, I am told, placed the following in- 
 scription on the tired old woman's grave- 
 stone : 
 
 Here lies a poor woman who always was tired. 
 For she lived in a world where much was re- 
 quired. 
 "Weep not for me, friends," she said, "for I'm 
 
 going 
 Where there'll be neither washing, nor baking, 
 
 nor sewing; 
 Then weep not for me; if death must us sever. 
 Rejoice that I'm going to do nothing forever." 
 
 There is just one thing in the latter part of 
 the nineteenth century that never fails to 
 bring success, and that is assurance. If you 
 are going to make yourself known it is no 
 longer the thing to quietly pass out a visit- 
 ing card — you must advance with a trumpet 
 and blow a brazen blast to shake the stars. 
 
276 ^o^^ntttrtj ctnlr ^vte* 
 
 The time has gone by when self-advance- 
 ment can be gained by modest and unassum- 
 ing methods. To stand with a Hfted hat and 
 solicit a hearing savors of mendicancy and 
 an humble spirit. The easily abashed and 
 the diffident may starve in a garret, or go 
 die on the highways — there is no chance for 
 them in the jostling rush of life. The gilded 
 circus chariot, with a full brass band and a 
 plump goddess distributing circulars, is 
 what takes the popular heart by storm. 
 Your silent entry into town, depending upon 
 the merits of your wares to gain an audience 
 or work up a custom, is chimerical and ob- 
 solete. We no longer sit in the shadow and 
 play flutes; we mount a pine platform and 
 blow on a trombone, and in that way we 
 draw a crowd, and that is what we live for. 
 Who are the women who succeed in business 
 ventures of any sort? Mostly the mannish, 
 bold, aggressive amazons who are unmind- 
 ful of rebuflfs and impervious to contempt. 
 Who are the men who wear diamonds and 
 live easy lives? Largely the politicians who 
 have made their reputation in bar-room ros- 
 trums and among sharpers. Oh, for a 
 wind to blow us forward a hundred years 
 out of this age of sordid self-seeking and 
 
impudent assertiveness into something larg- 
 er and sweeter and finer. Give us less yeast 
 in our bread and more substance; fill our 
 cups with wine rather than froth, and for 
 sweet pity's sake hang up the great Ameri- 
 can trumpet and let "silence, like a poultice, 
 come to heal the blows of sound." 
 
 Every day, for months, as I have taken 
 my morning ride to town I have noticed a 
 dog who bounds forth from a dooryard that 
 overlooks the busy highway of the steed of 
 steam and barks himself weak at the rush- 
 ing trains. He really accomplishes nothing, 
 but do you suppose you could convince his 
 canine brain that he was not at once a re- 
 proach and a terror to the numerous trains 
 that disturb his rest? He reminds me of 
 certain people we meet all the way through 
 life. They bark at trains continually while 
 the Lord prolongs their breath, and the 
 faster the train and the more it carries the 
 louder they bark. They fondly imagine 
 that the voice of their ranting protest accom- 
 plishes a purpose in the world. They are 
 always barking at capital and at rich men 
 
278 Jticr^^tnaru txntf ^u^* 
 
 and at corporations. They bark at people 
 of courteous manners, and all the ways and 
 customs of polite and gentle society, with 
 fierce and futile yelpings. They bark at 
 the swift advancement of the world from ig- 
 norance to enlightenment, from superstition 
 to liberalism. They bark at the churches 
 because they are on a train that has side- 
 tracked Calvin. They bark at polite young 
 men who wear clean Hnen, and call them 
 dudes; they bark at women who have one 
 or two ideas outside of fashionable folly and 
 inane conventionalism, and call them 
 cranks; they bark at everything on wheels, 
 where wheels typify strength and achieve- 
 ment. They will go on barking, too, while 
 the world finds room and maintains patience 
 for them and their barking. 
 
 I think I have said before that I loathe 
 meek people. But even if I have I am going 
 to say it again. Your half-wits who sit and 
 turn first one cheek and then the other to be 
 slapped are not the sort for me. The man 
 or woman, boy or girl, child or otherwise, 
 that will endure direct insult day after day 
 
without resenting it ought to sell themselves 
 at so much a pint for illuminating oil — that 
 is all they are good for. I love a fighter, pro- 
 vided he foils gracefully and does not snatch 
 out his sword in every brawling and un- 
 worthy cause. In the defense of woman, in 
 the cause of honor, purity and truth; in bat- 
 tle against sordidness, and greed, and a 
 lying tongue, let your blade flash Hke sum- 
 mer rain and your white plume outdistance 
 the plume of Navarre ! For God and moth- 
 er, justice and honor, self-respect and the 
 approval of our own conscience, let us go 
 forward then with a chip, if need be, on 
 each shoulder and a standard copy of the 
 celestial army tactics in our side pocket! 
 The Lord loves a good many things, cheer- 
 ful givers and self-sacrificing widows with 
 their mites, merciful men and sweet and 
 noble women, but most of all, I think, he 
 loves a valiant fighter in the cause of right. 
 
 r 
 
 Now it came to pass that there dwelt in 
 a certain city of the land of the great lakes 
 a woman called Lydia, sister to Simon, the 
 shipwright. And Lydia, being comely and 
 
280 ^jcr^^ntartj ant^ ^ne* 
 
 fair to look upon, was sought in marriage 
 by one John, a dealer in spices and fine teas. 
 And the years of their wedlock having out- 
 numbered the fingers upon a man's two 
 hands, it came to pass that they dwelt to- 
 gether in exceeding prosperity in a town 
 near by the blue waters of a mighty lake. 
 
 And Heaven sent unto them children to 
 the number of three, so that their hearts 
 were exceeding glad, and the cords of their 
 habitation were stretched from year to year. 
 And it came to pass that the home in which 
 they lived was spacious and full of salubri- 
 ous air. Their beds, also, were of curled hair, 
 and all their bed-springs of beaten steel. 
 And bath-rooms made glad the heart of the 
 dust-laden when summer dwelt in the land. 
 Also there were cunningly devised screens 
 of fine wire in all the windows, so that the 
 marauding fly and the pestilential mosquito 
 might not enter. 
 
 And the flesh increased from year to year 
 upon the bones of Lydia and the children 
 that heaven sent her, while they remained in 
 the home that John, the tea merchant, had 
 given them. 
 
 But it came to pass that the neighbors of 
 the woman Lydia closed up the shutters of 
 
Jl00^wtarjj antf ilu^> 28i 
 
 their dwellings, and one by one stole from 
 town when the heat descended upon the 
 land. 
 
 Then spake Lydia unto John, the vender 
 of spices and fine teas, saying: 
 
 "Arise, let us go hence and dwell within 
 a farm-house, where the children may leap 
 together in the sweet-smelling hay, and I 
 may comfort myself with flagons of cream." 
 
 But John, being a man among men, and 
 accounted somewhat wise withal, would 
 have restrained Lydia, saying: "Not so; for 
 verily I say unto you, comfort abideth not 
 in the dwelling of the farmer, neither does 
 joy linger in the shadow of his doorway." 
 
 Now Lydia, being president of a Wom- 
 an's Club and reputed of knowledge beyond 
 the generality of womankind, would not 
 listen, but beat her hands together, crying: 
 "I prithee hold thy peace, for behold, I and 
 the children heaven sent me will depart 
 hence by to-morrow's chariot of steam, and 
 will make our home with the gentle farmer 
 and his sweet-breathed kine." 
 
 So John, being loth to war with the 
 tongue, albeit he was heavy-hearted and 
 walked with a bent head, purchased tickets 
 for Lydia and the children heaven had giv- 
 en her. 
 
282 ^o&ietnavvi ttnlr |lue* 
 
 And it came to pass that they left town by 
 the train which men call "the limited." 
 
 Now the way of that train through the 
 land is like unto the way of a ship at sea, 
 or of a strong eagle that never wearieth. 
 And the sufferings of Lydia were such that 
 she sought relief in peppermint and found 
 it not. 
 
 And the babes by reason of the swift- 
 ness with which they traversed a crooked 
 land, were made ill and languished like 
 sea-sick rangers of the deep. 
 
 Yet, after many hours, their torment 
 abated not, so that, reaching their desti- 
 nation, the bodies of Lydia and her chil- 
 dren were removed in a hack and hurried 
 to an inn that was built near by. 
 
 And in the inn where they were fain to 
 tarry until strength should be given them 
 for further journeying, it chanced that a 
 young babe lay sorely stricken with the 
 whooping-cough. 
 
 Now, when Lydia knew this, her heart 
 fainted with fear, and she prophesied evil. 
 
 For well she knew that her own babes 
 had not had the disease, and that the time 
 of their prostration was at hand. 
 
 So Lydia, being president of a Woman's 
 
^o&ietnavvi an^ ^ue* 283 
 
 Club, and accounted without a peer in the 
 gift of words, sent for the keeper of the 
 inn, that she might rebuke him. 
 
 And she opened her mouth impulsively 
 and questioned him saying: "Why brought- 
 est thou me and the children heaven gave 
 me into thine inn knowing that contagious 
 disease lurked within its gates?" 
 
 And the keeper of the inn shot out the 
 lip at her and was undismayed. 
 
 And he cried, *'Go to! And what wouldst 
 thou of a public house? Thou talkest like 
 one with little sense!" 
 
 And it came to pass that Lydia and her 
 children departed thence by stage and 
 sought the farm-house. And, arriving there, 
 they would have laid themselves down to 
 rest, being sorely bruised by reason of pro- 
 tracted stage-riding. 
 
 But the beds were made of straw and 
 corded underneath with ropes. So that 
 lying upon them caused the children to roar 
 loudly, and they found rest from their lam- 
 entations, four in a bed, on the bosom of 
 Lydia. 
 
 And, supper being served, it consisted of 
 tinted warm water and gooseberries sweet- 
 ened with brown sugar. 
 
284 ^0&!etnavvi anb ^nie. 
 
 Now Lydia, by reason of her connection 
 with the club, was enabled to speak boldly, 
 and she called for cream. 
 
 But the wife of the farmer made answer, 
 saying, "We have none." 
 
 And Lydia spoke yet again, saying, 
 *'Why, O woman of many wiles, hast thou 
 no cream?" 
 
 And the woman made way with an in- 
 sect that swam gaily in a pitcher of azure 
 milk, and said gently, "Because we sell it 
 to a neighboring dairy." 
 
 And Lydia said nothing, but remember- 
 ing the words of John, the tea-merchant, 
 wept silently. 
 
 And it came to pass that next morning 
 the children went forth to leap in the hay. 
 
 And the farmer led them firmly away 
 from the hay-mow by the tip of the ear, 
 saying, "I allow no children to spoil my 
 fodder." 
 
 And the morning of the second day, the 
 woman Lydia, being starved for nutritious 
 food, wended her way with her babes across 
 a stretch of pasture land in search of wild 
 blackberries. 
 
 And a beast, whose voice was baritone 
 and whose approach was Hke the approach 
 
^0&i^tnavv[ antf ^rnc* 285 
 
 of a Kansas cyclone, bore down upon her 
 and the children heaven had given her, 
 while yet they were midway in the meadow. 
 Now only by leaping could they save them- 
 selves. 
 
 And it came to pass that they leaped 
 mightily and flung themselves over a five- 
 barred fence. 
 
 And a snake made free with the draperies 
 of Lydia, so that her hair whitened with 
 fear, and between the beast with the bari- 
 tone voice and the serpent she knew not 
 which way to turn. 
 
 And the morning of the third day she 
 wrote to John, the tea-merchant, saying 
 only: 
 
 "My darling — Meet the first train that re- 
 turns from this place to the dear city by the 
 lake, for behold ! I and the children heaven 
 sent me are on our homeward way !" 
 
 IMPATIENCE. 
 
 A sweet little crocus came up through the mold, 
 And hugged round her shoulders her mantle of 
 
 gold, 
 While tears of distress fringed her delicate eye. 
 Like rain drops that start from a showery sky. 
 
286 glo^^ntitru antf ^m^* 
 
 "Where, pray, are those laggards, the violets 
 
 blue? 
 The roses and lilies and daffodils too? 
 I really think it's a shame and a sin 
 This waiting so long for the spring to begin. 
 
 "The first day of April and only one bird 
 Since I lifted my head has uttered a word! 
 And search as I may all over the meadow 
 Not even a cowslip has shown its bright head, O- 
 
 "Misery me! Sure there's no use in waiting, 
 For something, no doubt, is the summer belating; 
 So I'll go back to bed, put on my lace night cap. 
 And snatch, for a fortnight, a nice little cat- 
 nap!" 
 
 Down went little Gold-head, back to her pillow; 
 When, all in a twinkling, up over the hill, O, 
 The wind-flower host, with rose-tinted banners, 
 Marched into the world; Queen Summer's fore- 
 runners. 
 
 Her rose maids of honor, in filmiest laces. 
 Loitered and lingered in shy woodland places; 
 And white-vested lilies were ever at prayer; 
 Their vespers, the perfume that sweetened the 
 air. 
 
 The apple trees blushed into delicate splendor; 
 Theblue birds hung over in ecstasy tender, 
 While the gold powdered bee with helmet all 
 
 dusty 
 Kept watch over the flowers, a sentinel trusty. 
 
The robin sang love to his shy little sweetheart; 
 The orioles lashed their nests in the tree top; 
 The willows drooped low over swift water 
 
 courses, 
 And murmuring brooks started fresh from their 
 
 sources. 
 
 But down in the gloom, on her dream-haunted 
 
 pillow. 
 As pale and as cold as the moon on the billow, 
 Forgot and unmissed by bird and by blossom. 
 The crocus slept sound in the earth's faithful 
 
 bosom. 
 
 When at last she awoke, the spring had been 
 
 banished. 
 Her forerunner flowers from the hillside had 
 
 vanished. 
 And all of the bees had turned into stock brokers. 
 And even the birds had changed into croakers. 
 
 'Tis only by waiting we find our fruition; 
 To learn how to wait is a needed tuition. 
 The faint-hearted people who go to sleep fretting, 
 "Will wake up at last too late for the getting. 
 
 If there is anything more utterly deso- 
 late than a poorly-conducted farm, preserve 
 me from it. There is an ideal farm familiar 
 to the writers of pretty tales, where every- 
 
*>. 
 
 288 j^o^jentarij anb Kw^* 
 
 thing is kept in apple-pie order throughout 
 the year, and where one can walk broadcast, 
 so to speak, in a spick and span white gown 
 without attracting so much as the shadow of 
 a shade of minutest defilement. We have 
 seen pictures of such farms wherein sleek 
 cattle stood around knee-deep in dewy 
 clover, or lay serenely on polished hillsides, 
 or meandered dreamily by crystal streams; 
 wherein pale pink farm-houses with green 
 gables and yellow piazzas, fairly scintillated 
 from behind decorous foliage, and peacocks, 
 with tails nearly as long as the Mississippi 
 River, posed on the gate-posts; wherein 
 neat little boys in variegated trousers rode 
 prancing chargers down blooming lanes, 
 and correct little girls in ruffled undercloth- 
 ing fed well-mannered chickens from morn- 
 ing till night. But the actual farm of the 
 remote rural districts is about as much like 
 its ideal picture as Esau was like a modern 
 dude. Not long ago somebody suggested 
 that I go and board for a fortnight at a farm- 
 house. "You will have perfect rest," said 
 my friend, "and that is what you need." So 
 I went, and rather than again undergo the 
 torments of the five days spent in that rest- 
 ful (?) spot I think I would cheerfully hire 
 
^jcr^^tnaru ctntf ^tt^* 289 
 
 out with a Siberian chain-gang. In the 
 first place there was no such a thing as rest 
 possible after the first glimmer of each day's 
 dawn. Every rooster on the farm, and there 
 were millions of them, was up "for keeps" 
 long before sunrise. Their united chorus 
 smote the skies. One might as well have 
 tried to sleep through Gettysburg's battle. 
 A score or so of bereaved cows lamented 
 all night for their murdered babies, and a 
 couple of donkeys, kept purely for orna- 
 mental purposes, made sounds every half 
 hour or so that turned my hair snow white 
 with terror. After breakfast each day I used 
 to walk down the hill and fish for pickerel 
 in a river that had no current, and looked 
 discouraged. "Walked," did I say? Nay, 
 there was nothing so decorous as a walk 
 possible down the slippery, stony descent 
 which led to the haunts of the pickerel. 
 When I didn't hurl myself down that hill, 
 I slid down, and between the two methods 
 I wrecked both musck and shoe leather. 
 The latter part of the way led through a 
 pasture devoted to several cows and a bull. 
 As I am more afraid of the latter than of 
 death and all his cohorts, my morning walks 
 ended in heart failures and had to be aban- 
 
 19 
 
290 ^0&etnav^ antf ^u^* 
 
 doned. Occasionally I would take a book 
 and go out and sit in my hammock. Then 
 the large roosters, each one of them at least 
 seven feet tall and highly ruffled about the 
 legs, would come around and look at me, 
 so that I would have to go into the house to 
 hide my embarrassment. I know of noth- 
 ing harder to endure than the stare of a 
 Brahma fowl, especially if one is a bit nerv- 
 ous and overworked. Nervous prostration 
 has sprung from lighter causes. 
 
 Nothing happened while I was at the 
 farm but meal time, and the intervals were 
 so long between those episodes that I used to 
 wonder daily at my own mission subsequent 
 to the farm-life as one gropes for pre-his- 
 toric clues. There was a man about the 
 premises who walked to and from the vil- 
 lage twice a day with a large brown jug. 
 When I asked at different times what he 
 fetched in the jug, not because I wanted to 
 know, but merely to find a topic of conver- 
 sation, I was successively told that it was 
 "kerosene," "maple molasses," "buttermilk," 
 and "vinegar." I wish I knew if I was told 
 the truth every time, or if somebody tried to 
 impose upon me merely because I was town- 
 bred. 
 
^00^marH antf glu^* 291 
 
 Occasionally we took rides over stony- 
 trails where boulders and ruts marked the 
 way, and only the creaking of our bones 
 broke the primeval silence. These rides 
 were supposed to be part of the generous 
 plan of contemplated rest, but a few more of 
 them would have resulted in the rest from 
 which there is no awaking. No, my dear, I 
 am an ardent lover of the country, and I 
 love it as the epicure loves a good dinner, or 
 the musician loves music, but I will take it, 
 please, without the accessories of a poorly- 
 kept hoosier farm. I do not yearn for the 
 defilements of a barn-yard that is never 
 cleansed, nor for the frolicsomeness of pigs 
 that wander at their own sweet will, nor for 
 the clamor of aggressively alert poultry, nor 
 for piscatorial delights. I love the country 
 as God made it before greed and gain and 
 all the abominations of man entered into 
 and spoiled it. I love it clean and whole- 
 some and sweet, as it was turned out of the 
 workshop; its streams untainted, and their 
 banks unbereft of beautiful trees; its hills 
 still covered with verdure, and its winds un- 
 contaminated with the scent of defiling 
 drains and waterways. 
 
292 ^o&entuvvt anif $ltte. 
 
 "^ 
 
 I have seen him! Actually seen him! 
 Shall I say the coming man? No, rather let 
 us call him the vanished type, the stalwart, 
 full-blooded, glorious "might have been" of 
 nature. Not an exotic, but the indigenous 
 growth of a soil fed by breeze and sun. No 
 earmuffs about him; no cringing with- 
 drawal into mufflers before the advance of 
 winter blasts. No cowardly retreat into 
 furry overcoats, mittens and gum shoes. 
 
 "Amber," said a fellow traveler the other 
 day, "yonder is a man after your own heart. 
 He has not worn an overcoat or heavy- 
 weight flannels for six years. He never but- 
 tons up his coat save when it rains. What 
 do you think of him?" 
 
 "Think of him !" said I ; "were it not for 
 a lingering regard for the conventionalities, 
 I should walk right over to that man and 
 say : 'Sir, I thank you for the sight of a man 
 — not a human Hly bud! You have struck 
 the right way of living, and you will be a 
 hale and handsome man when the enfeebled 
 race that surrounds you have toddled into 
 the consumptive's grave or are sneezing 
 
^0&ttnavyi ctnlJr ^u^^ 293 
 
 upon their catarrhal pilgrimage to the 
 tomb." The man was worth looking at, hale 
 and hearty, his chest like the convex curve 
 of a barrel, his eye like a falcon's. 
 
 "But," said my friend, "were I to throw 
 aside my overcoat and go forth unprotected 
 this freezing weather, the exposure would 
 surely kill me!" 
 
 "No doubt it would," was my cheerful 
 reply. "There are always a host to die be- 
 fore any reform is achieved or victory ac- 
 complished. You have coddled yourself so 
 long between blankets and absorbed red- 
 hot furnace heat until you haven't the stam- 
 ina of an aspen leaf. Take a hot-house 
 flower out of doors and it soon wilts. But 
 mark the beautiful Edelweiss of the Alps — it 
 thrives in the pure breath of eternal snow." 
 But what is the use of talking? Although 
 my tongue became a golden bell and my 
 pen a gleaming flame, I could never con- 
 vince you, my dear old, shivery, shaky pub- 
 lic, of the advantage of fresh air and plenty 
 of it, and the advisability of a generous cul- 
 tivation of nature and her free gifts. As 
 well expect to be nourished by looking at 
 your food through an opera glass as hope 
 to be strong and stalwart upon a homeo- 
 
294 ^00^tnavyi ant^ |lw^* 
 
 pathic allowance of pure air and sunshine, 
 or in spite of the devices you plan to shut 
 yourself away and hermetically seal your 
 body, as it were, from the sweet, health- 
 giving influence of sun and wind and frost. 
 Just stop a moment before you turn away 
 from this subject, my dear, and hear a little 
 story. I know the subject is a bore and that 
 I am a crank, but listen. Once there was a 
 grand beneficent power — call it God if you 
 will — who planned a spot wherein to place 
 some atom which he had shaped out of dust 
 and vivified with a spark of his own life. 
 He looked about a little, we will imagine, 
 and finally settled upon a garden wherein 
 to place these precious pensioners on his 
 care. A roofless, wall-less spot full of 
 draughts and dew, breezes and blossoms. 
 He filled it with birds and carpeted it with 
 grass, set rivulets running through it for 
 "water works" and sunbeams and starbeams 
 for "electric light" plants, etc. That is all 
 I have to say. Like the Mother Morey 
 legend my story is done before it is scarcely 
 begun. But ask yourself the question. Why 
 didn't God put his well-beloved models of 
 the forthcoming race into a more sheltered 
 place if there was so much danger in fresh 
 
air, draughts and chilly weather? Why 
 didn't he seal them up behind double win- 
 dows in an airless, sunless, hot and unhealth- 
 ful home where the dear things could keep 
 warm? Because he was God and knew 
 everything, and not man and knew nothing. 
 
 I 
 
 Well, the old ship Time has put into port 
 again to take on a new cargo of good reso- 
 lutions, earnest resolves and patented 
 schemes, before setting sail for the shores 
 of a distant future. Ten to one she goes to 
 pieces on the breakers before ever sighting 
 land again, and a hundred to ninety-nine 
 her cargo is thrown overboard before she 
 reaches mid-sea. The channel is narrow 
 and the rocks lie thick as peas in a marrow- 
 fat pod, and many more bales of choice mer- 
 chandise find the bottoim of the sea each 
 year than are ever delivered to the good 
 angel consignee. "I am going to be the best 
 girl in all the world," says the poor little 
 Captain on New Year's eve. Behold! the 
 hours have not swung around the diurnal 
 circle before there is a wild onslaught from 
 shadowland, and the brave captain is left 
 
296 ^0^^ntartj ttntf gluje* 
 
 wounded on the field. Only a tender hand 
 and tireless patience can set her on her feet 
 again. 
 
 "I will eschew debt as I would poison, and 
 starve before I will commit an indiscretion," 
 cries the Doctor as he sets sail for the untried 
 sea. Within the first watch he hauls down 
 his colors from the mast head, captured by 
 a pirate extravagance. 
 
 "I will be gentle of speech and courteous 
 and sweet to all!" says the Young Person, 
 and gayly steers for the open channel. Mid- 
 way she encounters a rock of annoyance 
 and the air is stormy with irritable words 
 that fly and beat like stinging rain. Ah, 
 well, my dear, thank the good Lord there 
 are life-saving stations all along the shore, 
 and no wreck was ever yet so hopeless but 
 Infinite Love could set it afloat again. 
 
 'There is just one person born who has a 
 right to this thoroughfare, and that is I!" 
 muses the woman with the umbrella as she 
 walks the crowded streets on a rainy day. 
 "I am in possession of that part of the uni- 
 verse immediately contiguous to the spot on 
 
which I stand, and I shall make myself just 
 as much of a nuisance as I choose. I shall 
 jab out your eyes, and knock oflf your hat, 
 and clip your ears, and stab your back with 
 my umbrella tip just as often and as vio- 
 lently as I choose. I shall run into you from 
 behind, and bump into you, and knock you 
 down if I so desire, and none shall say me 
 nay. I am not very tall, but all the better 
 for my plans if I am not. If I were of the 
 same height as you I should not be able to 
 take you under the hat-brim as I do, and 
 jab you in the nostril as I pass. If I choose 
 to cut criss-cross through a crowd, who shall 
 forbid me, being a woman? I can be just 
 as rude and just as mean as I want to be, 
 and who is going to hinder, so long as I 
 wear a gown and call myself a lady? If I 
 were a man and manifested the reckless 
 thirst for universal carnage that I do you 
 would call the patrol and bear me away to 
 the lock-up; but being a poor little, innocent 
 woman I have it all my own way." 
 
 I know a wife who is waiting, safe and 
 sound in her father's home, for her young 
 
298 ^c&i^ntaxvi anlf ^rne* 
 
 husband to earn the money single-handed 
 to make a home worthy of her acceptance. 
 She makes me think of the first mate of a 
 ship who should stay on shore until the 
 captain tested the ability of his vessel to 
 weather the storm. Back to your ship, you 
 cowardly one! If the boat goes down, go 
 down with it, but do not count yourself 
 worthy of any fair weather you did not help 
 to gain! A woman who will do all she can 
 to win a man's love merely for the profit his 
 purse is going to be to her, and will desert 
 him when the cash runs low, is a bad woman 
 and carries a bad heart in her bosom. Why. 
 you are never really wedded until you have 
 had dark days together. What earthly pur- 
 pose would a cable serve that never was 
 tested by a weight? Of what use is the tie 
 that binds wedded hearts together if like a 
 filament of floss it parts when the strain is 
 brought to bear upon it? It is not when you 
 are young, my dear, when the skies are blue 
 and every wayside weed flaunts a summer 
 blossom, that the story of your life is record- 
 ed. It is when "Darby and Joan" are faded 
 and wasted and old, when poverty has 
 nipped the roses, when trouble and want and 
 care have flown like uncanny birds over 
 
Jla^^martj anb |lw^* 299 
 
 their heads (but never yet nested in their 
 hearts, thank God!), that the completed 
 chronicle of their lives furnishes the record 
 over which approving heaven smiles and 
 weeps. 
 
 * 
 
 There is one thing I learn day by day in 
 my strollings about town, and that is that 
 nobody is going to give me dollar values for 
 half-dollar equivalents. In these days when 
 the best of folks go mad on bargains we 
 seem to think it is an easy thing to get some- 
 thing for nothing, but I have yet to see the 
 day when we can. There are cheap restau- 
 rants where they serve you roast turkey for 
 a quarter, but don't fool yourself! It is not 
 the same kind of bird they serve in a high- 
 class place for a dollar. You look at your 
 check when you come out from an eco- 
 nomical kitchen with a feeling of glee that 
 you have got so much for so little. But how 
 about the flavor that lingers in your mouth? 
 How about the display of pine toothpicks 
 and spotted linen? How about the finger- 
 marked drinking glasses and damp napkins? 
 No, no; poor as I am I would rather pay 
 
300 Jloi&^ntar^ cttttf Jlu^* 
 
 my dollar and get a dollar's worth of clean- 
 liness and daintiness and flavor than save 
 seventy-five cents and do without them. 
 Sure as you live and sure as the world is 
 operated on a self-accommodative basis, you 
 never will get a first-water diamond with- 
 out you pay first-water diamond equivalents. 
 
 
 
 The other day there was a little girl, scarce 
 1 6 years of age, who started away for the 
 first time from home and mother. She was 
 brave and gay in a new suit, new boots and 
 a new hat with a feather the color of a lin- 
 net's wing. She carried a bunch of the love- 
 liest sweet peas at her dainty waist and on 
 her face there played a sunburst of smiles. 
 She had not been five hours in the place 
 appointed her to visit when her mother re- 
 ceived the following letter: 
 
 "My Precious Mamma : I am writing this 
 in my room before I am called to breakfast. 
 None but God can know what I suffer ! Not 
 until I am in your arms once more will you 
 know what I am going through! If you 
 love me let me come home. Don't tell any- 
 one, but let me come if you love me ! Don't 
 
^00!Ctnaviii ctntr glu^* 30i 
 
 send the shoes — I shall not need them — 
 but let me come home! Think what I must 
 suffer so far away from you. I shall sell my 
 ring and buy a ticket if you do not telegraph 
 that I may come !" 
 
 And as I read the pathetic letter between 
 my smiles and tears I thought to myself, is 
 there anything on earth so hard to bear as 
 homesickness — first homesickness, when the 
 heart is new to sorrow? I would rather have 
 any disease the laboratory of evil keeps in 
 stock than one pang of what that little girl 
 was suffering when she penciled that letter. 
 
 m 
 
 Around in a picture store on one of the 
 avenues I chanced upon a painting that at- 
 tracted not only myself, but a crowd of 
 people from the street. It represented a 
 lion's cage barred with heavy barriers of 
 iron. On the floor of the den is the figure of 
 a beautiful girl stretched in a deathlike 
 swoon. There are orange blossoms in her 
 hair, and the flush on her cheek has had no 
 time to fade. Crouched by her side, one 
 great paw on her breast and another at her 
 waist, is a wrathful liori whose evident in- 
 
302 ^0&i^tnavi^ ttntf ^w^* 
 
 tention is to tear his victim into bonbon 
 fragments. I wish somebody would ex- 
 plain that picture to me. I am tired con- 
 jecturing how the bride strayed into the 
 lion's quarters, and where her husband was 
 that he shouldn't be taking better care of 
 her, and why there was nobody on hand to 
 help at this critical moment portrayed on the 
 canvas. Young married women are not 
 supposed to be visiting zoological gardens 
 when they ought to be changing their white 
 satin favors for their traveling gowns. The 
 picture seems a puzzler to all who watch it, 
 and as the crowd is great the confusion of 
 wits is catching. 
 
 THE TRYST. 
 
 Where a woodland path, like a silver line, 
 
 Winds by a woodland river, 
 And half in shadow, and half in shine. 
 
 The alders lean and shiver, 
 Where a forest bird has built him a nest 
 
 Low in the springing grasses, 
 And all the day long, with her wings at rest, 
 
 His mate the slow time passes; 
 
 Where a flood of gold through the forest dim 
 Tells when the noon is strongest. 
 
^0&etnavt^ anb ^u^* 303 
 
 And a purple fringe on the forest's rim 
 Proclaims when the shades are longest; 
 
 Where the dawn is only known from the night 
 By the birds that sing their sweetest, 
 
 And the twilight hush from the morning light 
 By the peace that is then completest; 
 
 Where only the flood of silvery haze 
 
 Shall tell that the moon is risen, 
 When down from the sky, like a meteor blaze, 
 
 Shall flutter her snow-white ribbon, — 
 I will meet you there, my lady love sweet, 
 
 When the weary world is sleeping, 
 And the frets of the day, that tireless beat, 
 
 Are hushed in the night's close keeping; 
 
 Not missing the world — by the world un- 
 missed — 
 
 We two shall wander together. 
 And whether we chided, or whether we kissed, 
 
 There'll be none to forget or remember; 
 And when at the last asleep you shall fall. 
 
 By the shore of the musical river. 
 Of the crimson leaves I will weave you a pall, 
 
 And kiss you good-by, love, forever. 
 
 But the stars up above, and the waters below. 
 
 Shall sing of us, over and over; 
 Of the tryst that we kept in the years long ago. 
 
 In the woods by the beautiful river.