and without flinching. At times she was depressed, for the task seemed
too much for her, but she rose above it and won. She won honors at her
school, and long before she expected it, on her own little, honest record
in the schoolroom, she was employed to teach at a good salary. It was to
be only four miles from home—amid the best surroundings—and there was
no happier woman on earth than was Louise when she wrote us the first
news about it. It came just before Christmas. There are many women who
could not see any cause for Christmas joy in the thought of long years of
monotonous and wearying service, but Louise saw in this something of the
joy of achievement, for through honest, trained labor, the outcome of her
own patience and determination, she was to become self-supporting and a
genuine help to the children. I presume no one but a conscientious and
ambitious woman can realize what that means. I know women who would look
upon such power of self-support simply as selfish freedom. Louise saw
in it the power of greater service. We have tried our best to train our
children for that view of a life work.
You may therefore imagine that the holidays at Hope Farm seemed like holy
days indeed. They were all there except the Seedling and the Graft, and
_they_ sent messages which left no regret, no sadness to creep in out of
the past. Somehow I hope all you older people may know before you pass on
something of what Mother and I did about our two broods as the old year
passed on.
Yet there it comes again—the old question. I came home a little later
than usual on Friday night. The night was wet and foggy, and Mother met
me at the train. One of the little boys who usually comes for me had gone
to meet Louise. Her first week of school was over, and she was coming
home—a teacher! As we drove into the yard the family ran out to meet
us—“Something has happened—they want you on the ’phone at once!” Ah!
but these country tragedies may flash upon us without warning. Halfway
home Louise had been stricken desperately ill, and she now lay at the
parsonage—three miles away—helpless. Just as quickly as fingers could put
the harness on our fastest horse, Mother and “Cherry-top” were driving
off into the fog and rain. We waited until they reached the parsonage
and then we kept the ’phone busy. The poor girl, riding home after her
first fine week in the schoolroom, had been stricken with an internal
hemorrhage—and it was doubtful if she could rally! At nine o’clock came
the message: “She seems to be better.” The little boys were coming
home—and they soon appeared, white and troubled. Mother was to stay all
night and she sent a hopeful message about coming in the morning with
Louise. We went to bed to get strength and nerve for any emergency. In
the early morning Mother walked into my room and turned up the light. We
looked at each other for a moment. Then there were six words:
“_How is Louise?_”
“_She is gone!_”
We said nothing more, but we were both thinking the same thing!
“_The first break in our big family has come. How is Louise now?_”
There was no way of saving her. Human skill and human love had failed.
She was dead!
* * * * *
It was a beautiful service. There were only our own family and perhaps
a dozen friends. We all wanted it so. We do not like the wild grief and
public curiosity so often displayed at large funerals. There was just
a great bank of flowers, a white casket and a simple service over this
brave and loyal girl. I do not say “poor” girl, nor do I dwell upon the
sadness of it. I thought that all out as Mother and I sat at the head of
the casket. She died gloriously—like a soldier at his duty. She died when
life was young. She had just won her little battle in the great world of
affairs. She died in the joy of victory and in the faith that all things
are possible. The wine of life was full. She never knew the sting of
defeat, the shame and meanness of false friendships and ambitions, which
has come to those of us who linger on the way. And so at the end of it
all I ask the old question once more:
“How is Louise now?”
“She is better! Thank God! She is better!”
CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY
It is well enough to keep the Christmas tree standing until Spring
cleaning at least. There may be those who open the closet door once a
year and let the Christmas spirit out—somewhat like the family skeleton,
to food and water—and then lock it up again. That does not suit me, for I
would like to keep the door open so that Christmas may be with us every
day in the year. The celebration just closed is about the best our family
and community ever had, and it will do us permanent good.
On Wednesday evening the children had their celebration at the church. It
was a cold clear night, with good sleighing, so we hitched the two big
grays to the bob sled and filled the box with straw, and the children
cuddled down into this nest and pulled blankets over them. The Hope Farm
man drove, with Mother on the seat beside him to direct the job and tell
him when and where to turn out. Tom and Broker seemed to feel that they
were, in their way, playing the part of reindeer, for they trotted off
in great shape—a little clumsy on their feet, perhaps, but with strength
enough to pull down a house. Broker is inclined to be lazy, and Tom did
most of the pulling unless we stirred his partner up with the stick.
Through the clear starlight we went crunching and jingling on over the
hills and through the narrow level valleys, for our country has a badly
wrinkled face.
Part of the way lies through the woods, and then a stretch along the
banks of a little river. There was just enough wind to make a little
humming in the trees. Now and then a rabbit jumped out of the shadow and
went hopping off across the snow. There was no danger—it was Christmas,
and we do not carry firearms. I think I can tell you much about a
person’s character and circumstances if you will tell me what comes into
mind on a lonely road, when the wind is playing its wild tunes among the
trees.
“Over the chimney the night wind sang,
Chanting a melody no one knew.”
To some this melody brings sad memories or fear of trouble, but the
happy group in our big sled heard nothing of these in the sound. As Tom
and Broker pulled their load on beneath the trees I think each one of
us heard in the wind’s singing something of the song which the angels
sang when the shepherds listened long years ago. This may be but a fancy
of mine, yet I think our little group came nearer to understanding what
Christmas means—on that lonely road—than we had before.
You know how pleasant it is to come trotting along a country road on a
cold starry night and see the lights of the church burst into view far
ahead. Our church is an old stone structure, full of years and honorable
history. It was here, at least part of it, during the Revolution,
and at one time Hessian prisoners were confined in it. There were no
prisoners except those of hope inside the church that night. The boys
and I made Tom and Broker comfortable and then we went inside to find a
big Christmas tree and a crowd of happy children. Surely Christmas is
children’s day, and they owned the church that night. Mother marshaled
her big primary class for one chorus, and it seemed as if the entire end
of the church was made of children. A couple of our Cherry-tops lent a
little color to it. The Hope Farm man was escorted up to a front seat,
where he was expected to look the part of prominent citizen. They ran him
into the programme too for a Christmas story, so he got up and told the
company about “Pete Shivershee’s Miracle”—a little Christmas memory of
life in a lumber camp many years ago. Finally the simple presents were
distributed, the sleepy little ones aroused, good wishes spoken and we
all piled in once more for the home trip. Broker takes life as it comes,
but Tom was chilly and disposed to be a trifle gay over the prospect of
barn and cornstalks once more. He proceeded to pull the entire load,
Broker trotting on with dangling traces! It was a sleepy and happy crowd
that finally turned off the road into Hope Farm. “_We had a big time!_”
In two of the villages near us the people organized community Christmas
trees. These trees were placed in the public square or some prominent
spot, the electric wires were connected, and colored bulbs hung all over
to take the place of candles. These were lighted on Christmas Eve and
kept going all through the holiday week. It was a great success, for it
brought people together, made a better community spirit, and helped us
all. In addition to this community tree arrangements were made to have
singers go about the town singing the old Christmas carols. This revival
of the old English custom was a beautiful thing and a great success.
Shortly after three on Christmas morning our folks were awakened by
music. I think the Cherry-tops thought it was Santa Claus, as it probably
was. Out in front of our house a motor car carrying six young men had
turned in from the road. There in the frosty morning they were singing:
“O come, all ye faithful,
Joyful and triumphant,
O come ye! O come ye
To Bethlehem.
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
O come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord.”
They were beautiful singers and our folks will never forget that
Christmas morning.
“Silent night! Holy night,
All is calm. All is light.
’Round young Virgin mother and child
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace.”
Finally the car started off, moving slowly down the road with the music
creeping back to us through the clear air:
“Hark, the Herald angels sing.”
Our folks heard them at the next neighbor’s, far down the road. I have
no doubt many a weary and troubled soul waking in the night at the sound
went back to happier dreams of a better tomorrow. It was a beautiful
thing to do, and never before did Christmas morning come to us so happily
as this year.
I thought of these things all day, and the conviction has grown upon me
that what we people who live in the country need more than anything else
is something of this spirit which binds people together and holds them.
We need it in our work, our play and in our battles. It is another name
for patriotism, which means the unselfish love of country. The Duke of
Wellington said the battle of Waterloo was won on the playgrounds of
England, where boys were trained in manly sports. He told only half of
it, for the spirit which turned that play into war came from the singers
who in English villages sang Christmas carols or English folk songs. In
like manner the wonderful national spirit which the German nation has
shown has been developed largely through the singing societies which have
expressed German feeling in song. In 1792 a band of Frenchmen marched
from the south of France to Paris dragging cannon through a cloud of
dust and singing the Marseillaise hymn, and even to this day the loyal
spirit of France traces down from those dusty singers. Do I mean to say
that farmers can come together and sing their troubles away? No, for some
of the troubles have grown so strong and penetrated so deep that they
must be pulled out by the roots. What I do say is that before we can
hope to remove these troubles and make our conditions what they should
be we must feel toward our friends and neighbors the sentiments which
are expressed in these beautiful old songs. The time has gone by when
we can hope to obtain what we should have from society as individuals
playing a cold, selfish game of personal interest. We have tried that for
many years and steadily lost out on it. The only hope for us now is in
a true community spirit of loyalty and sacrifice, instead of the effort
to get all we can for ourselves. That is why I say that there should be
something of Christmas in every day of the year, and why I give these
holiday memories.
“THE FINEST LESSON”
It is the privilege of youth and old age to make comparisons. One has
little or nothing of experience to use as a yardstick—the other has
everything life can offer him. One compares with imagination, the other
with fact, and youth, having a wider pasture for thought, usually finds
pleasanter places for feeding. My children have spent nearly every
Christmas thus far before this open fire, while I have ranged far and
wide, from Florida to the Great Lakes, and from Cape Cod to Colorado. As
we sit in silence before our fire the boys can imagine themselves in some
hunter’s camp, or with the soldiers in France, while the girls can drop
themselves down from the wings of fancy in Cuba or Brazil. I might try
that, but stern fact drags me down to other days, and old-time companions
come creeping out of the past to say “Merry Christmas” and stand here, a
little sorrowful that they cannot give the children something of their
story. So I must be their spokesman, it seems, and the children give me
a chance when after dreaming a while they come and ask me to tell about
the real Christmas. “What was the finest Christmas lesson you ever had?”
They do not put it in quite these words, but that is the sense of it.
So there comes to me a great desire to live up to the highest test of
story-telling—that is, so to interest your audience that they will forget
to eat their apples.
The room seems full of the shadowy forms of men and women who have
stepped out of the past to bring back a Christmas memory. Which of these
old life teachers ever gave me the best lesson? They were all good—even
that big fellow who tried to kick me out of a lumber camp—and failed—or
that slimy little fraud who beat me out of a week’s wages! I think,
however, that those two women over by the window lead all the rest. One
is an old woman—evidently a cripple; the other younger—you cannot see
her face in the dim light, but she stands by the older woman’s chair.
Yes, they represent the best Christmas lesson I have had. So come up to
the fire, forget the wind roaring outside, and listen to it. I was a
hired man that Winter in a Western State. Some of the farmers who read
this will remember me—not for any great skill I showed at farm work, but
because I spent my spare time (that meant nights) going around “speaking
pieces.” I am greatly afraid that as an agriculturist I did better work
at keeping air hot than I ever did at heating plowshares through labor.
You see, it was this way. I was a freshman at an agricultural college, at
a time when these institutions were struggling hard to live. The average
freshman thinks he is the salt of the earth, forgetting that he is salt
which has not gained its savor through losing its freshness. A man gets
very little salt in his character until he goes out and assaults the
world! At any rate, I had no money salted down and no fresh supplies
coming in. I had to get out during the Winter and earn the price of
another term at college. I tried canvassing for a book. We will draw the
curtain down over that act. Some men tell me of making small fortunes
as book agents. From my experience I judge these men to be supermen or
superior prevaricators, to put it mildly. I worked the job for all I was
worth in spite of all obstacles, such as the wrath of farmers who had
been cheated through signing papers, the laughter of pretty girls and
the teeth of dogs, and sold four books in two weeks! At last I struck a
farmer who offered me a job digging a ditch. I made him a present of my
“sample copy” and went to work.
A dollar makes an interrogation point with a barb on it. About all a farm
produced in Winter, those days, was enough to eat and drink and something
to sell for the taxes. The farmer I worked for had a red colt that was to
settle with the tax man, but just before the taxes were due the colt ran
away and broke his neck. I cannot say that my labor was worth much, but
education is not one of the few things which come to us without money or
price. Then I suddenly made the discovery that I was “a talented young
elocutionist.” At least that is what the local paper stated, and do we
not know that all we see in print must be true? I suppose I could tell
you of one Christmas long ago that I spent as “supe” in a big theater and
what befell us behind the scenes. At any rate, I could “speak pieces,”
and I had a long string of them in mind. So what was a rather poor mimic
in a city became a “talented elocutionist” far back over muddy roads. You
want to remember that this was a long time before the bicycle had grown
away from the clumsy “velocipede.” There were few, if any “good roads.”
No one dreamed of gasoline engines or automobiles. During an open Winter
the mud was 10 to 20 inches deep, and every mile of travel was to be
multiplied by the number of inches of mud. Amid such surroundings it is
not so hard to be known as a “talented elocutionist” when your voice is
strong, your tongue limber, your memory good, and you have had a chance
to see and hear some of the great actors from behind the scenes.
I made what they called “a big hit” at night, with audiences all the
way from four or five up to 200. When life was dull and blue a neighbor
would come with his family to our farmhouse and I would sit by the
kitchen fire and entertain them. Once a farmer had a little trouble with
his mother-in-law, who seemed to hold the mortgage. On his invitation
I dropped in one night and a few of my “funny pieces” made this good
lady laugh so that she forgave her son-in-law. Then I was called into
the chamber of a very sick man to recite several “religious pieces.” I
shall not soon forget that scene. The poor sick man lying there with eyes
closed, the entire family and some of the neighbors grouped around like
a company of mourners, and the “talented elocutionist” standing by the
head of the bed in the gray light of the dying day. Yes, sir, the man
recovered! They have a famous saying here in New York. “It’s a great life
if you don’t weaken!” I found it so that Winter, and as life was young
and full ambition had not been severely wounded, I did not weaken.
But all this, of course, was mere practice for larger occasions. Whenever
I could work up a crowd I would go about to schoolhouses and churches,
entertain as best I could and then “pass the hat”! What evenings they
were! They were usually in old-fashioned schoolhouses with the big iron
stove in the center of the room. Such houses were rarely used at night,
and there would be no light except as some of the audience brought lamps
or candles. The room was usually crowded and the stove red-hot. In most
cases the meeting would be opened with prayer and some local politician
might make a speech. Then the “talented elocutionist” would stand up near
the stove. He never was an “impressive figure” at his best. In those
old days the best he could afford was a pair of thick cowhide boots, a
second-hand coat which came from a long, thin man, and trousers evidently
made originally for a fat man. Still, the light was dim and the speaker
remembered hearing James E. Murdock say that if you could only put
yourself into the _spirit_ of your talk the audience would follow you
there and forget how you looked. I had seen a great actor play the part
of Fagin in “Oliver Twist,” and at these entertainments I tried giving
an imitation of him, until a big husky farmer tried to whip me. I had a
job to explain to my friends that he was trying to punch Fagin—not me.
The audiences knew no middle ground. They wanted some burlesque or some
tragedy of their own lives which would tear at their heartstrings. Now
and then as I recited in those hot, dim schoolhouses the keen humor of
the thing would come to me, or like a flash the poverty and pathos of my
own struggle would sweep over me with overwhelming force. Then I could
feel that audience moving with me and for a brief moment I got out of the
ditch of life and knew the supreme joy of the complete mastery of one
who can separate the human imagination from the flesh and compel it to
walk with him where he wills.
These moments were all too brief. Back we came finally to the dim,
stifling room, and the rather ignoble and commonplace job of trying to
measure the value of a thrill by a voluntary contribution. I have had
many a high hope and many a dream of a new suit of clothes blackballed
on “passing the hat.” At first, when a man got up and said: “Gents, this
show is worth a dollar, and I will pass the hat,” I took him at his word
and expected a hat full of bills. Yet even when I shook out the lining I
could find nothing larger than a dime. During that Winter I made a fine
collection of buttons. It may be that most men want to keep the left hand
from knowing what the right hand is up to, but evidently you must have
one hand or the other under public observation if you expect much out of
the owner. I have learned to have no quarrel with human nature, and I
imagine after all that the hire fitted the value of the laborer’s efforts
fairly well.
Christmas came to us in that valley with the same beautiful message which
was carried to all. It was a cold Christmas, and as we went about our
chores before day and at night the stars were brilliant. The crinkle of
the ice and snow and the hum of the wind over the fences and through
the trees came to me like the murmur of a faraway song. It touched us
all. We saw each other in something of a new light of glory. The woman
of the house, I think, regarded me as a sort of awkward hired man. Now
she seemed to see a boy, far from home, struggling with rather feeble
hands against the flood which swept him away from the ambition to earn an
education. I am sure that it came to her that the Christmas spirit must
be capitalized to help me on my way. So she organized a big gathering
for Christmas Eve at which I was to “speak” and accept a donation. It
was to be over in the next district, and that good woman took the sleigh
and drove all over that county drumming up an “audience.” I am sure
that there never was a “star” before or since who had such an advance
or advertising agent as I did on that occasion. She was a good trainer,
too. The day before Christmas I husked corn in the cold barn, and this
delicate woman ran through the snow with two hot biscuits and a piece of
meat. There I worked through the day husking corn with my hands while I
“rehearsed” a few new ones with my brain and sent my heart way back to
New England, where I knew the folks were thinking of me.
In these times there would have been a fleet of automobiles moored near
the farmhouse, but in those days no engine had yet coughed out the
gasoline in its throat. We came in sleighs and big farm “pungs.” Standing
by the barn in the clear moonlight you could see the lanterns gleaming
along the road, and hear the tinkle of the sleighbells and the songs
which the young people were singing. Far down the road came a big farm
sled loaded with young people who were singing “Seeing Nellie Home.”
Sweet and clear came their fresh young voices through the crisp, frosty
air:—
“Her little hand was resting
On my arm as light as foam
When from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party,
I was seeing Nellie home.
“I was seeing Nellie. I was seeing Nellie.
I was seeing Nellie home,
’Twas from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party,
I was seeing Nellie home.”
The old farmer on the front seat sat nodding his head to the music, and
his wife beside him took her hand out of the muff and slid it under his
arm. These were the fine old days of simple pleasures, when the country
entertained itself and was satisfied. The other night my young folks
took me off to a moving picture theater where we saw a great actress
portraying human emotion in a way to make you shudder. My mind went back
to my own feeble efforts as a star performer, and I was forced to admit
that the usual Sunday school entertainment could have but a small chance
in competition with this powerful exhibition. The thing to do is to carry
this strong attraction to the country and not force our young people to
travel to the city after it.
Each sleigh brought not only its load of human freight, but a big basket
of food, for there was to be a feast of the body with food as well as of
the spirit with oratory. As the guest of honor I rode over with one of
the school trustees, and he proved a good local historian.