SAVING OUR SOULS
O work--thrice blessed of the gods--
Abundant may you be!
To hold us steady, when our hearts
Grow cold and panicky!
I cannot fret--and drive the plough,--
Nor weep--and ply the spade;
O blessed work--I need you now
To keep me unafraid!
No terrors can invade the place
Where honest green things thrive;
Come blisters--backache--sunburnt face--
And save my soul alive!
No wonder that increased production has become a popular cry. Every
one wants to work in a garden--a garden is so comforting and
reassuring. Everything else has changed, but seedtime and harvest
still remain. Rain still falls, seeds sprout, buds break into leaves,
and blossoms are replaced by fruit.
We are forced back to the elemental things. Horses and cattle look
better to me every day. Read the war news--which to-day tells of the
destruction of French villages--and then look at the cattle grazing
peacefully on the grass which clothes the hillside, and see how good
they look! They look like sanctified Christians to me!
Ever since the war I have envied them. They are not suspicious or
jealous; they are not worried, hurried, troubled, or afraid; they are
oblivious of public opinion; they have no debts to pay; they do not
weary you with explanations; they are not sorry for anything they have
ever done; they are not blaming God for anything! On every count the
cattle seem to have the best of us!
It is a quiet evening here in northern Alberta, and the evening light
is glinting on the frozen ponds. I can see far up the valley as I
write, and one by one the lights begin to glimmer in the farmhouses;
and I like to think that supper is being prepared there for hungry
children. The thought of supper appeals to me because there is no
dining-car on the train, and every minute I am growing hungrier. The
western sky burns red with the sunset, and throws a sullen glow on the
banks of clouds in the east. It is a quiet, peaceful evening, and I
find it hard to believe that somewhere men are killing each other and
whole villages are burning.... The light on the ponds grows dimmer,
with less of rose and more of a luminous gray.... I grow hungrier
still, and I know it is just because I cannot get anything. I eat
apples and nut-bars, but they do not satisfy me; it is roast beef,
brown gravy, potatoes, and turnips that I want. Is it possible that I
refused lemon pie--last night--at Carmangay? Well--well--let this be a
lesson to you!
The sunset is gone now, and there is only a brightness in the western
sky, and a big staring moon stands above the valley, shining down on
the patches of snow which seem to run together like the wolves we used
to see on the prairies of Manitoba long ago. The farmhouses we pass
are bright with lights, and I know the children are gathered around
the table to "do" their lessons. The North Country, with its long,
snowy winters, develops the love of home in the hearts of our people,
and drives the children indoors to find their comfort around the fire.
Solomon knew this when he said that the perfect woman "is not afraid
of the snow for her household." Indeed, no; she knows that the snow is
a home-developing agency, and that no one knows the joy and comfort of
home like those of us who have battled with cold and storm and drifted
roads all day, and at nightfall come safely to this blessed place
where warmth and companionship await us! Life has its compensations.
Across the aisle from me two women are knitting--not in a neighborly,
gossipy way, chatting meanwhile, but silently, swiftly, nervously.
There is a psychological reason for women knitting just now, beyond
the need of socks. I know how these women feel! I, even I, have begun
to crochet! I do it for the same reason that the old toper in time of
stress takes to his glass. It keeps me from thinking; it atrophies the
brain; and now I know why the women of the East are so slow about
getting the franchise. They crochet and work in wool instead of
thinking. You can't do both! When the casualty lists are long, and
letters from the Front far apart--I crochet.
Once, when I was in great pain, the doctor gave me chloroform, and it
seemed to me that a great black wall arose between me and pain! The
pain was there all right, but it could not get to me on account of the
friendly wall which held it back--and I was grateful! Now I am
grateful to have a crochet-needle and a ball of silcotton. It is a
sort of mental chloroform. This is for the real dark moments, when the
waves go over our heads.... We all have them, but of course they do
not last.
More and more am I impressed with the wonderful comeback of the human
soul. We are like those Chinese toys, which, no matter how they are
buffeted, will come back to an upright position. It takes a little
longer with us--that is all; but given half a chance--or less--people
will rise victorious over sin and sorrow, defeat and failure, and
prove thereby the divinity which is in all of us!
As the light dimmed outside, I had time to observe my two traveling
companions more closely. Though at first sight they came under the
same general description of "middle-aged women, possibly
grandmothers, industriously knitting," there was a wide difference
between them as I observed them further. One had a face which bore
traces of many disappointments, and had now settled down into a state
of sadness that was hopeless and final. She had been a fine-looking
woman once, too, and from her high forehead and well-shaped mouth I
should take her to be a woman of considerable mental power, but there
had been too much sorrow; she had belonged to a house of too much
trouble, and it had dried up the fountains of her heart. I could only
describe her by one word, "winter-killed"! She was like a tree which
had burst into bud at the coaxing of the soft spring zephyrs again and
again, only to be caught each time by the frost, and at last, when
spring really came, it could win no answering thrill, for the heart of
the tree was "winter-killed." The frost had come too often!
The other woman was older, more wrinkled, more weather-beaten, but
there was a childlike eagerness about her that greatly attracted me.
She used her hands when she spoke, and smiled often. This childish
enthusiasm contrasted strangely with her old face, and seemed like the
spirit of youth fluttering still around the grave of one whom it
loved!
I soon found myself talking to them; the old lady was glad to talk to
me, for she was not making much headway with her companion, on whom
all her arguments were beating in vain.
"I tell her she has no call to be feeling so bad about the war!" she
began, getting right into the heart of the subject; "we didn't start
it! Let the Kings and Kaisers and Czars who make the trouble do the
fretting. Thank God, none of them are any blood-relation of mine,
anyway. I won't fret over any one's sins, only my own, and maybe I
don't fret half enough over them, either!"
"What do you know about sins?" the other woman said; "you couldn't sin
if you tried----"
"That's all you know about it," said the old lady with what was
intended for a dark and mysterious look; "but I never could see what
good it does to worry, anyway, and bother other people by feeling
sorry. Now, here she is worrying night and day because her boy is in
the army and will have to go to France pretty soon. She has two others
at home, too young to go. Harry is still safe in England--he may never
have to go: the war may be over--the Kaiser may fall and break his
neck--there's lots of ways peace may come. Even if Harry does go, he
may not get killed. He may only get his toe off, or his little finger,
and come home, or he may escape everything. Some do. Even if he is
killed--every one has to die, and no one can die a better way; and
Harry is ready--good and ready! So why does she fret? I know she's had
trouble--lots of it--Lord, haven't we all? My three boys went--two
have been killed; but I am not complaining--I am still hoping the last
boy may come through safe. Anyway, we couldn't help it. It is not our
fault; we have to keep on doing what we can....
"I remember a hen I used to have when we lived on the farm, and she
had more sense than lots of people--she was a little no-breed hen, and
so small that nobody ever paid much attention to her. But she had a
big heart, and was the greatest mother of any hen I had, and stayed
with her chickens until they were as big as she was and refused to be
gathered under wings any longer. She never could see that they were
grown up. One time she adopted a whole family that belonged to a
stuck-up Plymouth Rock that deserted them when they weren't much more
than feathered. Biddy stepped right in and raised them, with thirteen
of her own. Hers were well grown--Biddy always got down to business
early in the spring, she was so forehanded. She raised the Plymouth
Rocks fine, too! She was a born stepmother. Well, she got shut out one
night, and froze her feet, and lost some good claws, too; but I knew
she'd manage some way, and of course I did not let her set, because
she could not scratch with these stumpy feet of hers. But she found a
job all right! She stole chickens from the other hens. I often
wondered what she promised them, but she got them someway, and only
took those that were big enough to scratch, for Biddy knew her
limitations. She was leading around twenty-two chickens of different
sizes that summer.
"You see she had personality--that hen: you couldn't keep her down;
she never went in when it rained, and she could cackle louder than any
hen on the ground; and above all, she took things as they came. I
always admired her. I liked the way she died, too. Of course I let her
live as long as she could--she wouldn't have been any good to eat,
anyway, for she was all brains, and I never could bear to make soup
out of a philosopher like what she was. Well, she was getting pretty
stiff--I could see that; and sometimes she had to try two or three
times before she could get on the roost. But this night she made it on
the first try, and when I went to shut the door, she sat there all
ruffled up. I reached out to feel her, she looked so humped-up, and
the minute I touched her, she fell off the roost; and when I picked
her up, she was dead! You see, she got herself balanced so she would
stay on the roost, and then died--bluffed it out to the last, and died
standing up! That's what we should all try to do!" she concluded; "go
down with a smile--I say--hustling and cheerful to the last!"
I commended her philosophy, but the other woman sat silent, and her
knitting lay idle on her knee.
After all, the biggest thing in life is the mental attitude!
This was the third time a boy on a wheel
Had come to her gate
With the small yellow slip, with its few curt words,
To tell her the fate
Of the boys she had given to fight
For the right to be free!
I thought I must go as a neighbor and friend
And stand by her side;
At least I could tell her how sorry I was
That a brave man had died.
She sat in a chair when I entered the room,
With the thing in her hand,
And the look on her face had a light and a bloom
I could not understand.
Then she showed me the message and said,
With a sigh of respite,--
"My last boy is dead. I can sleep. I can sleep
Without dreaming to-night."