NATIONAL SERVICE--ONE WAY
There are some phrases in our conversations now that are used so often
that they seem to be in some danger of losing their meaning. The snap
goes out of them by too much handling, like an elastic band which has
been stretched too far. One of these is "national service."
If the work of the soldier, who leaves home, position, and safety
behind him, and goes forth to meet hardship and danger, receiving as
recompense one dollar and ten cents per day, is taken as the standard
of comparison, the question of national service becomes very simple,
indeed, for there is but one class, and no other that is even
distantly related to it, but if national service is taken to mean the
doing of something for our country's good which we would not feel it
our duty to do but for the emergencies created by the war, then there
are many ways in which the sincere citizen may serve.
The Abilene Valley School was closed all last year, and weeds are
growing in the garden in which the year before flowers and vegetables,
scarlet runners and cabbages, poppies and carrots, had mingled in wild
profusion. The art-muslin curtains are draggled and yellow, and some
of the windows, by that strange fate which overtakes the windows in
unoccupied houses, are broken.
The school was not closed for lack of children. Not at all. Peter
Rogowski, who lives a mile east, has seven children of school-age
himself, from bright-eyed Polly aged fourteen to Olga aged six, and
Mr. Rogowski is merely one of the neighbors in this growing
settlement, where large families are still to be found. There are
twenty-four children of school-age in the district, and in 1915, when
Mr. Ellis taught there, the average attendance was nineteen. At the
end of the term Mr. Ellis, who was a university student, abandoned his
studies and took his place in the ranks of the Army Medical Corps, and
is now nursing wounded men in France. He said that it would be easy to
find some one else to take the school. He was thinking of the droves
of teachers who had attended the Normal with him. There seemed to be
no end of them, but apparently there was, for in the year that
followed there were more than one hundred and fifty schools closed
because no teacher could be found.
After waiting a whole year for a teacher to come, Polly Rogowski, as
the spring of 1917 opened, declared her intention of going to Edmonton
to find work and go to school. Polly's mother upheld her in this
determination, and together they scraped up enough money to pay her
railway fare, and board for one week, although it took all that they
had been putting away to get Mrs. Rogowski's teeth fixed. But Polly's
mother knew that when her Polly began to teach there would be money
and plenty for things like that, and anyway they had not ached so bad
for a while.
The city, even Edmonton, is a fearsome place for a fourteen-year-old
girl who has no friends, seven dollars in money, and only an intense
desire for an education to guide her through its devious ways. But
the first night that Polly was away, her mother said an extra prayer
before the Blessed Virgin, who, being a mother herself, would
understand how much a young girl in a big city needs special care.
It was a cold, dark day when Polly with her small pack arrived at the
C.N.R. Station, and looked around her. Surely no crusader going forth
to restore the tomb of his Lord ever showed more courage than
black-eyed Polly when she set forth on this lonely pilgrimage to find
learning. She had heard of the danger of picking up with strangers,
and the awful barred windows behind which young girls languished and
died, and so refused to answer when the Travelers' Aid of the Y.W.C.A.
in friendliest tones asked if she might help her.
Polly was not to be deceived by friendly tones. The friendly ones were
the worst! She held her head high and walked straight ahead, just as
if she knew where she was going. Polly had a plan of action. She was
going to walk on and on until she came to a house marked in big
letters "BOARDING-HOUSE," and she would go in there and tell the lady
that she wanted to get a room for one day, and then she would leave
her bundle and go out and find a school and see the teacher. Teachers
were all good men and would help you! Then she would find a place
where they wanted a girl to mind a baby or wash dishes, or maybe milk
a cow; and perhaps she would have a bed all to herself. City houses
were so big and had so many rooms, and she had heard that in some of
the beds only one person slept! Having her programme so well laid out,
it is no wonder that she refused to confide in the blue serge lady who
spoke to her.
Polly set off at a quick pace, looking straight ahead of her across
the corner of the station yard, following the crowd. The Travelers'
Aid followed close behind, determined to keep a close watch on the
independent little Russian girl.
At the corner of First and Jasper, Polly stopped confused. A great
crowd stood around the bulletin board and excitedly read the news of
the Russian revolution; automobiles honked their horns, and
street-cars clanged and newsboys shouted, and more people than Polly
had ever seen before surged by her. For the first time Polly's stout
heart failed her. She had not thought it would be quite like this!
Turning round, she was glad to see the woman who had spoken to her at
the station. In this great bustling, pushing throng she seemed like an
old friend.
"Do you know where I could find a boarding-house?" asked Polly
breathlessly.
The Travelers' Aid took her by the hand and piloted her safely across
the street; and when the street-car had clanged by and she could be
heard, she told Polly that she would take her to a boarding-house
where she would be quite safe.
Polly stopped and asked her what was the name of the place.
"Y.W.C.A.," said the Aid, smiling.
Polly gave a sigh of relief. "I know what that is," she said. "Mr.
Ellis said that was the place to go when you go to a city. Will you
let me stay until I find a school?"
"We'll find the school," said the other woman. "That is what we are
for; we look after girls like you. We are glad to find a girl who
wants to go to school."
Polly laid her pack down to change hands and looked about her in
delight. The big brick buildings, the store-windows, even the
street-signs with their flaring colors, were all beautiful to her.
"Gee!" she said, "I like the city--it's swell!"
Polly was taken to the office of the secretary of the Y.W.C.A., and
there, under the melting influence of Miss Bradshaw's kind eyes and
sweet voice, she told all her hopes and fears.
"Our teacher has gone to be a soldier and we could not get another,
for they say it is too lonesome--out our way--and how can it be
lonesome? There's children in every house. But, anyway, lady-teachers
won't come and the men are all gone to the war. I'll bet I won't be
scared to teach when I grow up, but of course I won't be a lady; it's
different with them--they are always scared of something. We have a
cabin for the teacher, and three chairs and a painted table and a
stove and a bed, and a brass knob on the door, and we always brought
cream and eggs and bread for the teacher; and we washed his dishes for
him, and the girl that had the best marks all week could scrub his
floor on Friday afternoons. He was so nice to us all that we all cried
when he enlisted, but he explained it all to us--that there are some
things dearer than life and he just felt that he had to go. He said
that he would come back if he was not killed. Maybe he will only have
one arm and one leg, but we won't mind as long as there is enough of
him to come back. We tried and tried to get another teacher, but there
are not enough to fill the good schools, and ours is twenty miles from
a station and in a foreign settlement.... I'm foreign, too," she added
honestly; "I'm Russian."
"The Russians are our allies," said the secretary, "and you are a real
little Canadian now, Polly, and you are not a bit foreign. I was born
in Tipperary myself, and that is far away from Canada, too."
"Oh, yes, I know about it being a long way there," Polly said. "But
that doesn't matter, it is the language that counts. You see my mother
can't talk very good English and that is what makes us foreign, but
she wants us all to know English, and that is why she let me come
away, and I will do all I can to learn, and I will be a teacher some
day, and then I will go back and plant the garden and she will send me
butter, for I will live in the cabin. But it is too bad that we cannot
have a teacher to come to us, for now, when I am away, there is no one
to teach my mother English, for Mary does not speak the English well
by me, and the other children will soon forget it if we cannot get a
teacher."
While she was speaking, the genial secretary was doing some hard
thinking. This little messenger from the up-country had carried her
message right into the heart of one woman, one who was accustomed to
carry her impulses into action.
* * * * *
The Local Council of Women of the City of Edmonton met the next day in
the club-room of the Y.W.C.A., and it was a well-attended meeting,
for the subject to be discussed was that of "National Service for
Women." As the time drew near for the meeting to begin, it became
evident that great interest was being taken in the subject, for the
room was full, and animated discussions were going on in every corner.
This was not the first meeting that had been held on this subject, and
considerable indignation was heard that no notice had been taken by
the Government of the request that had been sent in some months
previous, asking that women be registered for national service as well
as men.
"They never even replied to our suggestion," one woman said. "You
would have thought that common politeness would have prompted a reply.
It was a very civil note that we sent--I wrote it myself."
"Hush! Don't be hard on the Government," said an older woman, looking
up from her knitting. "They have their own troubles--think of Quebec!
And then you know women's work is always taken for granted; they know
we will do our bit without being listed or counted."
"But I want to do something else besides knitting," the first speaker
said; "it could be done better and cheaper anyway by machinery, and
that would set a lot of workers free. Why don't we register ourselves,
all of us who mean business? This is our country, and if the
Government is asleep at the switch, that is no reason why we should
be. I tell you I am for conscription for every man and woman."
"Well, suppose we all go with you and sign up--name, age, present
address; married?--if so, how often?--and all that sort of thing; what
will you do with us, then?" asked Miss Wheatly, who was just back from
the East where she had been taking a course in art. "I am tired of
having my feelings all wrought upon and then have to settle down to
knitting a dull gray sock or the easy task of collecting Red Cross
funds from perfectly willing people who ask me to come in while they
make me a cup of tea. I feel like a real slacker, for I have never yet
done a hard thing. I did not let any one belonging to me go, for the
fairly good reason that I have no male relatives; I give money, but I
have never yet done without a meal or a new pair of boots when I
wanted them. There is no use of talking of putting me to work on a
farm, for no farmer would be bothered with me for a minute, and the
farmer's wife has trouble enough now without giving her the care of a
greenhorn like me--why, I would not know when a hen wanted to set!"
"You do not need to know," laughed the conscriptionist; "the hen will
attend to that without any help from you; and, anyway, we use
incubators now and the hen is exempt from all family cares--she can
have a Career if she wants to."
"I am in earnest about this," Miss Wheatly declared; "I am tired of
this eternal talk of national service and nothing coming of it. Now,
if any of you know of a hard, full-sized woman's job that I can do,
you may lead me to it!"
Then the meeting began. There was a very enthusiastic speaker who told
of the great gift that Canada had given to the Empire, the gift of men
and wheat, bread and blood--the sacrament of empire. She then told of
what a sacrifice the men make who go to the front, who lay their
young lives down for their country and do it all so cheerfully. "And
now," she said, "what about those of us who stay at home, who have
three good meals every day, who sleep in comfortable beds and have not
departed in any way from our old comfortable way of living. Wouldn't
you like to do something to help win the war?"
There was a loud burst of applause here, but Miss Wheatly sat with a
heavy frown on her face.
"Wasn't that a perfectly wonderful speech?" the secretary whispered to
her when the speaker had finished with a ringing verse of poetry all
about sacrifice and duty.
"It is all the same old bunk," Miss Wheatly said bitterly; "I often
wonder how they can speak so long and not make one practical
suggestion. Wouldn't you like to help win the war? That sounds so
foolish--of course we would like to win the war. It is like the
old-fashioned evangelists who used to say, 'All who would like to go
to heaven will please stand up.' Everybody stood, naturally."
While they were whispering, they missed the announcement that the
president was making, which was that there was a young girl from the
North Country who had come to the meeting and wished to say a few
words. There was a deep, waiting silence, and then a small voice began
to speak. It was Miss Polly Rogowski from the Abilene Valley District.
There was no fear in Polly's heart--she was not afraid of anything.
Not being a lady, of course, and having no reputation to sustain, and
being possessed with one thought, and complete master of it, her
speech had true eloquence. She was so small that the women at the back
of the room had to stand up to see her.
"I live at Abilene Valley and there are lots of us. I am fourteen
years old and Mary is twelve, and Annie is eleven, and Mike is ten,
and Peter is nine, and Ivan is seven, and Olga is six, and that is all
we have old enough to go to school; but there are lots more of other
children in our neighborhood, but our teacher has gone away to the war
and we cannot get another one, for lady-teachers are all too scared,
but I don't think they would be if they would only come, for we will
chop the wood, and one of us will stay at night and sleep on the
floor, and we will light the fires and get the breakfast, and we bring
eggs and cream and everything like that, and we could give the teacher
a cat and a dog; and the girl that had done the best work all week
always got to scrub the floor when our last teacher was there; and we
had a nice garden--and flowers, and now there is not anything, and the
small children are forgetting what Mr. Ellis taught them; for our
school has been closed all last summer, and sometimes Peter and Ivan
and the other little boys go over to the cabin and look in at the
windows, and it is all so quiet and sad--they cry."
There was a stricken silence in the room which Polly mistook for a
lack of interest and redoubled her efforts.
"We have twenty-four children altogether and they are all wanting a
teacher to come. I came here to go to school, but if I can get a
teacher to go back with me, I will go back. I thought I would try to
learn quick and go back then, but when I saw all so many women able
to read right off, and all looking so smart at learning, I thought I
would ask you if one of you would please come. We give our teacher
sixty-five dollars a month, and when you want to come home we will
bring you to the station--it is only twenty miles--and the river is
not deep only when it rains, and then even I know how to get through
and not get in the holes; and if you will come we must go to-morrow,
for the ice is getting rotten in the river and won't stand much sun."
That was the appeal of the country to the city; of the foreign-born to
the native-born; of the child to the woman.
The first person to move was Miss Wheatly, who rose quietly and walked
to the front of the room and faced the audience. "Madam President,"
she began in her even voice, "I have been waiting quite a while for
this, I think. I said to-day that if any one knew of a real,
full-sized woman's job, I would like to be led to it.... Well--it
seems that I have been led"
She then turned to Polly and said, "I can read right off and am not
afraid, not even of the river, if you promise to keep me out of the
holes, and I believe I can find enough of a diploma to satisfy the
department, and as you have heard the river won't stand much sun, so
you will kindly notice that my address has changed to Abilene Valley
Post-Office."
Polly held her firmly by the hand and they moved toward the door.
Polly turned just as they were passing through the door and made her
quaint and graceful curtsy, saying, "I am glad I came, and I guess we
will be for going now."