had once incurred the displeasure of the king of Prussia by giving aid
to certain Polish refugees, and had, indeed, been held for five weeks
in a German prison, was now excluded from the country as a "dangerous
person." This greatly amused Horace Mann, who remarked, "When we
consider that His Majesty has 200,000 men constantly under arms, and can
in need increase the number to two million, we begin to appreciate the
estimation in which he holds your single self." When, some years later,
the king sent Dr. Howe a medal in recognition of his work for the blind,
the Chevalier declared laughingly: "It is worth just what I was obliged
to pay for board and lodging while in the Berlin prison. His Majesty is
magnanimous!"
After traveling through Switzerland, Italy, and France, the Howes
stopped for a second visit to England, where they were entertained for
a time by the parents of Florence Nightingale. A warm attachment sprang
up between them and the earnest young woman of twenty-four.
"I want to ask your advice, Dr. Howe," said Miss Nightingale, one day.
"Would it be unsuitable for a young Englishwoman to devote herself to
works of charity in hospitals and wherever needed, just as the Catholic
sisters do?"
The doctor replied gravely, "My dear Miss Florence, it would be unusual,
and in England whatever is unusual is apt to be thought unsuitable;
but I say to you, go forward, if you have a vocation for that way of
life; act up to your inspiration, and you will find that there is never
anything unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good of
others."
After the Howes had returned to Boston and settled down to the
work-a-day order in the Institution the young wife's loyalty to the
new life was often sorely tried. She loved the sunshine of the bright,
gracious world of leisurely, happy people, and she felt herself chilled
in this bleak gray place of sober duties. If only she could warm
herself at the fire of friendship oftener! But all the pleasant people
lived in pleasant places too far from the South Boston institution for
the give and take of easy intercourse. Dr. Howe, moreover, was much of
the time so absorbed in the causes of which he was champion-in-chief
that few hours were saved for quiet fireside enjoyment.
"I hardly know what I should have done in those days," said Mrs. Howe,
"without the companionship of my babies and Miss Catherine Beecher's
cook-book."
The Chevalier loved to invite for a weekly dinner his especial group
of intimates--five choice spirits, among whom Longfellow and Sumner
were numbered, who styled themselves "The Five of Clubs." These dinners
brought many new problems to the young hostess, who now wished that some
portion of her girlhood days lavished on Italian and music had been
devoted to the more intimate side of menus. However, she was before long
able to take pride in her puddings without renouncing poetry; and to
keep an eye on the economy of the kitchen and her sense of humor at the
same time, as the following extract from a breezy letter to her sister
Louisa can testify:
Our house has been enlivened of late by two delightful
visits. The first was from the soap-fat merchant, who gave me
thirty-four pounds of good soap for my grease. I was quite
beside myself with joy, capered about in the most enthusiastic
manner, and was going to hug in turn the soap, the grease,
and the man, when I reflected that it would not sound well in
history. This morning came the rag man, who takes rags and gives
nice tin vessels in exchange.... Both of these were clever
transactions. Oh, if you had seen me stand by the soap-fat man,
and scrutinize his weights and measures, telling him again and
again that it was beautiful grease, and that he must allow me a
good price for it--truly, I am a mother in Israel.
The hours spent with her wee daughters were happy times. Sometimes
she improvised jingles to amuse Baby Flossy (Florence, after Florence
Nightingale) and tease the absorbed father-reformer at the same time:
Rero, rero, riddlety rad,
This morning my baby caught sight of her dad,
Quoth she, "Oh, Daddy, where have you been?"
"With Mann and Sumner a-putting down sin!"
Sometimes she sang little bedtime rhymes about lambs and baby birds,
sheep and sleep; and, when the small auditors demanded that their
particular pets have a part in the song, readily added:
The little donkey in the stable
Sleeps as sound as he is able;
All things now their rest pursue,
You are sleepy too.
As soon as Dr. Howe could find a suitable place near the Institution he
moved his little family into a home of their own. On the bright summer
day when Mrs. Howe drove under the bower formed by the fine old trees
that guarded the house, she exclaimed, "Oh, this is green peace!" And
"Green Peace" their home was called from that day. The children enjoyed
here healthful outdoor times and happy indoor frolics--plays given at
their dolls' theater, when father and mother worked the puppets to a
dialogue of squeaks and grunts; and really-truly plays, such as "The
Three Bears" (when Father distinguished himself as the Great Big Huge
Bear), "The Rose and the Ring," and "Bluebeard."
In the midst of the joys and cares of such a rich home-life, how was it
that the busy mother still found time for study and writing? For she
was always a student, keeping her mind in training as an athlete keeps
his muscles; and the need of finding expression in words for her inner
life became more insistent as time went on. One of her daughters once
said:
"It was a matter of course to us children that 'Papa and
Mamma' should play with us, sing to us, tell us stories, bathe
our bumps, and accompany us to the dentist; these were the
things that papas and mammas did! Looking back now with some
realization of all the other things they did, we wonder how they
managed it. For one thing, both were rapid workers; for another,
both had the power of leading and inspiring others to work; for
a third, so far as we can see, neither wasted a moment; for a
fourth, neither ever reached a point where there was not some
other task ahead, to be begun as soon as might be."
Life with the beloved reformer was often far from easy, but there were
never any regrets for the old care-free days. "I shipped as captain's
mate for the voyage!" she said on one occasion, with a merry laugh that
was like a heartening cheer; and then she added seriously, "I cannot
imagine a more useful motto for married life." Always she realized that
she owed all that was deepest and most steadfast in herself to this
union. "But for the Chevalier, I should have been merely a woman of the
world and a literary dabbler!" she said.
A volume of verse, "Passion Flowers," was praised by Longfellow and
Whittier and won a wide popularity. A later collection, "Words for the
Hour," was, on the whole, better, but not so much read. Still, the woman
felt that she had not yet really found herself in her work. She longed
to give something that was vital--something that would fill a need and
make a difference to people in the real world of action.
The days of the Civil War made every earnest spirit long to be of some
service to the nation and to humanity. Dr. Howe and his friend were
among the leaders of the Abolitionists at the time when they were a
despised "party of cranks and martyrs." It was small wonder that,
when the struggle came, Mrs. Howe's soul was fired with the desire to
help. There seemed nothing that she could do but scrape lint for the
hospitals--which any other woman could do equally well. If only her
poetic gift were not such a slender reed--if she could but command an
instrument of trumpet strength to voice the spirit of the hour!
In this mood she had gone to Washington to see a review of the troops.
On returning, while her carriage was delayed by the marching regiments,
her companions tried to relieve the tensity and tedium of the wait by
singing war songs, among others:
"John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave;
His soul is marching on!"
The passing soldiers caught at this with a "Good for you!" and joined in
the chorus. "Mrs. Howe," said her minister, James Freeman Clarke, who
was one of the company, "why do you not write some really worthy words
for that stirring tune?"
"I have often wished to do so," she replied.
Let us tell the story of the writing of the "nation's song" as her
daughters have told it in the biography of their mother:
Waking in the gray of the next morning, as she lay waiting
for the dawn the word came to her.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord--"
She lay perfectly still. Line by line, stanza by stanza,
the words came sweeping on with the rhythm of marching feet,
pauseless, resistless. She saw the long lines swinging into
place before her eyes, heard the voice of the nation speaking
through her lips. She waited till the voice was silent, till the
last line was ended; then sprang from bed, and, groping for pen
and paper, scrawled in the gray twilight the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic."
And so the "nation's song" was born. How did it come to pass that the
people knew it as their own? When it appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly"
it called forth little comment; the days gave small chance for the
poetry of words. But some poets in the real world of deeds had seen
it--the people who were fighting on the nation's battle-fields. And
again and again it was sung and chanted as a prayer before battle and a
trumpet-call to action. A certain fighting chaplain, who had committed
it to memory, sang it one memorable night in Libby Prison, when the
joyful tidings of the victory of Gettysburg had penetrated even those
gloomy walls. "Like a flame the word flashed through the prison. Men
leaped to their feet, shouted, embraced one another in a frenzy of joy
and triumph; and Chaplain McCabe, standing in the middle of the room,
lifted up his great voice and sang aloud:
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"
Every voice took up the chorus, and Libby Prison rang with the shout of
'Glory, glory, hallelujah!'"
Later, when Chaplain McCabe related to a great audience in Washington
the story of that night and ended by singing the "Battle Hymn of the
Republic," as only one who has lived it can sing it, the voice of
Abraham Lincoln was heard above the wild applause, calling, as the tears
rolled down his cheeks, "Sing it again!"
It has been said that what a person does in some great moment of his
life--in a moment of fiery trial or of high exaltation--is the result of
all the thoughts and deeds of all the slow-changing days. So the habits
of a lifetime cry out at last. Is it not true that this "nation's song,"
which seemed to write itself in a wonderful moment of inspiration,
was really the expression of years of brave, faithful living? All the
earnestness of the child, all the dreams and warm friendliness of the
girl, all the tenderness and loyal devotion of the wife and mother,
speak in those words. Nor is it the voice of her life alone. The
trumpet-call of her forebears was in those stirring lines. Only a tried
and true American, whose people had fought and suffered for freedom's
sake, could have written that nation's song.
Julia Ward Howe's long life of ninety-one years was throughout one of
service and inspiration. Many people were better and happier because
of her life. It was a great moment when, on the occasion of any public
gathering, the word went around that Mrs. Howe was present. With one
accord those assembled would rise to their feet, and hall or theater
would ring with the inspiring lines of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."
The man who said, "I care not who shall make the laws of the nation, if
I may be permitted to make its songs," spoke wisely. A true song comes
from the heart and goes to the heart. A nation's song is the voice of
the heart and life of a whole people. In it the hearts of many beat
together as one.
A CHAMPION OF "THE CAUSE":
ANNA HOWARD SHAW
Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a
great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege
throughout life of working for that Cause.
ANNA HOWARD SHAW.
A CHAMPION OF "THE CAUSE"
A young girl was standing on a stump in the woods, waving her arms and
talking very earnestly. There was no one there to listen except a robin
a-tilt on a branch where the afternoon sun could turn his rusty brown
breast to red, and a chattering, inquisitive bluejay. All the other
little wood folk were in hiding. That strange creature was in the woods
but not of them. She belonged to the world of people.
The girl knew that she belonged to a different world. She was not trying
to play that she was a little American Saint Francis preaching to the
birds in the forests of northern Michigan. She was looking past the
great trees and all the busy life that lurked there to the far-away
haunts of men. Somehow she felt that she would have something to say to
them some day.
She raised her clasped hands high above her head and lifted her face
to the patch of sky that gleamed deep blue between the golden-green
branches of the trees. "There is much that I can say," she declared
fervently. "I am only a girl, but I feel in my heart that some day
people will listen to me."
A gray squirrel scampered noisily across the dry brown leaves and
frisked up a tree trunk, where he clung for a moment regarding the girl
on the stump with shining, curious eyes.
"Saucy nutcracker!" cried the child, tossing an acorn at the alert
little creature. "Do you too think it strange for a girl to want to do
things? What would you say if I should tell you that a young girl once
led a great army to victory?--a poor girl who had to work hard all day
just as I do? She did not know how to read or write, but she knew how
to answer all the puzzling questions that the learned and powerful men
of the day (who tried with all their might to trip her up) could think
to ask. They called her a witch then. 'Of a truth this girl Joan must
be possessed of an evil spirit,' they said. 'Who ever heard of a maid
speaking as she speaks?' Years afterward they called her a saint. She
was the leader of her people even though she was a girl--Now I don't
mean, fellow birds and squirrels, that I expect to be another Joan of
Arc, but I know that I shall be something!"
Anna Shaw's bright dark eyes glowed with intense feeling. Like the maid
of whom she had been reading, she had her vision--a vision of a large,
happy life waiting for her--little, untaught backwoods girl though
she was. Her book led the way down a charmed path into the world of
dreams. For the time she forgot the drudgery of the days--the plowing
and planting and hoeing about the stumps of their little clearing, the
cutting of wood, the carrying of water. She walked back to the cabin
that was home, with her head held high and her lips parted in a smile.
But all at once she was brought back to real things with a rude bump.
"What have you been doing, Anna?" demanded her father, who stood waiting
for her in the doorway.
"Reading, sir," the girl faltered.
"So you have been _idling_ away precious hours at a time your mother
has needed your help?" the stern voice went on accusingly. "What do you
suppose the future will bring to one who has not proved 'faithful in
little'?"
The girl looked at her father without speaking. She knew that her share
in the work of the household was not "little." Her young hands hardened
from rough toil twitched nervously; the injustice cut her to the quick.
Couldn't her father imagine what holding down that claim in the woods
had meant for the little family during the eighteen months that he
and the two older boys had remained behind in the East? In his joy at
securing the grant of land from the Government, he already pictured the
well-conditioned farm that would one day be his and his children's. "The
acorn was not an acorn, but a forest of young oaks."
In a flash she saw as if it were yesterday the afternoon when their
pathetic little caravan had at last reached the home that awaited
them. She saw the frail, tired mother give one glance at the rude log
hut in the stump-filled clearing, and then sink in a despairing heap
on the dirt floor. It was but the hollow shell of a cabin--walls and
roof, with square holes for door and windows gaping forlornly at the
home-seekers. She heard the wolves and wildcats as she had on that first
night when they had huddled together--helpless creatures from another
world--not knowing if their watch-fires would keep the hungry beasts
at bay. She saw parties of Indians stalk by in war-paint and feathers.
She saw herself, a child of twelve, trudging wearily to the distant
creek for water until the time when, with her brother's help, she dug a
well. There was, too, the work of laying a floor and putting in doors
and windows. Like Robinson Crusoe, she had served a turn at every
trade; to-day that of carpenter or builder, to-morrow that of farmer,
fisherman, or woodcutter.
As these pictures flashed before the eye of memory she looked at her
father quietly, without a word of defense or self-pity. All she said
was, "Father, some day I am going to college."
The little smile that curled his lips as he looked his astonishment
drove her to another boast. The dreams of the free calm woods and the
heroic Maid of Orleans had faded away. Somehow she longed to put forth
her claim in a way to impress any one, even a man who felt that a girl
ought not to want anything but drudging. "And before I die I shall be
worth $10,000," she prophesied boldly.
However, the months that succeeded gave no sign of any change of
fortune. A sudden storm turned a day of toil now and then into a
red-letter day when one had chance to read the books that father had
brought with him into the wilderness. Sometimes one could stretch at
ease on the floor and dreamily scan the pages of the "Weekly" that
papered the walls. There was always abundant opportunity in the busy
hours that followed to reflect on what one had read--to compare, to
contrast, and to apply, and so to annex for good and all the ideas that
the books had to give.
It was clear, too, that there were many interesting things to be seen
and enjoyed even in the most humdrum work-a-day round, if one were able
to read real life as well as print. Could anything be more delightful
than the way father would drop his hoe and run into the house to work
out a problem concerning the yield of a certain number of kernels
of corn? The days would go by while he calculated and speculated
energetically over this problem and that, leaving such trivial tasks as
planting and plowing to others. Then there were the weekend visitors.
Often as many as ten or a dozen of the neighboring settlers--big
lumbermen and farmers--would come on Saturday, to spend the night and
Sunday listening to her father read. When it was delicately hinted that
this was a tax on the family store of tallow dips, each man dutifully
brought a candle to light the way to learning. It never seemed to occur,
either to them or to the impractical father, who liked nothing better
than reading and expounding, that the entertainment of so many guests
was a severe tax on the strength and patience of the working members of
the household.
But life was not all labor. There was now and then a wonderful ball at
Big Rapids, then a booming lumber town. When it was impossible to get
any sort of a team to make the journey, they went down the river on a
raft, taking their party dresses in trunks. As balls, like other good
things in pioneer experience, were all too rare, it was the custom to
make the most of each occasion by changing one's costume at midnight,
and thus starting off with fresh enthusiasm to dance the "money musk"
and the "Virginia reel" in the small hours.
"Our costumes in those days had at least the spice of originality," said
Miss Shaw with a reminiscent smile. "I well remember a certain gay ball
gown of my own, made of bedroom chintz; and the home-tailored trousers
of my gallant swain, whose economical mother had employed flour sacks,
on which the local firm-name and the guarantee, '96 pounds,' appeared
indelibly imprinted. A blue flannel shirt and a festive yellow sash
completed his interesting outfit."
When Anna Shaw was fifteen she began to teach in the little log
schoolhouse of the settlement for two dollars a week and "board round."
The day's work often meant a walk of from three to six miles, a trip to
the woods for fuel, the making of the wood fire and the partial drying
of rain-soaked clothes, before instruction began. Then imagine the child
of fifteen teaching fifteen children of assorted ages and dispositions
out of fifteen different "reading books," most of which she had herself
supplied. "I remember that one little girl read from a hymn-book, while
another had an almanac," she said.
As there was no money for such luxuries as education until the dog-tax
had been collected, the young teacher received one bright spring day
the dazzling sum of twenty-six dollars for the entire term of thirteen
weeks. In the spending of this wealth, spring and youth carried the day.
Joan of Arc and the preaching in the woods were for the time forgotten;
she longed above everything else to have some of the pretty things that
all girls love. Making a pilgrimage to a real shop, she bought her first
real party dress--a splendid creation of rich magenta color, elaborately
decorated with black braid.
Perhaps she regretted all too soon the rashness of this expenditure, for
the next year brought hard times. War had been declared, and Lincoln's
call for troops had taken all the able-bodied men of the community.
"When news came that Fort Sumter had been fired on," said Miss Shaw,
"our men were threshing. I remember seeing a man ride up on horseback,
shouting out Lincoln's demand for troops and explaining that a regiment
was being formed at Big Rapids. Before he had finished speaking the men
on the machine had leaped to the ground and rushed off to enlist, my
brother Jack, who had recently joined us, among them."
Anna Shaw was now the chief support of the little home in the
wilderness, and the pitiful sum earned by teaching had to be eked out
by boarding the workers from the lumber-camps and taking in sewing,
in order to pay the taxes and meet the bare necessities of life. With
calico selling for fifty cents a yard, coffee for a dollar a pound,
and everything else in proportion, one cannot but marvel how the women
and children managed to exist. They struggled along, with hearts heavy
with anxiety for loved ones on the battle-fields, to do as best they
could the work of the men--gathering in the crops, grinding the corn,
and caring for the cattle--in addition to the homekeeping tasks of
the daily round. It takes, perhaps, more courage and endurance to be a
faithful member of the home army than it does to march into battle with
bands playing and colors flying.
When, at the end of the war, the return of the father and brothers
freed her from the responsibility for the upkeep of the home, Anna Shaw
determined upon a bold step. Realizing that years must pass before she
could save enough from her earnings as country school-teacher to go
to college, she went to live with a married sister in Big Rapids and
entered as a pupil in the high school there. The preceptress, Miss Lucy
Foot, who was a college graduate and a woman of unusual strength of
character, took a lively interest in the new student and encouraged her
ambition to preach by putting her in the classes in public speaking and
debating.
"I vividly remember my first recitation in public," said Miss Shaw. "I
was so overcome by the impressiveness of the audience and the occasion,
and so appalled at my own boldness in standing there, that I sank in
a faint on the platform. Sympathetic classmates carried me out and
revived me, after which they naturally assumed that the entertainment I
furnished was over for the evening. I, however, felt that if I let that
failure stand against me I could never afterward speak in public; and
within ten minutes, notwithstanding the protests of my friends, I was
back in the hall and beginning my recitation a second time. The audience
gave me its eager attention. Possibly it hoped to see me topple off the
platform again, but nothing of the sort occurred. I went through the
recitation with self-possession and received some friendly applause at
the end."