THE HOPE OF THE WORLD
The great spring drive of the Germans brought headlines to the papers
which men and women in America read with dread, and scoffed at when
they talked it over.
"They'll never get to Paris," were the words on their lips, but in
their hearts they were asking, "Will they--?"
Easter came at the end of March, and Good Friday found Jean working
very early in the morning on fawn-colored rabbits with yellow ears.
She worked in her bedroom because it was warmed by a feeble wood fire,
and Teddy came up to watch her.
"The yellow in their ears is the sun shining through," Jean told him.
"We used to see them in the country on the path in front of the house,
and the light from the west made their ears look like tiny electric
bulbs."
Margaret-Mary entranced by one small bunny with a splash of white for a
cotton tail, sang, "Pitty sing, pitty sing."
"They don't weally lay eggs, do they?" Teddy ventured.
"I wouldn't ask such questions if I were you, Teddy."
"Why not?"
"Because you might find out that they didn't lay eggs, and then you'd
feel terribly disappointed."
"Well, isn't it better to know?"
Jean shook her head. "I'm not sure--it's nice to think that they do
lay eggs--blue ones and red ones and those lovely purple ones, isn't
it?"
"Yes."
"And if they don't lay them, who does?"
"Hens," said Teddy, rather unexpectedly, "and the rab-yits steal them."
"Who told you that?"
"Hodgson. And she says that she ties them up in rags and the colors
come off on the eggs."
"Well, I wouldn't listen to Hodgson."
"Why not? I like to listen."
"Because she hasn't any imagination."
"What's 'magination?"
They were getting in very deep. Jean gave it up. "Ask your mother,
Teddy."
So Teddy sought his unfailing source of information. "What's
'magination, Mother."
"It is seeing things, Teddy, with your mind instead of your eyes. When
I tell you about the poor little children in France who haven't any
food or any clothes except what the Red Cross gives them, you don't
really see them with your eyes, but your mind sees them, and their cold
little hands, and their sad little faces--"
"Yes." He considered that for a while, then swept on to the things
over which his childish brain puzzled.
"Mother, if the Germans get to Paris what will happen?"
He saw the horror in her face.
"Do you hate the Germans, Mother?"
"My darling, don't ask me."
After he had gone downstairs, Margaret got out her prayer-book, and
read the prayers for the day.
"Oh, merciful God, who hast made all men and hatest nothing that thou
hast made, nor desirest the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should be converted and live, have mercy on all Jews, Turks, infidels
and heretics, and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and
contempt of Thy word, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to Thy
flock, that they may be saved--"
She shut the book. No, she could not go on. She did not love her
enemies. She was not in the least sure that she wanted the Germans to
be saved!
On Easter morning, however, Teddy was instructed to pray for his
enemies. "We mustn't have hate in our hearts."
"Why mustn't we, Mother?"
"Well, Father wouldn't want it. We hate the evil they do, but we must
pray that they will be shown their wickedness and repent."
"If they re-pyent will they stop fighting?"
"My dearest, yes."
"How would they stop?"
Jean, who was ready for church and waiting, warned, "You'd better not
try to give an answer to that, Margaret, there isn't any."
Teddy ignored her. "How would they stop, Mother?"
"Well, they'd just stop, dear--"
"Would they say they were sorry?"
_Would William of Prussia ever be sorry_?
"Can God stop it, Mother?"
Margaret wrenched her mind away from the picture which his words had
painted for her, the Kaiser on his knees! _Miserere mei, Deus_--
With quick breath, "Yes, dear."
"Then why doesn't He stop it, Mother?"
_Why? Why? Why? Older voices were asking that question in agony_.
"He will do it in His own good time, dearest. Perhaps the world has a
lesson to learn."
With Teddy walking ahead with nurse, Jean proclaimed to Margaret, "I
shan't pray for them."
"I know how you feel."
"Shall you?"
"Yes," desperately, "I must."
"Why must you?"
"Because of--Win," Margaret said simply. In her widow's black, with
her veil giving her height and dignity, she had never been more
beautiful. "Because of Win, I must. There are wives in Germany who
suffer as I suffer--who are not to blame. There are children, like my
children, asking the same questions--. This drive has seemed to me
like the slaughter of sheep, with a great Wolf behind them, a Wolf
without mercy, sending them down to destruction, to--death--"
"And the Wolf--?"
Margaret raised her hand and let it drop, "God knows."
And now soldiers were being rushed overseas. Trains swept across the
land loaded with men who gazed wistfully at the peaceful towns as they
passed through, or chafed impotently when, imprisoned in day coaches,
they were side-tracked outside of great cities.
And on the battle line those droves and droves of gray sheep were
driven down and down--to death--by the Wolf.
The war was coming closer to America. A look of care settled on the
faces of men and women who had, hitherto, taken things lightly.
Fathers, who had been very sure that the war would end before their
sons should go to France, faced the fact that the end was not in sight,
and that the war would take its toll of the youth of America. Mothers,
who had not been sure of anything, but had hidden their fears in their
hearts, stopped reading the daily papers. Wives, who had looked upon
the camp experiences of their husbands as a rather great adventure,
knew now that there might be a greater adventure with a Dark Angel.
The tram-sheds in great cities were crowded with anxious relatives who
watched the troops go through, clutching at the hope of a last glimpse
of a beloved face, a few precious moments in which to say farewell.
Yes, the war was coming near!
Derry wrote that he might go at any moment, but hoped for a short
furlough. It was on this hope that Jean lived. She worked tirelessly,
making the much-needed surgical dressings. When Emily tried to get her
to rest, Jean would shake her head.
"Darling, I must. They are bringing the wounded over."
"But you mustn't get too tired."
"I want to be tired. So that I can sleep."
She was finding it hard to sleep. Often she rose and wrote in her
memory book, which was becoming in a sense a diary because she confided
to its pages the things she dared not say to Derry. Some day, perhaps,
she might show him what she had written. But that would be when the
war was over, and Derry had come back safe and sound. Until then she
would have to smile in her letters, and she did not always feel like
smiling!
But that was what Derry called them, "Smiling letters!"
"They smile up at me every morning, Jean."
So she wrote to him bravely, cheerfully, of her busy days, of how she
missed him, of her love and longing, but not a word did she say of her
world as it really was.
But there was no laughter in the things she said to the old memory book.
"I don't like big houses--not houses like this, with grinning porcelain
Chinese gods at every turn of the hall, and gold dragons on the
bed-posts. There are six of us here besides the servants, yet we are
like dwarfs in a giant palace. Perhaps if we had the usual fires it
wouldn't seem quite so forlorn. But the china in the cabinets is so
cold--and the ceilings are so high--and the marble floors--.
"Perhaps if everyone were happy it would be different. But only Emily
is happy. And I don't see how she can be. She is going to marry a
Hun! Of course, he isn't really, and he'd be a darling dear if it
weren't for his German name, and his German blood, and the German
things he has in his house. But Emily says she loves his house, that
it speaks to her of a different Germany--of the sweet old gay Germany
that waltzed and sang and loved simple things. It seems so funny to
think of Emily in love--she's so much older than people are usually
when they are engaged and married.
"But Emily is the only happy one, except the children, and I sometimes
think that even they have the shadow on them of the dreadful things
that are happening. Margaret-Mary tries to knit, and tires her stubby
little fingers with the big needles, and Teddy, poor chap, seems to
feel that he must be the man of the family and take his father's place,
and he is pathetically careful of his mother.
"I wonder if Margaret feels as I do about it all? She is so sweet and
smiling--and yet I know how her heart weeps, and I know how she longs
for her own house and her own hearth and her own husband--
"Oh, when my Derry comes back safe and sound--and he will come back
safe, I shall say it over and over to myself until I make it true--when
Derry comes back, we'll build a cottage, with windows that look out on
trees and a garden--and there'll be cozy little rooms, and we'll take
Polly Ann and Muffin--and live happy ever after--.
"I wonder how father stands it to be always with people who are sick?
I never knew what it meant until now. The General is an old dear--but
sometimes when I sit in that queer room of his with its lacquer and
gold and see him in his gorgeous dressing gown, I feel afraid. It is
rather dreadful to think that he was once young and strong like Derry,
and that he will never be young and strong again.
"Oh, I want the war to end--I want Derry, and sunshine and well people.
It seems a hundred years since I did anything just for the fun of doing
it. It seems a million years since Daddy and I drove downtown together
and drank chocolate sodas--
"But then nobody is drinking chocolate sodas--at least no one is doing
it light-heartedly. You can't be light-hearted when the person you
love best in the world is going to war. You can be brave, and you can
make your lips laugh, but you can't make your heart laugh--you
can't--you can't--.
"I talk a great deal to the women who come to Emily's Toy Shop. And I
am finding out that some of those that seem fluffy-minded are really
very much in earnest. There is one little blonde, who always wears
white silk and chiffon, she looks as if she had just stepped from the
stage. And at first I simply scorned her. I felt that she would be
the kind to leave ravellings in her wipes, and things like that. But
she doesn't leave a ravelling. She works slowly, but she does her work
well--. But now and then her hands tremble and the tears fall; and the
other day I went and sat down beside her and I found out that her
husband is flying in France, and that her two brothers are at the
front--. And one of them is among the missing; he may be a prisoner
and he may be dead--. And she is trying to do her bit and be brave.
And now I don't care if she does wear her earlocks outside of her veil
and load her hands with diamonds--she's a dear---and a darling. But
she's scared just as I am--and as Mary Connolly is, and as all the
women are, though they don't show it--. I wonder if Joan of Arc was
afraid--in her heart as the rest of us are? Perhaps she wasn't,
because she was in the thick of it herself, and we aren't. Perhaps if
we were where we could see it and have the excitement of it all, we
should lose our fear.
"But when women tell me that the women have the worst of it--that they
must sit at home and weep and wait, I don't believe it. We suffer--of
course, and there's the thought of it all like a bad dream, and when we
love our loved ones--it is heartbreak. But the men suffer, daily, in
all the little things. The thirst and the vermin, and the cold and
wet--and the noise--and the frightfulness. And they grow tired and
hungry and homesick,--and death is on every side of them, and horror--.
Some of the women who come to the shop sentimentalize a lot. One woman
recited, 'Break, break, break--, the other day, and the rest of them
cried into the gauze, _cried for themselves_, if you please; 'For men
must work and women must weep.' And then my little blonde told them
what she thought of them. Her name is 'Maisie,' wouldn't you know a
girl like that would be called 'Maisie'?
"'If you think,' she said, 'that you suffer--what in God's name will
you think before the war is over? It hasn't touched you. You won't
know what suffering means until your men begin to come home. You talk
about hardships; not one of you has gone hungry yet--and the men over
there may be cut off at any moment from food supplies, and they are
always at the mercy of the camp cooks, who may or may not give them
things that they can eat. And they lie out under the stars with their
wounds, and if any of you has a finger ache, you go to bed with hot
water bottles and are coddled and cared for. But our boys,--there
isn't anyone to coddle them--they have to stick it out. And we've got
to stick it out--and not be sorry for ourselves. Oh, why should we be
sorry for ourselves!' The tears were streaming down her cheeks when
she finished, and a gray-haired woman who had wept with the others got
up and came over to her. 'My dear,' she said, 'I shall never pity
myself again. My two sons are over there, and I've been thinking how
much I have given. But they have given their young lives, their
futures--their bodies, to be broken--' And then standing right in the
middle of the Toy Shop that mother prayed for her sons, and for the
sons of other women, and for the husbands and lovers, and that the
women might be brave.
"Oh, it was wonderful--as she stood there like a white-veiled
prophetess, praying.
"Yet a year ago she would have died rather than pray in public. She is
a conservative, aristocratic woman, the kind that doesn't wear rings or
try to be picturesque--and she has always kept her feelings to herself,
and said her prayers to herself--or in church, but never in all her
life has she been so fine as she was the other day praying in the Toy
Shop.
"Yet in a way I am sorry for myself. Not for me as I am to-day, but
for the Jean of Yesterday, who thought that patriotism was remembering
Bunker Hill!
"Of course in a way it is that--for Bunker Hill and Lexington and
Valley Forge are a part of us because our grandfathers were there, and
what they felt and did is a part of our feeling and doing.
"I have always thought of those old days as a sort of picture--the
embattled farmers in their shirt-sleeves and with their hair blowing,
and the Midnight Ride, and the lantern in the old North Church--and the
Spirit of '76. And it was the same with the Civil War; there was
always the vision of cavalry sweeping up and down slopes as they do in
the movies, and of the bugles calling, and bands playing 'Marching
through Georgia' or 'Dixie' as the case might be--and flags
flying--isn't it glorious to think that the men in gray are singing
to-day, 'The Star Spangled Banner' with the rest of us?
"But my thoughts never had anything to do with money, though I suppose
people gave it then, as they are giving now. But you can't paint
pictures of men and women making out checks, and children putting
thrift stamps in little books, so I suppose that in future the heroes
and heroines of the emptied pocket-books will go down unsung--.
"It isn't a bit picturesque to give until it hurts, but it helps a lot.
I saw Sarah Bernhardt the other day in a wonderful little play where
she's a French boy, who dies in the end--and she dies, exquisitely,
with the flag of France in her arms--the faded, lovely flag--I shall
never forget. The tears ran down my cheeks so that I couldn't see, but
her voice, so faint and clear, still rings in my ears--
"If she had died clutching a Liberty Bond or wearing a Red Cross
button, it would have seemed like burlesque. Yet there are men and
women who are going without bread and butter to buy Liberty Bonds, and
who are buying them not as a safe investment, as rich men buy, but
because the boys need the money. And there ought to be poems written
and statues erected to commemorate some of the sacrifices for the sake
of the Red Cross.
"Yet I think that, in a way, we have not emphasized enough the
picturesque quality of this war, not on this side. They do it in
France--they worship their great flyers, their great generals, their
crack regiments, everything has a personality, they are tender with
their shattered cathedrals as if something human had been hurt, and the
result is a quickening on the part of every individual, a flaming
patriotism which as yet we have not felt. We don't worship anything,
we don't all of us know the words of 'The Star Spangled Banner'; fancy
a Frenchman not knowing the words of the 'Marseillaise' or an
Englishman forgetting 'God Save the King.' We don't shout and sing
enough, we don't cry enough, we don't feel enough--and that's all there
is to it. If we were hot for the triumph of democracy, there would be
no chance of victory for the Hun. Perhaps as the war comes nearer, we
shall feel more, and every day it is coming nearer--"
It was very near, indeed. Thousands of those gray sheep were lying
dead on the plains of Picardy--the Allies fought with their backs to
the wall--Americans who had swaggered, secure in the prowess of Uncle
Sam, swaggered no longer, and pondered on the parable of the Wise and
Foolish Virgins.
Slowly the nation waked to what was before it. In America now lay the
hope of the world. The Wolf must be trapped, the sheep saved in spite
of themselves, those poor sheep, driven blindly to slaughter.
The General was not quite sure that they were sheep, or that they were
being driven. He held, rather, that they knew what they were
about--and were not to be pitied.
Teddy, considering this gravely, went back to previous meditations, and
asked if he prayed for his enemies.
"Bless my soul," said the old gentleman, "why should I?"
"Well, Mother says we must, and then some day they'll stop and say they
are sorry--"
The General chuckled, "Your mother is optimistic."
"What's 'nopt'mistic?"
"It means always believing that nice things will happen."
"Don't you believe that nice things will happen?"
"Sometimes--"
"Don't you believe that the war will stop?"
"Not until we've thrown the full force of our fighting men into it--at
what a sacrifice."
"Can't God make it stop?"
"He can, but He won't, not if He's a God of justice," said this staunch
old patriot, "until America has brought them to their knees--"
"Will they say they are sorry then?"
"It won't make very much difference what they say--"
But Teddy, having been brought up to understand the things which belong
to an officer and a gentleman, had his own ideas on the subject.
"Well, I should think they'd ought to say they were sorry--."