The green of the pastures and the gold of the fields was buried so
deeply under banks of snow that no one could say: "Here the cattle fed
and the buttercups grew; there the grain was harvested; here the corn
stood in shocks; there the daisies and meadow grass sheltered the nest
of the bobo-link." As death calls alike the least and the greatest
back to the dust from which they came, so winter laid over the varied
and changing scenes of summer a cold, white, shroud of wearisome
sameness. The birds were hundreds of miles away in their sunny
southland haunts. The bees, the butterflies, and many of the tiny wood
folk, were all snugly tucked in their winter beds, dreaming, perhaps,
as they slept, of the sunshiny summer days. In the garden the wind had
heaped a great drift high against the hedge on the boy's side, and, on
the little girl's side, the cherry tree in the corner stood shivering
in its nakedness with bare arms uplifted as though praying for mercy
to the stinging cold wind.
In the city the snow, as fast as it fell, was stained by soot and
grime and lay in the streets a mass of filth. The breath of the
laboring truck horses arose from their wide nostrils like clouds of
steam and, in the icy air, covered their breasts and shoulders and
sides with a coat of white frost. The newsboys and vendors of pencils
and shoestrings shivered in nooks and corners and doorways and, as the
people went with heads bent low before the freezing blast that swirled
through the narrow canyons between the tall buildings, the snowy
pavement squeaked loudly under their feet.
And the man who had found something to do, from his Occupation, began
to acquire Knowledge. In doing things, he began to know things.
But the man had to gain first a knowledge of Knowledge. He first had
to learn this: that a man might know all about a thing without ever
knowing the thing itself. He had to understand that Knowledge is not
knowing _about_ a thing but knowing the _thing_. When first
he had dreamed his manhood dreams, before he had found something to
do, the man, quite modestly, thought that he knew a great deal. In his
school days, he had exhausted many text books and had passed many
creditable examinations upon many subjects and so he had thought that
he knew a great deal. And he did. He knew a great deal _about_
things. But when he had found something to do, and had tried to do it,
he found also very quickly that, although he knew so much about the
thing he had to do, he knew very, very, little of the thing itself and
that only knowledge of the thing itself could ever help him to realize
his dreams.
From his Occupation, he learned this also: that Knowledge is not what
some other man knows and tells you but what the thing that you have
found to do makes known to you. Knowledge is not told, _cannot_
be told, to one by another, even though that other has it abundantly
for, to the one to whom it is told, it remains ever what someone else
knows. What the thing that a man finds to do makes known to him,
_that_ is Knowledge. So Knowledge is to be had not from books
alone but rather from Life. So idleness is a vicious ignorance and
those who do the most are wisest.
Before he had found something to do the man had called himself a
thinker. But when he tried to do the thing that he had found to do, he
quickly realized that he had only thought that he thought. He found
that he was not at all a thinker but a listener--a receiver--a
rememberer. In his school days, the thoughts of others were offered
him and he, because he had accepted them, called them his own. He
came, now, to understand that thinking is not accepting the thoughts
of others but finding thoughts of your own in whatever it is that you
have found to do.
Thinking the thoughts of others is a delightful pastime and profitable
but it is not really thinking. Also, if one be blessed with a good
memory, he may thus cheaply acquire a reputation for great wisdom;
just as one, if he happens to be born with a nose of uncommon length
or bigness, may attract the attention of the world. But no one should
deceive himself. A man because he is able, better than the multitude,
to repeat the thoughts of other men must not therefore think himself a
better thinker than the crowd. No more should the one with the
uncommon nose flatter himself that he is necessarily handsome or
distinguished in appearance because the people notice him. He who
attracts the attention of the world should inquire most carefully into
the reason for the gathering of the crowd; for a crowd will gather as
readily to listen to a mountebank as to hear an angel from heaven.
To repeat what others have thought is not at all evidence that he who
remembers is thinking. Great thoughts are often repeated
thoughtlessly. A man's Occupation betrays him or establishes his claim
to Knowledge. That which a man does proclaims that which he thinks or
in his thoughtlessness finds him out.
Of course, when the man had learned this, he said at first, quite
wrongly, that his school days were wasted. He said that what he had
called his education was all a mistake--that it was vanity only and
wholly worthless. But, as he went on gaining ever more and more
Knowledge from the thing that he was doing, and, through that thing,
of many other things, he came to understand that his school days were
not wasted but very well spent indeed. He came to see that what he had
called education was not a mistake. He came to understand that what
was wrong was this: he had considered his education complete,
finished, when he had only been prepared to begin. He had considered
his schooling as an end to be gained when it was only a means to the
end. He had considered his learning as wealth to hold when it was
capital to invest. He had mistaken the thoughts that he received from
others for Knowledge when they were given him only to inspire and to
help him in acquiring Knowledge.
And then, of this knowledge of Knowledge gained by the man from his
Occupation, there was born in him a mighty passion, a burning desire.
It was the passion for Knowledge. It was the desire to know. To know
the thing that he had found to do was not enough. He determined to use
that knowledge to gain Knowledge of many other things. He felt within
himself a new strength stirring--the strength of thought. He saw that
knowledge of things led ever to more knowledge, even as link to link
in a golden chain. One end of the chain he held in his Occupation; the
other was somewhere, far beyond his sight, hidden in the mists that
shroud the Infinite Fact, fast to the mighty secret of Life itself.
Link by link, he determined to follow the chain. From knowing things
to knowledge of other things he would go even until he held in his
grip the last link--until he held the key to the riddle--until he knew
the answer to the sum of Life.
And facts--cold, uncompromising, all powerful, unanswerable
facts--should give him this mastering knowledge of Life. For him there
should be no sentiment to deceive, no illusion to beguile, no fancy to
lead astray. As resistlessly as the winter, with snowflake upon
snowflake, had buried all the delightful vagaries of summer, so this
man, in his passion for Knowledge, would have buried all the charming
inconsistencies, the beautiful inaccuracies, the lovely pretenses of
Life. The illusions, the sentiment, the fancies, the poetry of Life,
he would have buried under the icy sameness of his facts, even as the
flowers and grasses were hidden under winter's shroud of snow. But he
could not. Under the snow, summer still lived. Under the cold facts of
Life, the tender sentiments, the fond fancies, the dear illusions have
strength even as the flowers and grasses.
I do not know what it was that brought it about. It does not matter
what it was. Perhaps it was the sight of some boys coasting down a
little hill, on a side street, near where the man lived at this time:
perhaps it was a group of children who, on their way home from school,
were waging a merry snow fight: or, perhaps, it was the man's own
effort to acquire Knowledge: or, it may be, that his brain was weary,
that the way of Knowledge seemed over long, that the links in the
golden chain were many and passed all too slowly through his hand--I
do not know--but, whatever it was that did it, the man, as he sat
before his fire that winter evening with a too solid and substantial
book, slipped away from his grown up world of facts back into the no
less real world of childhood, back into his Yesterdays--to a school
day in his Yesterdays.
Once again he made his way in the morning to the little schoolhouse
that stood half way up a long hill, in the edge of a bit of timber,
nearly two miles from his home. The yard, beaten smooth and hard by
many bare and childish feet, was separated from the timber by a rail
fence but was left open in front to any stray horses or cattle that,
wandering down the road, might be tempted to rest a while in the shade
of a great tree that stood near the center of the little clearing. The
stumps of the other forest beauties that had once, like this tree,
tossed their branches in the sunlight were still holding the places
that God had given them and made fine seats for the girls or bases for
the boys when they played ball at recess or noon. And often, when the
shouting youngsters had been called from their sports by the rapping
of the teacher's ruler at the door and only the busy hum of their
childish voices came floating through the open windows, a venturesome
squirrel or a saucy chipmunk would creep stealthily along the fence,
stopping now and then to sit bolt upright with tail in air to look and
listen. Then suddenly, at sight of a laughing face at the window or
the appearance of some boy who had gained the coveted permission to
get a bucket of water, the little visitor would whisk away again like
a flash and, with a warning chatter to his mate, would seek safety
among the leaves and branches of the forest only to reappear once more
when all was quiet until, at last, made bold by many trials, he would
leap from the fence and scamper across the yard to take possession of
the tallest stump as though he himself were a schoolboy. Sometimes a
crow, after carefully watching the place for a little while from a
safe position on the fence across the road, would fly quietly down to
look for choice bits dropped from the dinner baskets of the children.
Or again, a long, lazy, black snake would crawl across the yard to
search for the little mice that lived in the foundation of the house
and in the corners of the fence. Or, perhaps, a chicken hawk, that had
been sailing on outstretched wings in ever narrowing circles, would
drop from the blue sky to claim his share of the plunder only to be
frightened away again by the sound of the teacher's voice raised in
sharp rebuke of some mischievous urchin.
The schoolhouse was not a large building nor was it, in the least,
imposing. It was built of wood with a foundation of rough stone and
there were heavy shutters which were always carefully closed at night
to keep out the tramps who might seek a lodging place within. And
there was a woodshed, too, where the boys romped upon rainy days and
where was fought many a schoolboy battle for youthful love and honor.
The building had once been painted white but the storm and sunshine of
many months had worn away the paint, and there remained only the dark,
weather stained, boards save beneath the cornice and the window ledge
where one might still find traces of its former glory. The chimney,
too, was old and some of the bricks had crumbled and fallen from the
top which made it look ragged against the sky. And the steps and
threshold were worn very thin--very, very, thin.
Wearied with his passion for Knowledge; tired of his cold facts;
hungering in his heart for a bit of wholesome sentiment as one in
winter hungers for the summer flowers; the man who sat before his fire
that night, with a too heavy and substantial book, crossed once more
with childish feet the worn threshold of the old schoolhouse and stood
within the entry where hung the hats and dinner baskets of his mates.
They looked very familiar to him--those hats--and, as he saw them in
his memory, each offered mute testimony to its owner's disposition and
rank in childhood's world. There were broad brimmed straws that
belonged to the patient, plodding, boys and caps that seemed made to
set far back on the heads of the boisterous lads. There was the old
slouch felt of the poor boy who did chores for his board and the
brimless hat of the bully of the school. There were the trim sailors
of the good little boys and the head gear of his own particular chum.
And there--the man who sought Knowledge only in facts smiled at the
fire and a fond light came into his eyes while his too solid and
substantial hook slipped unheeded to the floor--there was a sunbonnet
of blue checkered gingham hanging by its long strings from a hook near
the window.
With fast beating heart, the boy saw that the next hook was vacant and
placing his own well worn straw beside the bonnet he wondered if she
would know whose hat it was. And then once more, with reluctant hand,
the seeker of Knowledge, in his Yesterdays, pushed open the door
leading to the one room in the building and, with a sigh of regret,
passed from the bright sunlight of boyish freedom to the shadow of his
childish task.
There were neither tinted walls nor polished woodwork in that hall of
learning. But, thank God, learning does not depend upon tinted walls
or polished woodwork. Indeed it seems that rude rafters and
unplastered ceilings most often covers the head of learning. The
humble cottage of the farmer shelters many a true scholar and
statesmen are bred in log cabins. Neither was there a furnace with
mysterious cranks and chains nor steam pipes nor radiators. But, when
the cold weather came, the room was warmed by an old sheet iron stove
that stood near the center of the building with an armful of wood in a
box nearby and the kindlings for to-morrow's fire drying on the floor
beneath. The desks were of soft pine, without paint or varnish, but
carved with many a quaint and curious figure by jack knives in the
hands of ambitious youngsters. The seats were rude benches worn smooth
and shiny. A water bucket had its place near the door and a rusty tin
dipper that leaked quite badly hung from a nail in the casing.
And hanging upon the dingy wall were the old maps and charts that,
torn and soiled by long usage, had patiently guided generations of
boys and girls through the mysteries of lands and seas, icebergs,
trade winds, deserts, and plains. Still patiently they marked for the
boy's bewildered brain latitude and longitude, the tropic of cancer,
the arctic circle, and the poles. Were they hanging there still? the
man wondered. Were they still patiently leading the way through a
wilderness of islands and peninsulas, capes and continents, rivers,
lakes, and sounds? Or had they, in the years that had gone since he
looked upon their learned faces, been sunk to oblivion in the depths
of their own oceans by the weight of their own mountain ranges? And,
suddenly, the man who sought Knowledge in facts found himself wishing
in his heart that some gracious being would make for older children
maps and charts that they might know where flow the rivers of
prosperity, where rise the mountains of fame, where ripple the lakes
of love, where sleep the valleys of rest, or where thunders the ocean
of truth.
At one end of the old schoolroom, behind the teacher's desk, was a
blackboard with its accompanying chalk, erasers, rulers, and bits of
string. To the boy, that blackboard was a trial, a temptation, a
vindication, or a betrayal. Often, as he sat with his class on the
long recitation seat that faced the teacher's desk, with half studied
lesson, but with bright hopes of passing the twenty minutes safely,
before the slow hand of the old clock had marked but half the time,
his hopes would be blasted by a call to the board where he would bring
upon himself the ridicule of his schoolmates, the condemnation of the
teacher, and would take his seat to hear, with burning cheeks, the
awful sentence: "You may study your lesson after school."
After school--sorrowfully the boy saw the others passing from the
room, leaving him behind. And the last to go, glancing back with tear
dimmed eyes, was the little girl. Sadly he listened to the voices in
the entry and heard their shouts as they burst out doors;
and--suddenly, his heart beat quicker and his cheeks burned--_that_
was her voice!
Clear and sweet through the open window of the man's memory it
came--the voice of his little girl mate of the Yesterdays.
She was standing on the worn threshold of the old schoolhouse, calling
to her friends to wait; and the boy knew that she was lingering there
for him and that she called to her companions loudly so that he would
understand.
But the teacher knew it too and bade the little girl go home.
Then, while the boy listened to that sweet voice growing fainter and
fainter in the distance; while he saw her, in his fancy, walking
slowly, lagging behind her companions, looking back for him; the
teacher talked to him very seriously about the value of his
opportunities; told him that to acquire an education was his duty;
sought to impress upon him that the most important thing in life was
Knowledge.
Of course, thought the boy, teacher must know. And, thinking this, he
felt himself to be a very bad boy, indeed; because, in his heart, he
knew that he would have, that moment, given up every chance of an
education; he would have sacrificed every hope of wisdom; he would
have thrown away all Knowledge and heaven itself just to be walking
down the road with the little girl. And he must have been a little
had--that boy--because also, most ardently, did he wish that he was
big enough to thrash the teacher or whoever it was that invented
blackboards.
As the man stooped to take up again his too solid and substantial
book, he felt that he was but a schoolboy still. To him, the world had
become but a great blackboard. In his private life or in conversation
with a friend, he might hide his poorly prepared lesson behind a show
of fine talk, a pet quotation, or an air of learning; but when he was
forced to put what he knew where all men might see--when he was made
to write his sentences in books or papers or compelled to do his
problems in the business world--then it was that his lack of
preparation was discovered, and that he brought upon himself the
ridicule or condemnation of his fellows. Unconsciously he listened,
half expecting to hear again the old familiar sentence: "You may study
your lesson after school." After school--would there be any after
school, he wondered.
"And, after all, was that teacher in his Yesterdays right?" the man
asked himself. "Was Knowledge the most important thing in life? After
all, was that schoolboy of the Yesterdays such a bad schoolboy
because, in his boyish heart, he rebelled against the tasks that kept
him from his schoolmates and from the companionship of the little
girl? Was that boy so bad because he wished that he was big enough to
thrash whoever it was that invented blackboards, to rob schoolboys of
their schoolgirl mates?"
Suppose--the man asked himself, as he laid aside the too heavy and
substantial book and looked into the fire again--suppose, that, after
a lifetime devoted to the pursuit of Knowledge, there should be no
one, when school time was over, to linger on the worn old threshold
for him? Suppose he should be forced, in the late afternoon, to go
down the homeward road alone? Could it be truly said that his manhood
years had been well spent? Could any number of accumulated facts
satisfy him if the hour was a lonely hour when school closed for the
day? Might it not be that there is a Knowledge to be gained from Life
that is of more value than the wintry Knowledge of facts?
As the man looked back into his Yesterdays, the blackboard and its
condemnation mattered little to him. It was the going home alone that
mattered. What, he wondered, would matter most when, at last, he could
look back upon his grown up school days--the world blackboard with its
approval or its condemnation, or the going home alone?
* * * * *
It was the time of melting snow. The top of the orchard hill was a
faded brown patch as though, on a shoulder of winter's coat, the
season had worn a hole quite through; while the fields of the fall
plowing made spots that looked pitifully thin and threadbare; and the
creek, below the house where the little girl lived, was a long dark
line looking for all the world like a rip where the icy stitching of a
seam in the once proud garment had, at last, given way. But the drift
in the garden on the boy's side of the hedge was still piled high
against the barrier of thickly interwoven branches and twigs and the
cherry tree, in its shivering nakedness, seemed to be pleading, now,
for spring to come quickly.
The woman who knew herself to be a woman did not attempt to walk home
from her work that Saturday afternoon. The streets were too muddy and
she was later than usual because of some extra work.
Of her Occupation--of the world into which she had gone--the woman
also was gaining Knowledge. Though, she did not learn from choice but
because she must. And she learned of her work only what was needful
for her to know that she might hold her place. She had no desire to
know more. Because the woman already knew the supreme thing, she had
no desire to learn more of her Occupation than she must. Already she
knew her womanhood, and that, to a woman who knows, is the supreme
thing. For a woman with understanding there is no Knowledge greater
than this: the knowledge of her womanhood. There was born in her no
passion for knowledge of things. She burned with no desire to follow
the golden chain, link by link, to its hidden end. In her womanhood
she held already the answer to the sum of Life.
The passion of her womanhood was not to _know_ but to _trust_--not
_facts_ but _faith_--not _evidence_ but _belief_--not _reason_ but
_emotion_. Her desire was not to take from the world by the power
of Knowledge but to receive from the world by right of her sex and love.
She did not crave the independence of great learning but longed, rather,
for the prouder dependence of a true womanhood. Out of her woman heart's
fullness she pitied and fed the poor mendicant without inquiring into
the economic condition that made him a beggar. Her situation, she
accepted with secret rebellion, with hidden shame and humiliation
in her heart, but never asked why the age forced her into such a
position. For affection, for sympathy, for confidence, and understanding,
she hungered with a woman hunger; and, through her hunger for these,
from the men and women with whom she labored she gained Knowledge of
Life. Of the lives of her fellow workers--of the women who had entered
that world, even as she had entered it, because they must--of the men
whom she came to know under circumstances that forbade recognition of
her womanhood--she gained Knowledge; and the Knowledge she gained was
this: that the world is a world of hungry hearts.
I do not know just what the circumstances were under which the woman
learned this. I do not know what her Occupation was nor who her
friends were; nor can I tell in detail of the peculiar incidents that
led to this Knowledge. Such things are not of my story. This, only,
belongs to my story: the woman learned that the world is a world of
hungry hearts. Cold and cruel and calculating and bold, fighting
desperately, merciless, and menacing, the world is but a hungry
hearted world with it all. This, when a woman knows it, is, for her, a
saving Knowledge. Just to the degree that a woman knows this, she is
wise above all men--wise with a wisdom that men cannot attain. Just to
the degree that a woman is ignorant of this, she is unlearned in the
world's best wisdom.
Long before she knocked at the door of the world into which she had
been admitted, upon condition that she left her womanhood without, the
woman had thought herself wise in knowledge of mankind. In her school
days, text books and lessons had meant little to her beside the
friendship of her schoolmates. At her graduation she had considered
her life education complete. She thought, modestly, that she was
fitted for a woman's place in life. And that which she learned first
from the world into which she had gone was this: that her knowledge of
life was very, very, meager; that there were many, many, things about
men and women that she did not know.
School could fit her only for the fancy work of Life: plain sewing she
must learn of Life itself. School had made her highly ornamental: Life
must make her useful. School had developed her capacity for pleasure
and enjoyment: not until Life had developed her capacity for sorrow
and pain would her education be complete. School had taught her to
speak, to dress, and to act correctly: Life must teach her to feel.
School had trained her mind to appreciate: Life must teach her to
sympathize. School had made her a lady: Life must make the lady a
woman.
The woman had known her life schoolmates only in pleasure--in those
hours when they came to her seeking to please or desiring to be
pleased. In her Occupation she was coming to know them in their hours
of toil, when there was no thought of gaining or giving pleasure, but
only of the demands of their existence; when duty, pitiless, stern,
uncompromising, duty held them in its grip; when need, unrelenting,
ever present, dominating need, drove them under its lash. She had
known them only in their hours of leisure--when their minds were free
for the merry jest, the ready laugh, the quick sympathy: now she was
coming to know them in those other hours when their minds were intent
upon the battle they waged--when their thoughts were all of the
attack, the defense, the advance, the retreat, the victory or defeat.
She had known them only in their hours of rest--when their hands were
empty, their nerves and muscles relaxed, their hearts calm and their
brains cool; now she saw them when their hands held the weapons of
their warfare--the tools of their craft--when their nerves and muscles
were braced for the strain of the conflict or tense with the effort of
toil; when their hearts beat high with the zeal of their purpose and
their brains were fired with the excitement of their efforts. She had
known them only in the hours of their dreaming--when, as they looked
out upon life, they talked confidently of the future: she was learning
now to know them when they were working out their dreams; at times
with hopes high and courage strong; at other times discouraged,
frightened, and dismayed. She had known them only as they dreamed of
the past--when they talked in low tones of the days that were gone:
now she saw them as they thought only of the present and the days that
were to come. So this woman, from the world into which she had gone,
gained knowledge of mankind.
And this is the pity and the danger of it: that the woman gained this
knowledge from a world, that, even as it taught her, denied her
womanhood. The sadness of it all is this: to the world that refused to
recognize her womanhood, it was given to teach her that which would
make her womanhood complete. The knowledge that she must have to
complete her womanhood the woman should have gained only from the life
of her dreams--the life that is beyond that old, old, open door
through which she could not pass alone. In the companionship,
sympathy, strength, protection, and love, of that one who was to cross
with her the threshold of the door that God set open in the beginning,
she should have gained the knowledge of life that would ripen her
girlhood into womanhood. For what else, indeed, has God given love to
men and women? In the strength that would come to her with her
children, the woman should have been privileged to learn sorrow and
pain. In the world that would have honored, above all else, her
womanhood, she should have been permitted to find the knowledge of
life that would perfect and complete her womanhood.
Fruit, I know, may be picked green from the tree and artificially
forced to a kind of ripeness. But the fruit that matures under
Nature's careful hand; that knows in its ripening the warm sunshine
and the cleansing showers, the cool of the quiet evening and the
freshness of the dewy morn, the strength of the roaring storms and the
softness of the caressing breeze--this fruit alone, I say, has the
flavor that is from heaven.
It is a trite saying that many a girl of sixteen, these days, knows
more of life than her grandmother knew at sixty. It remains to be
proven that, because of this knowledge, the young woman of to-day is a
better woman than her grandmother was. But, as the only positive proof
would be her children, the case is very likely to be thrown out of
court for lack of evidence for it seems, somehow, that, when women
gain Knowledge from that world into which they go alone, leaving their
womanhood behind, they acquire also a strange pride in being too wise
to mate for love or to bear children. And yet, it is true, that the
knowledge that enables a woman to live happy and contented without
children is a damnable knowledge and a menace to the race.
Poor old world, you are so "grown up" these days and your palate is so
educated to the artificial flavor that you have forgotten, seemingly,
how peaches taste when ripened on the trees. God pity you, old world,
if you do not soon get back into the orchard before you lose your
taste for fruit altogether.
The knowledge that the woman gained from her Occupation made her
question, more and more, if that one with whom she could cross the
threshold of the door that led to the life of her dreams, would ever
come. The knowledge she gained made her doubt her courage to enter
that door with him if he should come. In the knowledge she gained of
the world into which she had gone alone, her womanhood's only
salvation was this: that she gained also the knowledge that the world
of men, even as the world of women, is a world of hungry hearts. It
was this that kept her--that made her strong--that saved her. It was
this knowledge that saved her womanhood for herself and for the race.
The week, for the woman, had been a hard week. The day, for her, had
been a hard day. When she boarded the car to go to her home she was
very tired and she was not quite the picture of perfect woman health
that she had been that other Saturday--the time of falling leaves.
For some unaccountable reason there was one vacant seat left in the
car and she dropped into it with a little inward sigh of relief. With
weary, unseeing, eyes she stared out of the window at the throng of
people hurrying along through the mud and slush of the streets. Her
tired brain refused to think. Her very soul was faint with loneliness
and the knowledge that she was gaining of life.
The car stopped again and a party of girls of the high school age,
evidently just from the Saturday matinee, crowded in. Clinging to the
straps and the backs of seats, clutching each other with little gusts
and ripples of laughter, they filled the aisle of the crowded car with
a fresh and joyous life that touched the tired woman like a breath of
spring. In all this work stale, stupidly weary, world there is nothing
so refreshing as the wholesome laugh of a happy, care free, young
girl. The woman whose heart was heavy with knowledge of life would
have liked to take them in her arms. She felt a sense of gratitude as
though she were indebted to them just for their being. And would
these, too--the woman thought--would these, too, be forced by the
custom of the age--by necessity--to go into the world that would not
recognize their womanhood--that would put a price upon the priceless
things of their womanhood--that would teach them hard lessons of life
and, with a too early knowledge, crush out the sweet girlish
naturalness, even as a thoughtless foot crushes a tender flower while
still it is in the bud?
And thinking thus, perhaps because of her weariness, perhaps because
of some chance word dropped by the girls as they talked of their
school and schoolmates, the woman went back again into her
Yesterdays--to the schoolmates of her Yesterdays. The world in which
she now lived and labored was forgotten. Forgotten were the worries
and troubles of her grown up life--forgotten the trials and
disappointments--forgotten the new friends, the uncongenial
acquaintances, the cruel knowledge, the heartless business--forgotten
everything of the present--all, all, was lost in a golden mist of the
long ago.
The tall, graceful, girl holding to a strap at the forward end of the
car, in the woman's Yesterdays, lived just beyond the white church at
the corner. The dark haired, dark eyed, round faced one, she knew as
the minister's daughter. While the dainty, doll like, miss clinging to
her sturdier sister, in those days of long ago, was the woman's own
particular chum. And the girl with the yellow curls--the one with the
golden hair--the blue eyed, and the brown--the slender and the
stout--every one--belonged to the tired woman's Yesterdays--every one
she had known in the past and to each she gave a name.
And then--as the woman, watching the young schoolgirls in the crowded
car, lived once again those days of the old schoolhouse on the hill
where, with her girl companions of the long ago, she sought the
beginnings of Knowledge--the boys came, too. Just as in the Yesterdays
they had come to take their places in the old schoolroom, they came,
now, to take their places in the woman's memory.
There was the tall, thin, lad whose shoulders seemed, even in his
school days, to find the burden of life too heavy; and who wore always
on his face such a sad and solemn air that one was almost startled
when he laughed as though the parson had cracked a joke at a funeral.
The woman smiled as she remembered how his clothes were never known to
fit him. When his trousers were so short that they barely reached
below his knees his coat sleeves covered his hands and the skirts of
that garment almost swept the ground; but, when the trousers were
rolled up at the bottom and hung over his feet like huge bags, his
long, thin, arms showed, half way to his elbows, in a coat that was
too small to button about even his narrow chest. That boy never missed
his lessons, though, but when he learned them no one ever knew for he
seemed to be always drawing grotesque figures and funny faces on his
slate or whittling slyly on some curious toy when the teacher's back
was turned. He had no particular chum or crony. He was never a leader
but dared to follow the boldest. To the little boys and girls he was a
hero; to the older ones he was--"Slim."
The woman, by chance, had met this old schoolmate, one day, in her
grown up world. In the editorial rooms of a large city daily he was
the chief, and she noticed that his clothing fitted him a little
better; that he was a little broader in the shoulders; a little larger
around the waist; his face was not quite so solemn and his eyes had a
more knowing look perhaps. But still--still--the woman could see that
he was, after all, the same old "Slim" and she fancied, with another
smile, that he often, still, whittled toys when the teacher's back was
turned.
Then came the fat boy--"Stuffy." He, too, had another name which does
not matter. Always in the Yesterdays, as in the to-days, there is a
"Stuffy." "Stuffy" was evidently built to roll through life, pushed
gently by that special providence that seems to look after the affairs
of fat people. His teeth were white and even, his eyes of the deepest
blue, and his nose--what there was of it--was almost hidden by cheeks
that were as red and shiny as the apples he always carried in his
pocket. He was very generous with those same apples--was
"Stuffy"--though one was tempted to think that he shared his fruit not
so much from choice but rather because he disliked the hard work that
was sure to follow a refusal of the pressing invitation to "go
halvers." The woman fancied that she could see again the look of
mingled fun and fear, generosity and greed, that went over her
schoolmate's face as he saw the half of his eatable possessions pass
into the keeping of his companions. And then, as he watched the
tempting morsels disappear, the expression on his face would seem to
show a battle royal between his stomach and his heart, in that he
rejoiced to see the happiness of his friends, even while he coveted
that which gave them pleasure. She wondered where was "Stuffy" now?
She felt sure that he must live in a big house, and drive to and from
his place of business in a fine carriage, with fine horses and a
coachman in livery, and dine and wine his friends as often as he chose
with never a fear that he would run short of good things for himself.
She was quite sure, too, that he would suffer with severe attacks of
gout at times and would have four or five half grown daughters and a
wife of great ambition. Does he, she wondered, does he ever--in the
whirl and rush of business or in the excitement and pleasure of his
social life--does he ever go back to those other days? Does the grown
up "Stuffy" remember how once he traded marbles for candy or bought
sweet cakes with toys?
And then, there was the boy with the freckled face and tangled hair,
whose nose seemed always trying to peep into his own mischief lighted
eyes as though wishing to see what new deviltry was breeding there:
and his crony, who never could learn the multiplication table, who was
forever swearing vengeance on the teacher, whose clothes were always
torn, and who carried frogs and little snakes in his pockets: and the
timid boys who always played in one corner of the yard by themselves
or with the girls or stood by and watched, with mingled admiration and
envy, the games and pranks of the bolder lads: and "Dummy"--poor
"Dummy"--the shining mark for every schoolboy trick and joke; with his
shock of yellow hair, his weak cross eyes, his sharp nose, thin lips,
and shambling, shuffling, shifting manner--poor "Dummy."
And of course there was a bully, the Ishmael of the school, whom
everybody shunned and nobody liked; who fought the teacher and
frightened the little children; who chewed, and smoked, and swore, and
lied, and did everything bad that a boy could do. He had a few
followers, a very few, who joined him rather through fear than
admiration and not one of whom cared for or trusted him. The woman
remembered how this schoolboy face was sadly hard and cold and cruel,
as though, because he had gotten so little sunshine from life, his
heart was frozen over. She had read of him, in the grown up world,
receiving sentence for a dreadful crime, and, remembering his father
and mother, had wondered if his grandparents were like them and how
many generations before his birth his career of crime began.
Again and again, the car had stopped to let people off but the woman
had not noticed. The schoolgirls, all but the tall one who had found a
seat, were gone. But the woman had not seen them go.
And then, as she sat dreaming of the days long gone--as she saw again
the faces of her school day friends, one there was that stood out from
among them all. It was the face of the boy who lived next door--the
boy who had stood with her under the cherry tree; who had put a tiny
play ring of brass upon her finger; and who had kissed her with a kiss
that was somehow different. He was the hero of her Yesterdays as he
was the acknowledged chieftain of the school. No one could run so
fast, swim so far, dive so deep, or climb so high as he. No one could
throw him in wrestling or defeat him in boxing. He was their lord,
their leader, their boyish master and royally he ruled them all--his
willing subjects. He it was who stopped the runaway horse; who killed
the big snake; and who pulled the minister's little daughter from the
pond. It was he who planned the parties and the picnics; the sleigh
rides in winter and the berrying trips in summer. It was he whom the
girls all loved and the boys all worshiped--bold, handsome, daring,
dashing, careless, generous, leader of the Yesterdays.
Again she saw his face lifted slyly from a spelling book to smile at
her across the aisle. Again she felt the rich, warm, color rush to her
cheeks as he took his seat, beside her on the recitation bench. Again
her eyes were dimmed with tears when he was punished for some broken
rule or shone with gladness when she heard his clear voice laughing
with his friends or calling to his mates and her.
And once again, in the late afternoon, with him and with the other
boys and girls, she went down the road from the little schoolhouse in
the edge of the timber on the hill; her sunbonnet hanging by its
strings and her dinner basket on her arm. Onward, through the long
shadows that lay across their way, they went together, to pause at
last before the gate of her home, there to linger for a little, while
the others still went on. Farther and farther in the evening they
watched their schoolmates go--up the road past the house where he
lived--past the orchard and over the hill--until, in the distance,
they seemed to vanish into the sunset sky and she was left with him
alone.
The conductor called the woman's street but she did not heed. The man
in uniform pulled the bell cord and, as the car stopped, called again,
looking toward her expectantly. But she did not notice. With a smile,
the man, who knew her, approached, and: "Beg your pardon Miss, but
here's your street."
With blushing cheeks and confused manner, she stammered her thanks,
and hurried from the car amid the smiles of the passengers. And the
woman did not know how beautiful she was at that moment. She was
wondering: in the hungry hearted world--under all his ambition, plans,
and labor, with the knowledge that must have come to him also from
life--was his heart ever hungry too?