It was summer time--growing time.
The children of the little brown birds that had nested in the hedge
near the cherry tree, that year, were flying now, quite easily, away
from their little brown mother's counsel and advice. Even to the top
of the orchard hill, they went in search of brave adventure, rejoicing
recklessly in their freedom. But, for the parent birds, the ties of
the home in the hedge were still strong. And, every day, they examined
with experienced eyes the cherries, that, on the near by tree, were
fast nearing ripening time.
With every gesture expressing more clearly than any spoken word his
state of mind, the man jerked down the top of his desk, slammed the
door, jabbed the elevator bell, and strode grimly out of the building.
The man's anger was not one of those flash like bursts of wrath, that,
passing as quickly as they come, leave the sky as clear as though no
storm had crossed it. Nor was it the slow kindling, determined, anger,
that, directed against a definite object, burns with steady purpose.
It was rather that sullen, hopeless, helpless rage, that, finding
nothing to vent itself upon, endures even while recognizing that its
endurance is in vain. It was the anger of a captive, wild thing
against the steel bars of its cage, which, after months of effort, it
has found too strong. It was the anger of an explorer against the
impassable crags and cliffs of a mountain range that bars his path. It
was the anger of a blind man against the darkness that will not lift.
The man's work demanded freedom and the man was not free. In his
dreams, at the beginning of his manhood, he had thought himself free
to work out his dreams. He had said to himself: "Alone, in my own
strength, I will work. Depending upon no man, I will be independent.
Limited only by myself, I will be free." He said this because he did
not, then, know the strength of the bars. He had not, at that time,
seen the mountain range. He had not faced the darkness that would not
lift. Difficulties, hardships, obstacles, dangers, he had expected to
face, and, in his strength, to overcome. But the greatest difficulty,
the severest hardship, the most trying obstacle, the gravest danger,
he had not foreseen.
Little by little, as the days and months had passed and the man had
made progress in his work, this thing had made itself felt. Little by
little, this thing had forced itself upon him until, at last, he was
made to realize the fact that he was not independent of but dependent
upon all men. He found that he was limited not alone by himself but by
others. He understood, now, that he was not free to work out his
dreams. He saw, now, that the thing most difficult to overcome--the
thing that forbade his progress and refused him freedom--was
Tradition. On every side he met this: "It has never been done; it,
therefore, can never be done. The fathers of our fathers believed
this, therefore we must believe it. This has always been, therefore
this must always be. Others do this, think this, believe this,
therefore you must so do and think and believe." The man found, that,
beyond a point which others could see, others denied him the right to
go. The established customs and habits of others fixed the limit of
the progress he could make with the approval of the world.
At first he had laughed--secure in his own strength, he had laughed
contemptuously. But that was because he did not then realize the power
of this thing. Later he did not laugh. He became angry with a sullen,
hopeless, helpless, rage that accomplished nothing--that could
accomplish nothing--but only weakened the man himself. As one shut in
a cell exhausts himself beating against the walls, so he wearied
himself.
Not until he was in the full swing of his work had this thing come
upon him in force. At the beginning of his manhood life, when, in the
strength of his first manhood dreams he had looked out upon the world
as a conquering emperor upon the field of a coming battle, he had not
seen this thing. When he was crying out to the world for something to
do this thing had not made itself felt. Not until he had made
noticeable progress--not until he was in the full swing of his
work--did he find himself forced to reckon with what others had done
or said or thought or believed.
And never had the man felt his own strength as he felt it now when
face to face with this thing against which his strength seemed so
helpless. If only he could have freedom! He asked nothing but that. As
in the beginning he had asked of the world only room and something to
do, he asked now only for freedom to do. And the world granted him the
freedom of the child who is permitted to play in the yard but must not
go outside the fence. He was free to do his work--to play out his
dreams--only so far as the established customs and fixed
habits--Tradition--willed. "Beyond the fence that shuts in the
familiar home ground," said the world, "you must not go. If you dare
climb over the fence--if you dare go out of the yard," said the world,
"I will punish you--I will ridicule you, condemn you, persecute you,
ostracize you. I will brand you false, a self-seeker, a pretender, a
charlatan, a trickster, a rogue. I will cry you unsafe, dangerous, a
menace to society and the race, an evil to all that is good, an
unspeakable fool. Stay in the yard," said the world, "and you may do
what you like."
Even in matters of personal habits and taste, the man found that he
was not free. In his dress; in the things he ate and drank; in his
pleasures; in the books he read, the plays he attended, the pictures
he saw, the music he heard, he found that he was expected to obey the
mandates of the world--he found that he was expected to conform to
Tradition--to the established customs and habits of others. In
religion, in politics, in society, in literature, in art--as in his
work--the world said: "Don't go outside the yard."
I do not know what work it was that the man was trying to do. It does
not matter what his work was. But this I know: in every work that man,
since the beginning, has tried to do, man has been hindered as this
man was hindered--man has been denied as this man was denied, freedom.
Tradition has always blocked the wheels of progress. The world has
moved ahead always in spite of the world. Just as the world has always
crucified its saviors, so, always, it has hindered and held back its
leaders.
And this, too, I know: after the savior is crucified, those who nail
him to the cross accept his teaching. While the world hinders and
holds back its leaders, it always follows them.
But the man did not think of this that day when he left the scene of
his labor in such anger. He thought only of that which he was trying
to do. When he went back to his work, the next day, he was still angry
and with his anger, now, came discontent, doubt, and fear, to cloud
his vision, to clog his brain and weaken his heart.
A friend, at lunch, said: "You look fagged, knocked out, done up, old
man. You've been pegging away too long and too steadily. Why don't you
let up for awhile? Lay off for a week or two. Take a vacation."
Again and again, that hot, weary, afternoon, the words of the man's
friend came back to him until, by evening, he was considering the
suggestion seriously. "Why not?" he asked himself. He was
accomplishing little or nothing in his present mood. Why not accept
the friendly advice? Perhaps--when he came back--perhaps, he could
again laugh at the world that denied him freedom.
So he came to considering places and plans. And, as he considered,
there was before him, growing always clearer as he looked, the scenes
of his boyhood--the old home of his childhood--the place of his
Yesterdays. There were many places of interest and pleasure to which
the man might go, but, among them all, there was no place so
attractive as the place of his Yesterdays. There was nothing he so
wished to do as this: to go back to the old home and there to be, for
a little while, as nearly as a man could be, a boy again.
If the man had thought about it, he would have seen in this desire to
spend his vacation at the old home something of the same force that so
angered him by hindering his work. But the man did not think about it.
He wrote a letter to see if he might spend two weeks with the people
who were living in the house where he was born and, when the answer
came assuring him a welcome, quickly made his arrangements to go.
With boyish eagerness, he was at the depot a full half hour before the
time for his train. While he waited, he watched the crowd, feeling an
interest in the people who came and went in the never ending
profession that he had not felt since that day when he had first come
to the city to work out his dreams among men. In the human tide that
ebbed and flowed through this world gateway, he saw men of wealth and
men of poverty--people of culture and position who had come or were
going in Pullman or private cars and illiterate, stupid, animal
looking, emigrants who were crowded, much like cattle, in the lowest
class. There were business men of large affairs; countrymen with
wondering faces; shallow, pleasure seekers; artists and scholars; idle
fools; vicious sharks watching for victims; mothers with flocks of
children clinging to their skirts; working girls and business women;
chattering, laughing, schoolgirls; and wretched creatures of the
outcast life--all these and many more.
And, as he watched, perhaps because he was on his vacation, perhaps
because of something in his heart awakened by the fact that he was
going to his boyhood home, the man felt, as he had never felt before,
his kinship with them all. With wealth and poverty, with culture and
illiteracy, with pleasure and crime, with sadness and joy, as
evidenced in the lives of those who passed in the crowd, the man felt
a sympathy and understanding that was strangely new. And, more than
this, he saw that each was kin to the other. He saw that, in spite of
the wide gulf that separated the individuals in the throng, there was
a something that held them all together--there was a force that
influenced all alike--there was a something common to all. In spite of
the warring elements of society; in spite of the clashing forces of
business; in spite of the conflicting claims of industry represented
in the throng; the man recognized a brotherhood, a oneness, a kinship,
that held all together. And he felt this with a strange feeling that
he had always known that it was there but had never recognized it
before.
The man did not realize that this was so because he was not thinking
of the people in their relation to his work. He did not know, that,
because his heart and mind were intent upon the things of his
Yesterdays, he saw the world in this new light. He did not, then,
understand that the force which hindered and hampered him in his
work--that denied him the full freedom he demanded--was the same force
that he now felt holding the people together. Even as they all,
whether traveling in Pullman, private car, or emigrant train, passed
over the same rails, so they all, in whatever class they traveled on
the road of Life, were guided by the Traditions--the established
customs--the fixed habits--that are common to their race or nation.
And the strength of a people, as a people, is in this oneness--this
force that makes them one--the Traditions and customs and habits of
life that are common to all. It is the fences of the family dooryards
that hold the children of men together and make the people of a race
or nation one.
So it was that the man, knowing it not, left his work behind and went,
for strength and rest, back to the scenes of his Yesterdays in
obedience to the command of the very thing that, in his work, had
stirred him to such rage. For what, after all, are Traditions and
customs and habits but a going back into the Yesterdays.
As the train left the city farther and farther behind, the man's
thoughts kept pace with the fast flying wheels that were bearing him
back to the scenes of his childhood. From the present, he retraced his
steps to that day when he had dreamed his first manhood dreams and to
those hard days when he was asking of the world only something to do.
As, step by step, he followed his way back, incidents, events,
experiences, people, appeared, even as from the car window he caught
glimpses of the whirling landscape, until at last he saw, across the
fields and meadows familiar to his childhood, the buildings of the old
home, the house where the little girl had lived, the old church, and
the orchard hill where he had sat that day when the smoke of a distant
train moving toward the city became to him a banner leading to the
battle front. Then the long whistle announced the station. Eagerly the
man collected his things and, before the train had come to a full
stop, swung himself to the depot platform where he was met by his
kindly host.
As they drove past the fields and pastures, so quiet after the noisy
city, the man grew very still. Past the little white church among its
old trees at the cross roads; down the hill and across the creek; and
slowly up the other side of the valley they went: then past the house
where the little girl had lived; and so turned in, at last, to the
home of that boy in the Yesterdays. And surely it was no discredit to
the man that, when they left him alone in his old room to prepare for
the evening meal, he scarce could see for tears.
Scenes of childhood! Memories of the old home! Recollections of the
dear ones that are gone! No more can man escape these things of the
Yesterdays than he can avoid the things of to-day. No more can man
deny the past than he can deny the present. Tradition is to men as a
governor to an engine; without its controlling power the race would
speed quickly to its own destruction. One of the Thirteen Truly Great
Things of Life is Tradition.
For two happy, healthful, restful, strengthening, inspiring weeks, the
man lived, so far as a man can live, in his Yesterdays. In the cool
shade of the orchard that once was an enchanted wood; under the old
apple tree ship beside the meadow sea; on the hill where, astride his
rail fence war horse, the boy had directed the battle and led the
desperate charge and where the man had dreamed the first of his
manhood dreams; in the garden where the castaway had lived on his
desert island; in the yard near mother's window where the boy had
builded the brave play house for the little girl next door; in the
valley, below where the little girl lived, beside the brook that in
its young life ran so pure and clear; at the old school house in the
edge of the timber; in the ancient cemetery, beside the companion
graves; through the woods and fields and pastures; beside the old mill
pond with its covered bridge; the man lived again those days of the
long ago.
But, in the places of his Yesterdays, the man found, already, many
changes. The houses and buildings were a little more weather-beaten,
with many of the boards in the porch floors and steps showing decay.
The trees in the orchard were older and more gnarled with here and
there gaps in their ranks. The fences showed many repairs. The little
schoolhouse was almost shabby and, with the wood cleared away, looked
naked and alone. The church, too, was in need of a fresh coat of
white. And there were many new graves in the cemetery on the hill. As
time had wrought changes in the man himself, even so had it altered
the scenes of his boyhood. Always, in men and in things, time works
changes.
But it is not the changes wrought by time that harms. These come as
the ripening of the fruit upon the tree. It is the sudden, violent,
transformations that men are ever seeking to make, both in things and
in themselves, that menace the ripening life of the race. It is well,
indeed, for the world to hold fast to its Traditions. It is well to
cling wisely to the past.
Nor did the man live again in his Yesterdays alone. He could not.
Always, she was there--his boyhood mate--the little girl who lived
next door.
But the opening in the hedge that, at the lower end of the garden,
separated the boy's home from the home of the little girl, was closed.
Long and carefully the man searched; smiling, the while, at a foolish
wish in his heart that time would leave that little gate of the
Yesterdays always open. But the ever growing branches had woven a
thick barrier across the green archway hiding it so securely that, to
the man, no sign was left to mark where it had been.
With that foolish regret still in his heart, the man asked, quite
casually, of the people who were living in the house if they knew
aught about his playmate of the Yesterdays.
They could tell him very little; only that she lived in a city some
distance from his present home. What she was doing; whether married or
alone; they could not say.
And the man, as he stood, with bared head, under the cherry tree in
the corner near the hedge, told himself that he was glad that the
people could tell him nothing. In his busy, grown up, life there was
no room for a woman. In his battle with the things that challenged his
advance, he must be free to fight. It was better for him that the
little girl lived only in his Yesterdays. The little girl who had
helped him play out his boyhood dreams must not hinder him while he
worked out the dreams of his manhood. That is what the man told
himself as he stood, with bared head, under the cherry tree. With the
memory of that play wedding and that kiss in his heart, he told
himself _that_!
I wonder, sometimes, what would happen if men should chance to
discover how foolish they really are.
No doubt, the man reflected--watching the pair of brown birds as they
inspected the ripening cherries--no doubt she has long ago forgotten
those childish vows. Perhaps, in the grown up world, she has even
taken new and more binding vows. Would he ever, he wondered, meet one
with whom he could make those vows again? Once he had met one with
whom he thought he wished to make them but he knew, now, that he had
been mistaken. And he knew, too, that it was well that he had found
his mistake in time. Somehow, as he stood there again under the cherry
tree, the making of such vows seemed to the man more holy, more
sacred, than they had ever seemed before. Would he dare--He wondered.
Was there, in all the world, a woman with whom he could--The man
shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Yes, indeed, it was much
better that she lived only in his Yesterdays. And still--still--in the
man's heart there was regret that Time had closed that gateway of his
Yesterdays.
And often, in the twilight of those evenings, after a day of wandering
about the place, visiting old scenes, or talking with the long time
friends of his people, the man would recall the traditions of his
family; hearing again the tales his father would tell by the winter
fireside or listening to the stories that his mother would relate on a
Sunday or a stormy afternoon. Brave tales they were--brave tales and
true stories of the man's forbears who had lived when the country was
young and who had played no small part in the nation's building. And,
as he recalled these traditions of his people, the man's heart
thrilled with loyal pride while he determined strongly to keep the
splendid record clean. As a sacred heritage, he would receive these
traditions. As a holy duty he would be true to that which had been.
Reluctantly, but with renewed strength and courage, when the time came
for his going, the man set his face away from his Yesterdays--set it
again toward his work--toward the working out of his dreams. And, as
he went, there was for the thing that checked his progress something
more than anger--for the thing that forced him to go slowly there was
patience.
Standing on the rear platform, as his train moved slowly away past an
incoming train that had just pulled onto a siding, the man saw the
neighbor who lived next door to his old home drive hurriedly up. The
man in the carriage waved his hand and the man on the moving train,
answering in like manner, wondered idly what had brought the neighbor
there. Surely he had not come to bid one who was almost a stranger
good-bye. And, strangely enough, as the man watched from the window
for a last view of the scenes of his Yesterdays, there was in his
heart, again, regret that the little opening in the hedge was closed.
* * * * *
The city was sweltering in a summer heat wave. The sun shone through a
dingy pall of vile smoke with a sickly, yellow, glare. From the
pavement and gutter, wet by the sprinkling wagons, in a vain effort to
lay the dust, a sticky, stinking, steam lifted, filling the nostrils
and laving the face with a combination of every filthy odor. The
atmosphere fairly reeked with the smell of sweating animals,
perspiring humanity, rotting garbage, and vile sewage. And, in the
midst of the hot filth, the people moved with languid, feeble manner;
their faces worn and pallid; their eyes dull and weary; their voices
thin and fretful.
The woman's heart was faint with the weight of suffering that she was
helpless to relieve. Her quivering nerves shrieked with the horror of
conditions that she could not change. Her brain ached with
contemplation of the cruel necessity that tortured humankind. Her very
soul was sick with the hopelessness of the gasping, choking,
struggling, multitude who, in their poverty and blindness, toiled to
preserve their lives of sorrow and pain and sought relief from their
labors in pleasures more horrible and destructive, by far, than the
slavery to which they gave themselves for the means to pay.
The woman was tired--very tired. Heart and nerves and brain and soul
and body were tired with a weariness that, it seemed to her, would
never pass. She was tired of the life into which she had gone because
it was the custom of the age and because of her necessity--the life
into which she had not wished to go because it denied her womanhood.
Because she knew herself to be a woman, she felt that she was being
robbed of the things of her womanhood. The brightness and beauty, the
strength and joyousness of her womanhood were, by her, held as sacred
trusts to be kept for her children and, through them, for the race.
She wearied of the struggle to keep the things of her womanhood from
the world that was taking them from her--that put a price upon
them--that used them as thoughtlessly as it uses the stone and metal
and wood that it takes from the earth. She was tired of the horrid
life that crowded her so closely--that crushed itself against her in
the crowded cars--that leered into her face on the street--that
reached out for her from every side--that hungered for her with a
fierce hunger and longed for her with a damnable, fiendish, longing.
She was faint and weak from contact with the loathsome things that she
was forced to know and that would leave their mark upon her womanhood
as surely as the touch of pitch defiles. And she was weary, so weary,
waiting for that one with whom she could cross the threshold of the
old, old, open door.
Little time was left to her, now, for thought and preparation for the
life of which she had dreamed. Little heart was left to her, now, for
dreaming. Little courage was left for hope. But still her dreams
lived. Still she waited. Still, at times, she hoped.
But the thing that most of all wearied the woman, who knew that she
was a woman, was this: the restless, discontented, dissatisfied,
uneasy, spirit of the age that, scorning Tradition in a shallow, silly
pride, struggles for and seems to value only that which is new
regardless of the value of the thing itself. The new in dress,
regardless of beauty or fitness in the costume--the new in thought,
regardless of the saneness of the thinking--the new in customs and
manner of living--the new in the home, in marriage relation, in the
education and rearing of children--new philosophy, new science, new
religion, new art, new music, new books, new cooking, new women--it
sometimes appears that the crime of crimes, the most degrading
disgrace, these days, is to be held old-fashioned, behind-the-times,
out-of-date, and that everything, _everything_, not new is
old-fashioned--everything not of the times is
behind-the-times--everything not down-to-date is out-of-date.
Patriotism, love of country, is old, very old, and is also--or
therefore--quite out-of-date. To speak or write of patriotism,
seriously, or to consider it a factor in life--to live it, depend upon
it, or appeal to it, is to be considered very strange and sadly
old-fashioned. The modern, down-to-date, age considers seriously not
patriotism but "graft" and "price" and "boodle." These are the modern
forces by which the nation is said to be governed; these are the means
by which the nation strives to go ahead. To talk only of these things,
to believe only in these things, to live only these things, is to be
modern and down--low down--to-date. To work from any motive but the
making of money is to be queerly behind-the-times. To write a book or
paint a picture or sing a song, to preach a sermon, to do anything for
any reason under heaven but for cash marks you a fanatic and a fool.
To believe, even, that anyone does anything save for the money there
is in it stamps you simple and unsophisticated, indeed. To profess
such belief, save you put your tongue in your cheek, marks you
peculiar.
Long, long, ago mankind put its best strength, its best thought, its
best life, into its works, without regard for the price, simply
because it was its work. And the work so wrought in those queer
old-fashioned days has most curiously endured. There is little danger
that much of our modern, down-to-date work will endure for the very
simple reason that we do not want it to endure. "The world wants
something new." Down-to-date-ism does not want its work to last longer
than the dollar it brings. Never fear, the world is getting something
new! But, though we have grown so bravely away from those queer,
old-fashioned days we have not succeeded yet in growing altogether
away from the works that those old-fashioned days produced. But,
patience, old world--patience--down-to-date-ism may, in time,
accomplish even this.
In those old, old, times, too, it was the fashion for men and women to
mate in love. In love, they planned and builded their homes. In love,
they brought forth children and reared them, with queer, old-fashioned
notions about marriage, to serve the race. In those times, now so
sadly old and out-of-date, men planned and labored for homes and
children and women were home makers and mothers. But the world is now
far from those ancient ways and out-of-date ideals. Marriage has
little to do with home making these modern days. It has almost nothing
to do with children. We have, in our down-to-date-ism, come to be a
nation of childless wives and homeless husbands. We are dwellers in
flats, apartments, hotels, where children would be in the way but dogs
are welcome if only they be useless dogs. We live in houses that are
always for sale or rent. It is our proud boast that we possess nothing
that is not on the market for a price. The thought of selling a home
is not painful for we do not know, the value of a home. We have, for
convenience, to gratify our modern, down-to-date, ever changing
tastes, popularized the divorce court as though a husband or wife of
more than three seasons is old-fashioned and should be discarded for
one of a newer pattern, more in harmony with our modern ideals of
marriage.
From the down-to-date--the all-the-way-down-to-date woman, I mean--one
gains new and modern ideas of the service that womankind is to render
to the race. Almost it is as though God did not know what he was about
when he made woman. To place a home above a club; a nursery above the
public platform; a fireside above politics; the prattle of children
above newspaper notoriety; the love of boys and girls above the
excitement of social conquest; the work of bearing strong men and true
women for the glory of the race above the near intellectual pursuits
and the attainments of a shallow thinking; all this is to be sadly
old-fashioned. All this is so behind-the-times that one must confess
such shocking taste with all humiliation.
I hereby beg pardon of the down-to-date powers that be, and most
humbly pray that they will graciously forgive my boorishness. I assure
you that, after all, I am not so benighted that I do not realize how
seriously babies would interfere in the affairs of those down-to-date
women who are elevating the race. By all means let the race be
elevated though it perish, childless, in the process. Very soon, now,
womanhood itself will be out-of-date for the world, in this also,
seems to be evolving something new.
So the woman, who knew herself to be a woman, most of all, was tired
of things new and longed, deep in her heart, for the old, old, things
that were built into the very foundation of the race and that no
amount of gilding and trimming and ornamenting can ever cover up or
hide; and no amount of disregarding or ignoring can do away with; lest
indeed the race perish from the earth.
"And when do you take your vacation?" asked a fellow worker as they
were leaving the building after the day's work.
"Not until the last of the month," returned the woman wearily. "And
you?"
"Me, oh, I must go Monday! And it's such a shame! I've just received a
charming invitation for two weeks later but no one cares to exchange
time with me. No one, you see, can go on such short notice. I don't
suppose that you--" she paused suggestively.
"I will exchange time with you," said the woman simply.
"Will you really? Now, that _is_ clever of you! Are you
_sure_ that you don't mind?"
"Indeed, I will be glad to get away earlier."
"But can you get ready to go so soon?"