"The road to death is life, the gate of life is death;
We who wake shall sleep, we shall wax who wane.
Let us not vex our souls for stoppage of a breath,
The fall of a river that turneth not again."
"All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain--
Love only outlives death."
The winter set in--a dreary, desolate winter of wind and rain, mud and
slush. The snow never lay upon the ground for two days together, and
the air, unpurified by frosts, hung heavy and dank over the land.
A black New Year makes a green graveyard, says the old proverb; and the
wisdom of these old saws was demonstrated yet again that year in
Jamestown, for there was much sickness. There was hardly a family that
had not lost a member, scarcely a house in which there was no illness.
"There's a turrible lot of sickness," said Mrs. Deans to Mrs. Wilson
one day at the church door.
"Yes, a turrible sight of it," agreed Mrs. Wilson. "The old folks is
droppin' fast; but what's an ordinary sickness to what I've bore with?"
"That's so," said Mrs. Deans. "But a living sorrow's worse than a dead
one, they say; and it's turrible when one's own flesh and blood goes
wrong."
"Yes," replied Mrs. Wilson; "but it's turrible discouragin' when
they're cut down in the midst and no one can say, 'What doest Thou?'"
Mrs. Wilson's tone implied that there might be some consolation if she
were permitted to "talk back" at the Lord. Mrs. Deans noticed this and
said warningly:
"Don't murmur; whatever you do, don't murmur; we can't tell what a day
may bring forth. Look at me, what I have to put up with--Henry all
crippled up and not able to earn salt for his bread. No, don't murmur,
whatever you do."
"I ain't a-murmuring," said Mrs. Wilson, somewhat aggrieved. "I'm sure
it ain't Homer; it's his soul I'm thinking on. Might's well be took
off in a fiery chariot as killed the way he was."
"Oh, it's discouragin', I'm bound to say it is," condescended Mrs.
Deans. "Enough to take the ambition out of one altogether. I suppose
you haven't heard about old Mr. Carroll, have you?"
"Why, no," said Mrs. Wilson, abruptly suspending the task of sniffling
into her handkerchief under pretence of weeping. "Why, no; you don't
tell me he's sick?"
"Yes, it seems he was taken last night with spasms, and they say he
might have died and no one been the wiser; but one of that Dedham tribe
he was always feeding up came over to beg something, and there he laid
on the floor."
"Well, for the land's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Wilson.
"Yes, I'm going over after dinner. I sent Myron Holder over to do
what's needed this morning. They say the only words the old man's
spoke sence he was took was to tell them to send to town for a doctor."
Here Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Deans parted, each joining different groups
and spreading the news of Mr. Carroll's seizure.
The women resolved to go and see the ins and outs of his house for
themselves--sickness is such an admirable excuse for impertinent
curiosity to gratify itself.
The men speculated as to what would become of his property. There had
been a story at the time he bought the property, some hint of family
trouble, some whisper that he had "money back of him"--a hazy tale that
he had come to hide from some sorrow that pursued him. But all
conjecture was so vague that, instead of giving birth to any definite
idea, it died away, only to be aroused when the village wondered at
some act of generosity upon his part.
Old Carroll lived among them quietly--paying his taxes, going his own
way and expressing himself freely upon every subject but his own
affairs.
A week after his seizure he died, and a lawyer's clerk came from town
and took possession of the house and charge of the funeral--in very
different fashion from what his neighbors expected, for the body was
taken away and sent to the great city, which in their eyes typified
Babylon with all its sin and splendor.
The lawyer's clerk spoke with much deference of the dead man, and
signified that the name of Carroll was high in the land; whereat the
villagers bethought themselves that they had entertained an angel
unawares, and were inclined to accuse the dead man of "doing" them.
Mrs. Deans boasted much of the intimacy of her husband with the old
soldier, and speedily forgot the latter's impious sneers at foreign
missions.
The farm was advertised for sale, and Disney bought the land he had so
long worked on shares. Disney and his family moved into the empty
house. Conjecture and interest gradually died away.
In the great city a woman with brittle, dyed hair and simpering lips
and powdered throat laughed as, turning over a trunk full of odds and
ends packed by the lawyer's clerk, she came upon a miniature set in
pearls--laughed and looked at the picture long; but the laugh died as
she noted the freshness of the pictured face. Crossing the room, she
set the miniature against her own cheek and leaned close to a mirror,
comparing the two. And presently she cast the painting from her and
fled from the mirror with widened eyes.
"I am old--old!" she said. "He is dead, and I am old! It is this
room, which is too light--it is glaring--horrible!" And she drew even
closer the shades of silk, through which the light shone with a soft
roseate glow. Then she searched for and found the picture where it had
fallen on a soft rug, and again went to the mirror.
But if the dimmer light softened the lines in her face, it gave the
pictured face another charm--the soft illusion of mystery and youth.
The woman gazed at the dual reflection long until her breath blurred
the mirror, so that all was blotted out save the brightness of the gold
frame and a pair of wild, questioning eyes. A sharp sob parted her
lips, and the mirror was empty.
Not long after, this woman was found dead. By her side was an empty
bottle, such as they sell poison in, and in her hand was a painting of
a beautiful woman framed in gold. Those who found her said the picture
resembled her a little.
But this was far away from Jamestown, where Myron lived and suffered.
That winter was a very busy one for her. Tender of touch, strong of
arm, brave of heart, she was an ideal nurse. It is said a great grief
has before now made a poet out of what was only a man. Myron's sorrows
had changed her from a commonplace woman to a creature of most subtle
sympathies. The pleading of pained eyes was eloquent to her, and the
curves of dumb lips told her the tale of their sufferings. The touch
of her hand brought rest, the pressure of her palms, peace; whilst the
infinite sympathy from a heart that had itself been smitten eased those
pangs which, keener than any physical anguish, rend those that are near
death.
But Myron herself reaped no blessing of peace from these duties. What
a strange fantasy it is to dream, as many do, that the occupation of
nursing is one which heals a hurt heart and reconciles yearning hands
to their emptiness! What dreary days did Myron not know! What solemn,
silent nights, when alone, she sat at Misery's banquet and supped with
Sorrow--with shame, regret, and betrayed trust to hand the dish.
"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs."
So some one says; and, reckoning by this higher notation, how many
centuries of weariness had not Myron lived? The spring months came,
scarce changed in sky from those of winter, only the gathering heat of
the sun sent up "sorrow from the ground." Malaria, influenza, and
typhoid overspread the country. The whole neighborhood was gloomy.
The rain fell day after day. The plough horses splashed through mud,
and the furrows filled with water behind the plough.
Myron had been working at a cousin's of Mrs. Warner's, whose baby was
sick unto death. The child died, and its mother, in the first
rebellion of grief, had said to Myron:
"'Tain't just--I can't think it is--nor right, neither--for my baby to
be taken when there's so many left alive that ain't any use. There's
old Humphries, and paralytic Henry Deans, and drunken Ann Lemon--what's
the good of them to anybody--it's a shame!"
Myron soothed her as well as she could, but she burst forth again:
"Fancy my child dead! If it had been that young one of yours, now,
there would have been some sense in it--a young one without even a
name--that would have been a good riddance--but mine--mine!"
For once Myron's very soul was shaken with rage. She turned where she
stood, and looked the other woman in the face.
"Oh!" she cried, "you wicked, wicked woman!"
The words carried all the accusation of outraged motherhood in their
tones. The woman shrank back, and Myron, taking her boy, set off to
the village.
It began to rain before they were half way. Myron's thoughts turned to
Homer. She never forgot him for long at a time. It falls to the lot
of few to be so sincerely sorrowed for.
She and My were both wet through when they reached the cottage, and
Myron was very weary with the boy's weight. She lit the fire, and My
played about in the kitchen. He was of a peculiarly sunny and equable
disposition--
"One of those happy souls
Which are the salt of the earth, and without whom
The world would smell like what it is--a tomb."
Myron was glad when the time came for bed, for she was utterly weary.
The old clock on the wall was pointing to one o'clock, when Myron
suddenly started up, wide awake. The mother instinct, keener than her
other faculties, had awakened her, not the boy. For the strange, low,
gurgling sound he made would scarce have aroused the lightest sleeper,
and Myron had been sunk in the deep sleep of exhaustion.
In a moment she had the lamp alight. The boy lay, his blue eyes wide
open, his round cheeks scarlet with the fatal flush of fever, his lips
swollen and parted in gasping respirations, his body almost rigid with
the efforts he made for breath. One glance showed her this. The next
instant she was undoing the little nightdress and shirt. With
tremulous haste she placed some goose-grease in a little tin and strove
to melt it by holding it over the lamp. The light was weak and
wavering. She removed the chimney, and thrust the cup into the flame.
Her fingers scorched till the skin cracked; she did not know it. She
applied the melted oil and flew to wet his parched lips. The horrible,
croupy cough cut her to the heart as it issued from My's swollen
throat. She used every remedy her homely skill suggested, some of them
efficacious enough often--but little My was dying. His blue eyes were
filming; his baby lips twitching; the little hands, that had of late
grasped her fingers so firmly as to suggest protection, made wavering,
feeble movements toward her face and bosom, or clutched with waning
strength at his own tortured throat.
She knelt beside the bed. She hardly dared touch the little form
before her lest the mother in her, which had grown fierce in her dread,
should cause her to clasp it too close. She lifted her voice in
prayer, and cried aloud in frightful accents of despair, entreaty,
expostulation, nay, even of threatening. No prayer more eloquent of
human agony ever beat against deaf skies, yet it was but the repetition
of one word--"My--My!"
An hour crept by. The flush had deepened on My's cheeks; his eyes were
glazed. Once again, in surpassing pain, Myron Holder called aloud her
child's name. There came no heavenly answer; but the true little
heart, beating so faintly, responded once more to the beloved voice.
Little My's eyes cleared a space and his fingers closed round his
mother's.
"My's mama!" He uttered the alliterative little babble in strange,
shackled tones. The woman--his mother--felt a stricture at her throat;
she strove in vain to force it down as she answered:
"Mama's My."
A strange change passed over the little gray face, like a gleam of
sunlight on a wintry day--hardly that--like the watery nimbus of the
sun through a cloud. It was little My's last smile.
"Mama's My," the woman whispered; and, true to his love-taught lesson,
My strove to give the answer, "My's mama." The first word was
articulate, the last but half-shaped ere the stiffening lips were drawn
in the convulsion which ended time for little My.
Over him "the eclipsing curse of birth" had lost its power.
At daybreak nest morning a messenger knocked long at the door of the
Holder cottage. He had been sent in haste to summon Myron back to the
house she had left in such anger the day before. Finding he could get
no response, he lifted the latch and entered the kitchen. It was
empty. There was a strong odor of kerosene oil, and absolute silence
reigned. The man crossed the kitchen to an open door, and looking in
saw the bedroom. Upon a little table stood a lamp which had evidently
burned itself out. The chimney was off, and a great sooty blotch
against the wall showed how the wick had smoked. In a chair by the bed
sat Myron Holder, her eyes fixed straight before her--her pose
rigid--her face pale as that of the dead child she held upon her knees.
"What is it, Myron?" he gasped.
"He's dead," said Myron, in the hoarse tones of one whose throat
muscles are constrained and swollen.
The man turned and made for Mrs. Warner's. The cottage soon filled.
Myron neither stirred nor spoke. They took the child and prepared it
for burial. They told her to eat, and she swallowed the bread and tea
they placed before her. All her faculties were benumbed, absorbed in
an effort to realize her loss.
* * * * * *
The little plain coffin was in the kitchen, surrounded by a group of
people that filled the room--those who considered it part of a
Christian's bounden duty to attend funerals. Mr. Prew, sent for by
Mrs. Deans, had just finished his address. Myron, with bare head, and
hands clasped on her knees, was seated by the coffin, gazing down at
the face there, when there was a sudden stir at the door, and Mrs.
Wilson pushed herself through the throng.
"Wait!" she said, authoritatively, to Mr. Muir, who was advancing to
screw down the coffin-lid. "Wait!" Then she turned to Myron Holder.
"Listen to me, Myron Holder," she said. "Is that child my grandson?"
"No," said Myron, rising to her feet, and giving a helpless look around
at the curious faces about her.
"What!" said Mrs. Wilson. "What, you'll lie in the very face of your
dead child! Lay your hand on that coffin, Myron Holder, and then tell
me if that ain't Homer's son!"
Myron sank by the coffin and flung her arms athwart it.
"_He is not!_" she cried. Then her long calm gave way, and she began
to sob and cry. "He belongs to none of you; he is mine--my own
baby--my own child--My--My!"
Mrs. Wilson left the house. Mr. Muir put aside the clinging arms and
prepared the coffin for burial. Some one led Myron to a wagon and she
got in.
Mr. Muir was not free from fears when they stopped at the paupers'
corner of the graveyard. Myron looked around, half-dazed, when she
alighted, and, touched Mr. Muir's arm.
"Why here?" she asked, pointing to the open grave. "Why not by father?"
"Your grandmother sold the other half of the lot," said Mr. Muir
hastily.
Mrs. Deans watched the little scene with much inward satisfaction.
Myron made no further sign, uttered no other word. The coffin was
lowered into the grave.
Mr. Prew put up a prayer, in which petitions for the "child of sin" and
the "sinful mother" were about equally balanced. The throng departed
each to his own place. Old Humphries filled up the grave, and Myron
was left alone.
The next day she went to Mr. Muir's and inquired how much she owed him.
He told her, and to his surprise she paid him at once. Then she set
out for town, along dreary country roads, betwixt desolate fields,
until she came to the outskirts of the straggling town; through these,
until she was absorbed in the hurrying throng that crowded the narrow
streets.
It was very late when she returned to Jamestown, and as she passed the
Deans place she encountered Gamaliel, just returning from some
expedition with his bosom friend.
"Hullo, Myron; where've you been?" he asked.
"I've been to town," said Myron, still in those strange, hard tones,
and passed on.
There was much speculation as to her errand, which was set at rest when
a few days later a wagon entered the little graveyard and the men who
came with it proceeded to put up a tiny white tablet at the head of a
new-made grave. On it there was carved only one word, and that a short
one--MY--a word which in its brevity and meaning was not unsuitable as
an inscription over that grave. Myron had spent the last penny of her
painful savings in marking the spot where her child lay.
"Let grief be her own mistress still.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done--to weep or not to weep."
So says the humanest of our poets; but such luxurious grieving is for
those who fare delicately and live in kings' courts. Myron Holder had
her bread to earn--her feet were tied to the treadmill of toil.
So she fared forth on her journey as best she might; and then, and for
long after, Jamestown women told how Myron Holder perjured herself with
her hand on her dead child's coffin.