Part 13

If you are out on the sea of thought, drifting before the winds that are ever blowing us away from the land of knowledge, and making life an endless pull against wind and current—and you meet others out there in the shadow—don’t go off quietly and hide until they are past. Hail them—call to them in friendly tones and tell them you are going the same way and would enjoy their companionship. Don’t wait until the storms of life have wrecked their boat and you find their dead body on the shore, beyond the reach of your flowers and love and appreciation.

After all is said, the religion of humanity comes nearest to our hearts. We need no towering church spires, nor cold stone walls to make our place of worship a secluded spot. The world is our book, and humanity our altar, on which we may lay our white rose of love and our pale lily of charity, and reach out to the Great Jehovah, through the responsive heart-throbs of our friends and neighbors.

THE HOBO’S STORY

Looking down the new road that leads up to the church and my own humble home, my wife and I saw a strange man approaching. We thought he was deformed at first glance, for he seemed to be out of proportion in many ways. As he drew nearer the window we noticed that he wore three or more coats, and the same number of inseparable pants—at least each pair was inseparable.

At the church he hesitated, glancing at the parsonage, and then back to our back door. He was rather an old man, past sixty, judging from his hair and whiskers. At last he decided to try our house.

I did not ask him, but I suspect that he mistook our house for the Methodist parsonage, since the church and our house are painted the same colors. I went to the door myself, and when he asked, “Could you give a hungry man something to eat?” I replied by inviting him inside and giving him a chair.

“Traveling?” I inquired, not from idle curiosity, but to start a conversation and make the stranger feel that I took an interest in him.

“A little,” he replied, “I came down from Erie last night on a freight train, and I ’most froze to death. No work up that way, except in the coke regions, and there they have Poles and Slavs and Finlanders and Hitalians and niggers.”

I knew he was English by the way he pronounced Italian.

“Did you use to work at the coke ovens?” I asked.

“No, but I use to work in the hard coal mines—at Nanticoke and Shamokin; knocked off thirteen years ago, when the foreigners cut down wages. It was at Nanticoke I had the narrow escape with my life. I’ll tell you while I’m getting warmed up. It was all the mistake of the engineer. We were putting a tunnel from the new drifts up into the old abandoned workings, in order to drain the old workings down into the lower level, and then pump it out through the great pump that was pumping out the lower level.

“The engineer calculated to strike the old drift several feet above the great body of water lying there, and then pump it up into the tunnel and let it flow down to the lower level. The engineer made a grave error in his calculations, for instead of entering the old drift above the water, the tunnel was almost on a level with the bottom of the old drift. There was a large quantity of water in the drift. When the men put in the last blast it tore the intervening wall down and the river of water came bursting into the tunnel. There were eleven men working there besides Ed Evans and me. We had gone back to the shaft to get some powder and were back as far as the big slope when we heard the mighty roar of the rushing waters.

“We could not tell at first what the noise meant, but we felt there was danger in the pitchy darkness. Ed and I ran up the slope, calling to big Billy Beck to follow us, who was then working at something near the foot of the slope. He waited to learn what the cause of the noise was. We looked back and saw him start in our direction. We could see the light waving rapidly up the slope behind us. Suddenly his light went out. We soon learned why, for a moment later the water came rushing up the slope and soon submerged our legs up to our knees.

“Luckily we had reached an elevation on the slope almost as high as the flood could ascend when the level was filled, and we soon found ourselves on dry ground. This slope had not been worked for over a year, and no one else was penned up in the horrible trap but Ed and me.

“We felt confident that all the men who were cutting the tunnel into the old drift had been drowned. The terrific flood came in so suddenly that none could escape. Then we began to think of our own situation. It would require months to pump all the water out of the level. In the meantime we would starve. We had even lost our dinner pails. We looked into each other’s eyes through the dim light, and Ed said, ‘We’re in a hell of a fix now, old man! I wonder if the people outside will still think we poor miners demand too much pay? Will they be good to my wife and the babies?’

“At the word ‘babies’ poor Ed broke down and wept as only a brave man can weep when facing despair. Then we remembered the old abandoned air shaft, and we went up the slope as fast as we could go until we found it. We called up the shaft to where we could see a speck of light, but there was nobody there to hear us. Then we both sat down and cried in utter despair.

“Yes, we were rescued. Men came to the old shaft next day intending to go down and see if anybody had found safety in the old slope. We were rescued thirty hours after the accident. Our wives and Ed’s children were on hand to receive us. But, dear God, I can never forget the wail of the poor wives whose dear ones lay drowned down in the lower level. Big Bill Beck’s poor old wife had to be carried home when she saw that Bill was not among the rescued.

“Yes, thank you very much for the food and your kindness. No, I’ll never go back to the mines again. It’s a hard life, and the operators have made the world believe that the miners are asking too much for their work and their lives. Say, did you ever notice? Two days after a mine accident the widows and orphans need help! Too much pay? Oh, the shame of it all!”

IN THE LOOKING GLASS

It seems to be a human impossibility for us to see ourselves as others see us. We never know exactly how we appear to our neighbors. Men are like moving pictures—it requires some distance from the picture to see the moving figures to the best advantage. We know that our nearest neighbor knows less of our true character than the people living at a distance. When Henry D. Thoreau built a little log cabin, with his own hands, on the banks of Walden Pond, Massachusetts, his neighbors saw the man at close range, and failed to notice the strength of mind and character. It was the people at a long distance who saw the real Thoreau at fitful glances, and anxiously magnified the man until he became a thing unnatural—a genius.

The too-appreciative public called Thoreau a genius—a man to whom thought came without an effort. He himself didn’t think so. He lamented his own weakness and ignorance of things. It required so much time to learn a simple truth: to cull out the true from the false. Half the thinkers of the world are thinking out a plan to live without menial labor. They are thinking out a plan to fool and deceive the unthinking into buying knowledge and secret keys to science. And the deceived people look at them from a distance and put a false estimate on their ability, and pay them well to be fooled and humbugged.

I have seen sick people ignore their home physician and go a hundred miles to consult a quack; and for a long time imagine that his knowledge of the healing art was almost divine. The quack’s nearest neighbors looked on in disgust, and repeated the immortal words of Shakespeare, “What fools these mortals be!”

But even Shakespeare is seen at a distance in greater lustre than around his own home. There is an old saying that “the king is never great to his own valet.” But often this is because of the mental gulf between the two men. The valet often judges only the physical man, or the moods of the mental man. Men are great only when they go into the silence and apply their entire force of mind to solving the problems of life. The great speech you heard your favorite orator deliver was not gathered spontaneously while standing before you. The speech was but the fruit of many, many hours of struggle and study and worry and of painful effort. Did you but know the late hour when he blew out the lamp and lay his aching, throbbing head on his pillow, and only slept to dream over again his struggles, you would not call him a genius, but a plodding student.

The man who stands looking into the mirror and beholds his own face, without finding weak spots and flaws and lack of character, is too vain to be judge of himself. The serious, sincere man is always finding flaws in himself, and seeking to find a remedy to cure them. The man or woman who “gets stuck” on the face they see in the glass are mental quacks—they are humbugging themselves. They see a genius in the reflection of an asinine mug. They go away from the glass, and a moment later cannot describe the manner of face they carry on their shoulders. If they were ever so good an artist and painter, they could not paint a picture of themselves from memory.

And if we cannot judge ourselves correctly, how can we expect our own neighbors to judge us even charitably. And our mental face flits before us and out of reach of our grasp as rapidly as the reflection of our physical countenance. We seem to sit in the midst of moving pictures, our mind the curtain on which the pictures are flashed. If we stop the machine and retain the same picture for any great length of time on our mental curtain, we become insane. The machine must be kept in motion, one scene following after the other all day long. True, we can repeat the passing scenes daily, but they must be in motion, passing swiftly on.

When we apply ourselves to any particular study we learn to ignore all the other passing scenes and fasten our mental eye on the screen at a point where our favorite figures appear as they flash by, but our subconscious mental eye realizes all the time that the entire picture show is in progress. The truth is, dear reader, we haven’t time to see our neighbor as he really is, nor even see ourself in all our many phases. Our face is passing through the mirror too rapidly for us to estimate the strength or force of character. In the great economy of nature we are only shadows cast upon the curtain of eternity and passing rapidly away. Our short life makes a film of limited length, the different scenes passing before us so rapidly that even in our sensitive memory only one per cent of all that transpires leaves a trace that can be recalled in after years.

What need we care what people think of us, when we cannot judge or estimate ourselves. If we can practice charity toward each other and forget our neighbor’s faults, as we forget our own face, we do well. The moving pictures of life will not stop long enough for us to “get stuck on ourself.” If we do so, we are left behind. The rushing crowd cannot see us as we see ourselves in the glass.

UNGRATEFUL YOUNG GIRLS

Girls are so prone to over-estimate their usefulness and greatness and social prestige. The average girl of eighteen or twenty is always “It” in her own estimation. And if she is a city-bred girl she sets a very low estimation on the young man from the country. “He is too slow,” or “too much of a jay,” no odds how sincere he may be. She prefers the flashy, dashing, frivolous city-bred bubble who is always bursting with light wit and shady insinuations. The traveling man is her ideal, whether she knows anything about his character or not.

A story just reached me through a mysterious channel about two rather pretty, well-dressed but flippant school teachers, who went from a Pennsylvania city to a nearby country village to teach in the local school. They felt country life a bore at first because traveling men seldom came that way. So, by way of making country life more tolerable, they began to cultivate the acquaintance of the neighborhood boys. Some of these they flattered and smiled upon and encouraged, and in return were treated often to candies, fruits, and were escorted to card parties and country dances and given a good time. When sleighing season came two of the rustic swains, who earned the munificent sum of three dollars per week, chipped in and hired a two-horse outfit at the cost of four dollars, and invited the two young teachers to take a ride with them and eat supper at a famous chicken and waffle resort at the far end of the valley.

The girls pretended to be delighted, and the party drove off gaily amid cheers and the jingle of bells. When the hotel was reached, where an elaborate and expensive supper had been ordered in advance, the gay, giddy teachers jumped out of the sleigh and ran into the warm parlor, while the unsuspecting young men drove around to the stable to see that the horses were properly attended to. In the parlor the girls met a gay party of young folks, of aristocratic tastes and manners, from their home city, who knew the two teachers. “Who brought you here?” inquired one of the city girls, to which one of the deceitful and shameless teachers responded: “Oh, a couple of country prunes—a pair of dubs brought us. Gee, but they are slow and jayish.”

But at the supper table these same shameless marms made an awful fuss over the country boys, thoroughly disgusting their city friends. Their hypocrisy and duplicity and deceitfulness was actually sickening to those city people who expected far greater honor and more stability of character in women capable of teaching school. How much better for these deceitful girls to have remained silent on the subject of their escorts, after receiving and accepting favors from them, and pretending that they were delighted with their society. They have now lowered themselves in the estimation of those friends who witnessed their hypocrisy to such an extent that they can never reinstate themselves again. Nobody likes a hypocrite, no difference how handsome or brilliant they may be. The honest, sincere and truthful girl is always respected and admired and loved.

Twenty years ago a young school teacher of my acquaintance was teaching out on the mountain, and to get taken home and back again to her boarding house, she pretended to be very fond of a young mountaineer who owned a horse and sleigh and buggy. The poor fellow fell desperately in love with her and she encouraged him, but when the school term was ended she took advantage of the first opportunity to insult him and throw him over, with as little feeling as though he had been a worn-out shoe.

She afterwards married a young man not half so honorable as the young mountaineer, whom she jilted so cruelly. He deserted her ten years ago, leaving her a family of helpless children and a broken heart. “As you sow, so shall you reap.” There is no more dangerous game to play than to play hypocrite. No one means to become hardened in the game, but it grows on a person and poisons all the nobler impulses of the soul, and as age advances, the face hardens and every line in the countenance tells the secret thoughts that have always haunted the mind. The hypocrite cannot hide her sins from the trained eye of the observer, and the world is unforgiving toward the deceptive soul.

THE GIANT PINE

Standing on a gentle slope With outstretched arms, With an air of vanished hope But still retaining charms Of glories past and gone; Of beauty most divine, Standing there alone— The giant pine.

No companion tree is near Of the dead and vanished past; They have fallen, year by year— This giant is the last; And it wears a look of age Ten times the sum of nine; Of trees it is the sage— This giant pine.

Around its feet there stands The modern scrubby trees, Looking up to outstretched hands, That tremble in the breeze Like priest who offers prayer To heaven’s throne divine, With outstretched arms so bare, The giant pine.

Grandfather saw this tree, Years and years gone by, When but a boy was he, And, towering in the sky, This mighty giant stood, With fragrance like old wine— The guardian of the wood— This giant pine.

Long centuries ago This giant pine was here, And bending to and fro, And growing, year by year, When England’s tyrant yoke Lay heavy on this land The maple and the oak Reached up their feeble hand.

To ask this tree to bow Its proud and lofty head, That they might kiss its brow Before their strength had fled. They’re dead these many years— The saw-mill carved each bone, And the giant, left in tears And outstretched arms—alone.

But now the axmen come, With no respect for years, And the giant, standing dumb, Drops needles, as though tears To it were long denied. Then heavy body blows Chop deep into its side, While the deep wound deeper grows.

And still each outstretched limb, Above the axmen grim Asks of the clouds that swim Before the face of Him Who made the sky and earth, A blessing on each foe Who toil in savage mirth To lay the giant low.

And now a spasm of pain, From base to topmost bough, Passes again—again— The lofty head must bow. Great giant, with all those charms, A violent death has found, And those strong, loving arms, Lie broken on the ground!

And the echo of the roar, Caused by the giant’s fall Comes back from river shore: The giant pine so tall Lies prostrate on its face, Broken in branch and spine; The last of his giant race— Farewell, giant pine!

Nothing is sacred to greedy man That can be changed to gold; Nothing is sacred of all God’s plan That can be bought and sold. Barren our mountains stand today, Their giant trees all gone; Their wondrous glories passed away— All but their rock and stone.

This lone giant might have been Spared as a relic of the past; With lofty branches, ever green, Outstretched until the last. But ruthless hands have slain This giant—half divine; To say farewell gives pain— Farewell, oh, Giant Pine!

THE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER

A child of seven, with her mission marked out for her, and her future predestined to fall in hard places. Her childhood was to end at the age of ten, and she was to enter into the duties of a woman. Poor little Bernice, how my heart ached for her. But she was as happy as a child of seven could be. She had not forgotten the caresses of her dead mother, but they now seemed to be a long way back in the gloomy past—a year ago.

There were four children younger than she: Albert, Lottie, Addie and Mary; and Leonard was a year older. But he was only a boy, and boys are no good at keeping house. Little Bernice had heard her father tell her Aunt Maud that Bernice would soon be old enough to keep house, and then he would gather all the children in again and keep them together. Aunt Maud took little Addie and baby Mary to care for, and Bernice was sent to live with her grandmother, who had lately become a widow in very poor circumstances.

Bernice seemed to realize the situation and was perfectly satisfied. Her father was working in the lumber woods, and her brothers and sisters were scattered like autumn leaves. She was so anxious to become ten years old and gather them all under her little wings. What a laudable ambition!

Dear God, what an age to feel such motherly cares! Where would there be room to crowd in a few years of innocent childhood?

I wish this was only a story. I wish the child I am writing about was only a creature of my imagination. But it is all too painfully true. She sat in that chair over yonder only yesterday, and told me all about it. Told of it all in gladness and with the sunshine of hope beaming on her little child soul. But every word sent a pang of regret to my heart. This child was giving herself as a willing sacrifice to love and duty. Dear God, what an age to entertain such great resolutions—only seven years!

“Yes,” she said, childishly, “I must not lose a day at school, ’cause I’m goin’ to quit at ten and go to keepin’ house for papa. I kin read now, and kin write purty good, only I forgit how to spell the big words. But I kin learn a hull lot before I’m ten. It’s three long years off. I wish it wasn’t so long, ’cause I want to git the children all together and be their little mother. Mary isn’t quite two years old yit, but she’ll be five when I git to be her mother, and she’ll know how to do a hull lot of work for me. We’re going to live out in the country—out on a mountain farm, and there’ll be cows to milk and pigs and chickens to feed, but the children will all help. Maybe we’ll take grandma along, but she says she’ll have to keep house for Uncle Jim and Uncle Herman, unless they git married and set up for themselves.

“Yes, I must be goin’. Grandma will be waitin’ supper for me. No, sir, I haven’t seen brother Albert and Leonard and sister Lottie for over a year. But it won’t be long until we all git together. Grandma is goin’ to teach me how to bake next summer. She talks to me about keepin’ house for papa, and she cries about it, and kisses me and says, ‘God bless you, child!’ Do you s’pose God will?”