Part 16
Through an almost fatal accident, an old lady of seventy-five years lay at death’s door for many long weeks. She had not been as prosperous during the last twenty-five years of her life as she had been in her early married life, and many of her old time friends had drifted out of her life, and she drifted out of theirs. She thought of all this as she lay on her bed of affliction, too weak to move more than one arm. It was sad to think of the old friends who had forgotten her so completely. They must all know of her illness, for her daughter Mary had read several notices to her from the local papers concerning her serious accident, and more serious condition since the accident occurred.
Somehow she felt so lonely and isolated and neglected. Better die and be out of this painful existence than to lie sick in bed for weeks and weeks and be absolutely forgotten by the old-time friends, whose society she once enjoyed so delightfully.
When her daughter came in she had hard work to turn her feeble head to the wall, so the tears on her lashes could not be seen. She even felt one on her thin cheek, but had not the physical power to wipe it away. As the daughter went about the room, tidying things up, and dusting off the stand on which the medicine bottles stood, she listened carefully to see if her mother was sleeping. A slight cough from the bed convinced her that the invalid was awake, and she broke the silence by saying:
“I hope the mail today will bring a letter from brother John. He knows of your accident, and I feel sure he will reach us today with his answer.”
The finger on the bed moved slightly and a weak voice answered; “I hope so, Mary. It’s nice to receive a letter from our absent ones, at such times like this.”
Mary knew how it exhausted her mother to talk, so she said no more, but pulled down the blind to shut out the light, and left the sick room with a pain at her heart. Her keen eye had seen the tears on her mother’s eye lashes, and she felt certain that the poor invalid had been weeping over confinement and isolation from society and her friends.
In an hour the morning mail arrived, and she was agreeably surprised to find five letters, addressed to her mother, besides the one from John. She opened John’s letter and read it over carefully, to make sure that he had said nothing to hurt his mother’s feelings. John was so careless at times, and would bring up business problems that should not be spoken of when the mother was not in condition for such matters. Then Mary went up to the sick room and read John’s letter aloud.
“I’m glad to hear he’s well,” the invalid said laboriously, and closed her eyes again from sheer weakness.
“But mother,” exclaimed Mary, “here’s a letter from Mrs. Moore—your old friend, Mrs. Moore, of whom you spoke only yesterday.”
The invalid opened wide her eyes and listened until the letter was finished. It spoke of the old time friendship, and expressed hope that the invalid would soon recover, and be in condition to enjoy a visit from her friend, just so soon as the weather was settled.
“How kind of Mrs. Moore to think of me in my affliction,” exclaimed the invalid in much stronger tones. “It’s better than medicine to hear from her. Old friends are so dear to the heart, for they bring up old memories.”
“But here are letters from more of your old friends, mother. Here is one from Mrs. Bridgens, and one from Mrs. Jones, and one from old Miss Christie, and from Mrs. Cook.” And Mary sat for almost an hour reading the messages from old friends to the invalid of whom the writers spoke so tenderly, and wrote of old-time adventures and scenes from their girlhood days.
Mary was delighted to see the change these messages of love had worked in her invalid mother. The faded old eyes were lighted with a new illumination, and a little color had struggled back to her cheeks. She asked to have the letters given to her, and she brought both hands together to receive them, holding them as tenderly as a little girl would hold her first doll. Mary went downstairs, leaving the invalid holding her love letters so fondly, and when she returned in half an hour, she found her sleeping sweetly, and fondly holding those letters in one feeble hand. And Mary whispered:
“If they only knew how much pleasure and hope their letters brought to my dear old mother, they would never neglect writing to their old friends when affliction is upon them. God bless them for the hope and happiness they brought to this home.”
AT THE POOL OF LIFE
The unsatisfied hunger we experience during this life, creates a longing in every human heart for another trial at living after this life has been lived to the end. Once out on a desert, some travelers were perishing from thirst. The man came to a small oasis amidst a few gnarled and twisted trees. The sight of the trees was evidence that water was near, so he hurried his steps and came near to the desired spot. He found water there, but it was stagnated and foul, wild animals had been drinking and wading and wallowing in the pool until it looked sickening and disgusting to the traveler.
The hopes that filled his heart as he approached the promising oasis began to ooze out through his fingers, and a sickly sensation filled his soul. Yet this was all the available water to be had. His wife joined him a few minutes later, bringing two children. They remained over night at the pool, finding that the foul water had revived them in spite of the filth. They did not know which way to go to find the inhabited country, so they erected an improvised tent and thought to live there until some traveling caravan came that way, when they would follow it back to the green earth.
They could secure flesh to eat from the fowls that came to the trees and the young of wild animals brought there to get a drink of water. And so days passed into weeks and months and years, and the longing to be rescued became as a dead hope. None were satisfied with the befouled water, nor the narrow life, but the wife and children were afraid to again brave the desert and go in search of inhabited land. One night the husband and father became so sick and disgusted with the water that he arose and stole away by the light of the moon determined to find a better place of existence or become lost and perish out on the burning sands.
Next morning there was deep sorrow at the pool. The mother and children mourned him as one dead. They tried to follow him, but his tracks were soon lost in the shifting sands, so they returned to the pool and the friendly trees, resolved to wait until some one came to take them away.
This is a good illustration of man’s life on earth. He is never satisfied nor contented. The shallow pool of stagnated water never satisfies his longings for a deeper and broader life. And finally he goes away into the night of darkness, and the winds of mystery blow the sands of oblivion over his tracks, and no one knows whither he went. And the living sit at the pool and look out over the desert of life and wonder, and wonder, and grow more and more dissatisfied and say to themselves: “This life is so unsatisfactory and barren of real pleasure—there must be sweeter and purer water away over yonder.”
A PALACE WITHOUT LOVE
The divorce trial of a handsome young woman and her wealthy husband, brings up the story of her early environment and her unfortunate mother’s disappointed life. The woman now seeking a divorce was reared in the midst of matrimonial unrest and social misery—what other ending could the world expect in her own case? Where the union is not purely a union of heart and soul, a harmony of taste and temperament, where the souls are not tuned to respond to the same vibrations, conjugal happiness is simply impossible.
The mother of this woman in the divorce court was once a beautiful Irish girl, the daughter of a man who kept a small crockery store in Philadelphia. His store was located around the corner from the aristocratic neighborhood, where the scions of the old Quaker families reside in magnificent palaces. Sometimes a few of them would condescend to stop at the modest shop and make a purchase, but the liveried negro servants came more frequently to make the purchases desired by their masters. At such times they would sit and gossip with the Irish merchant and his wife about their aristocratic and proud employers.
These conversations with the servants revealed the great social chasm existing between the humble shop people and the wealthy aristocrats living just around the corner. The shopman’s eldest daughter, a beautiful girl of sixteen, listened to the tales told by the liveried servants of the rich, and a longing grew daily stronger in her humble soul to become rich and aristocratic some day, too. She cared not by what means. She only thought of the glorious end of the road leading up to one of these magnificent palaces, and gave no thought to the mud and the mire and the dangerous chasms to cross before arriving at the end of all this golden glory and glitter of gilded gladness. She dreamed of it night and day. Her pure soul became sordid and hard with an ambition that was ever in her dreams. On the street where the shop was located, students bound for the University of Pennsylvania would pass daily, and among them were a number of young aristocrats, exquisitely attired, with their coats thrown back to display their jeweled fraternity pins. As time went on, the daughter of the shop man developed into a tall, slender, beautiful girl, with violet eyes and chestnut brown hair, and a complexion of lovely pink. In the morning she would go outside the store to put the goods on display, and was noticed by the wealthy university students. One of them in particular fell desperately in love with the bewitching girl. They began to slyly flirt as the students passed. It would not be fair nor true to put all the blame upon the student. The ambitious shop girl was just as anxious to make a conquest as was the young man. She knew he was rich and could see that he was handsome. She felt only hatred toward the rich people who ignored her, and her humble parents. She could never love this young man sincerely, but she would sell herself for the grand position he could give her. He would always hold himself at an elevation far above her parents, and this would always be a sting in her soul, but she was too ambitious to hesitate at this.
One day he stopped at the shop to buy a shaving mug, and she waited on him. They became acquainted. She was fascinated with his beauty and fine clothes and polite manners. He made love to her from that day with ardor, and she was in the heaven of glory she had dreamed of as she attended to the shop. One day he proposed to her, and she gladly accepted his offer. Her ambition was to be gratified. Oh, the fascination and the wild ambition and magnificent hopes! But all the time she knew she did not love him with a sincere heart. Her humble origin, and his proud and aristocratic parents, made a chasm that could not be bridged in so short a time. Her parents thought it a fine bargain and sale, and encouraged the courtship. Love would come later on. A woman must learn to love where love pays the largest dividends in gold.
So the beautiful, ambitious Irish girl and the aristocratic youth were quietly married. When he told his proud mother that he had married the girl from the crockery store, the last happy smile died on her lips, and she never smiled again. She had such high ambitions for her boy, and he had spoiled them by a rash marriage.
Is it any wonder the marriage proved a failure? They had six children, yet the mother never loved her husband as a woman should love the father of her babies. She was ever conscious of the social chasm between them, and it was a thorn that never ceased to give pain. She had reached the place her ambition craved, but it did not reward her with happiness. There was more pleasure in slowly falling from it, than trying to go higher. The home and money and position were not satisfying. Her popular young husband and the social distinction he gave her were not satisfying. She was not happy.
She filled the aching void with lovers. One was a society man in her husband’s set, and one other was a big, dark, much-married actor. She broke her husband’s heart, she broke the heart of his adoring mother, and she grew more wretched herself every year. She then took to drink, and soon after to drugs. Coming home one night from a party she fell on the icy pavement and broke both lower limbs. She never saw a well day after the accident, and died at the age of thirty-four. She had starved her heart for wealth and position. She went without love to a high position and found it a bitter mockery. She had outraged her own soul. Then began the work of turning to ruin the palace in which she tried to live without love.
THE SOLDIER’S DIARY
In an old trunk, up in the garret where the family letters were deposited for more than half a century, I found the diary of a soldier, in which the following notes attracted my attention: “August 14, 1864. Yesterday was a terrible day for me. The battle at Deep Bottom, near Richmond, took the last of my messmates. Andrew Brown was wounded early in the engagement—shot through the thigh. Comrade Charles Pepperman assisted him to the rear. While they were gone, the man at my side, Amos Friedel was shot through the head and died instantly. Thus three of my messmates left my side within fifteen minutes. Pepperman joined the ranks an hour later, and a few minutes after was shot and fatally wounded. This morning Henry Traveler was found on the battle field, with his arm shattered horribly, and was taken to the hospital.
“In noting these fatalities and injuries, I cannot help but recall Comrade Shoemaker, the first of my messmates to pass out. His was the most pitiable death of all. He died three months ago of nostalgia. This is simply a melancholy growing out of homesickness. Shoemaker had married a pretty girl only a few weeks before he enlisted and went to the front. The army lay in supine idleness for several weeks, and Shoemaker had nothing to do but brood over his separation from the one he loved so fondly. A deep melancholia settled down upon his soul and we could not awaken an interest in his heart. Hour after hour his mind dwelt upon the scenes of his Pennsylvania home, and his deserted wife’s sad face looked out of the shadows and smiled the lonely smile of a forsaken woman.
“They took him to the hospital, but the doctors could find no organic disease in his body. He was simply dying of loneliness and a longing, longing to be with the people he loved. He was a large man, standing six feet in his bare feet, and this made his death all the more pathetic. We tried to get him a furlough and send him to his family at home, for thirty days, but the officers laughed at us, and said the man would come out of his melancholia in a few days and go to eating hard-tack. They were men without heart or sentiment, and they did not know the depth of Shoemaker’s gloom.
“Three weeks after being taken to the hospital, he died, and was buried in Virginia, and the longing wife never saw his face again.
“August 25th. Was to see Comrade Brown today, before they removed him to the hospital at Washington. He is very badly wounded, the bone being shattered and there is danger of gangrene. He gave me a letter to read which he received the previous day from home, written by his sister, Barbara. Among the many things she wrote was this: ‘On the night of the 15th and about two o’clock in the morning I dreamed that you came home. I could see you walking up to the door as plainly as I ever saw your familiar face. Your knock on the door wakened me out of a troubled sleep, and so sure was I that you were down at the door waiting to be admitted, that I insisted on some one going down to let you in. Of course it was all a dream, but so realistic, that I was sorely troubled until father read in the Tribune that you were wounded. Surely you must have been thinking of home at that hour.’”
There the diary ended. For it was only a portion of the book in which this unknown comrade had been jotting down the events of his army life. The hand that put those written pages in the old trunk has been dead for many years, and we can only guess who the writer was. He, too, may have left his bones to decay in Virginia soil, and his diary sent back to Northern friends. But I knew this Samuel Shoemaker, and I still remember of hearing my parents talking about his sad death. No doubt there were many thousands of young men taken from their mountain homes and rushed to the front, and the change was so great that they could not prevent their hearts from longing for the dear old scenes of home—for the dear old mother, wife or sweetheart. And then came the hopelessness and melancholia and the loss of courage, and finally death.
And yet that war settled nothing. The negro question is still the overshadowing problem calling for a solution. Burning negroes at the stake marks America as one of the barbarous nations.
TWO MEN WHO TOUCHED MY SOUL
When I was a young man I had occasion to write something for the local paper, published near my home. The late Girard Wright, brother of Theodore, editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia Record, was managing the paper at the time. He sent for me. Timidly I called at the office, for I was an awkward country youth and afraid of men who were established in the business world. There did not seem to be any place in the world for me outside of a barren hillside farm, and I always felt like a thief stealing off in the dark when I looked out over the world for something better.
Mr. Wright was a revelation and an inspiration to me. Why, he was just as approachable as a boy. A handsome man, with the kindliest and most sympathetic face I had ever seen. I can shut my eyes and see that intelligent face, with those sympathetic eyes, into which the hopeless could look and find hope and courage.
He wanted me to write for his paper. I told him frankly that I lacked education and vocabulary, and could write only in a crude style. And he replied:
“Why, that is what the people want. The world is tired of rounded phrases and poetical lines and erudite sentences. What the people want is original thought, new ideas—a new and original way of looking at every-day events, without prejudice or superstition or cant. You can do this, for there is an originality about your ideas—an independent peephole, through which you observe the world, without fear or favor. All you want is practice. You do not ape or copy after any writer I ever heard of, and practice will polish your original style to a surprising extent. If your style was borrowed, practice would do you little good. It might add to your ability to ape and copy after others, but the style would never be your own.”
Something happened soon after this, and Mr. Wright went back to Philadelphia before I could send in my contributions. Then my old mother was taken very ill, and I had no time for literature. Mr. Wright kept in touch with the country paper, and when my contributions no longer appeared, he wrote me to know the reason why. I told him that I was nursing my dying mother, and was obliged to drop literature until all was over. He wrote me again and extended his sympathy, and what was of still more material benefit—a bank note. It came when poverty and sorrow were sweeping over me, and it gave me courage.
It was so pleasant to know that this big-hearted man was thinking of me, away down in the big city. He was the first educated man to find any merit in my feeble attempts at writing for publication. His appreciation came like rain to a famishing flower. It was something I had been hungering for through the miserable years when all the future looked like a narrow horizon, that dipped down into a coming storm of hopelessness.
I never saw Mr. Wright but that one time, and never heard directly from him again. I never had the opportunity to tell him how much good his kind words of appreciation had done for me. He died while I was living in Colorado, and my soul was filled with sorrow and regret. I had always hoped to meet him again and thank him for the good he had so unconsciously imparted to me. I knew that an inspiration had gone out of my life when he died, though he never dreamed of the great uplift he had given me.
I am writing these lines to show the reader how much good one man’s appreciative words can do for another. We all have a subtle force within ourselves for doing good or harm to our fellow men. The thought pebble we carelessly toss into the intellectual stream of our neighbor may start little waves to vibrating and extending into a circle around him, which will greatly influence his future life.
After Mr. Wright’s death there was a space of fifteen years in which no man could transmit an inspiration to my soul and give my mind a new impetus. Then, outside a little country church, I met for the first time the other man who touched a vibrating chord in my soul, and a new world of hope opened up, like the lifting of a dense fog often reveals the distant mountains.
INDEX