Part 7

Just across the river lives the old toy maker, an old bachelor who has been living the life of a hermit for many years. He is now almost seventy years old, but works at his bench as vigorously as he did when I first knew him. He will not discuss his past life, but avoids it as though old memories give him pain. But his relatives say he was once disappointed in love—jilted on what was to be his wedding day. Some pretend to know of a wedding suit still preserved and packed away in a trunk, but never to be worn by a bridegroom while the old toy maker lives and has the clothes in his possession.

He avoids women, and doesn’t want to be bothered with children, yet he devotes his life to making wagons and sleds for boys. Somewhere down in his unsatisfied heart there is a love for the children still, though it was denied him to have children to bear his name.

There is something tender and affectionate about the picture of a toy maker, and how could this be so, unless the toy maker himself is tender and affectionate? It is safe to say that this particular toy maker can weave more heartaches into the toy he is making for some happy, careless boy, than he could pound into a large farm wagon for men. There is a peculiar sentiment in working for the children, which people feel, even though their education is so barren that they do not know what the word “sentiment” means. The old toy maker may think he hates boys, but his work contradicts him. He does not manufacture his wagons for profit, for the price is so low that he scarcely earns fifty cents a day at the work.

The truth is, the old toy maker loves children in spite of his studied seclusion. He avoids them because they are so closely in touch with women, and to a woman he owes his cheerless life. How foolish to turn against the whole world because one woman proved false. There are true women all around us, and a man should be strong enough to pull the false woman out of his heart and forget her in the society of the good and true. The strong man is made wiser and better through disappointment and the deception of a false woman, and it teaches him how to value a true woman when he finds her waiting to be loved.

The man who gives up at one defeat is to be pitied. His acknowledgment of defeat shows that he is a man of tender nature, preferring to go out of the crowd and live alone, to renewing the contest and do battle with the false and cruel. Every time I see the old toy maker bending over his work, which he does so carefully and perfect, I realize that a loving, trusting heart throbs under his soiled coat. Somehow I can’t help but love the toy makers, because they unconsciously love children. They can’t help it. They may scold and frown and threaten punishment for any trifling offense, but deep down in their soul they do, and can not help but love children.

During the last fifteen years of President Cleveland’s life I was not his friend. I believed that he had gone back on the common people and given his support to plutocracy. I said many bitter things about him, and called him a Judas and a betrayer of his friends. But soon after his death I saw a picture of the ex-President sitting at a table mending toys for his little son.

When I looked upon that picture I could not believe the man was false to his friends. I had only misunderstood him and his motives while serving his country. A false leader of men, or a tyrant, would not stoop to become a toy mender.

He would have no time for sentiment and tender paternal feelings.

Here was a man upon whom the eyes of the world had rested, whose name was familiar to millions, sitting at a table mending broken toys. I was won back to him before I had looked upon the picture two minutes. I could overlook all his faults, because his faults were human, just the same as his love for children was human. The simplicity of the picture showed the man and the father and the companion, mutely telling the story of his great love for the boy whom he never hoped to see when grown to manhood. He fully realized that when the boy became a full-grown man he would not be there to see him and help him and guide him with his great love.

THE MOTHER-IN-LAW

There never was a woman who made a more loving mother, nor a mother more proud of her son than Mrs. Taylor. Tom was a boy that any mother might be proud of, so obedient and affectionate. But Tom was going to get married and bring his wife to the old home, and the widow Taylor assured me that she was going to be such a model mother-in-law that there would be never a cloud of discontent hover over the Taylor home. Tom’s girl was such a sweet little soul that anybody could get along with her; and even if she was not, Tom would not let his mother be abused or slighted or made discontented in her own home.

I didn’t return to the Taylor home for ten years, but I noticed at once a change in the Widow Taylor. There was a look of sadness in her white face and she seemed to have grown old very fast since I saw her last. I knew she couldn’t be more than sixty, but she looked to be easily seventy-five years old. When I found myself alone on the wide porch with the sad faced woman I made bold to inquire: “Well, Mrs. Taylor, did you succeed in playing the part of a model mother-in-law?”

She smiled at me with a look of pain in her face, and slowly said: “I don’t believe there could be such a thing. Perhaps a mother could be a model mother-in-law to a son-in-law, but she couldn’t be one to her son’s wife, and live in the old home. When Tom brought Bessie to this house it was my home. My word was law. You well know that I couldn’t be a tyrant if I tried, yet it was a satisfaction to arrange the house to suit my taste and run things after the style I had practiced for years.”

Then, in answer to my startled look, she continued: “No, Bessie and I have never quarreled. I wouldn’t allow myself to do so. She is Tom’s wife, and he loves her to devotion. If I quarreled with Bessie Tom would have to take one side or the other. I wouldn’t want him to decide against his wife, and if he turned against me it would break my heart. So I try to bear my lot without complaining, but I can hardly help the feeling that I am a stranger in my own home. I have no longer any authority about the house. The pictures are no longer arranged as they were ten years ago. The portraits of the family no longer grace the walls of the downstairs rooms. Bessie says it is not fashionable, so the pictures of Tom’s father and my own, are banished to the narrow confines of my own bed room.

“And my bedroom has been changed, too. I no longer sleep over the parlor, facing the public road. Bessie thought it would make such a pleasant spare room for visitors, so I was removed to the east room over the kitchen. When Bessie’s mother visits her she occupies my old room, while I must go off to my den over the kitchen. I may be selfish, though I pray God to keep me from thoughts that are narrow; but it does hurt an old woman to be thus set aside in her own home.

“And no longer any callers or visitors come to see me. I’m a back number. Even you came to see Tom, and not me. I am a deposed ruler. My kingdom has been handed over to another and my own son is a subject of the new ruler. I never complain to Tom, because he does not understand. He thinks that I ought to be satisfied with things as they are, and maybe I should, for I have nothing to do. Well, nothing to do is the hardest life a person can live. I can go and come at will, but that is not enough to satisfy a woman. I long for the old home in which I was once an entity, a moving force, a working energy.

“Where nothing is expected of the mother-in-law, she can expect nothing in return. I am reduced to an eating, drinking, sleeping non-entity. I once overheard Bessie tell a caller that I was getting queer. Maybe I am, for I certainly feel queer under present conditions. Neither responsibility nor authority rests on me. I am on the scrap pile, an unwilling supernumerary.

“But oh, Mr. Haiden, I am so much more fortunate than some mothers-in-law I know of! I know a poor old mother who is obliged to live with her son’s wife in the home that belongs to the daughter-in-law. And the poor old mother is told of this every day. The daughter-in-law is an unnatural, ungrateful tyrant, and she plays tyrant all the year ’round. And the son is obliged to take sides with his wife, for the sake of peace. When I talk to that poor old mother I feel that I ought to be thankful, and that my daughter-in-law is a saint; but she ought to consult me now and then on household matters. She ought to give me some of the responsibilities and cares. She should at least make me vice-president of the home, since she usurped the presidency. Two women can not live happily in the same house unless they share the cares and responsibilities, and the honors. Every young woman going into her mother-in-law’s home should be taught this fact. It would save many a tear and heartache on the part of the poor old mothers.”

BOB WHITE

Passing by a country graveyard one day last summer I noticed an old man throwing stones at a bird. When I asked him why he did so he stammered: “I—I thought it was a Bob White, but it was only a thrush. There is a Bob White comes here every day through the summer time and calls the one name I so bitterly despise, and I chase him away. I don’t want the dead to hear him call that name.”

I passed on, but at the first house west of the old country graveyard, where I stopped to get a drink, a woman told me the old man’s story. He was engaged to a beautiful young girl, but an Englishman came into the neighborhood, pretending to be very wealthy, and turned the girl’s head. She was attracted by his supposed wealth, and eloped with him to New York. Less than a year afterward her dead body was sent home for burial in the old home graveyard, her husband having deserted her a few months after their unholy marriage.

The Englishman’s name was Robert White. The old man I saw stoning the birds, had never married after losing his promised bride, and the neighbors say he acted very queerly from the day the girl ran away with the Englishman, and has been watching her grave ever since her body was brought home for burial. He imagines the quail is mocking him, or taunting the dead woman with the repetition of the man’s name who wronged both in the long ago.

Hark, I hear the Bob White call! I wonder where he can be? Ah, sitting on the old stone wall Under the maple tree— The maple tree in the graveyard old, Where my sweetheart is sleeping, Clasped in the arms of the earth so cold, While the rain drop tears are seeping.

Bob White, Bob White! The man who bought a bride; Bob White, Bob White! With a broken heart she died; I sing this song The whole day long— Bob White, Bob White!

She married a man for his gold and land, After plighting her troth, you see; He turned her head, and she gave her hand, But her soul was in love with me. He proved a brute from the very start, And in one short year, she died; He beat her body and broke her heart— She was only a purchased bride.

Bob White, Bob White! The man who received her life; Bob White, Bob White! The man who bought a wife; That spiteful call, From the old stone wall— Bob White, Bob White!

And the name of the man was Robert White, A Britain, from over the sea— A man with a heart as black as night, And he stole my sweetheart from me. The bird comes back to the grave each year, And sits on the old stone wall, And seems to say to the dead, My dear, Do you love the man I call?

Bob White, Bob White! The man who broke your heart! Bob White, Bob White! Does it make your mem’ry start? Oh, I love to shout This vile name out— Bob White, Bob White!

I must go and chase the bird away, So the woman I love may sleep— The woman still dear to me today, Tho’ the world must not see me weep. I hate the name of the man he calls, And the dead, tho’ buried from sight, Must curse each note that spitefully falls, And the name of the man—Bob White.

Bob White, Bob White! My curse be on your head! Bob White, Bob White! Go, leave in peace the dead; Her soul is mine, Tho’ her body was thine, Bob White, Bob White!

Go away, you bird of spiteful song, My sweetheart is at rest; But through your calling the whole day long Sad memories might pain her heart. And my own heart still bleeds anew While you call, from mourn to night, That name, so spitefully sung by you— That hated name—Bob White!

Bob White, Bob White! Be gone, you evil bird! Bob White, Bob White! My soul is within me stirred; Call not in shame That dastard’s name— Bob White, Bob White!

WHIPPING A CHILD

In spite of the fact that Solomon advised whipping the child, I question the benefits of giving pain. I never struck my boy but once, and that was when he was a child in kilts. God forgive me, I was angry at the time. We were out in the fields gathering dandelions for greens, and the lad persisted in throwing clods into the vessel in which the dandelions were. I told him several times to desist, but he laughed in childish glee and did it again and again. He did not intend to be bad. It was a child’s estimation of fun—to have somebody scolding. I do not know what ailed me that morning, but I soon became so angry that I broke off an elder sprout and struck the child a cruel blow across his little back. One blow—that was all, and then my heart smote me. When I felt the little form writhing in pain, as I held him by one arm, it dawned on me that I was a brute.

I can shut my eyes still and see that little child sitting on a bank of coarse grass and weeping bitter tears. How I despised myself! I would have taken him in my arms and begged his forgiveness, but I felt sure the child would not think my remorse sincere, and might think me a hypocrite. No, I thought it best to let the child think me a brute, rather than believe me a hypocrite. He must have faith in my honesty, even though I was an honest brute.

I resolved right then and there that I never would strike my child again. My paternal heart told me that Solomon was wrong—that if he had but one boy he would try love, and not the lash. Solomon had so many children and so many wives, that he couldn’t love any of them truly and sincerely. I would not take advice from any man who made women slaves to his animal passion, and who encouraged the brutal act of inflicting pain on the tender flesh of a helpless child. The child that is beaten must surely grow hard of heart, as well as calloused of back, where the rod leaves welts and scars.

I asked my boy only the other day—he is fourteen now—whether he still remembered the cruel blow I struck him, and when he replied that he did, my head fell and my heart felt a peculiar pain. Oh, to recall that one brutal blow, or have it forgotten by the boy who was once that quivering, sobbing child!

I am certain that the boy is just as obedient as any other boy in the neighborhood, and would be just the same if never struck that one blow. I still tell him how sorry I am that I once lost my head and beat a child. I want him to feel and know that love is a better ruler than the rod. And after I am gone, and the boy recalls my face, I want him to think kindly of me and realize how that one blow has pained me all through life, and made one shadow of paternal shame.

Not long ago I heard a mother boasting of how she conquered her thirteen-year-old daughter. For some trivial disobedience she struck the child with a rod, which stung the child to anger, and roused her rebellious spirit. She refused to beg her mother’s pardon until deep red scars and seams lined her back, through which the red blood was seeping, and then pain forced her to break down and ask pardon. But was the girl sincere? Was she conquered, subdued? Was her spirit broken?

I hope not. A child with a broken spirit is a pitiable object. Her pride is forever injured. And the child that fears her mother can never love her in the true sense of filial affection. And if she was not sincere in begging her mother’s pardon, if it was only to escape the awful pain, then the first seeds of hypocrisy have been sown, and the child will never be truthful again.

I know a father who imagines that it is his paternal prerogative to punish his child whenever required, and he is to be the judge and jury to decide when the child needs punishment, and the extent of that punishment. He quotes Solomon to prove his position.

Not long ago his boy of five years refused to repeat a word dictated by his father, and for this disobedience the boy was made to stand on the floor erect, until conquered. The father didn’t try moral suasion or coaxing or petting. He was not in favor of arbitration between father and child. It was war to the finish. The boy’s rebellious spirit must be broken, at any cost. It was the father’s duty to conquer the child. The big strong man must triumph, because might is right. Solomon advised this.

It was 7 P. M. when the boy was first stood up on the floor. The father demanded obedience of the child when anger filled the child’s heart. It aroused the rebellious spirit—the boy would not be conquered. It was the courage and will that is to make the man a doer and a worker when childhood is gone, but the father didn’t realize it. At 10 o’clock the child fell over in a faint—unconquered and unsubdued—and was critically ill for many days.

That father may be right, but I do not believe it. I would give much to recall the one cruel blow I struck when my boy was a helpless child.

NOT A CLINGING VINE

Some men fail to win the woman they love, because they are physically too strong and powerful. Some women love to cling, as a vine, to the man who resembles the sturdy oak, but not all of them do—not even half the women do the clinging act. I know of a case where a strong man proposed to a beautiful girl who had entered a hospital to become a nurse. She did not appear quite strong enough to endure the strenuous duties of a nurse, but she insisted that she loved the work and would stick to it. Her lover sought to turn her from her chosen profession and become his wife, but she frankly told him that she did not love him enough to become his wife.

People without imagination and without a proper conception of what true love really is, wondered why the girl did not marry the man, for he was quite wealthy, handsome, and of good character. Some even alluded to his good family, but the nurse declared that a man was good through education, and not through inheritance. She referred to the case of a child taken from a large family of children and placed in the home of a rich man who gave her many educational advantages. She outgrew the daughter even in intelligence and beauty, while all the other brothers and sisters left in the home nest grew up in ignorance and immoralities and did not resemble their educated sister at all. It was all the effect of education and not of blood or inheritance.

And the strong man gave up the girl and went away to a distant town to go into business. Bad investments swept his fortune away and he fell ill. His last dollar was gone and his health so bad that he no longer resembled the physical giant of former years.

At last he became so ill that he was taken to the hospital for treatment, where in his delirium he called for “Agnes, Agnes!” all the time. The physician declared that this Agnes must be found, or the man would surely die. His old town was located and old acquaintances consulted, and the Agnes called for was the girl in the hospital learning to become a trained nurse.

When told who it was that was calling for her she said she would go to him. All her nature seemed changed. Harry was no longer the physical giant inviting her to cling to his sturdy frame for support. He was now lying helpless on his back, his fortune and physical strength all gone. She would be the strong uplifter and the inspiration that would bring him back to health. She was now in her proper sphere. She was all woman, all sympathy and affection. She who could not cling to the strong man, now gave her strength to assist the weak.

“Agnes, Agnes!” he called one night, and when she went to him and placed her cool hand on his feverish brow and asked tenderly: “What is it, Harry? I am your Agnes—don’t you know me?” He looked up with a world of joy in his eyes and exclaimed: “Thank God, Agnes! I have wanted you so badly! I was going to die. I shall now get well!”