Their Yesterdays Part 12

And the woman tried, now, to interest herself in the things that so many of the women of her day seemed to find so interesting. She listened to brave lectures by stalwart women on woman's place and sphere in the world's work. She heard bold talks by militant women about woman's emanc.i.p.ation and freedom. She attended lectures by intellectual women on the higher life, and the new thought, and the advanced ideas. She read pamphlets and books written by modern women on the work of women in the social, political and industrial fields.

She became acquainted with many "new" women who, striving mightily with all their strength of body and soul for careers, looked with a kind of lofty disdain or pitying contempt upon those old-fas.h.i.+oned mothers whose children interfere with the duty that "new" women think they owe the world.

But this woman who knew herself to be a woman could not interest herself in these things to which she tried to give attention. She felt that in giving herself to these things she would betray Life. She felt the hollowness, the shallowness, the emptyness of it all in comparison with that which is divinely committed to womankind. She could not but wonder: what would be the racial outcome? When women have long enough subst.i.tuted other ideals for the ideals of motherhood--other pa.s.sions for the pa.s.sions of their s.e.x--other ambitions for the ambition to produce and to perfect Life--other desires for the desire to keep that which Life has committed to them--what then? "How," she asked herself, "would the world get along without mothers? Or how could the race advance if the best of women refused to bear children?" And then came the inevitable thought: are the _best_ women, after all, refusing to bear children? Might it not be that the wisdom of Mother Nature is in this also, and that the refusal of a woman to bear children is the best evidence in the world that she is unfit to be a mother? Is it not better that the mothers of the race should be those who hold no ideal, ambition, desire, aim, or purpose in life higher than motherhood? Such women--such mothers--have, thus far, through their sons and daughters, won every victory in Life. It is they who have made every advance of the race possible. Will it not continue to be so, even unto the end?

Is not this indeed the law of Life? If there be any work for women greater or of more value to the human race than the work of motherhood then, indeed, is the end of the world, for mankind, at hand.

From where she lay, the woman, when she first awoke that Christmas morning, could see the sun just touching the topmost branches of the tall trees that grew across the street.

It was a beautiful day. But the woman did not at first remember that it was Christmas. Idly, as one sometimes will when awakening out of a deep sleep, she looked at the suns.h.i.+ne on the trees and thought that the day promised to be clear and bright. Then, looking at the clock in the chubby arms of the fat cupid on the mantle, she noticed the time with a start of dismay. She must arise at once or she would be late to her work. Why, she wondered, had not someone called her. Then, a crumpled sheet of tissue paper and a bit of narrow ribbon on the floor, near the table, caught her eye and she remembered.

It was Christmas.

The woman dropped back upon her pillow. She need not go to work that day. She had not been called because it was a holiday. Dully she told herself again that it was Christmas.

The house was very quiet. There were no bare feet pattering down the hall to see what Santa Claus had left from his pack. No exulting shouts had awakened her. In the rooms below, there was no cheerful litter of toys and games and pop corn and candy and nuts with bits of string and crumpled paper from hastily opened parcels and s.h.i.+ning sc.r.a.ps of tinsel from the tree. There were no stockings hanging on the mantle. At breakfast, there would be a few friendly gifts and, later, the postman would bring letters and cards with the season's greetings.

That was all.

The sun, climbing higher above the tall buildings down town, peeped through the window and saw the woman lying very still. And the sun must have thought that the woman was asleep for her eyes were closed and upon her face there was the wistful smile of a child.

But the woman was not asleep though she was dreaming. She had escaped from the silent, childless, house and had fled far, far, away to a land of golden memories. She had gone back into her Yesterdays--to a Christmas in her Yesterdays.

Once again a little girl, she lived those happy, busy, days of preparation when she had asked herself a thousand times each day: what would the boy give her for Christmas? And always, as she wondered, the little girl had tried not to wish that it would be a doll lest she should be disappointed. And always she was unable to wish, half so earnestly, for anything else. Again she spent the hours learning the song that she was to sing at the church on Christmas eve and wondered, often, if _he_ would like her new dress that mother was making for the occasion. And then, as the day drew near, there was that merry trip to the woods to bring the tree, followed by that afternoon at the church. The little girl wondered, that night of the entertainment, if the boy guessed how frightened she was for him lest he forget the words of his part; or, when she was singing before the crowd of people that filled the church, did he know that she saw only him? And then the triumph--the beautiful triumph--of that Christmas morning!

The little girl in the Yesterdays needed no one to remind her what day it was. As soon as it was light, she opened her eyes, and, wide awake in an instant, slipped from her bed to steal down stairs while the rest of the household still slept. And there, in the gray of the winter morning, she found his gift. It was so beautiful, so lifelike, with its rosy cheeks and brown hair that, almost, the little girl was afraid that she was not awake after all; and she caught her breath with a gasp of delight when she finally convinced herself that it was real. She knew that it was from the boy--she _knew_. Quickly she clasped it in her arms, with a kiss and a mother hug; and then, back again she ran to her warm bed lest dolly catch cold. The other presents could wait until it was really, truly, daylight and uncle had made a fire; and she drew the covers carefully up under the dimpled chin of her treasure that lay in the hollow of her arm, close to her own soft little breast, as natural as life--as natural, indeed, as the mother life that throbbed in the heart of the little girl.

For women also it is written: "Except ye become as little children."

If only women would understand!

All the other gifts of that Christmas time were as nothing to the little girl beside that gift from the boy. The other things she would enjoy all the more because the supreme wish of her heart had been granted; but, had she been disappointed in _that_, all _else_ would have had little power to please. Under all her Christmas pleasure there would have been a longing for something more. Her Christmas would not have satisfied. Her cup of happiness would not have been full. So, all the treasures that the world can lay at woman's feet will never satisfy if the one gift be lacking. And that woman who has felt in her arms a tiny form moulded of her own flesh--who has drawn close to her breast a soft little cheek and felt upon her neck the touch of a baby hand--that woman knows that I put down the truth when I write that those women who deny the mother instinct of their hearts and, for social position, pleasure, public notice, wealth, or fame, kill their love for children, are to be pitied above all creatures for they deny themselves the heaven that is their inheritance.

Eagerly, that morning, the little girl watched for the coming of the boy for she knew that he would not long delay; and, when she saw him wading through the snow, flung open wide the door to shout her greeting as she proudly held his gift close to her heart; while on her face and in her eyes was the light divine. And great fun they had, that Christmas day, with their toys and games and books; but never for long was the new doll far from the little girl's arms. Nor did she need many words to make her happiness in his gift understood to the boy.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning full in the window now; quite determined that the woman should sleep no longer. Regretfully, as one who has little heart for the day, she arose just as footsteps sounded outside her door.

Then came a sharp rap upon the panel and--"Merry Christmas"--called her uncle's hearty voice.

Bravely the woman who knew herself to be a woman answered: "Merry Christmas."

DEATH

And that winter's coat, also, began to appear thin and threadbare.

By looking carefully, one could see that the twigs of the cherry tree were brightening with a delicate touch of fresh color, while the tiny tips of the tender green buds were cautiously peeping out of their snug wrappings as if to ask the state of the weather. In the orchard and the woods, too, the Life that slept deep in the roots and under the bark of trunks and limbs was beginning to stir as though, in its slumber, it heard Spring knocking at its bedroom door.

I do not know what business it was that called the man to a neighboring city. The particular circ.u.mstances that made the journey necessary are of no importance whatever to my story. The important thing is this: for the first time the man was forced to recognize, in his own life and in his work, the fact of Death. He came to see that, in the most abundant life, Death cannot be ignored. Because Death is one of the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life, this is my story: that the man was introduced to Death.

Hurriedly he arranged for his absence, and, rus.h.i.+ng home, packed a few necessities of travel in his grip, s.n.a.t.c.hed a hasty dinner, and thus reached the depot just in time to catch the evening train. He would make the trip in the night, devote the following day to the business that demanded his presence, and the next night would return to his home city.

The Pullmans were well filled, mostly with busy, eager, men who, like himself, were traveling at night to save the daylight for their work.

But the man, perhaps because he was tired with the labor of the day or because he wished to have for the business of the morrow a clear, vigorous, brain, made no effort to find acquaintances who might be on the train or to meet congenial strangers with whom to spend a pleasant hour. When he had read the evening papers and had outlined in his mind a plan of operation to meet the situation that compelled him to make the hurried trip, he retired to his berth.

The low, monotonous, hum of the flying wheels on the heavy steel rails; the steady, easy, motion of the express as it flew over the miles of well ballasted track; the dim light of the curtained berth, and the quiet of the Pullman, soon lulled the tired traveler to sleep.

Mile after mile and mile after mile was marked off, with the steady regularity of time itself, by the splendidly equipped train as it rushed through the darkness with its sleeping pa.s.sengers. Hamlets, villages, way stations, signal towers, were pa.s.sed with flash like quickness; while the veteran in the engine cab, with the schooling of thirty years in the hand that rested on the throttle, gazed steadily ahead to catch, with quick eye and clear brain, the messages of the signal lamps that, like bright colored dots of a secret code, appeared on the black sheet of night.

With a suddenness that defies description, the change came.

The trained eyes that looked from the cab window read a message from Death in the night ahead. In the fractional part of a second, the hand on the throttle responded, doing in flash like movements all that the thirty years had taught it to do. There was a frightful jarring, jolting crash of grinding, screaming, brakes, followed on the instant by a roaring, smas.h.i.+ng, thundering, rending of iron and steel and wood.

The veteran, whose eye and brain and hand had been thirty years in service, lay under his engine, a mangled, inanimate ma.s.s of flesh; His fireman, who had looked forward to a place on the engineer's side of a cab as a young soldier dreams of sword and shoulder straps, lay still beside his chief. From the wrecked coaches, above the sound of hissing steam and crackling flames, came groans and shrieks and screams of tortured men and women and children.

Then, quickly, the hatless, coatless, and half dressed forms of the more fortunate ones ran here and there. Voices were heard calling and answering. There were oaths and prayers and curses mingled with sharp spoken commands and the sound of axes and saws and sledges, as the men, who a few minutes before were sleeping soundly in their berths, toiled with superhuman energy to free their fellows from that horrid h.e.l.l.

To the man who had escaped from the trap of death that had caught so many of his fellow pa.s.sengers and who toiled now with the strength of a giant among the rescuers, it all seemed a dream of terror from which he must presently awake. He did not think, then, of the Death that had come so close while he slept. He was not conscious of the danger that had threatened him. He did not feel grat.i.tude for his escape. He could not think. He could only strive madly, with the strength of despair, in the fight to s.n.a.t.c.h others from the grip of an awful fate; and, as he fought, he prayed to be awakened from his dream.

It was over at last.

Hours later, the man reached his destination, and still, because his business was so urgent, there was no time for him to think of the Death that had come so close. Rarely does the business of life give men time to think of the Death that stands never far away. But, when his work was finished and he was again aboard the train, on his way home, there was opportunity for a fuller realization of the danger through which he had pa.s.sed so narrowly--there was time to think. Then it was that the man realized a new thing in his life. Then it was that a new factor entered into his thinking--Death. Not the knowledge of Death; he had always had that of course. Not the fear of Death; this man was no coward. But the _fact_ of Death--it was the _fact_ of Death that he realized now as he had never realized it before.

All unexpected and unannounced--without sign of its approach or warning of its presence--Death had stood over him. He had looked into the eyes of the King. Death had touched him on the shoulder, as it were, and had pa.s.sed on. But Death would come again. The one firmly fixed, undeniable, unalterable, fact in Life was, to him, now, that Death would come again. When or how; that, he could not know; perhaps not for many years; perhaps before the flying train could carry him another mile. How strange it is that this one fixed, permanent, unalterable, inevitable fact of Life--Death--is most commonly ignored.

The most common thing in Life is Death; yet few there are who recognize it as a fact until it presents itself saying: "Come."

Going back into the years, the man recalled the death of his mother; and, later, when he was standing on the very threshold of his manhood, the death of his father. Those graves on the hillside were still in his memory but they had not realized Death for him. His grief at the loss of those so dear to him had overshadowed, as it were, the fact of Death itself. He thought of Death only as it had taken his parents; he did not consider it in thinking of himself. But now--now--he had looked into the eyes of the King. He had felt the touch of the hand that chills. He had heard the voice that cannot be disobeyed. Death had come into his life a _fact_.

The low, steady, hum and whirr of the wheels and the smooth, easy movement of the train told him of the flying miles. One by one, those miles that lay between him and the end of his journey would go until the last was gone and he would step from the coach to the platform of his home depot. And, then, all suddenly, to the man, those flying miles became as the years of his life. Even as the miles of his journey were pa.s.sing so his years had gone--so his years were going and would go.

The man was a young man still. For the first time, he felt himself growing old. Involuntarily he looked at his hands; firm, strong, young hands they were, but the man, in his fancy, saw them shaking, withered, and parched, with prominent dull blue veins, and the skinny fingers bent and crooked with the years. He glanced down at his powerful, full moulded limbs, and, in fancy, saw them thin and shrunken with age. And, suddenly, he remembered with a start that the next day would be his birthday. In the fullness of his young manhood's strength, he had ignored the pa.s.sing years even as he had ignored Death. As he had learned to forget Death, he had learned to forget his birthdays. It was strange how fast the years were going, thought the man. Scarcely would there be time for the working out of his dreams.

And, once, it had been such a long, long, time between his birthdays.

Once, he had counted the months, then the weeks, then the days that lay between. Once, he remembered--

Perhaps it was the thought of his birthday that did it; perhaps it was the memory of those graves in the old cemetery at home. Whatever it swas, the man slipped back into his Yesterdays when birthdays were ages and ages apart and, more than anything else in the world, the boy wanted to grow up.

At seven, he had looked with envy upon the boy of nine while the years of grown up men were beyond his comprehension. At nine, fifteen was the daring limit of his dreams; so far away it seemed that scarcely he hoped to reach it. As for eighteen--one must be very, very, old, indeed, to be eighteen. How long the years ahead had seemed, _then_--and _now_, how short they were when looking back!

And the birthdays--the birthdays that the man had learned to forget--how could he have learned to forget them! What days of triumph--what times of victorious rejoicing--those days once had been!

And so, with the fact of Death so recently forced into his life, with the miles as years slipping under the fast whirring wheels that bore him onward, the man lived again a birthday in the long ago.

Weeks before that day the boy had planned the joyous occasion, for mother had promised that he should have a party. A birthday party!

Joyous festival of the Yesterdays! What delightful hours were spent in antic.i.p.ation! What innumerable questions were asked! What a mult.i.tude of pet.i.tions were formed and presented! What anxious consultations with the little girl who lived next door! What suggestions were offered, accepted and rejected, and rejected or accepted all over again! What lists of the guests to be invited were made, revised and then revised again! What counting of the days, and, as the day drew near, what counting of the hours; not forgetting, all the time, to hint, in various skillfully persuasive and suggestive ways, as to the presents that would be most fitting and acceptable! And at last, when the day had come, as all days must at last come, was there ever in the history of mortal man or boy such a day?

There was real wealth of love in mother's kiss that morning. There was holy pleasure in the pride that was in father's face and voice. There was unmarred joy when the little girl captured him and, while he pretended--only pretended--to escape, gave him the required number of thumps on the back with her soft little fist and the triumphant "one to grow on." Then came, at last, the crowning event: and so the man saw, again, the boys and girls who, that afternoon in his Yesterdays, helped to celebrate his birthday. Why had he permitted them to pa.s.s out of his life? Why had he gone out of their lives? Why must the years rob him of the friends of the Yesterdays?

With the birthday feast of good things and the games and sports of childhood the busy afternoon pa.s.sed. Up and down the road and across the fields, the guests departed, with their party dresses soiled, their party combed hair disheveled, and their party cleaned faces smudged with grime; but with the clean, clean, joy of the Yesterdays in their clean, clean, childish hearts. Together the boy and the girl watched them go, with waving hands and good-bye shouts, until the last one had pa.s.sed from sight and the last whoop and call had died away.

And then, reluctantly, the little girl herself went home and the boy was left alone by the garden hedge.

Oh, brave, brave, day of the Yesterdays! Brave birthdays of the long ago when Death was not a fact but a fiction! When the years were ages apart, and the farthest reach of one's imagination carried only to being grown up!

From his Yesterdays the man came back to wonder: if Death should wait until he was wrinkled, bent, and old--until his limbs were palsied, his hearing gone, his voice cracked and shrill, and his eyes dim--if Death should let him stay until he had seen the last of his companions go home in the evening after that last birthday--would there be one to stand beside him--to watch with him as the others pa.s.sed from sight?

Would there be anyone to help him celebrate his last birthday, if Death should fail to come again until he was old?