{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74444/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74444","id":"gutenberg_74444","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74444","summary":null,"tags":["American essays","Category: Biographies","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Huff, Jacob K., 1851-1910"],"text":"[Illustration: JACOB K. HUFF\n\nDeceased]\n\n\n\n\n                            The Philosophy of\n                               Jake Haiden\n\n                          (_Late JACOB K. HUFF_)\n\n                       SELECTED FROM THE COLUMNS OF\n                 THE READING TIMES, READING, PENNSYLVANIA\n\n                     WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL APPRECIATION\n                              BY HIS FRIEND\n                            Henry W. Shoemaker\n                       (President of Reading Times)\n\n            \u201cA link is broken that bound us to the infinite.\u201d\n\n                           [Illustration: 1911]\n\n                             Copyright, 1911\n                   The Reading Times Publishing Company\n\n                               READING, PA.\n                  =The Reading Times Publishing Company=\n\n\n\n\nBiographical Appreciation\n\n\nSudden death, in the midst of productive work, throws into bolder relief\na career destined for immortality. The cessation of a train of brilliant\nand helpful ideas creates a want, and causes a careful examination of\nall that has been previously done, and a just estimate of its worth.\nThese alone can be the consolations for the taking off of a genius like\nthe late Jacob K. Huff, known to his readers as \u201cJake Haiden,\u201d \u201cFaraway\nMoses,\u201d and \u201cFinnicky Finucane.\u201d After a long struggle against obscurity\nand adverse circumstances he had emerged into an open country where\nkind words of appreciation and growing fame greeted him on every side.\nHis message, which the modern life in this country, with its growth of\nclass distinctions, a self-constituted aristocracy, a rapidly developing\ngoverning class, a contempt for the lowly born, a forgetfulness of\ngentleness, a striving for self-advancement, and the train of kindred\nevils, rendered imperative, was checked, but its echoes will be felt\nthrough the years. He seemed to be the one voice strong enough and\nfearless enough to do battle with the injustices of the big world, yet\nhe viewed it all from the porch of a modest cottage in a hamlet where\nthere was no railroad, no trolley, and few strangers ever penetrated. His\nvision entered palaces of the supercilious rich, into the inner sanctums\nof capitalists, of cringing editors; into the homes of neglectful\nparents, undutiful children, designing wives, white slavers, and other\nevildoers. His kindly words soothed the tired spirits of the unfortunate,\nand as he never preached, and seldom condemned, he offered a loophole for\nimprovement, rather than promising punishment to the so-called \u201cwicked.\u201d\nHe was always ready to forgive, to lend a helping hand, and though his\ninfinite mind grasped all the depths of sin and sorrow in the world, he\nbelieved in the innate goodness of his fellow beings. The modern world\nwas learning to walk along cleaner and better pathways, and he acted like\nthe careful parent, assisting the unsteady youngster in its course. His\nwritings do not contain a single word of rancor; it is amazing that a man\nwho fought so much oppression and crime could do so without descending\nto invective or abuse. That was the secret of his success. If clergymen\ncould follow in his footsteps many an empty tabernacle would be crowded\non the Sabbath.\n\nIn a sense, the biography of a writer discloses the hidden springs\nand motives for the development of his career. It would be difficult\nfor a writer not springing from the people to fight the people\u2019s\nbattles with the pen. A man of the people like Abraham Lincoln\nrepresented them thoroughly because he was of them, and at no time in\nhis life did his opportunities or tendencies cause him to forget his\noriginal environment. Jacob Huff was born among the \u201cgreat mass of\nhumanity\u201d and his development came like Lincoln\u2019s through struggles\nand disappointments, aided by perseverance and hard work, until his\nvoice, clear and sympathetic, was heard above the multitude. Some day\nan appreciative state will seek out and mark the lowly cabin in the\nPennsylvania mountains where he first saw the light. Like Plato and many\nanother wise man of the past, his message will live in his disciples,\nand grow brighter, and more necessary with the advancement of time. It\nwas in such a cabin that Lincoln was born in the Kentucky wilds that\nJacob Huff was ushered into being in Clinton County, Pennsylvania, on\nJanuary 31, 1851. His father was John Huff, a typical backwoodsman,\nsturdy, brave, and good natured. His mother was a German girl, Eve\nKalmbach, whose parents had left the Rhine country and cleared a\nhomestead high among lonely Pennsylvania hills. His father\u2019s mother was\nElizabeth Walker, of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and from her came the strain\nof humor, and perseverance that did so much to weld his destiny into a\nsuccessful whole. His mother is described as kindly and intelligent,\nwith a mystic side to her nature, observable in her distinguished son\u2019s\ntraits of sentiment and tenderness. From earliest youth Jacob Huff knew\nlittle but the most grinding toil. His first occupation, however, was\nrather pleasurable, and he always liked to reminisce on the subject. In\n1864, Colonel James Williams Quiggle, of McElhattan, directly across\nthe Susquehanna from Jacob\u2019s mountain home, had conceived the idea\nof starting an \u201cAmerican Tea Industry.\u201d It is a known fact that the\nPennsylvania mountains produce a tea plant that rivals in flavor the\nchoicest product of Japan. Thousands of acres of wild lands were either\nbought or optioned, and a tea house after a Japanese design was erected\non a plateau back of the smaller of the two McElhattan mountains. Men\nand boys in considerable numbers were engaged to pick, sort, and dry\nthe leaves, and little Jacob hearing of the work, tramped down from the\nhigh mountains and started for the \u201ctea camp,\u201d his first situation away\nfrom home. Darkness had come on soon after he reached McElhattan, and he\nspent the night with a family who lived at the \u201cX Roads,\u201d there meeting\nthe black-haired, black-eyed young girl with the cameo face who played\nsuch an important part in the life of his dear, though older friend in\nyears, the gifted poet, Montgomery Quiggle. He was given a chance at\nthe tea camp, which was often visited by the genial Col. Quiggle. This\nwas probably the first man of education he had met at close range, and\nhis interest and politeness to the small tea-picker lingered as one\nof the pleasantest of his earlier memories. Col. Quiggle, it may be\nsaid, was a fine type of the old fashioned gentleman of Scotch-Irish\nstock, always brimming over with good humor, but with that undercurrent\nof seriousness inherent to his race. Winter coming on, the work was\nsuspended, and the merry company back of McElhattan mountain was forced\nto separate. Once on his own responsibility, the desire to earn money\nand see the world led the young lad to occupations of various kinds.\nOnce he trudged many miles to Leetonia, having heard of work in a lumber\ncamp, but was rejected because he was too young. He did not idle around\nthe shanties, but immediately started for home. A snowstorm began, and\nevening closed in on him. He saw what he thought was a huge blackened\nstump, and leaned against it for much needed rest. There was a grunt and\na growl, and a four hundred pound bear shook him off, and he sprawled in\nthe snow. Another time he had worked in a logging camp at the head of\nYoung Woman\u2019s Creek, and with his purse of savings, was on his way to\nYoungwomanstown, now misnamed North Bend. It was sunset, and he heard\na screech like a tormented woman, far up on the steep slope of one of\nthe denuded mountains. His quick eye showed it to come from a panther,\nskulking along in search of its evening meal. Jacob walked faster, and\nas he did so the animal quickened its pace. For miles it seemed to trail\nhim, but lacked the courage to come down from the ridge. Finally with\nthe lights of the settlement in sight, it uttered a despairing yell, and\nwas heard from no more. At other times he worked in lumber camps, bark\njobs, on railroads, highways, farms, and gardens. Every man or woman he\nmet had a life story that interested him, these were the romances he\nread. His retentive mind became stored with a mass of unusual facts and\nimpressions, which he thought over and over, figuring out the whys and\nwherefores when his companions were asleep. He had not gone to school a\nfull term in his life, but his teachers, Charles Hamilton and Benjamin\nLangdon, were worthy men and he absorbed much from them. Despite his\nbrief schooling he could feel the harmonies of words and sentences like\na trained rhetorician. He longed to express himself, but he was too shy\nfor general conversation, and there seemed no opportunity to write. In\nLock Haven, the county seat of Clinton County, was a local paper called\n\u201cThe Enterprise.\u201d It had a correspondent in Gallauher Township where\nJacob was living, but he fell sick, and the editor looked about for a\nsubstitute. Jacob applied for the position, and in February, 1876, in his\ntwenty-fifth year he had the pleasure of seeing his first communications\nin print. They were well done, even for an old correspondent, and later\nhe made bold to intersperse them with jokes, and pathetic little verses.\nHe was so satisfactory that the regular correspondent never resumed the\nwork, and he continued with increasing reputation, until in 1880 he took\nup the same task for the \u201cClinton Democrat,\u201d a Lock Haven paper, which\nis still a power in the county. About this time love had entered his\nlife, and he married Clara Bryan, a frail, pretty girl of sixteen, of\nScotch-Irish stock, the ceremony taking place September 25, 1881. But the\nhappy romance was to be short-lived, a girl baby, whom they called Rena,\nwas born on April 7, 1883, and the young mother\u2019s health failed rapidly\nafterwards. She died on July 26, the same year, and the motherless\ninfant followed her to the grave on October 7. Jacob Huff never spoke\nmuch of this early bereavement, but some of his verses on taking Myron,\nhis son, by his second marriage, to the graves of the first wife and\nchild, are as beautiful and touching as exist in our language. In 1885\nthat enterprising and widely-read newspaper \u201c_Grit_,\u201d published in\nWilliamsport, having long noted the humor and pathos of his work, engaged\nhim to write weekly articles. He adopted the _nom de plume_ of \u201cFaraway\nMoses,\u201d and the results were overwhelmingly successful.\n\nHe was a clever artist, like so many writers, and drew the sketches\neach week for the illustrations. These were \u201cworked up\u201d by the staff\nillustrators and engravers, and became an important feature of the\nstories. Jacob Huff as a humorist was inimitable, but his immortality\nwill rest with his serious work, his \u201chuman interest\u201d articles. The\npopularity of \u201cFaraway Moses\u201d soon passed the bounds of the State, and\nhis trite and witty sayings were quoted by staid farmers in their shacks\nin Kansas and the Dakotas. Meanwhile he established a modest \u201csyndicate\u201d\nand furnished short stories, verses, and jokes to a number of rural\npublications under various pen names. He conceived the idea of going\nWest, and his travels took him into many States, where his experiences\nwere varied, though he finally settled in Colorado. The results of this\nchange of abode, which did not last long, found immortality in a small\nbook of verses, published in 1895, by the Grit Company, entitled \u201cSongs\nof the Desert.\u201d Unfortunately the little book was not fully appreciated\nat the time, though it is destined to rank with the choicest productions\nof Eugene Field or James Whitcomb Riley. Meanwhile a great and ennobling\ninfluence had come to him, his romance and marriage with Charlotte\nCrawford, the brilliant daughter of Captain William H. and Priscilla\nBrown Crawford, of Chatham Run, Clinton County, who also for a short\nwhile resided in Colorado. The Crawfords were among the earliest settlers\nin the West Branch Valley, where they ranked high in social and political\nlife. They had intermarried with the Whites, Allisons, Stewarts, and\nQuiggles, and each generation had added fresh lustre to the name. Jacob\nHuff\u2019s marriage to Charlotte Crawford occurred at Grand Junction,\nColorado, on October 11, 1892, and soon afterwards the happy couple\nreturned to their beloved Pennsylvania. The influence of his devoted wife\nwas broadening and inspiring, leading him into a wider sphere, and to the\nassociation with persons of distinction and rank. He had tasted life in\nall its bitterness, had mingled with the lowly, henceforth he was to see\nthe brighter phases of existence. He never forgot the past, it had burned\nitself in too deeply. He saw the injustices and wrongs with an even\nclearer vision now that he understood how happily it was possible to live.\n\nOne son, Myron Reed Huff, named after the great liberal preacher, Myron\nReed, whom Jacob warmly admired, was born on June 22, 1895, to bless the\nunion. This boy, who is a happy blend of his talented parents, is himself\nan artist and author, and now contributes articles to the _Reading\nTimes_ under the name of Jake Haiden, Jr. And now comes the story of his\nconnection with the _Reading Times_, the last important event of his\nlife, in whose service he was at the time of his untimely demise. Early\nin May, 1908, the writer of this article received an autograph copy of\n\u201cSongs from the Desert,\u201d and it quickened the desire, which he later\nlearned was mutual, to meet the famous philosopher. At McElhattan on\nMemorial Day, of that year, he waded across a muddy road in front of the\nhome of a mutual friend, Mrs. Anna S. Stabley, since deceased, and shook\nthe hand of \u201cFaraway Moses,\u201d Jacob Huff. A long conversation ensued,\nand they became warm friends. The writer at that time was President of\nthe _Daily Record_, at Bradford, Pa., and soon after his new associate\nbegan contributing short articles of timely interest to that paper. In\nSeptember of that year, he assumed the same position with the _Times_,\nof Reading, and with the first issue under the new management began the\ncelebrated \u201cJake Haiden\u201d articles. They were instantly successful, and\ntheir appeal to all classes, their liberality, their toleration, their\nhumanity, their pathos, made them noted and quoted all over the State. It\nis pleasant to recollect that Jacob Huff paid several visits to Reading\nwhile contributing to the _Times_. He was there on New Year\u2019s Eve, 1909,\nand for New Year\u2019s Day prepared an exceptionally strong editorial, for\nhe also wrote many editorials, called simply \u201c1910,\u201d which attracted\nwidespread attention. His last visit was late in January, 1910, when\nthe management of the _Times_ entertained him as guest of honor at a\ndinner at the Wyomissing Club. The guests included the _Times_ staff,\nthe publishers of the _Reading Telegram_, Capt. Henry D. and Herbert\nR. Green, who were always appreciative of his work, John D. Mishler,\nand others of equal note. There were after dinner speeches of a brief\ncharacter, and the guest of honor closed the evening with a few remarks\nwhich seemed to come directly from his heart. With the early summer, the\n_Times_ conceived the idea of sending \u201c_The Reading Times_ Philosopher,\u201d\nas he was becoming generally known, to the far west in order to gain\nfresh impression for his powerful articles. Accompanied by his loving\nwife and son, and a close friend Prof. Betts, he started away gaily. From\nletters and postcards he must have enjoyed himself, and his note-book\nshows he had jotted down ideas for five hundred and fifty new articles\nor editorials. The party returned to Chatham Run on July 20, where the\nphilosopher maintained a comfortable home, and on the night of July 31,\n1910, he was seized with heart failure and died a few hours later. Prompt\nmedical aid from Dr. Joseph M. Corson, his friend and neighbor, was of\nno avail, and the giant intellect and friendly spirit returned to its\noriginal source. His funeral was the occasion of a tremendous outpouring\nof people, interment being made at Jersey Shore. The press of the entire\nState echoed the grief of his relatives and friends and the great loss\nto the literary world. The religious beliefs of such a man are always\ninteresting. His can be summed up in the final sentence of the little\nspeech he delivered at Reading, \u201cWe look around and in everything we see\nGod.\u201d It was the religion of humanity, the creed of helpfulness and good\ncheer. He lived up to the letter of his faith, for when he died he left\na host of friends and no enemies. He had steered his bark through the\nperilous waters of life without hurting anyone, or sullying himself. It\nwas a beautiful life, but to those who knew him comes the ever recurring\nregret \u201cWhy could not he have been spared a few years longer?\u201d There was\nso much to do, the world was crying for his help. Maybe the publication\nof this book containing some of his most characteristic opinions will\ngive renewed energy to his disciples and send them into the thickest of\nthe fight for the betterment of mankind. If he had a motto it must have\nbeen \u201cI want to leave the world a little brighter, a little better, a\nlittle happier than when I came in it.\u201d Who knows, to what extent he\nsucceeded! Time alone will measure the fulness of his fame, but he should\nrank as a nature lover with Henry D. Thoreau, as a humanitarian with\nTheodore Parker, and as a poet with Eugene Field.\n\nIt is hoped his friends will get together and erect a memorial fountain\nor statue to his memory in Lock Haven, Jersey Shore or Williamsport, in\nthe West Branch Valley whose people and scenery he loved so well.\n\n                                                       HENRY W. SHOEMAKER.\n\nSeptember 4, 1911.\n\n\n\n\nI PLEAD GUILTY\n\n\nBefore the law I stand a confessed criminal; before God I am only a weak\nman trying to do good toward my fellow man. I am guilty of helping a\nconvicted man escape the clutches of man-made law. I couldn\u2019t help it.\nThe love I bear humanity welled up, when the young man told his story,\nand flooded my reason with the sunshine of sympathy; and I helped him get\naway.\n\nEarly one morning I went to my wood shed to get kindling to build the\nkitchen fire. In the dim light I thought I saw a man crouching in one\ncorner. A second look convinced me that it was true\u2014there was a man\ncrouching there.\n\nAt first I was frightened, and thought of flight. It\u2019s the first impulse\nthat comes over me at sight of possible danger. And a strange man, in\na strange place for that man to be, is danger enough to startle even a\nbrave man, like my wife, for instance.\n\nBut on looking closer, and catching a full glance of the startled eyes,\nthat looked up to me in fear and wild, beseeching hunger for something\nhis heart yearned for, I changed my mind. Fear gave way to curiosity and\nsympathy. I said, \u201cGood morning, brother\u2014can I do anything for you this\nmorning?\u201d\n\nAt the sound of friendly words he stood up, and I recognized in him the\nyoung man who was tried and found guilty of forgery, and sentenced to 15\nyears in prison.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ve escaped from jail, you see,\u201d he said with a quiver in his voice,\nwhile his boyish blue eyes looked away down into my soul (if I still had\nit with me).\n\n\u201cSo I see,\u201d I replied. \u201cAnd now, what are you going to do?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou heard me telling my story on the witness stand last week, didn\u2019t\nyou?\u201d I nodded in the affirmative, and he went on. \u201cWell, nobody believed\nme. They thought I was lying to save myself from prison. I told the court\nthat in my confession, when first arrested and sent to jail, I had plead\nguilty to the charge of forgery, to save another man, because the father\nof that other man promised to get me out of prison if I would assume the\ncrime and save the honor of his family.\n\n\u201cBefore God that story is true. But the family I was bribed to save has\nno honor. From the moment that confession was wheedled out of me, I was\nforsaken, and left to the mercy of a jury whom I could not convince\nthat I was innocent. Not one amongst them would believe that I had\nhonor enough in my soul to assume the crime of another, because I am a\ncobbler\u2019s son. Neither could I convince them that the rich merchant on\nB\u2014d street had played false to me.\n\n\u201cI do not blame them. I could not believe it of that merchant myself,\nwere I not the victim of his perfidy.\n\n\u201cThis morning I concealed myself in a barrel of ashes and other trash and\nwas hauled out of the jail yard by the darkie who drives the refuse cart.\nWhen we got safely away from the jail I rose up out of the trash barrel\nand scared that black man half to death. I took advantage of his fright\nand told him if he informed the officials of my escape I would swear that\nhe was guilty of helping me away, for a price, and because I couldn\u2019t pay\nhim he would not let me off. He promised to keep quiet, so I ran through\nthe fog and came here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy did you come here?\u201d\n\n\u201cBecause I know you appreciate life and love humanity. I knew you would\nbelieve my story, or at least believe enough of it to awaken your\nsympathy and think of the long time fifteen years must be\u2014fifteen years\ntaken out of my life! The time is too long, even if I were guilty. Won\u2019t\nyou try to think of how long fifteen years must seem to one so young as\nI, and then hide me for a day, and then help me get away tonight? Won\u2019t\nyou, for the love you bear humanity? Won\u2019t you do so for my mother\u2019s\nsake?\u201d\n\n\u201cFor God\u2019s sake, stop!\u201d I cried; and then I sat down on the chopping\nblock and buried my face in my arms and tried to think. \u201cFifteen years\nis a long, long time to take out of a boy\u2019s life! Fifteen years, without\nsight of a mother\u2019s face, without flowers or the songs of birds; without\nsunshine and the dews that fall from heaven for all. Fifteen years shut\nup between black walls, and away from the smiles of women and little\nchildren. God, the sentence is too hard, the punishment too great! We\ncan\u2019t reform men by treating them as wild animals.\u201d\n\nI looked into his frank blue eyes and asked: \u201cTell me once more,\ntruthfully, are you innocent?\u201d And he answered: \u201cBefore God I swear that\nthe story I told you is true!\u201d\n\nI plead guilty to helping a prisoner escape, and I feel no pangs of\nregret. Fifteen years between black walls is a long, long time, and the\nboy had a mother.\n\n\n\n\nRELIGION OF HUMANITY\n\n\nNear my home lived a poor, hard-working, but improvident man. He had a\nwife and seven children. The oldest was thirteen, and the baby but ten\nmonths old. They were poor. The husband and father was working only half\ntime. There is a cause for the dull times, but the man did not know what\nit was. Those who do know are afraid to tell, for fear it may injure\ntheir business. \u201cGreat is Diana!\u201d\n\nOne month ago the wife and mother was taken suddenly ill, and died in\nless than twenty-four hours. Everybody was shocked. It seemed so cruel\nand hard of Providence to remove that poor woman at a time when she was\nneeded most. Many would have blamed Providence of cruelty, but they are\nafraid to do so.\n\nNo one knew the reason why this death was ordered. Some thought it was\neven a sin to make a study of the case, \u201clest they offend Providence.\u201d\n\nI was made to feel very sad when I heard of the sudden bereavement.\nLittle eyes of helpless children looked out of the night shadows and\nmade my sleep a nightmare. I looked down a long dark vista leading out\ninto future years, and I saw barefooted and ragged children plodding\nhopelessly along, bearing burdens that should be carried by full grown\nmen and women. I saw cruel winter lurking only a few weeks off,\ngenerating chill blasts of wind to pinch little brown legs and chapped\nhands, and I wondered what the people would do about it.\n\nWhile I was wondering what was to be done, my wife and her near neighbor\nwere already solving the problem. Old chests and boxes were ransacked for\ncast-off clothing\u2014for clothes the children had outgrown, but which were\nalmost as good as new. Neighbors were set to work ransacking chests and\nboxes and bureau drawers, and many little dresses and pantaloons that\nbrought back tender memories were dug up and cast into the common fund of\ncollected goods.\n\nTo this collection was added a few dollars\u2019 worth of new goods, and\nthread, and the work of reconstruction began. The work was done in my\nhome, while I worked in an adjoining room, and I never heard a more\ncheerful and happy set of women. Their hearts, their charity, their\nmother love were all in the work, and these are the tender forces that\ngive inspiration to men and women who believe in the religion of humanity.\n\nIn my mind\u2019s eye I could see those orphan children feasting their eyes\non the warm flannel petticoats, the bright gingham dresses, the soft\nunderwear and little aprons. I felt that it was good to be near this\nworking gang in the great cause of living humanity, and I seemed to share\nthe inspiration that gave such happiness to the ladies.\n\nThe minister\u2019s wife came out and joined the workers, but suggested\nthat they open each sewing session with prayer; to which a majority\nobjected, saying they only had limited time to spare, and they believed\nthe children would be clothed much sooner if the sewing continued\nuninterrupted.\n\nThese good women worked all day cheerfully, and reconstructed a big pile\nof children\u2019s clothes, and when the meeting was about to break up the\nminister\u2019s wife suggested that they kneel and return thanks.\n\n\u201cGod will accept my weariness of body and contentment of soul,\u201d replied\nthe busiest woman in the bunch. \u201cPrayer is a private business between\ntwo\u2014between God and the worshipper; and between these two there are no\nsecrets,\u201d she continued. \u201cPublic prayer is the work we do in public,\nand for the people\u2014for God\u2019s creatures. We have been praying, tenderly\nand seriously all afternoon, while many who could have joined us in the\ngood work, but refused, will be offering up worded prayers tonight and\nthanking their God\u2014for what? for escaping real work? for the squandering\nof a few hours that might have been spent with religious profit in this\nwork of charity? So long as I believe in the religion of humanity, just\nso long will I believe that a work for the bettering of humanity goes\nahead of worded prayer.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou may be right, Mary,\u201d replied the minister\u2019s wife. \u201cIf all women\nprayed as cheerfully and willingly with their hands, as you have done\nthis afternoon, humanity would be the better for it. Perhaps, after all,\nthe uplifting of the human race is the greatest work we can perform.\nPerhaps the bringing of joy and happiness to hearts that have been filled\nwith hopelessness and gloom, is the dearest work we can do for God. I am\nnot a bigot, Mary; only I believe in both work and prayer.\u201d\n\nFor a long time after the women left I sat and pondered. The little\nhungry eyes of the shivering orphans looked out of the gloaming, and\nI knew what their decision would be. Their hearts would go out to the\nworkers. When the warm skirts and petticoats and little trousers shut out\nthe winter\u2019s blast, the work of the workers would be appreciated.\n\n\n\n\nJOE BAILEY\u2019S RIDE\n\n\nPeople who enjoy all the great improvements of the age have not the least\nidea of the inconvenience and the hardships people endured previous to\nthe discoveries of the telegraph and the telephone. As an illustration\nof the conditions prevailing previous to the above discoveries, I will\nrelate the story of Joe Bailey\u2019s dangerous trip down the river on an ice\nfloe, and his brother\u2019s exciting ride on horse back from Jersey Shore,\nPa., to Northumberland, a distance of fifty miles, to alarm the people\nand bring them to the rescue of his brother Joe.\n\nThe Baileys owned the island just southeast of Jersey Shore, which is\nstill in the hands of the descendants of the Bailey family\u2014Mrs. John S.\nTomb, and Mrs. Carrothers. I do not know whether McGinnis, the historian\nof the West Branch Valley, mentioned this famous ride or not. I got the\nstory from Captain William H. Crawford, who died several years ago at the\nage of seventy-seven years, and who was a boy at the time Joe Bailey went\nadrift on the ice floe. Crawford then lived with his father, Hon. George\nCrawford, two miles west of Jersey Shore.\n\nIt was in the spring, when a sudden rise in the river threatened to\ntake the ice out of the streams. The Baileys had a small flat boat in\nthe river which they plied between the island and Jersey Shore. It was\nstill in the river when the early spring freshet came, and was in danger\nof being carried away with the heavy floe of ice. To save the flat, Joe\nBailey and another man took a team of oxen and went to haul the flat out\nof the stream. While Joe was on the flat fastening a chain to a ring the\nice suddenly broke up and crowded down upon the place, tearing the boat\nfrom the landing and sending the young man adrift on the ice.\n\nHis brother on the Jersey Shore side of the river stood horrified for\na moment, and then fully realizing the importance of imminent action,\nborrowed a fast running horse and set out for Williamsport on a dead\nrun. It was a race for life. Night was setting in and the weather turned\nsuddenly bitter cold.\n\nWith horse and rider panting for breath, young Bailey reached\nWilliamsport and alarmed the town. Many rushed to the bridge, but none\nwere prepared to render service to the man going adrift on the ice. They\ncould hear him shouting for assistance, but the flood bore him down upon\nthem before they could secure a rope to drop down for Bailey to lay hold\nof and be lifted to the bridge.\n\nKnowing that rescue was impossible, one thoughtful man removed his\novercoat and dropped it down into the rushing boat, and received the\nfreezing man\u2019s grateful thanks.\n\nNothing daunted, young Bailey secured a fresh horse and struck out for\nMuncy, where another bridge spanned the Susquehanna river.\n\nAgain young Bailey reached the long bridge too late to secure help.\nJoe passed under the bridge before the men could lower a rope. But the\nundaunted brother would not give Joe up to the horrible death that\nawaited him somewhere down the roaring, rushing, grinding gorge. No human\naid could reach him until he came to the bridge at Northumberland, so\nthe brother secured a third horse and dashed away to the rescue again.\nNo other ride through darkness and danger equalled that ride, except the\nride of Paul Revere. And poor Joe\u2019s awful ride in the rushing ice gorge\ncould not be surpassed for danger and loneliness by any of the dangerous\nrides noted by historians and sung of by the poets.\n\nDuring the ice floe in the West Branch of the Susquehanna river the\ncurrent is extremely rapid and the brother dashing away on horseback knew\nfull well that no time must be lost if he reached the Northumberland\nbridge in time to save Joe. This was the last chance. No other bridge\ncould be reached on horseback in time for a rescue. There was no railroad\nthen, no telegraph line, and the most rapid means of communication was by\nhorseback.\n\nCan you blame young Bailey then for urging the horse to the utmost speed?\nWhen the animal slowed up young Bailey laid on the lash and urged it to\neven faster speed. He and the horse could alone rescue the frantic man\nadrift on the ice floe. All those who knew of Joe Bailey\u2019s peril were\nleft far behind. The people of Northumberland would know nothing until\nyoung Bailey arrived. On and on he dashed, arriving at the town exhausted\nand sore from his long, hard ride.\n\nThe town was alarmed, and a score of boatmen and old river men rushed to\nthe bridge, but not forgetting long ropes with nooses prepared at the\nend. Thank God he had not passed yet! They could hear him calling for\nhelp far up the stream. When near the bridge they called to him to be\nready and slip the nose of the rope under his arms. Quick! Joe Bailey\nis safely tied in the loop! Up with the poor fellow! Safe! Thank God!\nThe two brothers clasp each other in their strong arms, the one softly\nwhispering: \u201cJoe! Oh, Joe!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE OTHER MAN\u2019S BABY\n\n\nIt\u2019s a very easy matter to give away the other man\u2019s baby, but not so\neasy when it comes to parting with our own. Organized charity does a\nwhole lot for the unfortunate, but often does it in the wrong way. The\nmothers who are active in organized charity are too ready to separate\nparents from their children, never thinking for a moment what a loss it\nis to both parents and children to be thus separated. The only excuse for\nseparating parents from charity children, is the economy. It is cheaper.\nCharity using painful economy to a painful extent.\n\nI believe it is better, where it is possible, to allow parents the\nsociety of their children, and children the society of their parents,\neven if charity is asked to step in and keep the wolf from the door. It\u2019s\nbetter for the parents, I\u2019m sure. If anything will make a man or woman\nbetter, the society of their own children must surely come first in the\nelevating influence.\n\nIn my own individual case I can notice the self-improvement since I\nhave a child to look up to me with trusting eyes and feel the tight\nclasp of his little hand. \u201cA child shall lead them.\u201d The man who wrote\nthis line had the love and power of a child\u2019s influence in his mind. We\nare all benefitted and made kindlier and more loving in the society of\nchildren\u2014and especially our own children.\n\nOnly a few weeks ago an old school-mate of mine lost his wife, leaving\nhim with a family of seven small children, including a baby girl of only\nten months. The charitable mothers of the neighborhood took an interest\nin the poor man\u2019s affairs, and began to collect clothing for the little\nmotherless orphans and fit them out for school. They all thought the\nbereaved man could get a housekeeper much easier if the baby were out of\nthe way, and they began to look around to secure a good home for her.\nThey all agreed on that point\u2014it was to be a good home for the baby, with\nkind people.\n\nI was present when the committee of charitable women met at the poor\nman\u2019s house to inform him that they had found a home for Baby Ruth. I\nshall never forget the look of pain that flashed into his eyes at the\nmention of finding a home for his baby. He was too full for words, but\nhe picked the baby up from where she was playing at his feet with a\nyarn ball and string, and as he pressed her to the bosom of his coarse\nblouse I saw the tears overflow from his grief stricken eyes and run\nunrestrained down his rough cheeks.\n\nAfter a few moments of silence he mastered his feelings and thanked\nthe ladies for taking an interest in his children, but hugged the baby\nagain and said: \u201cBut little Ruth is my baby! She was Mary\u2019s baby! The\nlast kisses and caresses of my poor dead wife were given to our baby\u2014her\nbaby. How can I put her away so soon after Mary\u2019s death? She\u2019s so small\nand dependent\u2014must I begin the separation of my family away down at the\nbottom\u2014away down with the weakest and smallest\u2014with the baby\u2014the one\ndearest to the mother who is now dead?\u201d\n\nThe spokeswoman of the crowd told him how it would be best for the baby,\nand for him, to find it a good home, with kind people, who would care for\nit \u201cand give it all the comforts of life.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, yes,\u201d he interrupted, \u201cI know you mean it all for the best, and\nI could agree with you if\u2014if it were some other father\u2019s baby we were\ndiscussing, and not my baby\u2014Mary\u2019s baby\u2014the last of our family to feel\nthe loving caress of her embrace.\n\n\u201cIs it a crime that I am poor and wifeless, and my children are\norphans? Can I cease to love my children because I am poor and they are\nmotherless? They have been a great comfort and pleasure to me. I love\ntheir prattling voices; the sound of the little toy cart, as baby drags\nit across the floor, is sweeter music than the tones of the pipe organ\ndown in the fashionable church.\n\n\u201cShut your eyes to the squalor and rags you see here, and let your\nminds go back to your own homes, and recall the sound of the little tin\nwagon, loaded with tin soldiers and rag dolls, your own children used to\npull through the house; and picture yourself standing at the gate after\nparting with your favorite child. Picture the scene, as the strange\nperson carries your baby away, with her child face turned appealingly\ntowards you, and you make no effort to bring her back to your arms and\nyour heart.\n\n\u201cWould you, my good and kind women, who mean only good towards me and my\nchildren\u2014would you call this a picture of civilization\u2014a scene amongst\nenlightened people, or would you dream of it forever afterward as a\npicture of hell?\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE PATHOS OF HUMOR\n\n\nThe average reader of newspapers and magazines imagines that humorous\nwriters are always funny, and always saying funny things. Nothing could\nbe farther from the real facts. The humorous side of humanity while\nwading through every day events, likewise sees the pathetic side. The\npathos of life makes the shade and shadow of life\u2019s picture, while the\nfunny features make the humorous pictures\u2014the cartoons and exaggerations.\n\nI know a little story connected with the work of a humorous writer, so\nfull of pathos that one can but wonder how he could write of the humorous\nside of life while sitting in the very presence of death.\n\nDuring the days of his severest struggles for recognition (and bread)\nhis wife\u2019s aged father was taken ill, and the doctor said it was only\na matter of a few weeks or days with the kind old man, and then his\nstruggles on the earth would be over. And through all the nursing and\nwatching the young author was obliged to grind out his \u201cstuff\u201d for the\npublishers who kept the wolf from his door.\n\nOne night the faithful daughter could endure the strain and loss of sleep\nno longer, and was obliged to go to bed, leaving only her author husband\nto watch at the bedside of the dying father, and to grind out his sketch\nfor the next issue of the paper.\n\nIt was hard to forget the man who was passing over the dark stream and\nconcentrate his mind on some ridiculous phase of life, but this he must\ndo, for he needed yet a humorous anecdote to round out the line of\nargument he was introducing\u2014that men are more truthful than their dreams.\nHe was attempting to prove that men, while in the act of dreaming a lie,\nwould tell the truth, if subject to speaking out loud in their sleep.\n\nBut humorous ideas were slow about coming, and he leaned over, with\nhis face buried deep in his hands, and tried to think. All of a sudden\nhe recalled an incident of real life, that would serve to complete his\nstory, but before he could take up his pencil the sick man brightened up\nand remarked:\n\n\u201cPretty hard to write scenes from the funny side of life, while waiting\non some one to die!\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2019Tis that, father,\u201d replied the young man tenderly; \u201cbut I just now\nrecall an incident from the life of old Jim McGrabber that will finish\nthe sketch.\u201d\n\n\u201cPoor fellow!\u201d softly exclaimed the dying man. \u201cI pity you, my boy. It\nis more than most men are obliged to do. But don\u2019t mind me. Even if I\npass away while you are working, I will know that you are only doing\nyour duty. Besides, my boy, it softens death to me to feel that others\ncan forget it while it hovers so near. And in encouraging you to go on\nwith your work, I hope to leave the impression behind that dying men can\nremain interested in the triumphs and achievements of life, even though\nthey are old and feeble and their heart liable to stop forever without a\nmoment\u2019s warning. Go on with your work, and I will try to sleep.\u201d\n\nAnd then, after giving the old man a cool sip of water, and fixing his\npillow more comfortable, he sat down and wrote the anecdote that was to\ncomplete his sketch.\n\n\u201cTimothy McGrabber always kept a private jug in his cellar, but was only\nallowed two jiggers of whiskey a day. If detected in taking a third or\nfourth drink, by his good old wife, she proceeded at once to pull his\ngray hair vigorously until he would promise to do so no more.\n\n\u201cOne Sunday morning in mid-summer the good old wife went to church\nvery early, leaving Tim to follow when ready to do so. This was Tim\u2019s\nopportunity, so instead of two jiggers from the beloved jug, he took\nfour\u2014four big ones, and then followed the old lady to the church, singing\nsoftly and gleefully to himself as he walked cheerfully along.\n\n\u201cArrived at church he sat down near the open window, and his system\ncleared of waste material and a painful conscience, he soon dropped\noff to sleep. A young kitten climbed in the window, took an exploring\nexpedition out along the back of the seat, climbed up Tim\u2019s passive arm\nand began to smell his whiskers. Scenting nothing dangerous, the kitty\njumped to the top of his bald head and sat down to observe the house.\n\n\u201cA wasp flew by, and kitty attempted to catch it, lost her equilibrium\nand was falling backwards when she grabbed at Tim\u2019s straggling locks of\nhair with both front feet and began to climb back to her lofty perch\nagain; then the congregation was startled by Tim\u2019s loud expostulations:\n\n\u201c\u2018Hey, Nora! that\u2019s anuff! Pon me sowl oi only tuck four little nips from\nth\u2019 joog, and bedad yee\u2019r pulling all th\u2019 hair out av me head! And how\nthe divil did yee\u2019s foind it out, anyhow, because oi wint down cellar in\nth\u2019 dark and drank wid me oyes shut!\u2019\u201d\n\nThe author smiled at the bit of humor, and turned to the bed with a sigh\nof relief\u2014only to discover that the old man had died while he wrote.\n\n\n\n\nTHE PINE CREEK TRAGEDY\n\n\nLove in a lumber camp is as full of romance as love in a king\u2019s court;\nfor wherever love sets up her throne the world must bow down and\nrecognize the Queen of Hearts. Jack Cleveland had been Rhoda Carson\u2019s\naccepted lover ever since she came to be cook\u2019s assistant in the big camp\nrun by Reuben Harris, and this was her second winter in the camp. They\nexpected to get married when they went back to civilization in the spring.\n\nIn January Walter Jackson, of Maine, came to work on the job, and Rhoda\nwas fairly hypnotized by his manly beauty and robust health. Before the\nfirst week was out Jack saw how things were going, but still hoped Rhoda\nwould get over her infatuation and come back to her old love. But Rhoda\nquarreled with Jack deliberately and after due meditation. She even\ninsinuated that she would be happier if he left the job.\n\nPoor Jack was awfully broken up over the affair, and would have gone away\nwith his broken heart, but he was foreman and couldn\u2019t leave his employer\nuntil after the drive was out of the creek. For two months previous to\nthe spring flood Rhoda did not speak to Jack, but spent a great many\nSundays playing checkers with Walter in the big dining room, and her\nmerry laughter went straight to poor Jack\u2019s heart. He had given her up,\nbut his love for her was greater than ever before.\n\nThe day the flood came, and they were starting the big jams of logs far\nup the creek, Rhoda stood on the high bank near the camp to watch the\nlogs sluice through the narrow channel; for at this point the creek cut\nthrough a rise of ground, with banks of red clay on both sides rising as\nmuch as twelve feet above the water. It was very exciting to watch the\ngreat logs dart through this narrow channel and pitch over the falls 200\nfeet further down the stream.\n\nWhile she watched, a great mass of logs came sweeping down the stream and\njammed at the head of the narrow channel. Other logs piled up against\nthe jam. Then the men came and boldly walked out on the tumbled jam and\ntried to pry it loose with their cant hooks. All at once the great jam\nstarted, and the men ran back over the logs to a low place in the bank\nand came ashore. No, not all the men came ashore, for Walter Jackson made\na mis-step and fell with one leg pinned between two logs.\n\nIt was lucky for Walter that the jam stopped before reaching the falls,\nfor he was unable to extricate himself, and would surely have gone over\nand lost his life. Even now he must have assistance before the jam\nstarted again, which was sure to occur, for the water was rising so fast\nbehind the logs that it must surely break loose in a few minutes. The\ndanger was so great that none of the men would venture on the jam again,\nand Walter was given up by those who stood helplessly on the bank and\nwaited for the end.\n\nAt this moment Jack Cleveland came upon the scene and saw his rival lying\nhelplessly out on the logs. Did a gleam of triumph flash through his\nheart? No one will ever know, for Rhoda came up to him and shouted in his\near: \u201cCan you save him, Jack?\u201d Ah, did he catch a gleam of the old time\nlove in her blue eyes? And was it this that urged him on?\n\nTaking a cant hook from one of the men, he leaped down upon the creaking\nand surging logs and carefully walked down to where Walter lay. With a\nstrong pry on the log that pinned his rival fast, he parted the logs,\nthen took hold of the prostrate man and lifted him to his feet. But his\nleg was injured so badly that Walter could not walk. Dropping his cant\nhook, Jack picked Walter up and staggered with his heavy load toward the\nbank. The men reached down and took Walter by the arms and were lifting\nhim to safety when the great jam started. They saved Walter, but Jack was\nmoving on with the logs!\n\nRhoda saw his danger and ran a few rods further down the stream, threw\nherself on the ground and reached far down to give Jack her hands. In\nhis desperation he lay hold of them with a firm grasp and Rhoda braced\nherself for a mighty pull. But she was now too far over the bank to gain\nher poise again, and, with a scream that sounded above the roar of the\nwater, she pitched down upon the head of her jilted lover, and together\nthey went over the falls. He was holding her in his arms when they went\nover, and then the terrible jam of logs dashed down upon them, while the\nhorrified men on the bank looked helplessly into each other\u2019s eyes and\ngroaned with mental pain.\n\nIn the village graveyard there are two stones standing side by side,\nwhere an old woodsman, now bent with age, visits every spring and places\na bunch of flowers between the two. It is Walter Jackson. When he goes\naway the curious people go to the spot and read the card attached to the\nflowers: \u201cJack and Rhoda\u2014They died for me. Even the gods could do no\ngreater thing.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOMESICK BOY\n\n\n    \u201cWay down upon de Suanee river,\n      Far, far away.\n    Dah\u2019s whar my heart am turning ebber,\n      Dah\u2019s whar de ole folks stay.\u201d\n\nFoster surely knew what it was to be homesick when he wrote those lines.\nHe knew the heart-aches of a homesick boy. What difference whether the\nhomesick boy is white or black? The heart-aches are just the same; the\nlongings just as sad, the memories just as sweet, the absent parents\njust as sacred, the absent brothers and sisters just as dear. That song\nmakes the greatest appeal to human hearts for sympathy of any song ever\nsung\u2014sympathy for the black or white boy obliged to go away from home and\nleave those he loves best on earth.\n\nIn my mind\u2019s eye I see Foster\u2019s little black boy who is sold into slavery\nand driven far away from the banks of the Suanee river to the cotton\nfields of the Southwest. Perhaps not one soul in all the world, besides\nhis mother and little brothers, ever gave the poor slave boy a single\nthought after he was driven out of sight of the old cabin home. Other\nboys going away from home\u2014white boys of those days, had all the world\nbefore them; but the poor slave boy had only his chains and his broken\nheart.\n\nI see him lying in his hard bed of straw at night, with the storms\nhowling around the cabin and the fading fire sending out only a few\nfeeble rays of light\u2014I see the homesick lad lying with his face buried in\nhis hands and threading the old paths that lead up to his mother\u2019s cabin\nthrough his mind. He sees the dear old river and the wild fowls resting\non the bosom of the water. He sees his dear old mother sleeping in the\nold familiar bed where he lay when a baby. He sees his younger brother\nsleeping on the bed of straw near the hearth, his black face turned up\nfor the moon beams to write lines of tenderness and love on each well\nremembered cheek. Outside the humble door the shaggy watchdog watches\nover the family that owns nothing but their wrongs.\n\nAnd, with my mind on that homesick boy, I hear him sobbing, while the\ncoarse sleeve of his soiled shirt absorbs the bitter tears that are\nknown only to the great God who has commanded every one to love his\nneighbor as himself. In his ears the hum of the bees is still heard, and\nthe music of his father\u2019s banjo comes back on the wings of memory, like\nthe odor of funeral-smelling flowers coming back from the grave of his\nburied hopes. The darkie boy at his saddest best.\n\nThe homesick boy of Foster\u2019s song is not the bad nigger, full of nigger\ngin and hatred and evil intentions. The slave boy in whom you see only\ncenturies of wrongs and oppressions is the picture in Foster\u2019s immortal\nsong.\n\nOh, the world would be better if every one had experienced a season of\nhomesick longings, and cried themselves to sleep with the image of absent\nloved ones painted on their mind with the brush of tenderness. Better if\nall had wrongs to remember, and oppressions to leave scars on their souls\nthat would make them feel kinship towards all the unfortunate who must\nsuffer and bear their burdens alone.\n\nIt is a well known sociological fact that those who suffer hardships\nand privations have more tender feelings for the poor and unfortunate,\nthan those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and never\nintermingled with the people of the lower world. Of course, there are\nexceptions, but they are few. When you find a wealthy person who feels\ncharitable and kind towards all the world, that person has suffered\nheart-aches, too. He wants the sympathy of those who have suffered like\nhe has. There is a fraternal feeling in his heart for the unfortunate,\nplanted there by his own heart-aches and watered with his own tears. A\nman who has never known a heart-ache, never gives a single thought to the\nhomesick boy who longed for his Suanee river home.\n\n\n\n\nFRIENDS WHO PASS IN THE DARK\n\n\nOf late I have found a very good and sincere friend who has, since then\nbeen an actual inspiration to me. For many years we knew of each other\u2019s\nexistence, but we did not move in the same orbit, one might say, so we\nnever met to touch and smile as we passed each other in the busy pursuits\nof life. We seemed to pass each other in the dark, and so far apart that\nour binnacle lights could only be dimly seen away off in the gloom of the\nnight.\n\nAnd all the time we were dreaming the same dreams, cultivating the same\nlove, nourishing the same hope, fanning the same laudable ambition,\nadmiring the same poems, worshipping the same God of Nature. And we\ncontinued to pass in the dark. I had my struggles and deferred hopes\nand pinching poverty and unsatisfied desires, mellowed and made smooth,\nhowever, with the love of friends and companions who lived with me in the\nbroad daylight of recognition and mental appreciation; and he had his\nfriends and hopes and dreams and slights and heart-affecting episodes and\nburning ambition and love of humanity\u2014and thus we continued to pass and\nrepass in the dark.\n\nDimly and intermittingly the thought began to develop and dangle before\nour mental eyes that some day the lights would grow brighter in our\nbinnacles, the shadows become less opaque and the distance diminish\nwhen passing by. The thought waves we were setting in motion as we moved\naround in our orbits, came together and intermingled and blended in\nmutual harmony, and moved us together in our wake, drawing us closer\ntogether, even when passing in the dark. And our binnacle lights grew\nbrighter and finally dispelled the darkness so much that we no longer\npassed unrecognized, but too far apart to hail each other on the social\nsea.\n\nWhat strange and subtle influence was it that planted the seeds of a\nmutual desire in each heart, that some day in passing, we could call\nacross the narrow sea and hear the sound of each other\u2019s voice? Was it\ncaused by the thought waves that came over the mysterious dream sea\nand beat softly on the sides of our spiritual ship? Mutual confessions\nafterwards revealed the fact that our final meeting was not by accident,\nbut through the individual, independent, unknown designs of each other.\nWe felt the approach of each other\u2019s frail boat while still in the dark\ndistance, and realized that we were soon to meet and touch, with a\nhand-shake and a heart-ache that would never cease nor diminish until\nwe have accomplished something to light the darkness where other poor\nmariners on the stormy sea of life pass each other, with no binnacle\nlights shining out over the troubled water, and no friendly call coming\nout of the darkness to those in distress.\n\nNo man can do successful work alone. We need the help and the moral\nsupport and the sincere appreciation of all those whom we know to be in\nsympathy with souls who are still pulling against the stream and through\nthe darkness of obscurity and neglect. Every one of us have friends who\npass us in the dark\u2014friends that we could sincerely love and respect, and\nwho could aid us and cheer us as we pull against the streams of life with\nthe sad realization that sooner or later, we shall all be washed away.\n\nLet us get closer together. Let us flash the binnacle light of love\nand God speed and good cheer as we pass in the dark. Too often we turn\ndown the light at the approach of an unknown ship, and use our utmost\nendeavors to pass unseen and unknown. Is it because our mutual thoughts\nare out of tune?\n\nAnd would it be thus if we were all mutually working for the uplifting of\nhumanity? Would it be thus if we were all willing to throw out a line to\nthe human boats drifting, without a rudder, down the rapids of poverty\nand want?\n\nWe are all ultimately going out on the unknown sea\u2014why not sail closer\ntogether on the sea of life? Soon we will drift so far apart that\nabsolute darkness will hide us from the living world; so, while we live\nlet us avoid passing friends without calling to them over the water.\n\n\n\n\nVOICE OF THE STONE\n\n\nPassing through a country graveyard one day last summer, and reading\nthe sad stories engraved on the many head stones, I was attracted\nby the silent voice of one particular stone, erected over the grave\nof a six-year-old boy: \u201cHow Many Hopes Lie Buried Here!\u201d Was it an\nexclamation, or an interrogation? How many hopes? Only the fathers and\nmothers can truly tell who have buried hopes in similar graves.\n\nThese bereaved parents had pictured their baby boy as a man, going out\ninto the world to accomplish great things and fill their declining years\nwith pleasure and delight.\n\nOften they had pictured their boy in his manly beauty, able to defend\nhimself from the enemies that always cross the path of the successful,\nand attempt to retard their progress. They had pictured him on the stage\nof life swaying men with the power of his logic and his persuasive voice.\nMen were cheering at the bare mention of his name, for he had taught the\npeople to love him and believe in him.\n\nThey saw him holding high positions in the social and political\nworld, and always going higher, always gaining more and more, always\naccomplishing greater things\u2014ah, perhaps holding the highest office in\nthe land\u2014President of the United States!\n\nOr they may have been more modest in their hopes. They may have seen\ntheir boy, grown to sturdy manhood, following the plow and reaping the\ngolden grain; and, instead of going out into the world to win glory and\nfame, they may have pictured him contented in the old home, sitting with\nthem in the evening under the vine clad porch and discussing the modest\nhopes of the village people.\n\nGreat hopes are not always dreams of future glory and fame. The modest\nlife and unostentatious efforts of the humble worker bring greater joys\nto some hearts than all the glories of political success. So the hopes\nthat are buried with a favorite child are as many and as varied as the\nflowers of the hills and meadows.\n\nBut, whatever the hopes, the heart-aches are ever as deep and pathetic,\nand the tears as bitter with regret.\n\n\nHOW MANY HOPES LIE BURIED HERE\n\n    How many hopes lie buried here\n    With our darling, we loved so dear!\n      When his dear life ended,\n      The shadows blended\n    With the darkness so cold and drear.\n      And the sad refrain,\n      Again and again,\n    Tells of a mother\u2019s tears and pain,\n      Year after year, year after year.\n\n    How many hopes? Ah, God alone\n    Knows how many lie under this stone!\n      Of the mind well directed,\n      Of the man they expected\u2014\n    Death ended all, the spirit has flown.\n      And that sad refrain,\n      Again and again,\n    Tells of a father\u2019s great heart pain,\n      Always yearning for the boy that is gone.\n\n    How many hopes? The breezes sigh,\n    Softly whispering while passing by:\n      Fondest hopes of a mother\u2019s breast,\n      Hopes that pleased the father best,\n    Reaching from earth to the sun-lit sky.\n      Now the sad refrain,\n      Again and again,\n    Tells of the father\u2019s and mother\u2019s pain\u2014\n      A great heartache that will never die.\n\n    Ask the mother how many tears\n    To wash that memory from the years?\n      Ask the gloomy father why\n      Comes that half-unconscious sigh?\n    As the sound of a lov\u2019d voice disappears.\n      Ah, that sad refrain,\n      Again and again.\n    Tells the story of grief and pain,\n      Which the mellow-hearted reader hears.\n\n\n\n\nINGRATITUDE\n\n\nIngratitude is the crime of weak, inferior intellects. The man who will\neagerly accept favors of another, and not feel grateful towards the donor\nafterwards, displays the coarse inferiority of the brute. The savages and\nbarbarians are noted for their spirit of gratitude. They never forget a\nkindness. The genuine superlative ingrate is generally the spectacular\nwhite man. The man in whom vanity and self-interest predominates all the\nfiner feelings of the soul.\n\nVery often he is a self-sainted molder of public opinion, standing high\nin the church and political circles, with an inordinate appetite for\npublic position where he can be observed by the passing world. He is the\nself-stuffed hypocrite who pretends to love humanity\u2014for the profit it\nwill bring him.\n\nI have in my mind a parasitical vampire in human form who had a friend\nmoving in political circles where railroad passes where supposed to\nbe gifts of friendship. This was before the anti-free pass law came\ninto effect. The parasite begged his friend to secure a pass for him,\nand it was secured and given to him, midst a shower of profound thanks\nand pledges of eternal gratefulness. The pass was used to a gluttonous\nextent, and renewed at its expiration, and again accepted with many\nobsequious bows and renewed pledges of everlasting friendship.\n\nA few years ago the friend died, and his relatives expected words of\nkindly remembrance from the parasite. Even the dead man\u2019s enemies spoke\nkindly of him after death had silenced his tongue and put the eternal\nchill upon his warm heart. It is one feature of our higher civilization\nto always speak well of the dead\u2014to overlook the dead man\u2019s faults\nand remember only his good qualities. To spurn the dead body of one\u2019s\nfellow man is considered cowardly, dastardly and inhuman. But when a\nsupposed friend turns on the body of one whom he made a victim of his\nhypocrisy and deceit while living, and stings the dead with the venom of\na treacherous viper, the world looks on and blushes for very shame.\n\nThis was the case with the parasite I have referred to. No sooner had the\nbreath left the body of the man who had so often befriended him, than\nhe began circulating stories that told how corrupt his dead friend had\nalways been during life.\n\nDid the public applaud the ungrateful parasite? Did he gain favor\nfrom even the dead man\u2019s most bitter enemies? Far from it! Those who\nremembered how the fawning sycophant had groveled at the feet of the\ndead man for the favors so lavishly bestowed while life lasted, had\nonly feelings of contempt for the cowardly traducer of a dead friend\u2019s\ncharacter.\n\nThe world said: \u201cIf the dead man was as bad and corrupt as this false\nfriend paints him, why did he wait until after death has sealed his\ntongue with the lock of eternal silence? Why did he court the dead man\u2019s\nsociety as long as there was a favor within reach? Was it not his sacred\nduty to reform the corrupt man, instead of sharing gluttonously all the\ngood things with him, with the greed of a vampire sucking the life\u2019s\nblood from a sleeping child?\u201d\n\nThe story he now tells of his dead friend is but the flapping wings of\nthe vampire fanning his new victims to sleep while he sucks favors from\nthe veins of their unsuspecting generosity. Once a parasite, always a\nparasite, and the attempt to build a character out of abuse heaped upon\nthe memory of a dead friend, is but wasted energy. The public is a pretty\ngood judge of humanity, and the human vampire can not paint his wings and\npass for a dove, no odds how saint-like he may \u201ccoo\u201d to the other birds\nof prey.\n\nAnother case of ingratitude came to me just the other day: One man\nasked another for a loan of $200. It was taking great risks to loan the\nfellow anything, but the friend took chances and loaned him half as much\nas he asked for. Now the fellow hasn\u2019t a single kind word to speak of\nthe generous lender. This is not only injuring the man who so kindly\nbefriended him, but the abuse may sour the lender against humanity in\ngeneral, as some day some other honest but unfortunate man may be turned\naway empty handed, on account of the wound made by the ingratitude of the\nhuman parasite.\n\nThose who are not thankful for small favors, are absolutely barren of\ngratitude, and deserve no favors at all. And where there is no gratitude\nthere are no generous impulses, no spirit of charity, no love for\nhumanity, either dead or alive. And the world is full of them. I have\nonly referred to two cases\u2014two of the most common cases\u2014every reader\nknows of a dozen other cases. Ingratitude is the white man\u2019s great sin\nagainst humanity.\n\n\n\n\nORPHAN EVA\n\n\nSitting at the window one cold frosty morning I saw little Eva Yarnell\npassing the house with a bundle of clothes under each arm. Eva is a girl\nof twelve years, and an orphan. Her mother died when she was but six\nyears old. I\u2019ve always been interested in the child because she had been\nshifted from pillar to post, as the saying goes, one relative keeping the\nlittle girl as long as their means lasted, when she would be moved on to\nanother aunt or uncle or cousin or grandmother. Her relatives were all\npoor, and it seemed as though Providence was forcing little Eva to share\nall the poverty and want of her relatives.\n\nShe has at times been a schoolmate of my boy, so when he came into the\nroom I asked him where little Eva was moving to.\n\n\u201cOh, she\u2019s all right now, papa!\u201d the boy exclaimed. \u201cShe\u2019s going to live\nwith Bingman\u2019s, just above town, on a farm. She\u2019s such a good worker, and\nI believe Mrs. Bingman will appreciate Eva and make it pleasant for her.\nThe poor child is just about naked, and I\u2019m sure Mrs. Bingman will dress\nher better than she was ever dressed in her life.\u201d\n\nI caught my boy\u2019s hopeful feeling and inwardly rejoiced over little\nEva\u2019s good fortune. But after sitting for a time thinking about the life\nof orphan Eva, it struck me forcibly about the child\u2019s recommendation.\n\u201cShe\u2019s such a good worker,\u201d my boy said. Working her way through life \u201cat\nthe age of twelve.\u201d \u201cWhat an age! What a stern life for a girl of twelve!\nGod help you, child, and send you a kind mistress!\u201d I said aloud, as I\nturned to my desk with a queer sad feeling tugging at my heart.\n\nLately I had written a sketch describing the heart-aches of Foster\u2019s\ncolored boy, of whom he sang in the tender words of \u201cThe Old Folks at\nHome,\u201d\u2014the far off home on the Suanee river; and I had cried over the boy\nI had pictured in my mind, because I, too, have suffered with heart-aches\nand loneliness and soul hunger. But here was a little homeless girl who\ncould never more dream of a mother back in the old home. There was no one\nat home to wish her back again, not even a home. There was no one waiting\nwith heart-aches to see her, unless there are heart-aches beyond the\ngrave.\n\nI opened the door to catch a last glimpse of the little orphan and saw\nher bravely trudging up the wet street, occasionally shifting the bundles\nfrom one arm to the other, for one of the bundles was much larger than\nthe other\u2014so large that it cramped her chubby arm while holding it close\nto her body.\n\n\u201cSuch a good worker!\u201d The words persisted in coming back to me, leaving a\nsadness at my heart that could not be shaken off. How long has she been a\ngood worker? When did she first learn how to work? Such an age for such a\ngrand reputation!\n\nI thought of the drones all over the country who never win such a\nreputation, though they live on the fat of the land, and feel as far\nabove little Eva Yarnell as the gods are supposed to feel above a toad.\nIn whom, I wonder, do the gods feel the most interest\u2014in Eva Yarnell, or\nin the fat and sleek drones who sit in upholstered chairs and try to mold\nthe opinions of the world.\n\nI do not know\u2014I can not believe that this world is ruled by the hand\nof love, no odds whether that hand is divine or not. Law is stern,\nsevere and unrelenting; the one side padded with the down of mercy,\nbut the reverse side rough with cruel thorns and painful projections.\nAnd the reverse side seems always turned towards the weak and the\nhelpless\u2014towards the motherless orphan I had in my mind\u2014little Eva\nYarnell.\n\n\u201cSuch a worker!\u201d Such an age! God send her kind mistress and a sheltering\nhome!\n\n\n\n\nLOVING THE WORLD\n\n\nThere is a difference between loving the world for the world\u2019s wealth\u2019s\nsake, and loving the world for the sake of humanity. There is often\nthis difference between the patriotism of men. Some patriots love the\nsurface of the world where they are located far more than they love\nthe people who share it with them. Some patriots love the wealthy of\ntheir neighboring countries, while they are totally indifferent towards\nthe toiling poor of that same country. In America the people who love\nhumanity for humanity\u2019s sake, give their sympathies to the plundered and\noutraged peasantry of Russia, while those who love the world for wealth\u2019s\nsake give their sympathies to Emperor Nicholas and the parasitical\nroyalty of that unhappy country.\n\nThis is why the United States are not unanimously in sympathy with the\noppressed people of all other countries\u2014the reason why the people of\nthis country are not unanimously in sympathy with the toilers of our own\nland\u2014the difference between loving the world\u2019s wealth, and the world\u2019s\npeople. \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself,\u201d is possible only where worldly\ninterests are mutual and agreeable. Where two men are striving for the\ndirty dollar in sight, love is sure to dodge out of sight and silently\nsteal away.\n\nEven where men love the world for humanity\u2019s sake, there is a\ndifference in the intensity of that love. Some men love with a hopeful\noptimistical fervor, dreaming of a day when there shall be no oppression\nor plundering of the weak by the powerful. They see the millennium of\nearthly tranquillity and peace in the near future, when all men shall be\nbrothers, and co-operation shall take the place of bitter competition,\nand motherhood and childhood shall be the great care and protection of\nthe nation, and no one shall go to bed and cry themselves to sleep to\nforget the pangs of hunger and drown the memory of personal wrongs.\n\nIn most cases these hopeful altruists never suffered real hunger or\nbitter wrongs. They have always had enough of the world\u2019s material\nwealth to drive the wolf of hunger away from their door, and only see\nthe real poor through their dreams. Once in my life I cried for bread\nwhen there was not a crumb in my mother\u2019s house, nor even a single penny\nto buy bread. It was only for one day, but the horror of that one day\npictured poverty to my youthful mind in all its horrible and unrelenting\nwant and squalor. And the old gloom-blistered memory of that one day of\nunsatisfied hunger haunts me still, like the recollections of the most\npoignant pain.\n\nI firmly believe that that recollection of absolute poverty in my\nchildhood days is what makes my love for humanity so hopeless and\nmoist with despondent tears. I can not even dream of a day when love\nand justice will rule the world. Greed, greater than all else, human\ngreed predominates over all the world. \u201cFor what will a man not give in\nexchange for his own life?\u201d This can be carried still lower and made to\nread, \u201cFor what will a man not sacrifice for his own comfort?\u201d And when\nit comes to a sacrifice, who so easy to offer up as the \u201chelpless poor?\u201d\n\nAbraham hadn\u2019t the remotest idea of offering himself up on the altar he\nhad built. Helpless Isaac would have been the victim, had not the more\nhelpless ram appeared tangled in the bushes, and was substituted for the\nlad.\n\nThe primitive originators of the sacrificial altar had only the weak and\nhelpless and defenseless in mind as the intended sacrifice to their God.\nThe innocence of the lamb and the dove did not appeal to their calloused\nhearts. They were intent on saving themselves, even though the whole\nworld must be sacrificed.\n\nThat spirit is still prevailing where the weak and the strong meet in\nthe struggle for existence, and the weak and innocent do not appeal to\nsympathetic hearts when they ask for mercy. The business and commercial\naltars must have a sacrifice for the benefit of the strong. This picture\nis always before me. My love for the world is like the love of a\ndespondent mother for her sick child.\n\n\n\n\nLOST IN THE SNOW\n\n\nNo one who has never lived near an Indian school has any idea of the\nloneliness and homesickness that fills the poor little hearts of the\nIndian youths who have been torn away from the rude Indian home and\nherded together between gloomy brick walls, so different from the teepee\nof their semi-savage parents. The government department in charge of\nthese schools talk of abolishing the schools located at a distance from\nthe reservations, and building school houses right in the village,\nretaining only four such schools as that of Carlisle, Pa., to serve as\nhigh schools for the larger youths.\n\nI believe there is much sense and good judgment in this. Civilization\nshould not force painful conditions upon the children of our\ncopper-skinned wards.\n\nI recall to mind the desertion of five little Indian boys from a school\nnear which the writer spent several years, and a more pathetic tale never\nwas told. Like the instinct of bees and animals, these Indian boys knew\nthat their native village lay to the southwest of the school, and when\nhomesickness felt so unbearable that it could not be endured, they stole\nfrom their dormitory one dark night in November, swam the river and\nstarted to climb the rugged side of the great Rocky Mountains.\n\nLittle Jake Hargison was but six years old, and the baby of the\ndeserters, but he struggled through the dark and up the rocky side of the\ntowering mountain with courage stimulated by the hope of seeing home and\nparents within a few days. Being only boys, they had not provided food\nfor the journey, each lad carrying only a small lunch in his pockets.\n\nAt daylight they were far up on the mountain side, half frozen; for they\nhad come to an impassable cliff and so were obliged to wait until the\ndaylight came, not daring to build a fire lest it be seen from the valley\nwhere the school buildings were located.\n\nIt was past noon when they finally reached the top of the mountain\nand struck out boldly to cross the broad mesa extending far to the\nsouthwest. Far in the distance they could see the mountain range at\nwhose foot nestled the Indian village they called home. They knew it\nwas seventy-five long miles away, but they never flinched or thought of\nturning back.\n\nLate in the afternoon the sky grew gray with bleak clouds, and the\nnortheast wind chilled them to the bone. There were already four inches\nof snow on the mesa, and the eldest of the boys knew instinctively that\nanother snow storm was in the air. But they had on stout government\nshoes, and did not fear the snow.\n\nBy dark the snow storm burst on them in all the fury of a Rocky Mountain\nblizzard, and the boys began to search for a sheltering rock. Fortunately\nthey came to the brow of a great range of mountains, and down below the\nrim rock they knew there would be shelter from the storm and the winds.\nSlowly and tortuously the boys climbed down through a crevice in the\ngreat rim rock, and 200 feet below they came to a level plateau, where\nthey gathered wood and built a fire close up to the perpendicular wall.\n\nSitting by the warm fire they ate their lunch, having saved it all\nthrough the weary day, and they could hear the storm king howling through\nthe spruce trees and shrieking through the canyons on either side.\n\nAnd where they had camped the snow was drifting over the cliff and\nfalling upon them very fast. They knew the history of these snow\ndrifts\u2014knew that the snow sometimes stacked up to the depth of fifty feet\non the lee side of the rim rock, but it was too late to retreat now.\n\nAt midnight their fuel became exhausted, and the snow drift was so deep\nthat they could not get more. Little Jake complained of being sleepy,\nand his older brother sang an Indian song to keep him awake. The little\nfellow began to repeat the prayer his teacher taught him, and fell asleep\nwith the words still on his lips. The others soon followed him into\ndreamland, and all night long the merciless snow drifted over the tall\nrock and buried them under many feet of spotless robes. The winds howled,\nthe storm shrieked and groaned and higher the snow drift grew upon them.\n\nLate in July a prospecting party found them, the elder brother holding\nlittle Jake in his stiffened arms.\n\n\n\n\nA PLEA FOR CHILDHOOD\n\n\nIn the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, and in the name of\nHim who died for men, I would make a plea for the little children who are\nborn into the world to be landless and homeless through life. Does it\nseem possible to the thickest headed thinker that a just God would send\nchildren into a world already privately owned by previous generations?\nAre God\u2019s laws similar to the European laws of primogeniture, giving the\nbest of all to the first born\u2014to the first generations, and to be handed\ndown from father to son, to hold and own forever?\n\nI can\u2019t believe that there is any priority handed down to a special few\nfrom the God of All. Every sense of common justice rebels at such an\nidea. If it is our God, and our heaven, and our eternity, it must then\nsurely be our earth, our land, and our oceans, and our mountains, and our\nair. Will a higher civilization recognize this picture of simple justice?\nAnd will we reach a higher state of civilization without giving all an\nequal share in God and the earth?\n\nI do not know. It might create serious complications to remove the\npriority claim of the selected few who now claim the natural wealth\nof the world. The present state and condition of the social world and\nthe industrial world may be exactly as God wishes it to be. Every one\nmust answer this question for himself; for while it is true that God\ncreated man, every individual creature has a peculiar way of forming the\ncharacter and attributes of his God. Men still quote scripture to prove\nthat God believed in human slavery. If this is true, then God surely\nallowed little innocent babes to be born into slavery, and to be driven\nby the lash from the cradle to the grave.\n\nIf this is true, then child labor in our mills and factories for wages,\nis not nearly so horrible as chattel slavery, and God must look with\napprobation at the little consumptive boy or girl dying by inches while\nwatching the shuttles fly back and forth in the loom, of which they are\npart of the machinery.\n\nThese questions each one must settle for himself; but doesn\u2019t it seem\nmore natural and human to decide in favor of the children? When you look\ninto the innocent eyes of the child sitting in its mother\u2019s arms, can you\nconsign that child to the slavery of the factories and mills, and then\nwash your conscience clean with the wet sponge of tearful prayer? Sit\nright up straight in your chair at this very minute and decide the case\nbetween yourself and the children and your God\u2014did God, or did he not\nsend these helpless and dependent children into the world to become mere\nslaves, and to live landless and homeless until he calls them hence? Yes?\n\n    Within the eyes of each trusting child\n      That look straight into mine,\n    There is a plea, so meek and mild,\n      So humble and supine\u2014\n    A plea for mercy and human love,\n      For justice and for right,\n    For a share in the earth and the God above,\n      And all the blessings in sight.\n\n    Perhaps it was God who planted there\n      This plea, ere they were born;\n    This innate plea for an equal share\n      Of all the meat and corn,\n    How can men rob them of their right?\n      And hear their loud demands,\n    When they see the wealth of the world in sight,\n      And their father\u2019s empty hands.\n\n    I know the sigh of each full grown breast\n      For a home and an acre of soil;\n    A vine and a fig tree; to sit and rest,\n      When weary of work and toil.\n    Did the God of Nature plant that sigh\n      In the babe, long ere it smiled?\n    And this plea, like a rainbow, in the eye\n      Of the trusting, yearning child?\n\n    May the God of heaven pity us all!\n      But pity the children now!\n    Let us kiss the spot hurt in each fall\n      And smooth the troubled brow;\n    For how shall we, as a little child,\n      Win back a place in heaven,\n    If the child is robbed, long ere it smiled\n      Of the part Great God has given?\n\n\n\n\nTHOUGHTS ON IMMORTALITY\n\n\nI do not know; yet the longings and yearnings of my soul cry out always\nfor immortality. I seem to hope always that somewhere in the universe\nthere is stored away a great pity that responds to the longings and\nyearnings of my soul, and stands ready to help me when the earth fades\naway from sight and the shadows fall thick and deep around me. I do not\nknow. The desire in my soul is father to my trembling hope, and hope may\npass away when life goes out into the unknown and my body of clay is\nleft to crumble and decay and disintegrate and go back to the original\nelements.\n\nThere will be a physical change, the light and heat and movement will\ngo out of my body, like the light blown out in a vacant house when the\ninhabitants move away. But whither goes the inhabitants that now dwell\nwithin me when the lights are blown out and the doors locked and sealed\nwith the eternal lock that will not open to the key of time, I do not\nknow.\n\nIn my sober contemplation of all that lies before, it seems to me that\nlove and justice and mercy and hope are of ephemeral existence if they\nlast only while the light is in the body. And I ask myself: \u201cIs there\nno life and light and mercy and hope and pity beyond these things we\nfeel and hear and see? Are we to suffer injustice during life that will\nnever be righted for us? Are we to love, and lose the object of our love,\nand never find it again? Are these bright minds of ours, so capable\nof dreaming such beautiful dreams, to be brought to the very highest\npossible heights of intelligence, and then suddenly be snuffed out, like\nblowing the lighted flame from a candle, leaving all in darkness and\ngloom?\u201d\n\nI do not know. The prophets and philosophers were only men, with\nyearnings and longings like my own, and as weak and helpless to pull\naside the curtains and peep into the future as I find myself. And yet I\nam not satisfied to die forever; for I do know that there is an eternity\nfor all these things existing in space. Space is eternity itself. The\nhuman mind can not picture a condition when worlds and planets and space\nwill be no more. Nothing can come from nothing, neither can matter pass\ninto nothing and leave no trace behind. The length of the universe is\neternity, and so is the width and the breadth. It can not pass away and\nleave but a hole, for even a hole must have sides and dimensions.\n\nI do not know; perhaps the ox in the field knows more about immortality\nthan man, perhaps less, perhaps nothing at all. It would not need to know\nmuch about it to outstrip me in knowledge on this one particular subject.\nHe may have longings and yearnings, the same as me, for how shall the ox\nreceive his share of justice and equity if he passes away with this life\nand is known no more?\n\nI do not know; justice must surely mean the same rewards for the ox as it\nmeans for man, for how can simple justice discriminate between animals,\nand still remain simple justice? And the man who is willing to grasp\nan immortality that discriminates between him and the ox, is neither\nmerciful, charitable, nor just. Immortality must surely embrace all the\nliving creatures, or part of life would be left behind, and immortality\nwould be incomplete and imperfect. God must be the God of all. If the ox\nis an inferior creature, the fault lies with the creator and not with the\ncreated thing. If there is no justice and mercy for the ox, then justice\nand mercy have limits, and God is not so powerful to save his creatures\nas he is to create them.\n\nI do not know; my faith in immortality may be the child of my hopes and\nlongings. If I am always to be I always was in existence somewhere. I am\npositively certain that I know of no evidence to prove a past existence,\nfor hope does not lead backward. Hope points always ahead, from where\nthe winds of the future are always blowing. I know that I desire to live\nalways, to think always, to hope always, to love on and on forever and\never.\n\n\n\n\nTEACH SENTIMENT\n\n\nSentiment is a creature of education. A child will naturally imitate its\nparents. If they are unfeeling and cruel, the child will be the same,\nat least until it falls under a different influence. Sentiment is not\ninherited. The average child is cruel and heartless until old enough to\nimitate the sentimental spirit of old people. Therefore, it should be\nthe first lesson impressed upon the child mind that cruelty and wanton\nheartlessness is brutal, and does not belong to civilized man.\n\nIn my own case I have always been opposed to keeping pet animals or birds\nconfined in a cage\u2014no, not always: When a boy I was always catching birds\nand squirrels and rabbits to start a menagerie. I remember one time of\nkeeping a red squirrel in a cage for two years. I hadn\u2019t then learned\nthat kindness to the weakest of God\u2019s creatures shows a largeness of the\nhuman heart. I was then a lad of fifteen years.\n\nBut one day while watching the red squirrel leaping from one side of\nthe cage to the bottom, then bounding to the other side and back again,\nand on to the opposite side and back again, over and over again, all\nthrough the day, and day after day, for the exercise it needed to keep\nits health\u2014one day while watching the poor imprisoned animal at its\ndaily exercise, the thought came to me that the little animal would be\nso much happier outside the cage. Then it dawned on me that I was simply\nkeeping the poor thing imprisoned to gratify my own selfish pleasure.\nSimply to look at and enjoy its efforts to make life tolerable under such\ndistressing conditions. I had actually been enjoying the restless efforts\nof the squirrel to make prison life healthful; for had the animal sat\ndown to mourn and pout and sorrow for the freedom it once enjoyed, it\nwould have died in a few weeks.\n\nMy heart smote me. I saw what a cruel jailor I had been. It\u2019s bad enough\nto imprison bad men and shut them away from the sunlight and flowers\nand the smiles of good women and children, just as though darkness and\nheartaches and misery would make a human being better. But here I was\nimprisoning an innocent animal simply for the selfish pleasure that comes\nfrom the possession of things not justly my own. Like the millionaire who\ngets a monopoly on the necessaries of life, and forces the people to pay\ntribute into his coffers for the sole and only pleasure of possessing\nmore dollars than his neighbors.\n\nIf he has sentiment enough to use those dollars for the benefit of\ncivilization and to relieve the distress of the people, it is not so bad,\nbut hoarding up for the pleasure that comes from sheer possession, is\nworse than brutal\u2014it is maniacal.\n\nWell, my conscience smote me on the educated end of my sentiment, and one\nday I opened the cage and let the squirrel go back to the woods. I had\nlearned a lesson I never forgot. The awakened sentiment in my soul never\nslumbered again.\n\nSentiment is contagious. My boy caught the happy mental disorder much\nearlier than his father did. A few weeks ago, he, too, started a\nmenagerie. He caught two mice and put them in a cage. At the end of two\nweeks his young heart felt the sentimental pangs of conscience, and he\nliberated his unwilling prisoners.\n\nThe world is growing better. The boy\u2019s sentiment did as much for him in\ntwo weeks as mine did for me in two years. The two liberated mice may\ndo me a trifle of damage while at large, but when I consider that the\nboy let his heart out at the same time he liberated the mice, I knew the\nworld would be the gainer in the end.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOUL OF SORROW\n\n\nSorrow is not always gruesome and heart-breaking. It has a lifetime\ninfluence, providing the fiber of the soul is strong enough to withstand\nthe strain. Not long ago there was a musical contest in a Pennsylvania\ncity, and one of the young ladies to take part in it had given up the\nthought of going into the contest, because her mother lay at the point of\ndeath the day previous to the departure of the companies who were going\nto the distant city to show what their town could do in a musical way.\n\nBut during the night the mother\u2019s condition changed for the better, and\nshe urged her daughter to go; for on her the town depended to bring back\nsome of the prizes to be given to the sweetest singers of the state.\n\nAnd so she went, her heart very much lighter since the happy change in\nher mother\u2019s condition. Anyhow, going out into the world to compete for\na prize, with some hope of winning, has a buoyant effect on the heart.\nOh, if all the world could but feel a slight hope of winning a prize\nwhen starting out in the world, how much happier the world would be!\nBut to most of the average people the world\u2019s prizes are hanging up so\ndistressingly high that only the well prepared have any chance of winning\nthem.\n\nThe parents who carelessly or helplessly send their children out into the\nworld uneducated, to compete with college graduates, are sending them\ninto a hard proposition. And the state government that will sleep while\none portion of the people are being educated to take care of themselves,\nand a larger number are growing up in helpless ignorance and sent out\ninto the world to compete with the few educated ones\u2014the state or public\nthat can sleep while such an injustice is being perpetrated on the\nweakest and most helpless of its subjects, needs to have its conscience\ntouched with the awakening finger of justice. The boasting cry that\nin this country everybody\u2019s child has an equal opportunity to gain a\nlivelihood, is as false as hell. There are colleges in our so-called free\nland where the son of a ditch digger or a washerwoman could no more enter\nthan a miserly rich man can enter the kingdom of heaven.\n\nBut I have drifted. I can\u2019t help but drift. Every time I try to paint\na picture, the injustice of the unjust crowd in and fill the distant\nperspective, and get painted into the sunset and change the gold into\nblackened lead.\n\nJust one hour before the young lady was to go on the stage to sing her\nsolo, a dispatch brought the sad and shocking news that her mother was\ndead. Nobody who knew of the sad news thought for a moment that the\nbereaved and heartbroken girl would attempt to sing. They were all\ndisappointed, of course, but who could ask her to go on the stage with a\nsorrow as deep as hers? But she did not break down. Oh, she had been so\nconfident of winning the prize, and her town\u2019s people would be so greatly\ndisappointed if she failed!\n\nShe told the manager she would try, providing he would tell the audience\nof her great sorrow. She wanted the sympathy of the people\u2014it would give\nher strength, while it would give them patience and tolerance.\n\nAfter the manager had gone before the footlights and told the sad story\nthe people waited in silence for the young singer to appear. There was\nno applause. The people felt the presence of death, or sorrow and heart\naches. The accompanist struck the first note and the brave girl commenced\nto sing. The song was suitable for a sad heart to sing. She could sing\nher sorrow from the depths of her soul.\n\nThe crowded house sat spellbound. That song from her soul of sorrow\nthrilled every heart as it had never been thrilled before. The notes,\nclear and sweet, came laden with the tears her brave soul was holding\nback. The people sat in deep silence, but with beating and throbbing\nhearts and active minds. They pictured the dead mother in that distant\ntown, sleeping silence\u2014ah, never again, never to awaken to greet her\ndaughter on her return.\n\nAnd the singer pictured that angeled mother listening from that far off\nshore, and she sang to her while the audience listened. For as much as a\nminute the people sat in silence after the singer had left the stage, and\nthen the cheers and tears told of the prize she had won.\n\n\n\n\nVISITING THE OLD HOME\n\n\nMy last visit to the home of my childhood filled me with gloomy thoughts.\nNothing remained of the old home but the ruins of the cellar walls. The\nhouse had been torn down and removed from the spot. I had expected to\nwander through the deserted rooms and try to recall the old hopes and\nmemories that filled my soul when I lived in the old log cottage. These\nmemories came back but slowly, because the old landmarks had been removed\nand there was nothing to suggest the old incidents that filled my life\nwhen a boy.\n\nThe location of the house was in a deep, narrow valley, with hills on\nthree sides and a dense woods in front, with no other human habitation in\nsight. It was in this secluded spot I dreamed the dreams of dissatisfied\nyouth. And yet these dreams are very dear to me now, as I dig them out of\nmemory, clothed in their old rags and hunger and famished ambition. The\nmemories of the pain I suffered in this dreamy spot came back to me like\nold friends who suffered with me in those days.\n\nIt was here that I held my dear old father\u2019s hand while he passed over\nthe bar and drifted out on the Sea of Death. How plainly the scene comes\nback to me as I stand on the crumbling walls and recall every feature of\nthe room in which he passed away. He asked for me in the last hour and\nrequested me to stay with him. Perhaps he understood me better than the\nolder boys, or he may have believed that I understood him best of all the\nfamily.\n\nIt was not his desire to go. He had hoped for ten more years of life, but\nnow he realized that the end was near at hand. He spoke not a word of\nbeing prepared to go nor did he ask me to meet him in heaven. He belonged\nto the class of thinkers who do not know, and, realizing that he knew\nnothing of the future, did not speculate on possibilities. The last words\nhe said were: \u201cYou may look upon men when dying, but ah, my son, you will\nnever know what death is until you come to die yourself!\u201d\n\nThese words have haunted me all through life, and I often think of the\ndreaded experience he prophesied for me. At that hour I could have gone\naway with him contentedly, and I really wished then, while I held his\nhand, that we two could go out together, and I never, never return.\n\nBut I could not keep my mind on death even then; for I noted the droning\nof a bumble bee that beats its head against the window and tried to\nescape from the room. And while looking at the bee I noted the voice of a\ncatbird out in the orchard, singing his sweetest notes. I tried to locate\nhim, and did finally detect him sitting on the branch of an apple tree\nfather had planted for me when I was yet a child. Then a bluebird lit on\na tall weed just outside the window: the weed bent and the winds caused\nthe bird to dance and sway up and down, and from right to left.\n\nAnd there was sobbing and crying in the outer room. My old mother was\nheartbroken at the parting and my older brother was trying to console\nher. When the catbird flew away, followed by the blue one\u2014the bumble bee\nfound the raised window and flew away. Then I turned to the bed\u2014father\nhad likewise gone away. Only the cold clay remained.\n\nStanding on the ruins of the old home I recalled it all once more as\nvividly as though it happened but yesterday.\n\nHow strangely we live, how strangely we die, how strangely we live on\nafter loved ones have gone from us. How strangely we recall the old\nscenes when they are suggested to us by a chain of memories passing\nthrough our mind. Ah, many of my old hopes and ambitions lie now in ruins\nmore complete than the old walls of my childhood\u2019s home. Many of the\npeople I met in this old home were closely connected with those old hopes\nthat have crumbled into gloomy dreams. Still I live on and hope on\u2014new\nhopes and a new life.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAYWARD BOY\n\n\nToday I want to talk to the boys who neglect their mother. They are not\nall bad boys, but all are careless and thoughtless boys. At an early age\nthese wayward boys go away from home and leave a fond mother to worry\nand fret and grieve over their absence. Some times they neglect to write\nhome for years and years, leaving the dear old mother to nurse her lonely\nand hungry heart and hug the old, old memories when her boy was but a\nchild. If any wayward and wandering young man should chance to read these\nlines\u2014any wayward boy who knows of a mother waiting at home\u2014won\u2019t he sit\ndown this very day and write her a few lines?\n\nI have for a neighbor a loving mother who is wasting her life in grieving\nfor her wayward son. He went away two years ago, and has never written\nher a single line. He is a wanderer on the earth, working a few weeks at\none place, then jumps a freight train and rides to new scenes. About a\nyear ago the mother dreamed an awful dream about her boy. In that vision\nshe was in a strange land sitting under a large tree on a sloping hill,\naround whose base a railroad curved and stretched out for miles on either\nside. She looked away to the east, and saw the smoke of an approaching\ntrain. It was coming like the wind.\n\nThen she heard the whistles of a locomotive in the west, and looking in\nthat direction she beheld another train sweeping down the track to meet\nthe one coming from the east.\n\nThere was only a single track. One of the trains must pull into a switch,\nor there would be a collision. The trainmen could not see around the\ncurve, and were not aware of the other train\u2019s existence. She rushed to\nthe brow of the hill where she could look down upon the track and took\noff her skirt and waved it aloft to signal the on-coming trains. Neither\nengineer saw her, and the trains came rushing onward to their inevitable\ndoom. As the train from the east passed where she stood she saw a man\nsitting on the bumpers between two red cars. He looked up and waved his\nhand to her. She recognized the face\u2014it was her son Edward!\n\nThen came the shrill whistles of the two locomotives. The engineers had\ndiscovered their danger when too late to save the trains. She stood\nfascinated and watched the two iron monsters come together with an awful\ncrash. They stood up on end like two angry animals in deadly combat, and\nthe sound of crashing, tumbling cars drowned the noise of the escaping\nsteam. The two locomotives tumbled over, tearing and wrenching iron\nbars from each other as they fell and then lay with heads together like\ntwo giants of the woods who had fought to the death and lay with tooth\nand claws imbedded in each other\u2019s body. A few freight cars that were\nstanding on end fell over with a crashing sound, a cloud of dust arose\nfrom the awful wreck, a hissing sound of escaping steam continued for a\nfew minutes, and then all was still. The hand of death seemed to grasp\ntrains and crews, and silence settled down with an awful significance.\nShe felt herself fainting, just as the moans and cries of human beings in\ndistress reached her ears.\n\nWhen she came to and looked down upon the wreck it was night, but\nlanterns flitted here and there on both sides of the dead engines, and\na voice asked: \u201cHave we found all the men belonging to the ill-fated\ncrews?\u201d and a voice just below where she stood replied: \u201cYes, all of\nthe two crews, and the body of a hobo besides\u2014they are all dead but two\nbrakemen, and they are still unconscious.\u201d\n\nShe looked down the embankment and saw the dead stretched out upon the\nground and at the east end of the line she recognized her son Edward\u2014dead\nand covered with his own blood.\n\nShe screamed aloud and her daughter came into the room to see what was\nthe cause of her alarm. That was a year ago. Her boy has never written\nsince, and she firmly believes her Edward was killed just as she saw in\nher dream. If he is still alive somewhere in the world, think of the joy\nhe could send her in just a short letter\u2014just enough to show her that he\nis still alive. Boys, write to your mother. She may be dreaming of you.\n\n\n\n\nA WASTED LIFE\n\n\nAcross the river from where I now live stands the old, old house where\nthe man of the wasted life was born. I did not know him as a boy, but the\nold people of the neighborhood spoke of him as the handsomest boy on the\nMcElhattan side, and the place was noted for handsome people. He was a\nfull grown man when I first saw him, while I was yet a boy. How handsome\nhe was, standing six feet tall, with eyes and hair coal black and a face\nthat showed the brain force seething behind the beautiful mask.\n\nHis discontent was transparent to every reader of the human face. Even\nthe droop of his dark mustache reminded one of the weeping willow\nbranches hanging disconsolate over the tomb where sleeps the beloved dead.\n\nWhen I first met him I was only just awakening to the hopeless condition\nof my future life. Weak of body and with an untrained intellect, his\nbroad education and power of deep meditation made him to tower above me\nlike a mountain towering above a mouse; but he stooped to meet me half\nway, showing me the interior of his disappointed soul and receiving my\nsincere sympathy in exchange. At the hotel, where we many nights slept\ntogether in the same bed, the people complained of us talking all night\nlong, to the annoyance of the other lodgers. And it was true. Many the\nnight we lay in the dark and discussed everything on top of the earth,\neven going out of our sphere to discuss the orthodox dream of heaven.\n\nOne night he spoke of the words that should some time decorate his tomb,\nand I still regret that I never mentioned his request to his relatives\nand family, and that now his marker does not display these solemn words:\n\n\u201cI am what was, what is, and what is to be; and no living man shall ever\nroll away the stone that closes the door to the mystery into which I go.\nWhat is, is right or else the whole universe is wrong. I am not lost or\nwasted, for the economy of Nature hoards all the wealth of the world in a\ngrasp that crushes life to get back her own.\u201d\n\nWhat made this sublime thinker a bit of flotsam on the sea of Time? He\ntold me once when in a confidential mood that the loss of the one woman\nhe loved darkened his life and drove him to drink. The woman married\nanother, and was still living when he told me his story, but he did not\ntell me who she was, nor whose fault it was that she became lost to him.\n\nHow I pitied the big man, whose heart was as tender as that of a refined\nwoman. What a power he could have been in the intellectual world if\nmated to the one woman he loved. When he lost her his grasp on ambition\nand enthusiasm weakened and he folded the desires of his soul into a\nshapeless mass and sat down upon them to brood over his loss.\n\nPoor M\u2014\u2014! Chained to his early disappointment, and intellectually so far\nremoved from his plodding neighbors that none thought it necessary to\noffer him their sympathy. How little the average man knows the average\nhuman heart. Education only strengthens the soul\u2019s hunger for sympathy,\nlove and fellowship, and because I sympathized with the man of the wasted\nlife, and he sympathized with me in my almost hopeless struggles, a warm\nfriendship grew up between us, and he allowed me to see farther into the\nshadows that shrouded his disappointed soul than any of his family ever\npenetrated.\n\nHe was one of those retentive minds that could not forget, and he tried\nto dull the pain at his heart with drink. Sometimes he would make a\nstrong effort to reform and rebuild his wasted resolutions, and for\nseveral months he would toil on the farm like a hired man. But his mind\nwas too active for such a vegetable existence, and his books would take\nhim out of the fields of physical labor. Then the old discontent, the\nmemory of the old love would fill his soul and again he would drown\neverything in liquor, like a second Edgar Allen Poe. In one of these\nsprees he died, and his wasted life ended in a death that shocked his\nmany friends.\n\n\n\n\nGARRET MEMORIES\n\n\nMy boy expressed a fear to go up on to the attic one day recently, and\nwhen I asked him what he found to fear up in a dusty old garret, he said\nthere was so much old stuff up there that belonged to people who were\ndead, and if these old things had memories they must surely be thinking\nof the old days and the old friends, and had no welcome for the boys of\nthe present generation.\n\nWell, wife and I know the old garret has many memories, or at least\narticles that suggest old memories, and we seldom make a trip to the old\nstore house of family heirlooms without coming away with a queer feeling\nof loneliness tugging at our hearts. No doubt the boy has often detected\nthe subdued and solemn expression on our sobered faces; and learned his\nlesson of awe and veneration from reading the lines and shadows he has so\noften seen there.\n\nThe last time we were up on the garret, the three of us, we set about\ndigging up old memories, because a lady\u2019s side saddle hanging to a rafter\nstarted us to digging up some old family lore. The saddle belonged to\nwife\u2019s great-grandmother, and is almost a century old. It was on this\nsaddle her great-grandmother made the ride of nine miles through the dark\nto warn her father that burglars were trying to break into their house.\n\nIt seems her father sold some cattle and hogs a few days previously and\nhad the money locked up in the bureau of his room. It was for this reason\nthat the daughter and the hired girl were told to take the twins, and\nthe four of them sleep in this particular room every night, while the\nparents attended camp meeting. Some great revivalist on the style of\nPeter Cartright was stirring up the people and everybody for miles around\nflocked to the camp meeting and pitched their tents and were prepared to\nspend several days on the camp ground.\n\nThere were several bad characters in the neighborhood and they knew the\nold squire had money in the house because he hadn\u2019t been to town since\nselling the cattle and would hardly carry it with him to camp meeting.\nOn the second night after the squire and his wife had left home three\nmen broke through a kitchen window and began a search of the first floor\nrooms, knowing the hired man and the boys slept up stairs.\n\nWhen they discovered that some one inside the squire\u2019s room was holding\nthe bolt in place they threatened to kill everybody inside the room if\nthey didn\u2019t let them in. The twins (girls of six) screamed aloud on\nhearing this threat, and their older sister called to the hired man up\nstairs to come to their assistance. But no answer came from the upper\nprecincts. The hired man and the boys were too much scared to even make\nany reply.\n\nThen it was that the sister unbolted the window and crawled through and\ndropped to the ground, ran quietly to the stable and saddled her horse,\nwith this very saddle, and rushed off to the distant camp ground through\na darkness that would frighten women of less nerve. Almost breathless she\nreached the camp meeting just when the shouting hilarity was the highest,\nand was told that her father was at the altar seeking salvation.\n\nWithout stopping to ask permission of anybody she walked swiftly up the\naisle to where her father was kneeling, recognizing him by the green coat\nhe wore, stooped and whispered in his ear: \u201cCome home, father, at once;\nthere are burglars trying to break into the house!\u201d\n\n\u201cHell!\u201d he exclaimed loud enough to be heard by the mourner on either\nside of him, and said no more until he had saddled his own horse just\nback of the camp ground, and the two galloped back home in time to\nprevent the robbery. The burglars had taken their own good time to cut\na hole through the door, through which they could reach a hand and pull\nback the wooden bolt; but the brave hired girl had stabbed the hand with\na pair of scissors every time it was thrust through, and thus protected\nthe house until the arrival of the squire and his fearless daughter.\n\nThe burglar on watch outside the house heard the approaching horses, and\nwarning his two pals inside, they all escaped. Next day the burglar with\nthe scissors wounds on his hands was arrested, and finally confessed and\ngave the names of his pals, and the trio served two years in prison.\n\nNo, the family history doesn\u2019t enlighten us as to whether the old squire\nwent back to camp meeting to resume his prayers for salvation, or not.\nQuite likely the saving of his cattle and hog money satisfied him for\nthat particular season. Men weren\u2019t as greedy in those days as they are\nnow, and he may have left the great supply of saving grace for others to\nenjoy.\n\n\n\n\nYOUR BABY STILL\n\n\nA short time ago an old schoolmate friend wrote me that they had lost\ntheir darling\u2014a baby boy of ten months, and the mother was grieving\nherself sick over her great loss. \u201cCouldn\u2019t you write something to\nconsole her\u2014something to make a bright spot out in the future to look\nahead to with hope?\u201d he wrote. How easy to ask this, but how hard to\ncomply. How impossible to wipe away the sorrow from a bleeding heart and\npersuade the heart to cease bleeding and the bereaved soul to cease its\ngrieving.\n\nAfter a little thought it struck me forcibly that the memories and\nrecollections of a dead child must always picture the child as it was\nwhen death took it away. And I sat down and put myself in that mother\u2019s\nplace and wrote as though I were writing the words of hope that sometime\nwould surely fill her loving soul. I print them now for the hundreds of\nother sorrowing mothers who see before them, day and night, the dear face\nof their darling who sleeps out in the church yard, the land where babies\nnever grow old.\n\nI could write out of that mother\u2019s heart, because I, too, have a baby\nsleeping in the land of perpetual youth. Had she lived she would now be\na grown woman\u2014perhaps today weeping over a little grave where her own\ndarling lay sleeping.\n\n    Weeping over his little bier,\n    Kissing the lips of her baby dear,\n    Touching the eyes in their endless sleep\u2014\n    Dreaming, I see a mother weep.\n    Mother, he\u2019ll be your baby still,\n    Let the changes bring whate\u2019er they will;\n    When the coming years silver your hair,\n    You will dream of your baby fair;\n    Other sorrows your heart may fill\u2014\n    He\u2019ll be your darling baby still.\n    Tho\u2019 he may lie in the churchyard cold,\n    In your dreams he\u2019ll never grow old;\n    In your slumbers you\u2019ll kiss his brow,\n    Sweet and pure as you see him now.\n    Ah, for ever your baby will\n    Be, in fond mem\u2019ry, your baby still!\n\n    Other mothers are happy today\n    Kissing their darling\u2019s tears away,\n    Looking far out in the world so wide,\n    Swelling their mother-heart with pride;\n    For they see their child to manhood grown\u2014\n    Proud are they to call him their own;\n    Dreaming dreams of all he shall be\u2014\n    The man they picture\u2014the man they see;\n    Proud and defiant, leader of men,\n    Making history with tongue and pen.\n    Surely their baby must change to be\n    The full grown man of the picture they see.\n\n    Ah, better for her and her mother pride,\n    Better, ah, better that child had died\n    With innocent smile on his baby face,\n    Than live to manhood and disgrace.\n\n    \u201cWhat news is this? Oh, tell me true!\n    What did the boy of my fond hopes do?\n    Murdered his sweetheart? Oh, loving God!\n    This comes from the wicked path he trod.\n    A drunken quarrel? She led him on!\n    And he\u2019s a murderer! my son, my son!\u201d\n\n    Mother, when bidding your child farewell,\n    With heartaches more than tongue can tell,\n    When laying him low in the cold, cold ground,\n    And tenderly heaping the little mound\u2014\n    There\u2019s a land of hope just over the hill,\n    Where your baby will be your baby still.\n    No news of him will ever pain\n    Your aching, loving heart again.\n    Silent he sleeps in the earth\u2019s cool breast,\n    And when life\u2019s sun has set, in the west,\n    And you lie down at his side, he will\n    Be your darling baby still.\n\n    Only a little while ahead\u2014\n    A little nap for the silent dead\u2014\n    A little trouble, and sorrow, and pain,\n    And you will be with your child again.\n    Safer with you is the child you find\n    Than the full-grown man you leave behind.\n    And tho\u2019 the promised future is dim,\n    \u2019Tis enough to know\u2014you shall sleep with him,\n    And all through eternity your baby will\n    Be your darling baby still.\n\n\n\n\nWISH I WERE A JEW\n\n\nI wish I were a Jew. The more I study the situation, the more I wish to\nbe a Jew. I have found fault with the Jews, from the Christian point of\nview, and I would like to turn around and fire a few broadsides into my\ndelinquent Christian friends from the Hebrew standpoint. Not that I would\ncondemn Jesusism, but to show the Christian world how far they are off\nthe track of the meek and lowly Jesus, when he commanded his followers\nwith a new commandment. Did Jesus mean anything when he said: \u201cA new\ncommandment I give unto you; that ye love one another; as I have loved\nyou, that ye also love one another.\u201d\n\nIf I were a Jew I would ask my fellow Christians whether they believe\nthat Christ only loves them after the style and fashion of their love for\none another? I would ask them if these great navies and mighty armies\nof armed men, trained to kill each other in new and improved style, are\nimitations of Christ\u2019s great love for men? Are England and Germany and\nFrance and Russia and the United States and Spain and Italy and all the\nSouth American republics loving each other as Christ loved the world?\nIf these are truly Christian nations, then the Jews must take it for\ngranted that they are imitating the love of Jesus, as ordered in the\n\u201cNew Commandment.\u201d If these so-called Christian nations are not obeying\nthe \u201cNew Commandment,\u201d then they are not Christian nations, and their\npretense is sheer hypocrisy.\n\nLoving your neighbor as you love yourself is poorly displayed in taxing\nhim to build navies for the purpose of killing a lot of other people\nChrist loved and died for. Christ died to establish universal peace, but\nto judge him through the work of those who pretend to be his followers,\nhe died for the purpose of ordaining priests and preachers to bless the\narmies and navies of civilization.\n\nAs a boy I was taught to look upon the Jews as the rejecters, betrayers\nand crucifiers of Christ, the man sent of God to establish peace and\ngood will. I was taught to look upon Judas Iscariot as the meanest of\nall men\u2014the man who pretended to love Jesus, but who betrayed him for\nthirty pieces of silver. If I were a Jew, I would point to the Christian\nchurches, pretending to love the people as Christ loved them, but openly\nturning the blessings of Christ from their natural channels of peace, to\nblessing the armies and navies that go out to do violence. Judas only\nbetrayed Christ once, and was sorry for it, while the Christians betray\nhim every day in the year, and boast of it. They boast of their armies\nand navies and sing their praises, feeling more secure in the ability of\ntheir armed forces than they do in the love of their Christ.\n\nDid the Jews do worse in rejecting Christ, then the Christians do in\naccepting him, and then disobey the newest commandment that came from\nhis lips? They preach his gospel of peace and then organize for the\npurpose of destroying peace. If the Christian church turned against\nmilitarism, and abandoned the war departments in their efforts to enforce\ncommercialism and the extension of trade, the war-loving people would not\ncontribute their thirty pieces of silver.\n\nIf I were a Jew I would set up the character of Judas against the work of\nthe Christians in the betrayal of business.\n\nJudas was part of the original plan\u2014to establish a living example of the\nperfidy attached to the work of treachery. Have the Christians profited\nby the example? Have they not deceitfully handed the gospel of Christ\nover to the enemies of peace? Have they loved one another similar to\nthe love Christ died for? Are the slums of our large cities examples of\nChrist\u2019s love for the lowly and the oppressed? Is the treatment of the\nJews in Christian Russia an example of \u201cLove your neighbor as yourself?\u201d\nThe more I think over the situation, the more I regret that I am not a\nJew.\n\n\n\n\nMEMORIES\n\n\nThe old people had been living in their village home long before I went\nthere to become their neighbor. They had reared their family of five\nchildren in the old house, and they had all married and gone elsewhere to\nlive. The old people were now past 65, and rather old for transplanting\nin a new home, but the death of a relative brought to their door a small\nfortune, and the children insisted that they must remove to the city and\nlive in better style, as becomes people in affluent circumstances.\n\nWe called on them in the evening of their last day in the old home and\nfound them sitting on the front porch, resting and dreaming after a day\nof packing up goods for the removal. The old lady had been silently\nweeping, and her heart was so full of going away that she broke down and\ntearfully assured us that going away was breaking ties that affect her\nheart for all time to come.\n\n\u201cJim and me are too old to be torn up by the roots and transplanted to\na town lot. We\u2019ve lived here so long that we can\u2019t ever make ourselves\nbelieve that a grander house and a stylish lot of neighbors is to become\nour home for all time.\n\n\u201cWhy, every nook and corner of this old place is peopled with loving\nmemories. The house seems to be a store-house filled with the echoes of\nour children\u2019s happy voices and their merry laughter. I sometimes even\nimagine that I hear the prattling echo of little Ruth\u2019s baby voice, the\nchild who died when four years old.\n\n\u201cIt may be foolish, Mr. Haiden, but no other house can ever produce the\nsame pleasant illusions. I hear them all, when I listen, just as I heard\ntheir real voices in the long ago. But it won\u2019t be so in the new home.\nThey ain\u2019t going to let me take any of the old furniture along\u2014the chairs\nand the sideboard and the bureau that are all scratched with the hands\nof the children. And the old pictures of George Washington crossing the\nDelaware, and the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, and the\nSoldier\u2019s Dream, and the Soldier\u2019s Farewell\u2014they say they\u2019re out of date,\nand must be packed away on the garret.\n\n\u201cIf these old things are out of date, what\u2019s to be said of Jim and me?\nWe love those old pictures and scratched pieces of furniture better than\nanything that\u2019s new and has no history connected with it. We don\u2019t want\nto be separated from the past so ruthlessly and violently. It\u2019s bad\nenough to be torn away from our old friends and acquaintances, and taken\nso far away and stored away in such a grand house that none of the old\nneighbors will ever come to see us, and will finally grow indifferent\ntoward us, and blame us for being stuck up and proud, and declare we were\nglad and willing to move away and sever the ties of love and friendship\nbetween us and our rustic neighbors.\n\n\u201cAnd if our money leaves us as suddenly as it came, and we are obliged to\ncome back here, it will be like a spirit forced to come back to its dead\nand deserted body. For all these old memories and childish echoes must\nsurely die after we are no longer here to hear them, and the house will\nbecome as dead to us as the memories that died of loneliness after we\nwent away.\n\n    \u201cFor memories live on our love, Jim,\n      On the heartstrings tied to them;\n    They\u2019ll die when we once remove, Jim,\n      And break them off love\u2019s stem;\n        For they lie on my breast,\n        Like children at rest,\n    And nurse at love\u2019s fountain brim.\n\n    And all have a beautiful head, Jim,\n      With faces upturned for a kiss;\n    I feel in my heart they\u2019re not dead, Jim,\n      But living in innocent bliss;\n        But when we depart;\n        They\u2019ll die in my heart\u2014\n    And, oh, their presence I\u2019ll miss!\n\n    They are echoes of voices so dear, Jim,\n      They are whispering now in my heart.\n    Come closer, and put your ear, Jim,\n      Just over the place\u2014don\u2019t start!\n        Ah, you hear the song,\n        That is all the day long\n    Singing the mournful part.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSWEETENED WITH SORROW\n\n\nPeople who suffer in the slow fire of sorrow are purified from many of\nthe weaknesses and faults of humanity. Perfection comes only after we\nhave paid the price. Men are always better and kinder to their second\nwife than they were to their first, for in the loss of the first wife\nsorrow opened the door to a wider vision and a broader view. Sorrow is\npart of our education. The giddy young have not yet been purified in\nsorrow\u2019s flames, and they are blind to many things that must be learned\nbefore they win the hearts of the people.\n\nThe kindest man I ever knew was the saddest looking when his face was in\nrepose. He had a good word for everybody. He seemed to know why men and\nwomen go wrong and could find an excuse for all their short-comings and\nevil doings. He came into our village life as though by accident, setting\nup housekeeping with his white-haired mother and two hired servants on\nthe little farm just west of the town. They farmed only a little bit,\nkeeping but one horse and two cows. The postmistress said he sent some\nlarge packages of first-class mail matter to a certain publishing house\nin the city, and we guessed that the man was an author or journalist.\n\nI met him afterwards when we sat together at the old stone bridge fishing\nin the deep pool at the mouth of the little creek. It was a good place\nto catch the fish when gathering there previous to their migrating up\nthe creek for the season. Bit by bit, I learned his story, for he was\nhungry for sympathy. A woman had broken his heart. She had married him\nfor his money. He had been a business man in the big city\u2014a banker, but\noccasionally writing for a newspaper in which he held some stock.\n\nA family moved into the neighborhood where the bank was located, and he\nmet the daughter at the house of a friend. A mutual admiration began\nfrom the first. She was of a literary turn, and was in sympathy with his\nambition and hopes, and showed in many ways that she admired him. She was\npretty and intelligent, and he was recovering from a love disappointment\nand was hungry for love and sympathy. He proposed, was accepted, and\nin a few months after the first meeting they were married. He was only\ntwenty-five then, frivolous and happy and without a care.\n\nSix weeks after the wedding he discovered by sheer accident that the\nwoman had a living husband from whom she was not divorced, and whom she\nmet clandestinely and gave him money with which to gamble. She wasn\u2019t\nhis wife at all, but an unscrupulous adventuress who associated with\ncriminals.\n\nHe sold out his interest in the bank and came out into the country with\nhis widowed mother to live a quiet life and try to forget.\n\nThat same summer a strange woman came to the village to spend a few\nmonths in this quiet retreat, and one night I sat with my melancholy\nfriend in church when the strange lady sang a solo. She had the sweetest\nvoice I ever heard\u2014mournfully sweet, with a peculiar cadence that filled\none\u2019s eyes with moisture and sent thrills of unknown feelings tingling\nthrough every nerve. And oh, how beautiful was her face when she sang. I\nturned to my companion at the conclusion of the song and remarked: \u201cGod\nonly bestows a voice like that upon a very few women.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he replied sadly, \u201cupon the few women who involuntarily pay the\ngreat price.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cNo woman can sing so sweetly who has not suffered. Somebody has broken\nthat frail woman\u2019s heart. She has suffered in the slow fire of deep\nsorrow. A man is driven into great philanthropy; music, or literary\nwork that touches the heart, through deep sorrow, but the woman who has\na voice for singing pours all her sorrow out through the channel of\nsweetened song.\u201d\n\nI glanced at him and knew he had learned the story that can only come\nto a man whose heart has been broken; and I knew that he had guessed\nwhence came the sweet cadence in the singer\u2019s voice. Somehow it struck\nme forcibly that these two people who had been made sweet and lovable in\nthe fire of sorrow would make life companions, if they could be brought\ntogether. I told my wife all I had on my mind and she fell in with my\nviews at once. She is a chronic matchmaker.\n\nShe courted the woman\u2019s society and learned her story. Her husband had\nbeen a defaulter, embezzler, bigamist and scoundrel. He had since been\nkilled by a woman. She was making her living singing on the stage. I\ntold her, when better acquainted, of how my friend had guessed of her\nsorrow, and she became greatly interested in my sad friend\u2019s history. We\nfinally brought the two strangers together. She sang for us and he read\nhis latest poem. The sweetness of sorrow touched us all. She sang again\nand we all cried together. The charm of sorrow was over us all\u2014over the\nentire house.\n\nThat was two years ago. They are now happily married. The sweetness of\nsorrow is in their love for each other, and life is filled with love\u2019s\nsweet song.\n\n\n\n\nIN HER DREAMS\n\n\nIn the lonesomest road I travelled while homeward bound from Reading, I\nstopped at a little faded cottage to inquire the way and the distance to\nthe nearest town. An old white haired woman came to the door and gave as\nmuch information as she possessed, but she confessed she hadn\u2019t been to\ntown for more than sixteen years.\n\n\u201cAnd do you live all alone in this dreary place the year \u2019round?\u201d I\ninquired. \u201cNo, not always alone,\u201d she replied, with a peculiar smile.\n\u201cOnce a month the groceryman sends the boy out with my store goods and\nflour, and a neighbor living just over the hill comes over every week to\nsee if I have any wood chopped, and to fix the pasture field fence so\nthat my cow can\u2019t get away. Besides this one or two neighbor women call\nsometimes and do their sewing while telling me the news from the outside\nworld.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut at night you are alone, and that is the dreariest time of all,\u201d I\nsuggested.\n\n\u201cNo, I\u2019m not alone even during the night, stranger. I have very realistic\ndreams while I sleep. During the year I am visited by all of my old\nfriends and schoolmates. Not all at one time, to be sure, but every night\none or the other of them will call on me, and we\u2019ll all be young again\nand play the dear old games we loved so well when we were boys and girls.\nAnd the boy who was killed in the mines away back in \u201978 comes back once\na week and in my dreams I mend his clothes and wash his shirts, the same\nas I used to do in the long ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cSort of a sad dream,\u201d I remarked.\n\n\u201cNo, not at all! Why should it make one sad to dream of those we loved,\nand who loved us long ago? Last night my husband came back to see me, and\nhe was killed in the mines away back in \u201967. He was just like he appeared\nto me the morning he went to the mine and to his death.\u201d\n\n\u201cWere you glad to see him?\u201d I asked, for she stopped short and was\nlooking out toward the wooded hills with a glad smile on her face.\n\n\u201cGlad to see him? Why, I was just as glad as I was when he used to come\ncourting me down in Lebanon a half century ago! He always puts his arms\naround me and gives me a gentle embrace, and kisses me on the lips, just\nas he did when he was my lover and I was his girl sweetheart. And then he\nsits at the chimney and lights his pipe and smokes in silence, and I mend\nhis clothes. By and by I fill his dinner pail, and before he starts away\nhe asks me to the door, where he embraces me once more, and I hold up my\nlips for his farewell kiss; and then I stand there in the early morning\nlight and watch him pass down the road and around the bend and disappear\nbehind the bunch of laurels, just as I used to watch him long ago.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd your dreams make you feel happy during the next day, I suppose,\u201d I\nremarked, for she was again looking dreamily towards the hills.\n\n\u201cNot always,\u201d she sadly replied. \u201cFor when my dead baby comes back in the\nnight and begins to feel with his dead hands all over my bosom, and with\nhis dead mouth tries to find my breast, I then recall that many and many\nthe time that same baby groped for my breast when he was starving for the\nwant of proper food; for in those days John was drinking hard; and did\nnot provide for his family, and my half-starved body furnished but poor\nwatery food for my baby boy; and all night long his baby hands reached\nfor the fountain that had run dry. The doctor said he was so nearly\nstarved that he could not stand the pneumonia and recover, so he died.\u201d\n\n\u201cCould you forgive your husband after baby died?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cYes, after a manner. You see he straightened up for a time after baby\ndied, and wasn\u2019t drinking so very hard when he was killed. And he is\nalways young and sober and industrious in my dreams, the same as he was\nwhen we were married, but baby is always hungry and groping with his dead\nmouth for my shriveled breast.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE MORTGAGED MOTHER\n\n\nThe home was located in an isolated and lonely spot, with hills on two\nsides of it and a ragged woodland in the rear, and the front side leading\ninto a deep ravine that grew wider as it neared the valley far below. The\nroad came up the steep ravine, passed the house and wound over the hill\nin the rear. It was so steep that few people traveled the road unless\ngoing to call on the owner of the home, Jack Wier.\n\nJack was sitting on the porch as we drove up to the house, and looked the\npicture of despair. Children came running out of the house to see who was\ncoming, and the open doorway was filled with frowsy heads, besides the\nbolder ones who hung over the rail of the porch and gazed at us like so\nmany startled rabbits. We counted nine, and Jack said the youngest was\nsleeping in the cradle.\n\n\u201cTen children, after a marriage of twelve years!\u201d he said, with a\nmelancholy tinge in his voice.\n\n\u201cSurely there is no race suicide here!\u201d I exclaimed.\n\n\u201cNo, there is no race suicide, but there has been a mother sacrificed,\u201d\nhe said, and there was a sob in his throat. \u201cTwo days after the birth\nof our last baby girl the poor worn-out mother died. Nature could not\nsustain her frail body after so many years of torture. Common sense\nshould have taught me that my wife was making a sacrifice of herself,\nbut I was blind. Suddenly I was awakened. I was left with a family of\nten children, and the eldest only eleven years old. Of course, I am fond\nof the children, but the price paid was too much\u2014twelve years of painful\nsacrifice, and then an eternal rest in the bosom of mother earth.\n\n\u201cAnd what am I to do with my children? We have been getting along, after\na manner, but the children are now showing the effects of neglect. It may\nrequire another sacrifice before the children are all pulled through.\nBessie, my eldest girl, has never had any childhood. She has been forced\ninto womanhood before she fairly tasted the joys of happy girlhood, and\nshe is growing into that peculiar condition where the overburdened body\ntakes on the appearance of age, and the dream-light no longer shines in\nthe hopeless eyes.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou take things too seriously,\u201d I said, by way of cheering him up.\n\n\u201cThat may be,\u201d he replied, \u201cbut God knows how seriously things are taking\nme! I love my children and would educate them all, if possible, but it\nlooks now as though I will never be able to educate any of them. This\npoor hillside farm is all I have in the world, and debts accumulate much\nfaster than crops grow. When a man gets so far in debt that release seems\nhopeless, the future looks uninviting to that man.\n\n\u201cAnd it\u2019s all owing to my blind ignorance! So long as my wife lived I was\nproud to be called the father of ten children. It put me in a class with\nthose patriarchs of old, who gloried in their many offspring. I forgot\nthat these same old patriarchs gloried in their many wives, as well.\u201d\n\nThen pointing down the valley he asked: \u201cDo you see that white house over\nyonder? That man has two children. They are now attending high school\nover in the city. He is able to give them both a good education, and no\ndoubt the two will accomplish more good in the world than my ten, who\nmust grow up in ignorance and be fit to only perform menial and poorly\npaid labor.\n\n\u201cAnd that\u2019s not all, nor the worst: Growing up without a mother\u2019s care\nand loving hand to guide them, I often tremble for their safety. The\npitfalls and traps set to catch the unsophisticated girls are numerous\nand temptations lurk in every dark corner. Race suicide may be a sin,\nbut mother sacrifice is a barbarous outrage. Outraged nature is taking\nrevenge out of me. I painted this picture myself, with living pictures,\nbut the face of a martyred mother is in the background.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE TOY MAKER\n\n\nJust across the river lives the old toy maker, an old bachelor who has\nbeen living the life of a hermit for many years. He is now almost seventy\nyears old, but works at his bench as vigorously as he did when I first\nknew him. He will not discuss his past life, but avoids it as though old\nmemories give him pain. But his relatives say he was once disappointed in\nlove\u2014jilted on what was to be his wedding day. Some pretend to know of a\nwedding suit still preserved and packed away in a trunk, but never to be\nworn by a bridegroom while the old toy maker lives and has the clothes in\nhis possession.\n\nHe avoids women, and doesn\u2019t want to be bothered with children, yet he\ndevotes his life to making wagons and sleds for boys. Somewhere down in\nhis unsatisfied heart there is a love for the children still, though it\nwas denied him to have children to bear his name.\n\nThere is something tender and affectionate about the picture of a toy\nmaker, and how could this be so, unless the toy maker himself is tender\nand affectionate? It is safe to say that this particular toy maker can\nweave more heartaches into the toy he is making for some happy, careless\nboy, than he could pound into a large farm wagon for men. There is a\npeculiar sentiment in working for the children, which people feel, even\nthough their education is so barren that they do not know what the word\n\u201csentiment\u201d means. The old toy maker may think he hates boys, but his\nwork contradicts him. He does not manufacture his wagons for profit, for\nthe price is so low that he scarcely earns fifty cents a day at the work.\n\nThe truth is, the old toy maker loves children in spite of his studied\nseclusion. He avoids them because they are so closely in touch with\nwomen, and to a woman he owes his cheerless life. How foolish to turn\nagainst the whole world because one woman proved false. There are true\nwomen all around us, and a man should be strong enough to pull the false\nwoman out of his heart and forget her in the society of the good and\ntrue. The strong man is made wiser and better through disappointment and\nthe deception of a false woman, and it teaches him how to value a true\nwoman when he finds her waiting to be loved.\n\nThe man who gives up at one defeat is to be pitied. His acknowledgment\nof defeat shows that he is a man of tender nature, preferring to go out\nof the crowd and live alone, to renewing the contest and do battle with\nthe false and cruel. Every time I see the old toy maker bending over his\nwork, which he does so carefully and perfect, I realize that a loving,\ntrusting heart throbs under his soiled coat. Somehow I can\u2019t help but\nlove the toy makers, because they unconsciously love children. They\ncan\u2019t help it. They may scold and frown and threaten punishment for any\ntrifling offense, but deep down in their soul they do, and can not help\nbut love children.\n\nDuring the last fifteen years of President Cleveland\u2019s life I was not\nhis friend. I believed that he had gone back on the common people and\ngiven his support to plutocracy. I said many bitter things about him,\nand called him a Judas and a betrayer of his friends. But soon after his\ndeath I saw a picture of the ex-President sitting at a table mending toys\nfor his little son.\n\nWhen I looked upon that picture I could not believe the man was false to\nhis friends. I had only misunderstood him and his motives while serving\nhis country. A false leader of men, or a tyrant, would not stoop to\nbecome a toy mender.\n\nHe would have no time for sentiment and tender paternal feelings.\n\nHere was a man upon whom the eyes of the world had rested, whose name was\nfamiliar to millions, sitting at a table mending broken toys. I was won\nback to him before I had looked upon the picture two minutes. I could\noverlook all his faults, because his faults were human, just the same as\nhis love for children was human. The simplicity of the picture showed the\nman and the father and the companion, mutely telling the story of his\ngreat love for the boy whom he never hoped to see when grown to manhood.\nHe fully realized that when the boy became a full-grown man he would not\nbe there to see him and help him and guide him with his great love.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MOTHER-IN-LAW\n\n\nThere never was a woman who made a more loving mother, nor a mother more\nproud of her son than Mrs. Taylor. Tom was a boy that any mother might be\nproud of, so obedient and affectionate. But Tom was going to get married\nand bring his wife to the old home, and the widow Taylor assured me that\nshe was going to be such a model mother-in-law that there would be never\na cloud of discontent hover over the Taylor home. Tom\u2019s girl was such\na sweet little soul that anybody could get along with her; and even if\nshe was not, Tom would not let his mother be abused or slighted or made\ndiscontented in her own home.\n\nI didn\u2019t return to the Taylor home for ten years, but I noticed at once a\nchange in the Widow Taylor. There was a look of sadness in her white face\nand she seemed to have grown old very fast since I saw her last. I knew\nshe couldn\u2019t be more than sixty, but she looked to be easily seventy-five\nyears old. When I found myself alone on the wide porch with the sad faced\nwoman I made bold to inquire: \u201cWell, Mrs. Taylor, did you succeed in\nplaying the part of a model mother-in-law?\u201d\n\nShe smiled at me with a look of pain in her face, and slowly said: \u201cI\ndon\u2019t believe there could be such a thing. Perhaps a mother could be a\nmodel mother-in-law to a son-in-law, but she couldn\u2019t be one to her son\u2019s\nwife, and live in the old home. When Tom brought Bessie to this house it\nwas my home. My word was law. You well know that I couldn\u2019t be a tyrant\nif I tried, yet it was a satisfaction to arrange the house to suit my\ntaste and run things after the style I had practiced for years.\u201d\n\nThen, in answer to my startled look, she continued: \u201cNo, Bessie and I\nhave never quarreled. I wouldn\u2019t allow myself to do so. She is Tom\u2019s\nwife, and he loves her to devotion. If I quarreled with Bessie Tom would\nhave to take one side or the other. I wouldn\u2019t want him to decide against\nhis wife, and if he turned against me it would break my heart. So I try\nto bear my lot without complaining, but I can hardly help the feeling\nthat I am a stranger in my own home. I have no longer any authority\nabout the house. The pictures are no longer arranged as they were ten\nyears ago. The portraits of the family no longer grace the walls of the\ndownstairs rooms. Bessie says it is not fashionable, so the pictures of\nTom\u2019s father and my own, are banished to the narrow confines of my own\nbed room.\n\n\u201cAnd my bedroom has been changed, too. I no longer sleep over the parlor,\nfacing the public road. Bessie thought it would make such a pleasant\nspare room for visitors, so I was removed to the east room over the\nkitchen. When Bessie\u2019s mother visits her she occupies my old room, while\nI must go off to my den over the kitchen. I may be selfish, though I pray\nGod to keep me from thoughts that are narrow; but it does hurt an old\nwoman to be thus set aside in her own home.\n\n\u201cAnd no longer any callers or visitors come to see me. I\u2019m a back number.\nEven you came to see Tom, and not me. I am a deposed ruler. My kingdom\nhas been handed over to another and my own son is a subject of the new\nruler. I never complain to Tom, because he does not understand. He thinks\nthat I ought to be satisfied with things as they are, and maybe I should,\nfor I have nothing to do. Well, nothing to do is the hardest life a\nperson can live. I can go and come at will, but that is not enough to\nsatisfy a woman. I long for the old home in which I was once an entity, a\nmoving force, a working energy.\n\n\u201cWhere nothing is expected of the mother-in-law, she can expect nothing\nin return. I am reduced to an eating, drinking, sleeping non-entity.\nI once overheard Bessie tell a caller that I was getting queer. Maybe\nI am, for I certainly feel queer under present conditions. Neither\nresponsibility nor authority rests on me. I am on the scrap pile, an\nunwilling supernumerary.\n\n\u201cBut oh, Mr. Haiden, I am so much more fortunate than some mothers-in-law\nI know of! I know a poor old mother who is obliged to live with her son\u2019s\nwife in the home that belongs to the daughter-in-law. And the poor old\nmother is told of this every day. The daughter-in-law is an unnatural,\nungrateful tyrant, and she plays tyrant all the year \u2019round. And the son\nis obliged to take sides with his wife, for the sake of peace. When I\ntalk to that poor old mother I feel that I ought to be thankful, and that\nmy daughter-in-law is a saint; but she ought to consult me now and then\non household matters. She ought to give me some of the responsibilities\nand cares. She should at least make me vice-president of the home, since\nshe usurped the presidency. Two women can not live happily in the same\nhouse unless they share the cares and responsibilities, and the honors.\nEvery young woman going into her mother-in-law\u2019s home should be taught\nthis fact. It would save many a tear and heartache on the part of the\npoor old mothers.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nBOB WHITE\n\n\nPassing by a country graveyard one day last summer I noticed an old man\nthrowing stones at a bird. When I asked him why he did so he stammered:\n\u201cI\u2014I thought it was a Bob White, but it was only a thrush. There is a Bob\nWhite comes here every day through the summer time and calls the one name\nI so bitterly despise, and I chase him away. I don\u2019t want the dead to\nhear him call that name.\u201d\n\nI passed on, but at the first house west of the old country graveyard,\nwhere I stopped to get a drink, a woman told me the old man\u2019s story. He\nwas engaged to a beautiful young girl, but an Englishman came into the\nneighborhood, pretending to be very wealthy, and turned the girl\u2019s head.\nShe was attracted by his supposed wealth, and eloped with him to New\nYork. Less than a year afterward her dead body was sent home for burial\nin the old home graveyard, her husband having deserted her a few months\nafter their unholy marriage.\n\nThe Englishman\u2019s name was Robert White. The old man I saw stoning the\nbirds, had never married after losing his promised bride, and the\nneighbors say he acted very queerly from the day the girl ran away with\nthe Englishman, and has been watching her grave ever since her body\nwas brought home for burial. He imagines the quail is mocking him, or\ntaunting the dead woman with the repetition of the man\u2019s name who wronged\nboth in the long ago.\n\n    Hark, I hear the Bob White call!\n      I wonder where he can be?\n    Ah, sitting on the old stone wall\n      Under the maple tree\u2014\n    The maple tree in the graveyard old,\n      Where my sweetheart is sleeping,\n    Clasped in the arms of the earth so cold,\n      While the rain drop tears are seeping.\n\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      The man who bought a bride;\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      With a broken heart she died;\n            I sing this song\n            The whole day long\u2014\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n\n    She married a man for his gold and land,\n      After plighting her troth, you see;\n    He turned her head, and she gave her hand,\n      But her soul was in love with me.\n    He proved a brute from the very start,\n      And in one short year, she died;\n    He beat her body and broke her heart\u2014\n      She was only a purchased bride.\n\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      The man who received her life;\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      The man who bought a wife;\n            That spiteful call,\n            From the old stone wall\u2014\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n\n    And the name of the man was Robert White,\n      A Britain, from over the sea\u2014\n    A man with a heart as black as night,\n      And he stole my sweetheart from me.\n    The bird comes back to the grave each year,\n      And sits on the old stone wall,\n    And seems to say to the dead, My dear,\n      Do you love the man I call?\n\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      The man who broke your heart!\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      Does it make your mem\u2019ry start?\n            Oh, I love to shout\n            This vile name out\u2014\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n\n    I must go and chase the bird away,\n      So the woman I love may sleep\u2014\n    The woman still dear to me today,\n      Tho\u2019 the world must not see me weep.\n    I hate the name of the man he calls,\n      And the dead, tho\u2019 buried from sight,\n    Must curse each note that spitefully falls,\n      And the name of the man\u2014Bob White.\n\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      My curse be on your head!\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      Go, leave in peace the dead;\n            Her soul is mine,\n            Tho\u2019 her body was thine,\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n\n    Go away, you bird of spiteful song,\n      My sweetheart is at rest;\n    But through your calling the whole day long\n      Sad memories might pain her heart.\n    And my own heart still bleeds anew\n      While you call, from mourn to night,\n    That name, so spitefully sung by you\u2014\n      That hated name\u2014Bob White!\n\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      Be gone, you evil bird!\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n      My soul is within me stirred;\n            Call not in shame\n            That dastard\u2019s name\u2014\n          Bob White, Bob White!\n\n\n\n\nWHIPPING A CHILD\n\n\nIn spite of the fact that Solomon advised whipping the child, I question\nthe benefits of giving pain. I never struck my boy but once, and that was\nwhen he was a child in kilts. God forgive me, I was angry at the time.\nWe were out in the fields gathering dandelions for greens, and the lad\npersisted in throwing clods into the vessel in which the dandelions were.\nI told him several times to desist, but he laughed in childish glee and\ndid it again and again. He did not intend to be bad. It was a child\u2019s\nestimation of fun\u2014to have somebody scolding. I do not know what ailed me\nthat morning, but I soon became so angry that I broke off an elder sprout\nand struck the child a cruel blow across his little back. One blow\u2014that\nwas all, and then my heart smote me. When I felt the little form writhing\nin pain, as I held him by one arm, it dawned on me that I was a brute.\n\nI can shut my eyes still and see that little child sitting on a bank of\ncoarse grass and weeping bitter tears. How I despised myself! I would\nhave taken him in my arms and begged his forgiveness, but I felt sure the\nchild would not think my remorse sincere, and might think me a hypocrite.\nNo, I thought it best to let the child think me a brute, rather than\nbelieve me a hypocrite. He must have faith in my honesty, even though I\nwas an honest brute.\n\nI resolved right then and there that I never would strike my child again.\nMy paternal heart told me that Solomon was wrong\u2014that if he had but one\nboy he would try love, and not the lash. Solomon had so many children and\nso many wives, that he couldn\u2019t love any of them truly and sincerely. I\nwould not take advice from any man who made women slaves to his animal\npassion, and who encouraged the brutal act of inflicting pain on the\ntender flesh of a helpless child. The child that is beaten must surely\ngrow hard of heart, as well as calloused of back, where the rod leaves\nwelts and scars.\n\nI asked my boy only the other day\u2014he is fourteen now\u2014whether he still\nremembered the cruel blow I struck him, and when he replied that he did,\nmy head fell and my heart felt a peculiar pain. Oh, to recall that one\nbrutal blow, or have it forgotten by the boy who was once that quivering,\nsobbing child!\n\nI am certain that the boy is just as obedient as any other boy in the\nneighborhood, and would be just the same if never struck that one blow. I\nstill tell him how sorry I am that I once lost my head and beat a child.\nI want him to feel and know that love is a better ruler than the rod. And\nafter I am gone, and the boy recalls my face, I want him to think kindly\nof me and realize how that one blow has pained me all through life, and\nmade one shadow of paternal shame.\n\nNot long ago I heard a mother boasting of how she conquered her\nthirteen-year-old daughter. For some trivial disobedience she struck\nthe child with a rod, which stung the child to anger, and roused her\nrebellious spirit. She refused to beg her mother\u2019s pardon until deep red\nscars and seams lined her back, through which the red blood was seeping,\nand then pain forced her to break down and ask pardon. But was the girl\nsincere? Was she conquered, subdued? Was her spirit broken?\n\nI hope not. A child with a broken spirit is a pitiable object. Her pride\nis forever injured. And the child that fears her mother can never love\nher in the true sense of filial affection. And if she was not sincere in\nbegging her mother\u2019s pardon, if it was only to escape the awful pain,\nthen the first seeds of hypocrisy have been sown, and the child will\nnever be truthful again.\n\nI know a father who imagines that it is his paternal prerogative to\npunish his child whenever required, and he is to be the judge and jury\nto decide when the child needs punishment, and the extent of that\npunishment. He quotes Solomon to prove his position.\n\nNot long ago his boy of five years refused to repeat a word dictated by\nhis father, and for this disobedience the boy was made to stand on the\nfloor erect, until conquered. The father didn\u2019t try moral suasion or\ncoaxing or petting. He was not in favor of arbitration between father\nand child. It was war to the finish. The boy\u2019s rebellious spirit must be\nbroken, at any cost. It was the father\u2019s duty to conquer the child. The\nbig strong man must triumph, because might is right. Solomon advised this.\n\nIt was 7 P. M. when the boy was first stood up on the floor. The father\ndemanded obedience of the child when anger filled the child\u2019s heart. It\naroused the rebellious spirit\u2014the boy would not be conquered. It was\nthe courage and will that is to make the man a doer and a worker when\nchildhood is gone, but the father didn\u2019t realize it. At 10 o\u2019clock the\nchild fell over in a faint\u2014unconquered and unsubdued\u2014and was critically\nill for many days.\n\nThat father may be right, but I do not believe it. I would give much to\nrecall the one cruel blow I struck when my boy was a helpless child.\n\n\n\n\nNOT A CLINGING VINE\n\n\nSome men fail to win the woman they love, because they are physically too\nstrong and powerful. Some women love to cling, as a vine, to the man who\nresembles the sturdy oak, but not all of them do\u2014not even half the women\ndo the clinging act. I know of a case where a strong man proposed to a\nbeautiful girl who had entered a hospital to become a nurse. She did not\nappear quite strong enough to endure the strenuous duties of a nurse, but\nshe insisted that she loved the work and would stick to it. Her lover\nsought to turn her from her chosen profession and become his wife, but\nshe frankly told him that she did not love him enough to become his wife.\n\nPeople without imagination and without a proper conception of what true\nlove really is, wondered why the girl did not marry the man, for he\nwas quite wealthy, handsome, and of good character. Some even alluded\nto his good family, but the nurse declared that a man was good through\neducation, and not through inheritance. She referred to the case of a\nchild taken from a large family of children and placed in the home of\na rich man who gave her many educational advantages. She outgrew the\ndaughter even in intelligence and beauty, while all the other brothers\nand sisters left in the home nest grew up in ignorance and immoralities\nand did not resemble their educated sister at all. It was all the effect\nof education and not of blood or inheritance.\n\nAnd the strong man gave up the girl and went away to a distant town to\ngo into business. Bad investments swept his fortune away and he fell\nill. His last dollar was gone and his health so bad that he no longer\nresembled the physical giant of former years.\n\nAt last he became so ill that he was taken to the hospital for treatment,\nwhere in his delirium he called for \u201cAgnes, Agnes!\u201d all the time. The\nphysician declared that this Agnes must be found, or the man would surely\ndie. His old town was located and old acquaintances consulted, and the\nAgnes called for was the girl in the hospital learning to become a\ntrained nurse.\n\nWhen told who it was that was calling for her she said she would go to\nhim. All her nature seemed changed. Harry was no longer the physical\ngiant inviting her to cling to his sturdy frame for support. He was now\nlying helpless on his back, his fortune and physical strength all gone.\nShe would be the strong uplifter and the inspiration that would bring him\nback to health. She was now in her proper sphere. She was all woman, all\nsympathy and affection. She who could not cling to the strong man, now\ngave her strength to assist the weak.\n\n\u201cAgnes, Agnes!\u201d he called one night, and when she went to him and placed\nher cool hand on his feverish brow and asked tenderly: \u201cWhat is it,\nHarry? I am your Agnes\u2014don\u2019t you know me?\u201d He looked up with a world of\njoy in his eyes and exclaimed: \u201cThank God, Agnes! I have wanted you so\nbadly! I was going to die. I shall now get well!\u201d\n\nAnd he fell asleep while she watched. Was it strange that she now loved\nthe man better than her own life? How weak and helpless he was; only the\nshadow of his former physical strength and beauty. And yet, as she looked\nupon his helplessness, and realized that his fortune was gone, and that\nhe was now even poorer than herself, her heart and soul went out to him,\nand all missions in life narrowed down to a resolve to nurse him back to\nhealth and happiness.\n\nWhen he recovered sufficiently to sit up, and noticed the changed look\nin her beautiful eyes, he one day asked: \u201cAgnes, dear Agnes, is it\npossible that since my health and wealth are gone you can love me?\u201d She\ndropped her head and remained silent. \u201cForgive me,\u201d he said sadly, \u201cI was\nfoolishly mistaken in what I saw in your eyes. I was looking through my\nlove. Nobody could love a wreck like me.\u201d\n\nShe looked up with a world of love in her eyes and cried: \u201cYou were not\nmistaken, Harry! I do love you! and all the more because you need me now.\nI could not be a vine, but I can be your support and guide!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE SALOON IN OUR TOWN\n\n\nI simply judge from what I\u2019ve seen. When I moved to this backwoods\nvillage, six years ago, the hotel was the only industry in town\u2014turning\nout \u201cskates.\u201d One of the daily patrons of the hotel bar was brother to\na millionaire of Central Pennsylvania. I asked him one day if he didn\u2019t\nenvy his brother the great wealth he had piled up, but \u201cUncle Enoch\u201d\ngave me a little dance on the flag stone in front of the post office and\nremarked: \u201cPhil never had the good time in life that I am having. Besides\nthis, he\u2019s twenty years older than I am, which are good for at least five\nhundred jolly times. Without a sou or a picayune in my pockets, I\u2019m as\nhappy as a king, so long as I can work the crowd for a drink.\u201d\n\nWell, who can say how much \u201cUncle Enoch\u2019s\u201d light-hearted manner cheered\nthe plodding people, who worked year in and year out for a bare\nexistence? I have seen men laugh at his drunken pranks who hadn\u2019t given\nbirth to a pleasant smile for weeks.\n\nBut somewhere in the world a deserted wife ekes out her own living at\nslavish toil, because of Enoch\u2019s love of the cup that cheers. And in his\nsober hours I have heard \u201cUncle Enoch\u201d lament the loss of his companion,\ndeclaring that she was a good wife, and that the fault was all his own.\n\nThis country hotel made a splendid stopping place for the sporting\nlawyers and business men of the nearest city, and no questions were\nasked when several automobile loads of sports and loudly dressed females\nstopped and engaged the ball room for a dance. \u201cUncle Enoch\u201d would join\nthem and dance in a corner, while the set was going through the whirling\nwaltz, and sometimes stop the dance while he sang \u201cMy Bonny Black Bess.\u201d\n\nSeveral other local characters patronized the bar and thought they were\nhaving a good time, but when seen next day in their homes, where poverty\nand squalor and ragged children predominated, one could easily see that\ntheir \u201cgood time\u201d for one night cut a great gash into the bare comforts\nof life during the next two weeks. And the wife and children, who had no\ngood time at all, were obliged to share in his regrets and poverty even\nlonger than he; for he went out to work amongst the farmers, and was well\nfed, while the children and mother ate the scant supply of food in the\nneglected home.\n\nThe second year after my arrival in the village the new Methodist\nminister took sick and his wife ran over to my house to borrow some\nbrandy. I had none, but said I would go down to the hotel and get my\nprivate bottle filled, and lend it to them. The landlord said he was\nout of brandy, but had some extra good whiskey for fifty cents a pint.\nKnowing the minister had severe cramps, I took the substitute and hurried\nhome, leaving the bottle at the minister\u2019s house, and telling his wife\nto use all the liquor she needed, and when the bottle was empty, I would\nhave it refilled.\n\nNext day the minister was up and around again, and his wife brought the\nflask home. It was almost full. The new minister was, no doubt, a good\njudge of whiskey, and preferred to take chances with death, rather than\ndrink much of the vile stuff masquerading as whiskey.\n\nAfter that time I was not very friendly to the hotel man. I had gone on\nhis petition to the court for a license to sell whiskey and beer, and\nthe stuff he sold me to save the minister\u2019s life was neither. Afterwards\na neighbor\u2019s wife took sick and we doped her with the contents of that\nbottle, and she got well. Being no judge of liquor, she thought it was\nall right, and her faith cured her.\n\nTowards fall business became slack, the stock of whiskey became so low\nin the jugs that there was spontaneous combustion, the insurance policy\ntook fire, and the hotel, with all its contents, except the most valuable\nthings which were stored in trunks and left near the door, were consumed\nby fire.\n\nSince then the town has been dry; \u201cUncle Enoch\u201d is satisfied with an\noccasional jag on hard cider, the wives and mothers look happier, the\nchildren are better clothed, and we buy our medicinal liquor at the city\ndrug stores and pay five times more than it is worth.\n\nMy honest belief is, that the saloon could be easily dispensed with, if\nthe government would place on sale sealed bottles of genuine rye whiskey\nfor medicinal purposes, at a fair price. I do not believe in prohibition\nto the full letter of the law. Whiskey is a medicine, and we need it just\nas badly as we need any other poisonous drug. I am subject to chills, and\nwhiskey is the best remedy I ever discovered for chills. The only bad\neffect is that the more whiskey I have in the house, the more frequent\nare my attacks of chills. I use more caution, too\u2014I take a jigger\noccasionally to prevent the very first symptoms of a chill.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOMESICK CHILD\n\n\nIt was in the cool of a summer evening that I saw the child leaning over\nthe railing of the river bridge and looking through her tears toward the\nopposite side of the stream. I knew intuitively that the tears in her\neyes were sad ones, because sorrowful tears seem to stand in pools and\nonly gush out at intervals. Tears of joy well out as fast as generated,\nfor the eyelids stiffen under the influence of gladness and eject the\ntears automatically. In sorrow the eyes seem to recede and the eye-lids\ngrow flabby and helpless, and the tears stand in pools around the corners\nof the eyes, as though lacking the courage to gush out and part with the\naching heart beneath.\n\n\u201cAre you sick, little girl?\u201d I asked. She tried to answer, but the words\nwould not come. She only sobbed, and the pool of tears gushed out under\nthe new disturbance and ran down her pale cheeks. \u201cDon\u2019t talk, if you\ndon\u2019t care to, child, but if you are in trouble I may be able to assist\nyou. Have you a home?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh yes, sir!\u201d she burst out, as though the word \u201chome\u201d opened the door\nto her heart. \u201cMy home is far out over this river and beyond those hills\nyou see in the west!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd why are you here?\u201d I asked kindly.\n\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m out at service. I\u2019m working in Sheriff Barker\u2019s kitchen, helping\nthe misses with her work. I\u2019m earning my own living, besides giving some\nmoney to papa for the other children. There\u2019s so many of us, you see.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow old are you?\u201d I asked, not out of curiosity, but out of sympathy.\n\n\u201cOh, I\u2019m twelve years old! There are four younger than me, and three\nolder. We all go out at ten years and rustle for ourselves.\u201d\n\n\u201cDear God, what an age! What trials for such little bodies! But what were\nyou crying about when I first came here?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cOh, sir, I was so homesick! I often get that way through the day, and\nat evening I come out here to the bridge and look out toward the dear old\nhome and cry to see the children, and it really makes me feel better. It\ntakes that heavy feeling out of my heart and I can look away ahead and\nfeel hopeful.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is your father\u2019s name?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cPapa\u2019s name is John Deer\u2014I\u2019m Jennie. Mamma calls me Jean, and the boys\ncall me Jen. The Barkers call me Jane. I like to be called Jean, because\nthat\u2019s what mamma calls me. I love my mamma so well, so well! and my\nheart is aching to see Willie and Bessie and the others tonight!\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, Jean, I know your father well, and I remember your mother. I worked\nin the lumber woods with your father in 1884. He would write letters to\nhis sweetheart every Sunday, and every Wednesday he would always get one\nfrom his girl. How glad he would be after reading her letters. She was a\nlittle school teacher in those old days.\u201d\n\n\u201cGo on,\u201d she cried. \u201cOh, I love to hear you talk of my papa and mamma as\nthey were before they were married! I wonder if they loved each other\nlike the people we read about in the story books?\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe they did, Jean. At least your father loved Carrie Green just\nas fondly as young men love in story books. I had a best girl, too, in\nthose days, and we often spoke of them, and what we would do after we got\nmarried.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd did you marry your best girl, too?\u201d she eagerly inquired.\n\n\u201cNo, Jean,\u201d I said, and a wave of memory flashed over my mind and I\npaused to look down through that memory to the vista away off in the\ndistance.\n\n\u201cDid you quarrel?\u201d she asked, her eyes showing how much she was\ninterested.\n\n\u201cNo, Jean\u2014she died.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou poor man!\u201d she cried. \u201cDid it almost break your heart? Oh, I can\nfeel all you felt when your sweetheart died, for there can be no greater\nsorrow than to be homesick\u2014to wish so earnestly for the ones you love\nbest on earth\u2014to long for your mother\u2019s breast\u2014that you may lay your\naching head down and close your eyes and think only of how dear she is to\nyou. Oh, I\u2019m so glad you told me of your dead sweetheart, for you know\nhow it feels to be sad and sorrowful, and can sympathize with a homesick\ngirl!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nWHY HE QUIT HUNTING\n\n\nMy friend Stevenson visited me a few weeks ago, and during our\nconversation I asked him what luck he had during the last hunting season.\nHe looked at me shame-faced and said: \u201cI don\u2019t hunt any more. I gave it\nup two years ago. I don\u2019t believe it\u2019s the kind of pleasure a civilized\nman needs. I prefer to live for other things\u2014for joys that give pain to\nno other living thing. I\u2019ll tell you about that last hunt. We were out\non the Hogback mountain and three of us had been standing at the head\nof the Cramer Hollow while one went down along the point and drove the\ngame into the ravine. While we were standing there looking down the\nhollow I noticed something moving through the brush far down the ravine.\nI whispered to the others and we all watched the thicket closely with\neager, alert eyes.\n\n\u201cPretty soon two small deer stepped into view\u2014a spike buck and a little\ndoe. Silently we drew up our guns and all aimed at the unsuspecting\nlittle creatures. How eager we were to kill. Every man tingled with\neagerness and excitement. Not a shadow of mercy flitted across our\nsouls. We were savages and barbarians eager for blood! Why? We had gone\nhunting for the pleasure of killing something. We needed a change. We had\nbeen tied to our business for several months and felt worn-out and low\nspirited, so we went out to the woods to take on new life by taking the\nlife of some innocent creature that loved life as well as we. The sight\nof blood would appeal to the old savage nature that still lingers in the\nhuman heart like typhoid germs in an old well.\n\n\u201c\u2018Crack, crack, crack!\u2019 went the three rifles, and our victim fell to\nhis knees. He struggled to his feet and started to run up the hill. We\ncould see that he was wounded badly. How our souls rejoiced and exalted.\nSome one\u2019s bullet had gone tearing through his little body and his life\u2019s\nblood was flowing away. Again our guns cracked and belched forth the\ndeath dealing lead, and the animal fell to the earth without a cry or\nappeal for mercy. Did instinct, or reason, teach the poor creature that\nit need not appeal to man for mercy?\n\n\u201cWe all rushed down the hollow to where our victim lay. There was no more\nmercy in our hearts than there is charity in the heart of a rattle snake.\nThe deer had tried to get up again and was on its knees when we came\nupon it. I was in the lead. As I approached, the dying animal turned its\nhopeless eyes full upon me, and the pain and the fear and the horror, all\nmingled into one last dying appeal, went straight to my heart. I stopped\ndead still and allowed the others to pass me. They grabbed the animal by\nthe head with eager, cruel hands and turned it over on its side. I shut\nmy eyes, but I could hear the ugly rasping sound of the knife as it was\ndrawn viciously back and forth across that helpless throat, and heard the\nlife blood gushing out upon the dead leaves.\n\n\u201cI felt sick at heart. A wave of regret and remorse swept over me\u2014of\nguilt and shame and humiliation, and the sweat stood on my forehead like\nanimated grains of corn. I had helped kill the innocent creature for\npleasure\u2014for the mere pleasure of killing; for I did not even like the\ntaste of venison.\n\n\u201cI was too sick to assist in the job, but the others cut through the\nabdominal walls and tore out the steaming entrails like savages. Not a\nthought entered their mind that this poor animal loved life as well as\nthey. They came to kill, and they were exultant over the killing. The\nlife blood went coursing through their veins in a happy, exultant stream,\nand their hearts beat in tune with the song of their souls. And on the\nground the stains of red showed where the innocent blood had seeped\ninto the earth. If the earth is part of God, then God was absorbing the\nevidence of our guilt.\n\n\u201cWe shouldered our victim and struggled down the ravine. We tied the\nanimal\u2019s legs together and had a pole between them, and put the ends on\nour shoulders. I managed to take the lead, so that I need not look upon\nthe body of our slain friend. But with all my care I got blood on my\nhands and on my clothes! While my companions took delight in displaying\nthe dried blood stains on their hands when we reached home, I felt guilty\nof mine and washed them several times before I went to bed.\n\n\u201cBut I couldn\u2019t sleep for many hours after I had gone to bed\u2014not until I\nmade a solemn vow that I would never willingly shed innocent blood again.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE HARD-LUCK SHOWMAN\n\n\nFew people pity the circus people when they are in hard luck. So long as\nthey can amuse and entertain they are applauded, but when they fail to do\nthis, people turn from them as they would from a bundle of old clothes,\nforgetting that heartaches and sorrows and disappointments sink as deep\ninto their hearts as they do into the hearts of the unsuccessful people\nin any other calling or profession. Dyke Dingleman had been a successful\nclown and funny man for ten years. The audience had fairly whooped and\nyelled at some of his funny sayings and antics, and the managers paid his\nsalary cheerfully and praised him for his successful work. But one night\nin a large city he failed to win a smile from the large audience. He went\nthrough his stunts in such a stiff and listless way that nobody could\nsee any fun in him or his bad attempts at humor. After the show was out\nthe senior proprietor of the show scolded him for his poor playing and\nthreatened to discharge him if it ever occurred again. He said nothing,\nbut pulled a telegram from his pocket and handed it to the proprietor. It\nread: \u201cBessie is dying\u2014can\u2019t you come home?\u2014Edith.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you tell me you had trouble, Dyke? Forgive me for what I have\nsaid to you. Go home to your wife and dying child at once. Billings can\ntake your place until you join us again.\u201d\n\nDyke didn\u2019t seem like his old self after Bessie died. He joined the show\nat Lima, Ohio, but he was no good as a clown. All the fun had gone out\nof his soul, and the audience hissed him. The people did not understand.\nHe had to give up the situation and take the part of assistant, and wear\na red coat. Carrying mats and other fixtures into the ring was very\nhumiliating, and the wages were very low for such work. He couldn\u2019t\nsupport his wife on the salary, and she went home to her folks and\nrefused to write to him. She thought there was a chance to please his\nother women, or for booze.\n\nOne day the man who gave the outside entertainment was ill, and the\nproprietor wanted a substitute. Dyke used to perform on the tight rope,\nand he thought here was a chance to please his employer. He felt that\nhe could do the clown stunts again, if he had another trial. Sorrow had\nsweetened his bitter life, and he thought he knew better what genuine\nhumor should be than ever before. He would perform the old stunts on the\nhigh rope in a more ridiculous manner than any man dared. It was all\npantomime, and he need not use his broken voice at all.\n\nAnd the audience did enjoy the performance. They never saw such a daring,\ndesperate man before. He was playing for reputation and his wife\u2019s love\nand sympathy. The last jump on the rope was higher and wilder and more\ndaring than any before. When he landed on the rope something gave away,\nthe rope slipped through the pulley so rapidly that Dyke couldn\u2019t grasp\nany of the stays in his fall. He landed with one leg on a stake and the\nbone was snapped above the knee. His poor shoulder was also dislocated\nand his head bruised. The roustabouts picked him up and carried him into\nthe tent, and the crowd jammed closer to see his blood on the ground. A\nfew women had screamed when they saw him fall, and several men groaned,\nbut he was only a showman, and they all went away and soon forgot him.\n\nThe afternoon performance was just as good, and the clowns were just\nas funny, as though poor Dyke Dingleman did not lie unconscious at\nthe hospital. In the morning the circus left town, but not before the\nproprietors of the circus had made arrangements at the hospital for the\ncare of the injured actor.\n\nTwo weeks after the accident Dyke told his nurse all about his\nmisfortunes and about his wife leaving him. He said he had nothing to\nlive for and might as well die. The nurse was a romantic soul and set\nabout to win Dyke\u2019s wife back to him. She wrote a long letter, telling\nher husband\u2019s story of hard luck just as he had told it to her, and\nbegged her to come at once to his bed and give him love and hope and\nsympathy, so that he would have something to live for.\n\nThere never was a happier set of hospital nurses than there was in that\nparticular hospital when Dyke\u2019s wife came to his bed and threw her loving\narms around his wasted body and asked him to forgive her for leaving him\nwhen his heart was heavy with sorrow from grieving over Bessie\u2019s death.\n\nAnd then she embraced the nurse who had told Dyke\u2019s story so beautifully\nand pathetically, and the doctor assured them all that the patient was\ngoing to recover rapidly now. He could see signs of health and love of\nlife coming back to the haggard face of the hard-luck showman.\n\nThe story was written up by the same romantic nurse and sent to a paper,\nand the whole town was in sympathy with Dyke Dingleman and his wife. Next\nday when another big circus came to town the nurse wrote the manager,\ninclosing Dyke\u2019s story, and advised a benefit exhibition. The city turned\nout and Dyke\u2019s share of the net profits was $300.\n\n\n\n\nPLAYING WITH HEARTS\n\n\nHe was a cripple, without education or any accomplishments, and it was\nwrong in Mary Mackey to encourage the boy in falling head over heels in\nlove with her, but she was only a school girl, with a desire for romance\nand excitement, and Lyndal Mason, with his boyish adoration and loyalty\nwas just what she wanted to make life tolerable. In a way she liked\nLyndal, because he was full of romantic and heroic tales of adventure,\nmost of the tales being coined to suit the occasion.\n\nI often wonder why boys, without future prospects or opportunity to make\nlife a success, are always falling seriously in love, with thoughts of\nmatrimony in the near future.\n\nLooking back to my own early boyhood days, I can see myself in love with\ngirls who only laughed at my grotesque aspirations. I never once thought\nof the responsibilities that go with matrimony. I only knew that there\nwas one girl on earth I could not live without possessing her love. But\nI did live through it all, after discovering that she did not care a fig\nfor me. I always took consolation by falling in love with some other\ngirl. By the time I was eighteen years old, I had been slighted and\njilted so often that I began to realize my worth\u2014or worthlessness, rather.\n\nIt was different with Lyndal, because Mary encouraged him and led him\non. She even sent him an invitation to her graduation at the high school\nwhere she attended, and where Lyndal often called on her. I remember now\nthat he came to me and asked for a job to earn some money to buy Mary a\ngraduation present. I remember still how hard he worked and how pleased\nhe was at sight of the money he had earned. He bought her a pretty little\npin, and the superstitious told him it would prick the love bubble and\nlet out all her affections.\n\nHe sent his present by mail, for Mary\u2019s parents were trying to break up\nthe youthful flirtation, and had forbidden her to encourage the young\nman any longer. He sat away back in the school room on the commencement\nnight, but not too far back to notice the fact that she was not wearing\nthe pin he gave her as a graduation present. No, but at her throat she\nwore the gold pin Oliver Birdsall had given her. He knew the pin because\nhe saw young Birdsall buy it. This young man was the son of wealthy\nparents, and would be very acceptable to Mary\u2019s parents. Lyndal saw his\nrival throw a bouquet of carnations at the feet of Mary at the conclusion\nof her address. She picked it up and smiled her thanks back to Oliver,\nand Lyndal read his fate in that smile\u2014Mary Mackey was forever out of his\nreach.\n\nOh, the agony of the moments that followed that revelation. Had Mary ever\ndreamed of the sorrow she was creating for the poor boy when she led him\non, would she have done so?\n\nPlaying with human hearts is a very dangerous game, yet some heartless,\nthoughtless people take great delight in love conquests. They find a\nmorbid pleasure in the pain suffered by others. To have some one plainly\nlonging to possess them, satisfies their vanity. Youth is cruel and\nheartless. To feel that hearts are aching for their smiles is food for\ntheir ambition. They want to be heart breakers and the destroyers of\npeace. The triumphant look Mary glanced at Lyndal as she passed out of\nthe school room on Birdsall\u2019s arm, brought comfort to her giddy soul.\n\nDid she ever regret it? It is hard to tell. Some people love notoriety\nand to have some one die for them is the climax to earthly triumph. I\nhave often tried to picture in my mind the feelings of poor crippled\nLyndal Mason as he walked home through the darkness of the night, with\na denser darkness falling like a pall of gloom all around his throbbing\nheart.\n\nIn the morning he did not come downstairs at the usual hour, and when his\nmother went to his room, she noticed a peculiar odor of laudanum on the\nair. With a wail of injured mother love she fell upon his stiffened form\nand kissed his white face in a frenzy of despair. Could Mary Mackey have\nseen this sad picture, would she have been sorry? I do not know. They\nsay she looked stunned when presented with the message written by Lyndal\non that fatal night. It was written with an unsteady hand, and said:\n\u201cGood-bye Mary\u2014your plaything is at rest.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTRUE FRIENDSHIP\n\n\nTrue friendship never changes, never grows weary of serving, never dies.\nI have in my mind two men I once knew in Colorado, Barney Kennedy and\nFred Gordon\u2014\u201cLittle Fred Gordon.\u201d Kennedy was a big, robust son of the\nEmerald Isle, standing six feet in his shoes, and strong as an ox; Gordon\na puny little fellow, born in Iowa, and weighing scarcely 140 pounds.\nI expected everything of Kennedy, but Gordon was only a little, common\nplace man who would not attract attention.\n\nWhen the gold excitement in Alaska was raging in 1897 these two men left\nhome together, for they had been both friends and companions for many\nlong years, and struck out for the promised land in hopes of finding the\ndelusive metal. But hunting gold in Alaska is full of danger, privations\nand hardships, and before the first year had passed away these two\nfriends found themselves 200 miles from a doctor, and Kennedy dying of\nscurvy. The giant was helpless, and dependent on his little friend.\nGordon tried to get some one to assist him in taking his sick friend back\nto Skagway, but these men had come out to dig for gold, and had no time\nto waste on dying men who were strangers to them.\n\nBut Gordon\u2019s friendship was of the true sort\u2014the kind that never fails,\nand only dies with the possessor. He started out alone to drag his friend\n200 long, weary, horrible, soul-depressing miles through the trackless\nsnow to a physician.\n\nThink of such an undertaking, for friendship\u2019s sake\u2014to drag a 200-pound\nman on a sledge, with provisions enough to feed them for fifteen days.\n\nKennedy was unable to stand alone, and was awed by his comrade\u2019s bravery\nand daring courage. Could he succeed? The sick man was frightened at the\ngloomy prospect. Two hundred miles over the virgin snow, and dragging\nthree times his weight on a clumsy sled. All day trudging along, and at\nnight camping on the dreary waste of unfriendly ice and snow. How far it\nseemed back to civilization and a warm room. How cold the moon and the\nstars appeared away up in the blue sky. God was supposed to be up there,\ntoo, but he seemed to be farther away than the remotest star on these\nlonely nights. But the undaunted Gordon refused to give up. His optimism\nnever failed. He must reach civilization and a physician, for Kennedy\u2019s\nsake.\n\nOne hundred miles are successfully, though painfully trudged over; then\ntwenty added\u2014140 traversed, when one night Gordon camped to await the\nmorning. Weary and worn out with many days of exertion, he slept soundly,\ndreaming of home and friends, wife and children. When he awoke the\nstillness of the frozen north seemed more depressing than ever before.\nThere were many weary miles to travel yet; but he got up with resolutions\nas strong as ever. He prepared the morning meal before he attempted to\nwake Kennedy. But Kennedy would never awaken again.\n\nGordon was shocked and heart-broken on making the awful discovery. His\nbig-hearted Irish friend was beyond the aid of an earthly physician.\n\nPerhaps it was the loneliness and the utter helplessness of the big man\nthat took away his courage and caused him to give up and die; for he had\nseemed very much depressed before Gordon went to sleep that night.\n\nBut Gordon\u2019s friendship did not die, and for four wearisome days he\ntugged at the sledge dragging the dead body of his friend over the\ncrunching snow, too true a friend to desert an old companion even after\ndeath had robbed the body of all that was loving and lovable, and the\ngenerous Irish heart was silenced forever.\n\nWho but Gordon could picture those last days and lonely nights, when he\nlabored so hard at his task, and camped alone on the dreary snow at the\nside of his friend. He must sleep close to the body at night to prevent\nthe hungry wolves from devouring all that was left of his friend.\n\nAlone with the dead and the awful dreariness and bitter cold, and the\nrealization that the trip had been a failure. Friendship had done all\nthat friend could do for the living, and all that friend could do for the\ndead. The town was reached and Kennedy given decent burial, and Gordon\nreturned to the States.\n\nLittle Fred Gordon. To look at him one would never dream of such\nfriendship and courage. When I knew him he was keeping a feed store at\nthe corner of Fifth and Main streets, Grand Junction, Colorado, with no\nthought of that awful experience in the land of delusive gold.\n\n\n\n\nSIGHING OF THE PINES\n\n\nTo me there is something fascinating about an old deserted house standing\nnear a lonely country road. The sashless windows and open doorways always\nremind me of some strange animal gasping in the agonies of death. And I\nfall to wondering whether the people were happy who once occupied the\nhome when it was new. What were their hopes and ambitions? Did they love\nsome one, and were they loved in return? Did children once play around\nthat damaged door and look out through those windows and long to go out\nin the world and accomplish great things?\n\nA few Sundays ago I rode out over the country roads near my home, and\nfinally came to a road on which I had never traveled before. It led down\na valley that extended to the creek a few miles below. We drove down this\nroad after inquiring and learning that it connected with the creek road.\nWe knew our bearings when safely on the creek highway. We had not driven\na mile before we came to the ideal fascinating deserted house. All around\nit rank weeds and briars were growing. The one door facing the road was\nvery low, and on closer examination we discovered that two of the lower\nlogs had rotted away, allowing the house to settle down two feet or more.\nThe windows were small and warped out of shape, and not a single sash\nin place. The mortar and packing were gone from the crevices between the\nlogs, and the old stone chimney was ragged and battered at the top.\n\nBut the wonder was that the shingles were in pretty good condition. They\nhad been hewn from the virgin pine and shaved by the man who built the\nhouse some eighty years ago.\n\nIt was a story-and-a-half house, the upper half-story consisting of the\ngarret only. The upper floor was missing and one could see to the rafters\nwhen looking in the open door.\n\nWhile we were sitting in the buggy and looking with a peculiar awe upon\nthe old home, an old man came along and we asked him who had built the\nhouse. He stopped and walked over to the fence, put one foot on the\nsecond rail to rest his leg, and pointing to the old ruins with his\ncrooked cane, said:\n\n\u201cThis is the Fred Beaver home. He came here from Germany in 1824, and\nsettled on this piece of land. He had only been married six weeks before\nhe sailed for the new world. He had barely enough money to bring him and\nhis young wife to America. He had a cousin living near here at the time,\nand that is how he came to locate here in the woods. His wife was never\ncontented, but kept longing and longing for the dear old home across the\nsea. They were very poor, so my father told me, often not having enough\nto eat, and this made life still more dreary for the homesick wife.\n\n\u201cAt the end of five years, they had two children\u2014Frederick and\nElizabeth\u2014Elizabeth is still living down in the town, a very old woman.\nAfter the children were born, Mrs. Beaver realized that she could never\ngo back to her home across the sea. She would never have the money to pay\nher passage. She felt like a caged lion pining behind iron bars. Before\nthe babies came she hoped to save money enough to go back and take her\nhusband along\u2014providing he would go. If not, she would go alone. He was\na hunchback and not really kind to her, though he loved her after the\nmanner of a wild animal loving its mate.\n\n\u201cOne day Beaver came home and found the children crying with hunger. They\nwere only four and two years old. The boy could talk enough to inform his\nfather that his mother had gone up to the loft and would not come down.\nThe man climbed up the ladder and was horrified to find his wife hanging\nto a rafter\u2014dead. She had taken the rope out of the bed to hang herself\nwith. Her longing and longing for the home across the sea had ceased\nforever. If you will come to the door I can show you the rafter on which\nshe was hanging. No? Don\u2019t care to?\n\n\u201cYes, the father lived right here with the children after that. He got\na house keeper from somewhere in the neighborhood. He was young and the\nlove of life was still in his soul, but he never married another woman.\nYears afterward the children would find him sitting under the rafter on\nwhich his wife died, weeping like a child.\n\n\u201cYes, the son, young Fred, built the new house over yonder, after he got\nmarried, and took his father there to live. But the old man would come\nback daily and sit in the open door and sing the German hymn that was the\nfavorite with his wife when they were courting across the sea.\n\n\u201cYes, they say the house is haunted, since the old man died. People\npassing on moonlight nights insist that they see Beaver and his wife\nsitting in the open door, and hear a low crooning song. Me? Oh, I think\nthe noise is the sighing of the pines over yonder.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOME-SICK HORSES\n\n\n\u201cDo horses think?\u201d asked a lady of my acquaintance, and I hastened to\nassure her that they did. I told her of the horse my boy drives every\nSaturday evening to sell newspapers to the farmers near our home. Just so\nsoon as the horse sees that the boy is delivering papers he turns into\nthe gate of every regular customer and stops. If strangers get into the\nbuggy old \u201cVinci\u201d turns his head to see who it is and what they look like.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied the woman, \u201cand they have melancholy thoughts, and become\nhome-sick, like human beings, too. The saddest thing I recall from my\nfarm life happened when I was a girl of twelve years. We had a little\nteam of bay horses named Colonel and Rock. When they were seven years old\nfather sold them to a man who lived away back on the mountains. I cried\nwhen the man drove them away\u2014cried because I hated to part with them,\nand because the poor horses did not realize that they were sold and were\nbeing driven away, never to return to the old barn and eat from the old\nmanger. And every time I met the horses on the road I noticed how lean\nthey were getting, and how melancholy and dejected they appeared. I could\nsee sorrow written all over their faces.\n\n\u201cI used to lie in bed and think of the long weary trips they were obliged\nto make out over the rough mountain roads, and always pictured them\nleaning in their collars and drawing the heavy load to their new home.\nI don\u2019t believe they were ever satisfied and contented with their new\nmaster, but always dreamed of returning to the old home some glad day.\n\n\u201cTwo years after they were sold they were turned out into the pasture\nfield for the night. Somehow I went to sleep thinking of Colonel\nand Rock that same night. Were they thinking of me? Some believe in\nthe transmission of thought waves, and if this is true, why not the\ntransmission of animal thoughts, as well as human thoughts that go out\nunspoken to distant friends?\n\n\u201cAt midnight a storm came up and the fence surrounding the pasture field\nwas blown down in several places. After the storm was over both horses\nfound a broken panel in the fence and walked out of the inclosure. It\nwas ten miles back to their old home. I can see them look a ray of\nintelligence into each other\u2019s eyes, and then mutually start southward\nover the lonely mountain road. They could hear the sound of the\nlocomotive whistle coming out through the night air, and they knew that\nnear the old barn there was a railroad track where these iron monsters\npassed many times every day.\n\n\u201cAnd I was at home dreaming of just such a trip as they were making, only\nI dreamed that I was with them and talking to them and telling them how\nmuch I missed them since they were taken away.\n\n\u201cEarly in the morning I awoke from my dreams and rushed to the back\nwindow and looked toward the barn. \u2018Mother!\u2019 I shouted, \u2018out yonder at\nthe barn stand dear old Colonel and Rock! They have come back home!\u2019 She\ncame to the window and looked and gave a glad shout of surprise, for she,\ntoo, felt sorry ever since the horses were driven away. How glad I was to\nsee them! but how my heart smote me when I saw how lean and dejected they\nlooked. I would put on my clothes and go out to feed them out of their\nold manger.\n\n\u201cBut while I looked a man came dashing up on a big black horse. It was\nthe owner of Colonel and Rock. He had gone out early in the morning and\nsaw that the horses were gone. He found the place where they left the\nfield and saw that their tracks turned toward the river. Did he, too,\nrealize that Rock and Colonel were never satisfied, and were always\nlonging for the old home?\n\n\u201cMother went out and begged that the horses might be fed in their old\nstalls before taken away, but the man was angry, and cursed Rock and\nColonel, and jerked at their bridles viciously and cut them severely with\na wicked whip as he lashed them into a trot and started back over the old\nhome-sick mountain road. At the bend of the road both horses turned and\nlooked back longingly, and I burst into bitter tears.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE BLIND CIGARMAKER\n\n\nRiding into the city one day on the overland stage I looked far ahead and\nthere I saw a man coming down the middle the road. The highway was ankle\ndeep with dust, and I surely thought the man was drunk. I remarked to the\nstage driver: \u201cThere comes a blind man;\u201d and then I laughed, for I still\nthought the man was intoxicated.\n\nAs we drew near I could see the man feeling his way with a heavy cane. He\nwas blind, and I had laughed at his blindness! But, as God is my judge, I\ndid not know it until after we drew so near to him that I could see his\ncane.\n\nThe blind man heard the stage approach and stepped to the side of the\nroad for us to pass. And then I recognized the poor fellow\u2014it was Peter\nPaul. I knew him thirty years ago, when his diminishing eyesight warned\nhim that total blindness was near at hand.\n\nMentally Peter is far below the average, but he realizes that society\nowed him sufficient brotherly love to make an attempt to save him from\nthe awful calamity of total blindness. He was a poor cigarmaker, and\nbarely earned a livelihood. He had no money to pay for treatment that\nwould help his poor eyes.\n\nThink of it, in a land of Christian civilization a man is left to walk\nin literal darkness right at our door, while zealous men and women send\nthousands of dollars to so-called heathen lands, to save the people there\nfrom so-called mental blindness. Justice and common sense should teach\nus to save the literally blind man at our door first, and then go out to\nenlighten the blinded mental eyes of the heathen. Charity begins at home:\nif charity jumps over human suffering at home, and goes far abroad to do\nspectacular work in the name of religion, both charity and religion are\nmisplaced.\n\nI spoke to the blind man as the stage passed, and the response came so\nvery promptly that any one could see how gladly he received the greetings\nof a human voice. And then came the words that showed so plainly that\nthe blind always feel a sense of danger when walking alone: \u201cAm I near\nthe river bridge?\u201d I told him how far it was to the bridge as the stage\nwhirled by, and then I turned and watched the poor fellow feeling his way\ndown the dusty road.\n\nHe carried a big box strapped to his shoulders in which he took cigars\nto the town to sell, or trade for goods. He long ago married a widow who\nlived in a village twenty miles north of the city, where he had been born\nand reared. He still manufactured a poor variety of domestic cigars, and\nwhen a stock accumulated beyond the local trade he would load a dozen\nboxes on his back and start for the city, stopping to peddle his goods in\nevery little hamlet along the road.\n\nMany good people ridiculed the idea of Peter Paul enjoying the society\nof a wife. They thought it an extravagant idea. He should be denied\nall this, because of his calamity. Men who value woman\u2019s love next to\nnothing, simply laughed at Peter. He could get along so easily without\nsuch a luxury. But I tell you, dear reader, the man who puts no value on\nwoman\u2019s love has more of the animal in him than true manhood. He makes\nthe poorest citizen of all men. And Peter Paul, though stone blind, has\nas much right to value woman\u2019s love as any other living man. His world\nis dark enough, God knows, without denying him the one ray of light and\nhappiness that falls across his midnight road.\n\nPerhaps the stage driver wondered why I was so silent during the rest of\nthe ride into town, but I could not erase blind Peter Paul from my mind.\nNot only Peter, but in the city he had a brother and sister who were\nblind. These two lived and kept house, being assisted by good neighbors\nto obtain the necessaries of life. They inherited weak eyes from their\nmaternal parent, and through poverty and neglect they were allowed to\ndrift into absolute blindness without a single effort on the part of\nsociety to save them from the awful calamity.\n\nSeems to me that whatever knowledge science has gained in the treatment\nof human eyes should be a free gift to humanity. If ever a public fund\nwas needed to save the unfortunate from such a calamity of darkness,\nsurely the treatment of the eyes should be as free as the salvation of\nJesus Christ.\n\nI shut my eyes and see poor old Peter feeling his way down the dusty\nroad, with a big box strapped to his back, and I can not help but believe\nthat God is holding society guilty of brutal neglect. Seems to me that\nwhen blind Peter Paul goes feeling his way to the gates of heaven many of\nhis sins will be taken from his back and charged up to society.\n\n\n\n\nTHE THREE CLASSES\n\n\nMontgomery Quiggle once said: \u201cThe world\u2019s population is divided into\nthree classes\u2014those who have forged ahead of accepted theories, those\nwho have only reached the level of accepted theories, and those who are\nslowly trudging along behind the march of progress without any theories\nat all. And the strange thing of it all is, the middle class rule,\ninstead of those in advance.\u201d\n\nIn fact, those in advance are punished for their advanced ideas, are\nostracised, maligned, mobbed and often imprisoned at the dictates of the\nmiddle class, while the rear class of mere thoughtless plodders cheer the\nproceedings when an advanced thinker is thus caught and punished.\n\nIt has always been thus. Galileo was an early victim, so was Bruno,\nSavanarola, and a thousand other bright mental lights who threw beams of\nillumination far in advance of the thick-headed middle class. The thinker\nhas always been a martyr to truth and justice. The man who would remove\nthe mental fetters that chain the human mind, has always been treated as\na heretic and traitor to good government and morality.\n\nAnd the mobs that are chained to the old fogyism are always ready to\ncrucify the thinker who would dare devise means of setting them at\nliberty.\n\nThe middle class are always insisting that they have arrived at the top\nof advanced ideas, and that it is an unpardonable sin to advance one\nsingle step farther. Whatever form of government is accepted by them is\nthe right form, and the \u201ccrank\u201d who would suggest anything different, is\na bad man.\n\nAnd the unthinking plodders take up the cry and shout \u201cBad man!\u201d at\neverybody who accepts the new theory. In fact, the plodding mob is\nused as a tail to the middle class kite, and as of material assistance\nin helping to hold the kite in proper position to catch the breeze.\nAnd it is because the advanced class refuse to serve as a tail to the\nconservative kite that they are persecuted. They may in time persuade the\nmob of plodders to cease playing tail-piece to the middle class kite, and\nlet the kite come down with a bang and break up its stock of old exploded\ntheories and decayed ideas, and so leave them floundering in the mud of\nmental stagnation.\n\nRead up the history of the old martyrs, men who died on the scaffold and\nat the stake for truth\u2019s sake, and you will find in every instance that\nthey were men of advanced ideas\u2014men who had broken away from conservative\nfogyism and had made some attempt to break the fetters that bind the\nminds of men and set them free.\n\nIn the eyes of the middle class there can be no greater crime than to\nmake an attempt to break the fetters of the mental slaves and stir the\nminds of the plodding, unthinking mob and set them to thinking real\nthoughts and evolving new theories.\n\nGo back a few years previous to the abolition of human slavery and notice\nhow the advanced thinkers were treated. History tells how Thompson\nnarrowly escaped the mob at Concord, for teaching that human slavery is a\ncrime against God and man. Whittier was pelted with mud and stones, and\nGarrison was often mobbed in Boston.\n\nAt one time a subscription to a fund was asked of the Norfolk people to\npay for the heads of Thompson, Garrison and Zappan, and many Southern\ncities threatened to boycott all cities in the North that allowed men\nto teach the abolition of slavery. And the plodding mob who were little\nbetter than slaves themselves were ready to cast the first stone or\nbrickbat at the advanced thinkers who could see human slavery from the\nhuman side.\n\nI know a woman in Colorado who had once been a Mormon. She had been born\nand reared in Mormondom. But she began to doubt the whole institution\nwhen asked to become the fourth wife of a wealthy Mormon elder. Her\nideas had advanced beyond the pagan idea of such gross immorality. It was\nlucky for this woman that just outside of Utah there were thousands of\npeople advanced beyond pagan morals. She fled from home one night in a\ncovered wagon, and outside the city she met her lover, the young Gentile\nwho had taught her the sham and pretentions of her father\u2019s religion.\n\nIn Colorado they found safety and happiness. She was an old woman when\nI met her, but she said she still trembled when she looked back to her\nearly experience. Had all the world believed in Mormonism she could not\nhave escaped the lust of the Mormon elder and a life of misery.\n\n\n\n\nHISSED AND HOOTED\n\n\nI saw him when he first came out of the Sisters\u2019 hospital. He had been\nwith the Sells Brothers\u2019 Circus, but was taken with mountain fever while\nthe show was in Grand Junction, Colorado. His wife was a tight rope\ndancer and trapeze performer, and went on with the show. She may have\nregretted to go, and she may not have cared at all. She had never written\nto him after she went away. He told me confidentially that he suspected\nher of being infatuated with one of the acrobats, but hoped to win her\nback when he got on his feet again.\n\nSomehow or other, every man with a pain at his heart came to me in that\nfaraway town. Was it because I was homesick and kept longing, longing for\nthe valleys of old Pennsylvania, and the unfortunate could read something\nin my face that encouraged them to unburden their souls to me? Even my\nwife was drawn into some of the unfortunate love affairs of the young men\nand women, and we listened to the tales of woe, like martyrs, and gave\nadvice which we knew would never be followed; for who can advise a young\nman or woman in love?\n\nOne poor fellow had been jilted by a young woman who visited at our home\nvery often, and he came around almost every evening to try and have a\nlast interview with her. But she never came back after treating the young\nman so badly, for she knew our feelings in the matter. The man she jilted\nwas a handsome boy\u2014a young French Canadian, and the man she intended to\nmarry was a boasting Yankee from Michigan.\n\nFinally we persuaded George to go over into Wyoming, as he intended to do\nif the girl married him; where he fell in love with a Western girl and\nwas happily married in less than a year. Emma married young Lane, and\ndeserted him in less than two years, and we never saw her again.\n\nAnd the poor showman came likewise to me and told his tale of sorrow and\nfinancial troubles. A relative of mine was organizing a little circus in\nthe town, and proposed going on the road after the summer fair. I secured\na situation for my new friend, but when the opening day came the poor\nfellow had not gained sufficient strength to perform on the bars, or ride\nbareback, as he had been doing before he was taken down with fever.\n\nBut he could sing a song, so on the first night he came out before an\nunappreciative and unsympathetic audience and tried to sing. He did not\nknow that weakness of the body interfered with the voice. The audience\nlaughed at first, for they thought he was imitating an old man; but when\nthey discovered that the poor emaciated fellow was giving them the best\nhe had, they hooted him and hissed him, and called to him to take the\nfrog out of his throat, and to get more wind, and to go and hire out as a\nnurse and sing to the baby.\n\nOh, how I pitied the poor fellow. The refrain of his song was: \u201cBut I\nwill say nothing, not I!\u201d I went around to the dressing room to console\nthe poor man, for there was a look on his face when he left the ring\nwhich I did not like to see. He had been despondent and dejected before,\nbut when he left the ring there was a look of desperation on his thin\nface. I found him sitting on a trunk taking a fond look at the photo of\nhis absent wife. I tried to start a conversation with him, but he only\nlooked at me and asked: \u201cDid you catch the refrain of the song I tried to\nsing? Well \u2018I will say nothing\u2014not I\u2019 tonight. You have been kind to me,\nand some day it will come back to you, like bread cast upon the waters,\nbut nothing will ever come back to me. My heart is broken\u2014I am no good. I\nam deserted and alone. The woman I loved has left me, and my luck will go\nwith her\u2014good bye\u2014I\u2019m going out.\u201d\n\nHe shook hands and I said, \u201cWayne, I will see you in the morning.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, in the morning,\u201d he replied, as he lifted the flap of the tent and\npassed out into the night, while I returned to the big tent and tried to\nbecome interested in the performance.\n\nNext morning the body of my despondent friend was found in the Grand\nriver, just below the bridge, lodged on the middle island.\n\nWhen the ringmaster announced to the audience that the man who had been\nhissed from the ring on the previous night had drowned himself, there\nwere a few \u201cOh\u2019s!\u201d from the women, but the men who hissed him were not\nthere. One man said if they had known the real facts, they would not have\nhissed; but when people do not know the real facts, is when they should\nbe merciful\u2014always.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WAR WITH SELF\n\n\nIf all wars were once abolished, and universal peace established, don\u2019t\nthink for a moment that the age of conquests and triumphs would be\nabsolutely past forever. Those who argue that war and conquest bring\nout man\u2019s best energy and build up strong manhood, can turn their guns\nagainst themselves and find all they care to fight. A man at war with his\nappetite and passions and human frailties and weakness finds his match.\nThe man will not always be on top. At some careless hour a man will\nforget his vigilance and watchfulness and will fall before the onslaught\nof his passion or appetite, and it will require many days for him to\nregain his former position and place human weakness under his feet.\n\nI have seen strong men bowed down to the lowest notch of humiliation,\nwith all their courage and hope gone, yet no one did them a wrong. It was\nonly their own appetite and passion that dealt them the crushing blow.\nNo use to sit down and grieve over the fall. Grieving only adds to the\nfirst defeat. A man\u2019s own appetite and passion and lust and hate and fear\nand weakness are his worst enemies, if once they get the upper hand. And\nin our youth we are apt to receive our first defeat; before we know the\nsubtle strength of our weakness, we often become its victim.\n\nNinety per cent. of all the suicides come through man\u2019s battle with self,\nand his defeat. After a man has become a slave to appetite and passion\nthere isn\u2019t much in life worth living for, and he falls a victim to\nthe worst of all weaknesses\u2014the fear to go on with life to its natural\nend. And how often the criminal, against whom every hand is raised in\ncondemnation, is only the victim of his own weakness.\n\nTheodore Radden became the victim of self before he was sixteen years\nold. His appetite began to rule him before he was twenty, and passion\nbegan to ruin him at the same time. He found congenial company in\nthe lowest dives of his native town, where the fallen men and women\ncollected, like buzzards, to feast on each other\u2019s fallen condition.\nSeveral times he fought successfully with himself and broke away from his\nevil associates, only to fall back again when temptation laid her snares\nto catch his uncertain feet.\n\nOnce he held out for two years, and during that time he met and loved and\nmarried a beautiful girl. In her eyes he found a new world, and for over\na year he lived in the only earthly paradise known to man\u2014the world of\nlove.\n\nHow proud his wife was when she contemplated his physical strength and\nmanly beauty, never dreaming that the moral man within had been many\ntimes conquered by temptation, and was absolutely unqualified to conquer\nhimself. She was but a weak and frail body, but morally she was a giant\nof strength, while he was but a pigmy in the grasp of former defeats.\nShe was a country girl, and in marrying her he, too, lived out in God\u2019s\nbeautiful country and far away from the influence of old associates.\n\nBut one unfortunate day he was obliged to go to the city. By chance he\nmet an old associate and was invited to take a social glass. And while\nin the saloon he met a bad woman who had much influence over him in past\ndays. She knew that he had married and left the gang, and she set about\nto bring him back. It was her weakness to lead men astray. She was not\nall bad, nor had she always been bad. Once she had been a good girl, full\nof hope and happy dreams; but her own weakness gained a victory over her,\nand she fell. Even then she was not all bad. Many the poor woman and\nhalf starved hobo had eaten at her expense, and on many occasions she\nstooped and kissed a weeping child on the street and tried to soothe its\nsorrowing heart.\n\nDid she love Theodore Radden? No one will ever know, but many thought she\ndid, and that her love knew no moral code of honor, nor cared anything\nfor public opinion. She already knew what opinion the world entertained\nfor her\u2014what need she care for public opinion?\n\nAnd Theodore Radden fell a victim to his own weakness. He blamed the\nwoman for it all, just the same as Adam did; but nobody took Adam\nseriously, nor will they take Theodore Radden\u2019s word for it. A week later\nthe woman crawled to the street from a tenement house, bleeding from\nseveral ugly wounds in her breast. Before she died she told them that\nTheodore Radden had shot her in a drunken brawl, accusing her of parting\nhim from his wife; to which accusation she confessed her guilt, and said\nshe deserved to die at his hands.\n\nInside the house the police found Theodore Radden\u2014dead. He had shot\nhimself through the head, after shooting the woman who tempted him from\nthe paradise where now only a brokenhearted woman was leaving to go out\ninto the shadows of sorrow and live her lonely life to the end. She had\nnever fallen, and she knew not how to forgive the woman who had led her\nhusband to his death.\n\n\n\n\nCRIPPLE JOE AND THE SHOWMAN\n\n\nReturning home from Reading on a Sunday not long ago, I was forced to\nlie over at Pottsville for three long hours. I was angry with myself for\nleaving Reading on Sunday, for the trains are so infernally chaotic and\nuncertain on this day of mental distress. I must reach Williamsport in\ntime to catch the evening train on the Pennsy at 7.10, or be obliged to\nlie over until Monday morning. Everybody in the station was feeling about\nas blue as I was, for we were all travelers, and opposed to three hours\nof monotonous delay. I walked the station outside and inside for about an\nhour, and once as I passed the door leading into the toilet room I heard\na plaintive voice at my feet. I looked down and beheld a small body\u2014a wee\nboy sitting flat on the floor. He was looking up to me and speaking, but\nI could not distinguish the words. I stooped down and asked the boy to\nrepeat his words: \u201cWon\u2019t you help a poor cripple?\u201d\n\n\u201cSure!\u201d I exclaimed, as I caught sight of the poor twisted legs doubled\nup under his body, and I reached into my pocket and handed him a couple\nof coins. He reached out his hand and took my donation, and while he was\nlooking at them I sat down in a nearby seat. He then looked up into my\nface with gratitude in his eyes and exclaimed: \u201cOh, thank you!\u201d Then he\ncaught the arms of the seat and pulled himself into the adjoining seat\nwith his stout arms, looked into my face again and repeated: \u201cOh thank\nyou.\u201d\n\nI was interested in the boy, so I asked: \u201cHow did you become so\nhelplessly crippled?\u201d \u201cBorn that way,\u201d he replied carelessly, and then\nwhistled to a boy across the station room. The boy shouted back: \u201cHello\nJoe, what luck today?\u201d \u201cGood!\u201d the cripple replied, jingling several\ncoins in his pocket. Just then a red faced man came in through the south\ndoor and Joe caught sight of him and called: \u201cHello, Charley!\u201d Charley\ndidn\u2019t turn his face our way, so the boy gave a shrill little whistle,\nand the man turned toward us. \u201cHello, Charley! Come over here.\u201d\n\nThe red faced man crossed the room hurriedly and Joe held out his hand,\npulled it back and removed his soiled glove, then extended the hand\nagain, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s awfully muddy, and I get my gloves soiled crawling\naround on the floor.\u201d\n\nThe red faced man took Joe\u2019s hand in his and greeted the cripple warmly,\nbut was called away before he could say more. While the red faced man\nwas talking to the man who called him away from us, I turned to Joe and\ninquired: \u201cIs he your brother?\u201d The boy laughed and replied: \u201cOh, no;\nhe\u2019s a showman\u2014gave a show here last night\u2014a good one, too\u2014I met him up\nat the opera\u2014\u201d\n\nHe stopped talking and whistled in a high key, like steam escaping under\nhigh pressure. The red faced man came back to us again and the boy said,\nin accusing tones: \u201cSay, Charley, you went back on me\u2014you weren\u2019t as good\nas your word. You promised to pass me into the show, and you didn\u2019t show\nup, so I had to cough up fifteen cents of my money.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s too bad!\u201d the man said. \u201cI\u2019ll just pay you back right here.\u201d\n\nHe began to search through his pockets carefully, and finally exclaimed:\n\u201cI haven\u2019t got a cent of change in my pockets now, but you wait here\nuntil I buy my ticket, and I\u2019ll have some change then. I\u2019m going away on\nthe 1.50 train.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re foolin\u2019, ain\u2019t you, Charley? You\u2019re goin\u2019 away without livin\u2019 up\nto your promise, ain\u2019t you, Charley?\u201d\n\n\u201cBet your life I ain\u2019t Joe! I\u2019m going to get change when the ticket\nwindow opens and then\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nHe went off to talk to his friend again at the opposite end of the room,\nbut every five minutes lame Joe would just whistle to him and say, \u201cYou\nwon\u2019t forget, Charley!\u201d\n\nI became interested. Would the showman prove true to his promise? He\nsurely would. No man who could deliberately deceive a poor little cripple\nlike Joe could possibly possess enough sentiment in his soul to please an\naudience. Once when Joe wasn\u2019t looking, Charley winked at me and smiled.\nWhat did he mean? Was he amused at Joe\u2019s doubts, or was he tasting the\njoke he was going to play on the poor boy later on? So certain was I of\nthis that I began to look at the man more closely. His face was a puzzle.\nNot a bad face, but no doubt a lover of a practical joke. Maybe he\nthought it a great joke that any one should expect to have his entrance\nmoney refunded after the show was over.\n\nI began to hate the man for what he intended to do, and pitied the boy\nmore and more, as so many people passed by unheeding his petition, \u201cWon\u2019t\nyou help a poor cripple?\u201d They couldn\u2019t help but hear, but so many people\nhave grown calloused to the appeals of the unfortunate that they can pass\nthrough a shower of appeals without even putting up an umbrella.\n\nOne man even declared to me, on the side, that Joe\u2019s begging should\nbe prohibited. He said it encouraged begging in other boys who were\nnot cripples. He said the town of Pottsville should support the boy in\ncomfort, and not drive him to begging for a living. In his own city he\npaid an annual poor tax for the support of the indigent people, and\nstopped at this. He was opposed to begging.\n\nI suggested that maybe the sound of a beggar\u2019s voice kept our hearts\nmellow and our charity warm toward the world and God\u2019s miserable poor. He\ngave me a look of contempt and passed on. I do not know his profession.\nHe might have been a lawyer or a minister or a doctor. Anyhow, he was no\nworse than the showman who was going to fool poor Joe.\n\nThen the ticket window went up and there was a rush of people. I heard\nJoe\u2019s voice above the noise of tramping feet: \u201cDon\u2019t forget, Charley!\u201d\n\nI felt like crying. Poor crippled Joe! The crowd was rushing for the\ntrain. I saw Charley stop and drop several coins into Joe\u2019s outstretched\nhand, and heard his \u201cOh, thank you, Charley! I\u2019ll go to your show every\ntime you come back to Pottsville.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nRACE SUICIDE\n\n\nDuring the last ten years race suicide has been one of the leading\nproblems of life, and on several occasions I have written my views on\nthis subject. I have not changed my views at all after hearing the many\narguments of the old conservative \u201cstand patters\u201d who try to imitate\nSolomon and the other prolific polygamists of long ago. There is no such\na thing as race suicide. When big families are necessary, the big family\nwill be fashionable. There is an ebb and flow to everything. Just now the\npendulum of progress is swinging out toward the small, healthy, educated\nfamily of two to six children.\n\nIn pioneer days in this country, when it was desirable to have many\nchildren born to the new soil, and thus populate the wild country with\npeople who knew of no other land, and would more likely live contented in\nthe American wilderness than in the over-populated, lord-laden countries\nbeyond the seas, the big family was a safeguard against the encroachments\nof the Indian and was desirable.\n\nSo, too, when Mormonism was a weak doctrine, and grown men would not\naccept it as a religion, the pioneers of that faith removed to Utah\nand built a city on the parched desert by the inland sea known as Salt\nLake. From here they sent out missionaries to foreign countries, making\nconverts among the women and families that were prolific in bearing\nchildren. It shows the wisdom of Brigham Young.\n\nHe preached to the women that every child born to them added a new star\nto their crown of glory. Those who believed the doctrine were anxious to\nadd to the population of Utah and add a few stars to their future crown.\nThis is one reason why the unmarried women accepted polygamy. The one\ngreat desire, fired by religious enthusiasm, was to bear children who\nwould fight for the new doctrine.\n\nIt was a matter of wisdom on one side and sheer deception on the other.\nIt was cheaper to rear Mormon recruits than to secure them full grown.\nAnd the child Mormon would never renounce the faith imbibed at the\nmother\u2019s knee.\n\nAnd thus you will find the situation in all cases where the race was made\nto believe that God loved the prolific woman better than the barren maid.\nWomen will submit to anything, if made to believe it is their religious\nduty to do so. But men now realize that there is a psychological problem\nconnected with the rearing of children, and the question is asked: Is\nit the wisest thing to bring into the world many children who cannot\nobtain a practical education, and therefore over-populate the nation with\nignorant and dependent creatures? Do we not need quality rather than\nquantity?\n\nIs Germany any better off with its prolific families than France with\nreduced numbers? Or take your own village or town\u2014who is the best\nprepared for the battles of life, the child belonging to a family of\nfifteen members, or the child who is one of three or four offsprings?\n\nIn my own neighborhood the small families are the best educated or at\nleast have the best opportunities to educate the children. I know of two\nfamilies within a day\u2019s travel of my home that have fifteen children\neach. Thirty children in two poor families! And not a single child\nobtained a common school education. They were obliged to go out to\nservice before they were fifteen years old, and many at even a younger\nage. They are good citizens for the single reason that they were raised\nin the country, where few temptations are found. Had they been born in\nthe city slums, what could have saved them from a life of crime? As it\nis, not a single child will stand any chance to make the world better\nfor their having lived in it; for they belong to parents who came from\nprolific families, and where education was only a luxury to be handed\nover to the wealthy.\n\nIf Nature intended men and women to be as helpless in the reproduction\nof their kind as the fruit tree or the wild animals, the knowledge of\nreducing the crop would have been withheld from them. And until men\ngained this knowledge Nature was obliged to step in and reduce the\npopulation by famine, disease or earthquake and flood. It was an object\nlesson against over-population, and to show men that there was no hurry\nabout God\u2019s work. If God is love, he certainly does not desire the job of\nremoving an over-population through the means of some awful calamity or a\nvisitation of disease.\n\nDon\u2019t you suppose the God of nature loves to see men live in comfort and\nplenty? The Meat Trust and the Kaiser want large families, but the Meat\nTrust and the Kaiser have motives far removed from bringing happiness\ninto the world. The one wants children to consume more benzoated meat,\nand the other wants to turn children into soldiers and human butchers.\n\nThe man who cries for overgrown families of children, to be brought up in\nrags and ignorance and slavery, has not the happiness of the race in his\nheart. He wants them for a selfish, barbarous purpose\u2014for profit and for\nplunder.\n\n\n\n\nFOR A STAGE CAREER\n\n\nShe was a beautiful woman and her costumes were magnificent, but there\nseemed to be a lack of soul in her acting. There was applause from the\nhouse every time she came on the stage, and seldom she escaped after\nsinging a song in her entrancing voice without returning and singing to\nan encore. There was the sweetness of despair in her voice, but made a\ntrifle harsh by a spirit of defiance. A trained ear could distinguish the\nlack of harmony in her soul. The man at my side turned to me as she left\nthe stage and said:\n\n\u201cThat poor girl has a history, and a sad one. It is one thing to have a\nsorrow or an adventure that is absolutely located in the past, but still\nanother thing to have a sorrow and a regret that follows one through life\nlike a shadow.\u201d\n\nI looked at him in wonderment and he continued: \u201cI have met her and she\ntold me of her mistaken life. She was so full of her sorrow and regret\nthat she simply had to talk of it to some one, and I am always a willing\nlistener when a troubled soul opens the secret door and invites me to\nwalk in and sit in the shadow.\n\n\u201cShe told me that from the time she first took a leading part in a school\nentertainment she had a desire for a stage career. She grew up with this\ndesire burning in her soul, at which fire she toasted her mental shins\nevery night before going to sleep. She never missed an opportunity to\ntake part in any entertainment given by the local talent of her village.\nAt seventeen she fell deeply in love with a young carpenter and they\nbecame engaged to marry. Of course, the wedding was not to take place for\nseveral years, since her young man was poor and must first set aside a\nfew hundred dollars to start with.\n\n\u201cAfter this engagement she went to attend school in the city, where\nshe met the son of a very wealthy business man. He fell desperately in\nlove with her, though many years older. One evening while out riding he\nproposed to her, and she told him of her ambition. \u2018Promise me a stage\ncareer, and I will marry you,\u2019 she told him. He readily agreed to this,\nand the engagement and contract was entered into at that hour. He sent\nher to a training school immediately, from where she wrote to her village\nlover that their engagement must be declared a thing of the past, since\nshe had resolved to go on the stage, and give up the old life and the old\nfriends.\n\n\u201cThe year following her debut on the professional stage she married the\nman who made a stage career possible, but the face of the young carpenter\nlooked out of the shadows and reproached her as the train that took her\non her wedding tour went flying through the night. Only then it dawned on\nher that she did not love the man who was to give her a stage career\u2014did\nnot love him enough to become his bride, because her heart was still back\nin the village with the broken-hearted carpenter to whom she gave her\nmost sincere and innocent love.\n\n\u201cAnd ever since this ambitious marriage there is the ghost of a wrong\nfollows her and looks with reproachful eyes from the dark corners of\nevery opera house. Her husband is kind to her, and follows her wherever\nshe goes, and is proud of her success; but always this truth is before\nher\u2014she sold her body to secure a stage career, but her heart was never a\npartner in the deal. How much happier she could be in the humble home of\nthe poor carpenter, had not ambition so blinded her unsophisticated soul.\n\n\u201cWhat is life and success and the applause of the world when love\u2019s\nfirst and only idol lies broken at one\u2019s feet? Happiness must be shared\nwith those we love best, and when we are obliged to share everything the\nheart holds sacred with some one we can never love, the pleasures of life\ncrumble in our hands like an image that has been reduced to ashes. And\nthe ashes are always being blown into our eyes, and into our mouth, and\nthe taste is bitter, bitter; and the unloved lips that touch ours are\ntainted with the bitterness of all life\u2019s regrets and mistakes, though\nwe are tied to them with pledges and promises that must never, never be\nbroken.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE DEAD OF THE LAND AND SEA\n\n\nBelow I publish some verses I wrote thirty years ago, and while I worked\nas a common laborer in the lumber woods of Tioga County, Pennsylvania. In\na religious discussion with a pious comrade he quoted Scripture to prove\nthat the earth and sea shall ultimately give up their dead, and each\nindividual shall be punished, or blest, according to the deeds committed\nwhile they lived. The more I thought over this horrible picture, the more\nI doubted that a God of Love would be so revengeful toward any of his\npoor creatures, who are born into ignorance and superstition, and must go\nmentally creeping through a life of hunger and pain.\n\n\nOH, LET THEM SLEEP!\n\n    They tell me that the earth and sea\n    Will some day give up all their dead.\n    Oh, what a strange day that will be\n    To happen thus, as has been said:\n    Clothed in power a God will stand\u2014\n    With outstretched hands this God will be\u2014\n    With one foot on the sea-washed sand,\n    The other buried in the sea,\n    And loudly call: \u201cCome forth, ye dead,\n    No matter where in death you fell;\n    Come with a sentence on your head\u2014\n    You\u2019ll make good fodder for my hell!\n\n    Come with the heartaches that died with you,\n    With ashes of hope within your hand:\n    You died as all earth\u2019s creatures do\u2014\n    Foreclosure, at Death\u2019s demand.\n    Come before me for sentence now\u2014\n    Come ev\u2019ry one\u2014I know you all:\n    A few shall wear the glory brow,\n    But many, many must go to hell!\u201d\n    \u201cOh, stay your hand, revengeful God,\n    And let us all sleep where we lie!\n    You know that man is but a clod\u2014\n    Was born to suffer and to die:\n    And life is but chaotic dreams;\n    With human love our one reward;\n    We drifted down life\u2019s midnight streams\n    To stem the tide we found too hard.\n\n    \u201cOh, let us sleep, revengeful God,\n    Oblivion seems to fit us well;\n    Here, mingled with the friendly clod,\n    Is better far than pagan hell.\u201d\n    But this strange God will pay no heed\n    To all the bitter cries that well\u2014\n    Cold as a rock, with savage greed,\n    He\u2019ll cast them into scorching hell!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    A savage giant captured men,\n    And took their wives and children, too,\n    And put them in a dismal pen,\n    And asked himself what he must do.\n    He ne\u2019er had eaten human flesh\u2014\n    His soul revolted at the thought;\n    The clothes they wore were only trash,\n    By their own hands they had been wrought.\n\n    \u201cI\u2019ll torture them,\u201d the giant said,\n    \u201cTo see them writhe and twist with pain;\n    I\u2019ll watch them in their torture bed,\n    And hear them weep and wail in vain.\u201d\n    And, while he planned, the pris\u2019ners slept.\n    A mother drew close to her breast\n    The babe that had so loudly wept,\n    And soon they both had sunk to rest.\n\n    And now the giant loudly called;\n    \u201cCome forth, ye creatures of the damn\u2019d\n    And in this pit, so strangely walled,\n    I\u2019ll torture you, as I have planned,\n    Forever you shall weep and cry\u2014\n    \u2019Twill be sweet music in my ears\u2014\n    For you shall never, never die\n    While eternity winds up the years!\u201d\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    I made this giant\u2014who made this God,\n    To do the work my giant schemed?\n    For spirit ne\u2019er this cold world trod\n    With such a heart as brute man dreamed.\n    The God who loves the blooming flower,\n    Who tuned the voice of child and bird,\n    Would never use his God-like power\n    To conjure tortures so absurd.\n\n    No! No! and when the earth and sea\n    Give up the dead they\u2019re holding fast,\n    A God of love and life there\u2019ll be\n    Forgiving man his painful past;\n    For, would a God who can forgive,\n    Call back the dead from where they sleep,\n    And take delight to have them live,\n    Where they eternally must weep?\n    If this be true, then keep your dead,\n    Oh, tear-washed earth and troubled sea!\n    And let them sleep within their bed\n    To rest throughout eternity.\n\n\n\n\nWHERE DREAMS COME TRUE\n\n\nAre dreams but idle things, or is there a land where all our happy dreams\ncome true? Dreams are queer freaks of the intellect. We dream of the\ndead whom we have not seen for so long, that we can scarcely recall the\npicture of their face in our wakeful hours, but in our dreams we walk\nwith them and talk with them and see them just as they were while living.\nThe picture printed on our brain cells never fades away, and when the\nbrain is held under the proper light, the old picture comes to view. Do\nthese pictures fade away absolutely at death, or is there a land where\nall these brain pictures are stored away, to be given to us when we are\ncalled back?\n\nI do not know; but it is a pleasant dream to half-believe that this is\ntrue; for without these memory pictures being restored to us, how shall\nwe know our loved ones in the beyond when we meet them again? If the\ngrave swallows all our happy visions and dreams, the new life will find\nus as babes, beginning to learn the very things we forgot at death. Then\nall our present individuality would be lost, and the immortal part of us\nwould be a stranger to the mortal creature that died. God might as well\ncall new beings into existence, as an unknown and unknowable part of the\noriginal creature. Without a memory we would not be able to recognize our\nown soul, should we meet him in the spirit world.\n\nHence a recollection of our dreams and our visions must go with us into\nthe spirit world, or we must go as strangers without knowledge or a\nconsciousness of the past. No use to be of immortal material, if the\nchanges squeeze out memory pictures, for they are the tender chords that\nbind the two conditions together. Heaven must be a land where our dreams\ncome true, or it would have no connection with this earth and this life.\n\nI once wrote a few verses on this subject, that have never yet been\npublished. They fit in here very nicely:\n\n    Is there a land where our dreams come true,\n      The dreams that we dream when asleep;\n    A land of love that is always new,\n      Where the joyous never weep?\n    And the dreams that we dream when wide awake,\n      When the silence is on our soul,\n    When we look far out where the shadows break,\n      And the Dead sea billows roll.\n\n    Oh, is there a land where we shall awake,\n      From a dream that is full of sighs,\n    In a land where the boughs of the green trees shake\n      In the breezes that sweep the skies;\n    And behold the faces we loved so dear\u2014\n      Who bade us the long adieu\u2014\n    And see them smile without sigh or tear,\n      Oh, will ever our dreams come true?\n\n    I dreamed last night my mother came\n      And sang with the old-time charms,\n    And called me \u201cdarling\u201d just the same\n      As when I slumbered in her arms.\n    The vision changed; I was a man,\n      A baby\u2019s hand was on my face,\n    Its warm breath on my cheek, and then\n      I felt the baby\u2019s warm embrace.\n\n    It was my baby, long since dead,\n      Her dreamy eyes were good to see;\n    Its baby tongue moved, and it said:\n      \u201cOh, isn\u2019t it sweet to dream of me!\n    Oh, papa dear, your cheeks are wet,\n      Just like the flowers are wet with dew,\n    But soon you\u2019ll wake, and you\u2019ll forget\n      The land where all our dreams come true!\u201d\n\n    Oh, is there a land where our dreams come true\u2014\n      The dreams we are dreaming all day long?\n    And do they almost come into our view\n      When our souls are carried away with song?\n    Will all our visions and day-dreams return\n      The same as the seasons and song birds do?\n    Will we meet the dear ones for whom we yearn\n      In the land of immortals, where dreams come true?\n\n\n\n\nIT MIGHT HAVE BEEN\n\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said my companion, as the train dashed on, \u201cit is not true\nthat men love but once. I believe that a man loves more sensibly and\ntruly after he has had two or three infatuations and suffered as many\ndisappointments. I believe, too, it is the same with the sensible woman,\nonly she sometimes does not have the opportunity to love so often as a\nman.\n\n\u201cThe other day I met an old sweetheart on the train in company with her\nmother. Once I would have married the woman, for I thought she was the\nonly one in the world, but her mother objected to the match. My blood\nwasn\u2019t blue enough. She was a good, warm-hearted girl, but she lacked\ncourage. Had she been a girl of spirit, she would have married me in\nspite of all opposition. But she gave me up and broke her own heart over\nthe affair.\n\n\u201cI\u2019ll admit that I was pretty well broken up at first, but my pride\ncame to my rescue. I made up my mind that I needed a wife of more\nindividuality and character, and I soon found her. In a little while I\nwas deeper in love than ever before. She was brighter, deeper and more\nresolute. Her parents objected at first to her choice, but she told them\nit was not they who were making the match. She said if a girl had no\nchoice in selecting a husband, the natural selection of sex was ignored,\nand love was seen only from a financial view.\n\n\u201cHonest and true, I believe now it would have been very unfortunate had\nthe first sweetheart married me, though I believe I could have loved her\nalways, had her mother not broken up the match. Truly, I believe her life\nhas been blighted by that disappointment. She never married. Perhaps\nshe never had another chance. I do not know. They are poor now, and her\nmother has lost much of her pride. She has confessed lately that she made\na mistake when she broke up Mary\u2019s love affair.\n\n\u201cThe day I met them on the train they were going to ignore my presence,\nbut I would not have it that way. I respect them too much to drop\nabsolutely out of their world. I simply took a seat behind them and\ncalled their attention to my presence. It was the first time in twenty\nyears we had met. The mother was greatly confused at first, and Mary\nblushed like a school girl; but after the ice was broken, we had a very\npleasant two hours\u2019 ride. Mary asked all about my wife and children, and\nexpressed a desire to see them.\n\n\u201cI pitied the woman I once loved, for she looked very unhappy and\ndiscontented with life. Her mother is growing quite feeble and she is\ndevoting her life to her parents. I pitied her. This was all there was\nleft of my love. As I looked at the disappointed woman, I thought of how\nI once held her in my arms and we both swore eternal loyalty to each\nother. How we had lied to each other. She cast me off as a duty and I\nforgot her in retaliation. How foolish it would be then to cork ourselves\nup and never love another.\n\n\u201cOnce she was the idol of all my youthful dreams, the queen of my\nchildren. Now I love another woman more fondly than I ever loved before,\nbecause she is worthy of it. She gave up home and friends for me, and\nproved her great love for me, and, after all, this is the true test of\nour love. A man can\u2019t long love a woman who has not the courage to love\nhim in spite of the oppositions of friends. She sinks out of sight and\nsome one else is sure to take her place, if he only waits. There is no\noccasion to commit suicide if jilted by one woman. She never was worthy\nof the fellow\u2019s love, or she would not have jilted him. She never loved\nhim. The woman who loves a man truly will give up all the world for him.\n\n\u201cStill, I pity Mary. I would feel just a little more happy if she were\nmarried to a good man. A man can\u2019t help but pity any woman he once loved,\nif he thinks her unhappy. His mind will insist on going back occasionally\nto the days when that woman was the only woman in the world to him; when\nit might have ended just as he had dreamed. It might have been otherwise\nthan it has turned out to be. His present love is a flower of a later\ngrowth, even though of sweeter odor.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA MISGUIDED MOTHER\n\n\nIt was no fault of his own that caused a separation between Walter Clark\nand his young wife. She took a dislike to him after a short matrimonial\nvoyage, simply because she had never sincerely and truly loved him. She\nwas one of those impulsive girls who are determined to have their own\nway in everything, and when they can\u2019t have things just as they want\nthem, they become unreasonable. They never admit that they are in the\nwrong. They are always right, and all the world is wrong. Walter Clark\u2019s\ndemonstrations of love and affection became disagreeable to his cold and\nfrivolous wife. She preferred to sit down and pout rather than go with\nher husband to the theatre, or on an excursion. Perhaps there had been\na previous lover whom she lost, and no man could fill his place in her\nheart.\n\nWhen Walter discovered that his wife was determined to disagree with\nhim in everything, and to grow more disagreeable every day, he let her\npass the time as best she could without his presence, which had become\nso annoying to her. One day she bundled up her belongings and went home\nto her mother. Maybe she thought Walter would come after her and plead\nwith her to go back to the old life. But, God knows, Walter had enough of\nthe old life and felt relieved when the change came into his life. Every\ntender feeling he had once felt toward his wife had been destroyed, and\nby her own disagreeable conduct. In his heart he had deified the girl\nhe married, but she proved to be an idol of miserable clay. Three years\nafter the separation he went on a visit to the Middle West. He met a\nbeautiful young woman and felt himself drawn toward her by her loveliness\nand most charming manner. He was hungry for the love of a good and\ntrue woman, and in his heart he believed he had found her at last. His\nattentions were encouraged, and he felt love growing deeper and fonder\nevery day.\n\nHe despised traveling under false colors, and frankly went to the girl\u2019s\nmother and told her that he was a married man, but hoped to be freed\nfrom his wife before long. He told of everything that led up to the\nseparation, and confessed that he loved her daughter fondly and truly,\nand would try to make her a good husband.\n\nThe mother was shocked. A married man making love to her daughter! All\nher orthodox prejudice and provincial suspicion rebelled against Walter,\nand she turned him out of the house, as though he were a criminal of\nthe lowest type. She could not see that he had played fair\u2014that he\nsailed under his true colors and could give her references as to his\ngood character from the people of his own home city. No, she didn\u2019t\nwant references\u2014a married man was an outlaw in the realms of love and\ncourtship. In her eyes Walter was forever damned.\n\nThe honorable, but heart-broken young man left the town, and the incident\nwas closed. He would not tread on that mother\u2019s rights, even though\nhe realized that she was playing tyrant, and wrecking her daughter\u2019s\nhappiness.\n\nDazed and unhappy, the young girl could not realize whether she had been\nwronged by the mother\u2019s decision, or by the presumption of Walter Clark,\nwho won her love while he was married to another. The whole world seemed\nto be deceptive and false.\n\nShe was aroused from this condition of despair a few months later when\na young \u201cunmarried\u201d traveling man came to town. He had all the dash\nand brilliancy of the gay world, and the disappointed girl, and her\nmisguided, ambitious and unsuspecting mother were captivated. He spent\nmany of his evenings at the girl\u2019s home, and the mother was pleased to\nsee her daughter sitting in the parlor with such a promising young man.\nThe daughter had been in disgrace since her love affair with a horrid\nmarried man, but now the mother was pleased.\n\nSoon after captivating the mother the young man persuaded the girl to\nelope with him. Having lost the love of one man she was willing to listen\nto any proposal the lover might make, so she consented. There could be\nnothing wrong about the elopement, for her mother believed the young man\nwas perfect. It was only a bit of romance, and every girl is romantic\nwhen in love.\n\nSix months later the agonized mother received a tear-stained letter from\nher daughter, written in the city of San Francisco. The daughter was\ndeserted, penniless and without a friend, and must end it all in suicide\nunless her mother forgave her and took her back home.\n\nReluctantly the disillusioned mother sent money to bring her daughter\nback to the old home, but she did not know all until the daughter\u2019s\nreturn in charge of a trained nurse. She was suffering from a loathsome\ndisease contracted from the libertine who had dragged her from her home;\nand is today a miserable invalid in her mother\u2019s house, scolded and\nabused daily for her miserable condition. The misguided mother will not\nconfess that she ruined her daughter\u2019s life when she turned the honorable\nlover away, and took the human vampire into her parlor. No, she blames\neverything on the poor, ruined girl. Poor, blind mother\u2014your prejudice\ndrove the honorable lover away.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WORLD IS BLIND\n\n\nSo many of the world\u2019s inhabitants are going through life mentally blind.\nThe greatest education does not always guarantee mental sight. It takes\nreal wisdom to open the human intellect, and education is not always\nwisdom. A man may be able to solve great mathematical problems, diagram\nan intricate sentence in grammatical form, name all the capitals and\ngreat cities of the big world geographically and historically\u2014but still\nbe blind to human justice.\n\nWithout geological knowledge a man goes blindly through the world,\nstepping on valuable specimens of minerals and precious stones without\nrealizing their value or worth.\n\nAnd just so, in like manner, do men who are blind to the justice that\nbelong to their neighbors, go tramping on human hearts and human\nprinciples without knowing the real value and worth of the objects on\nwhich they tread.\n\nIt is painful to see a blind man go feeling his way with a cane, but he\nnever creates the sorrows that are created by the man who is blind to\nhuman justice and the rights of the people below his station.\n\nI know a man who loves a beautiful woman. He was once engaged to marry\nher, but friends who are blind to the rights of humanity, no odds how\npoor or rich the individuals may be, interfered and separated the loving\ncouple. They trampled on their young hearts and crushed them until they\nbled from the bruises, and made love appear as a criminal and outlaw.\n\nThey love each other still, though both are married to another. There\nis a pain in each heart that will never cease aching, but the wealthy\nfriends who separated them are blind to the wrong they perpetrated\nagainst these disappointed souls. They crushed two ideals in the soul of\ntwo loving people, but the ideals will never die in their souls. That\nfirst dream of love will ever remain the sweetest, dearest dream that\never took possession of their young souls\u2014a dream that died and was\nburied there and left a grave that is always bleeding.\n\nAnd yet the blind friends do not realize that the ghost of a great wrong\nstalks through their hearts during the silent hours of the night, when\nthe world imagines they are sleeping without a shadow to obscure the\nsunlight of human happiness and hope.\n\nAnd this is only one case out of a million. And through the blindness\nof friends and relatives our divorce courts do a big business. Young\npeople who are denied the companionship of the one they love best, and\nare induced to marry some one else for convenience sake, soon find the\nmatrimonial bands galling, and a separation is inevitable. This is\nthe main cause of so many divorces amongst the rich. They marry for\nconvenience when they find it impossible to marry the one they love.\n\nHow unfortunate for parents who no longer care for each other to bring\nunwelcome children into a loveless world. The children find their\nenvironment one of cold speculation and fashionable hypocrisy, and\nthey grow up believing that all the world is like their own domestic\nrelations. Where there is no display of affection between the parents,\nthe child grows up believing that love and affection are unnecessary, and\npassion is cultivated as a substitute. These are the sons who make the\nwhite slave business prosperous. They come from loveless homes, and do\nnot realize that there is any such thing as genuine companionship love.\nFather and mother lived so independently of each other, spending most of\ntheir time at their clubs and at card parties, or visiting abroad with\nstrangers, that the name of wife does not suggest a companion, nor does\nthe name mother suggest the dearest friend on earth to the child.\n\nAnd thus the fashionable world goes staggering blindly on, grasping at\nwealth and power and notoriety as the only prizes worth winning.\n\n\n\n\nWRONG ON THE THRONE\n\n\nAs far back as the mind of man can trace the history of the race we\nsee bleeding Right on the scaffold and triumphant Wrong sitting on the\nthrone. If this is contrary to God\u2019s plan, he is slow to correct error.\nCain slew his brother Abel because he was the stronger and most brutal.\nThe meek and humble Abel gave up his life to the violence of wrong, and\nCain\u2019s punishment was rather mild. He was allowed to hunt a wife and\nmarry her and raise a family, while the name of his victim was wiped from\nthe face of nature.\n\nAgain, was it right that Jesus Christ should be crucified on a cross?\nThis is the most horrible death any living animal can die\u2014nailed alive\nto a cross of wood with cruel nails driven through feet and hands, and\nleft to die of terrible pain and anguish of soul. The good book says God\nplanned it. If so, then God himself indorses the rule of wrong and the\nsufferings of right.\n\nSocrates was forced to drink the deadly hemlock, for the crime of\nteaching men the right. Socrates knew that the system taught by the\nruling spirits of his country was a wrong theory. It kept the people in\ndarkest ignorance and darkest slavery. He strove to lift them up and free\nthem from their mental and physical slavery. The men who fattened on the\nspoils of the wrong system realized that Socrates would ultimately rob\nthem of their slaves and half-fed servants, by teaching them the truth,\nand their natural rights, so they put Socrates to death. God did not\ninterfere or intervene; so he must surely indorse the violent rule of\nwrong.\n\nAlmost every one knows of King Leopold\u2019s cruelty to the natives of the\nCongo Free State. It is said of him that he had instructed his agents to\ninflict terrible punishment on the natives if they failed to bring in the\nrequired quantity of rubber. Many of the poor, god-forsaken creatures\nhave had a hand cut off, or a foot removed, for failing to bring in\nwealth to the agents of this monstrosity of a ruler. If I stood on the\nbanks of the crater known as the bottomless pit and saw such deeds of\nbrutality inacted in hell, I could not believe my own eyes; and to hear\nof such things being done on top of ground, makes one\u2019s soul groan in\nutter despair of Right ever being able to dethrone Wrong and usher in the\nrule of peace and love.\n\nAnd the latest outrage Wrong has perpetrated against the world was the\nmurder of Ferrer, the Spanish reformer. And they tell me it was done in\nthe name of religion! The shameless idea of that half-idiot, Alfonso,\nKing of Spain, ordering the death of a man towering intellectually so far\nabove the pigmy dummy who ornaments the Spanish throne, insults the very\nfiber of my soul.\n\nFerrer was teaching the men the science of human rights, just as Socrates\nhad done centuries ago. The crime is always the same, and the excuse for\nkilling the reformer is always the same. The world is made to believe\nthat the killing is done to protect religion, and to defend God. The plot\nis dark and deep\u2014deeper than orthodox hell itself; for hell is said to be\nthe everlasting abode of wrong, and wrong doers.\n\nWill the mists ever clear away from men\u2019s eyes, so that they can\nrecognize Wrong on the throne and Right hanging by the neck on the\nscaffold erected by the willing tools of Wrong? Will they? I very much\ndoubt it. The world\u2019s history has been written by the sword of the\ntyrant, dipped in the blood of the many victims who died for the cause of\nhuman liberty, and the sleeping world has been made to believe that it\nwas all done in the name of religion.\n\nDoes God care? Go to the graves of the millions slain by Wrong; go to the\nstake where the thousands were burned and left their ashes to cry to high\nheaven for human liberty; go to the prison dungeons where the thousands\nof martyrs wasted their lives and died in filth and misery\u2014and ask there\nif God cares that this monster, Wrong, shall longer rule the destinies of\nmen. I cannot see a single ray of hope. These insects we call men, are\nbrutal as the beasts of the field. They glory in bloodshed.\n\n\n\n\nTHE VOICES WE UNDERSTAND\n\n\nEven child life is full of tragedy. In their helplessness they stand in\nthe way of advancing events, a mother or a father taken away while yet\nthey need their helping hand, and often the mother is stricken down while\nthe child has no other means of existence but the milk that flowed from\nthe maternal breast of the dead woman. If this is by design, who can\njustify the designer while looking through the orphan\u2019s tears? No, the\ndesigner of all these heartaches and sorrows does not ask to be justified\nby those who suffer most. The same God who created conditions that give\npain to his creatures, also gave the suffering creature voice to protest\nand cry out against the treatment they receive. Tears and sobs are also a\nprotest against the pangs of sorrow and pain.\n\nYes, tragedy is forced into each life at the hour of birth. Show me a\nchild a year old, and I can write of its history in a way to bring tears\nto your eyes, and to my own. Its little tiny wail at the hour of birth is\na protest against the pains of the world, and only when it sleeps does\ninstinct cease to cry out for mercy and assistance. For this is a cruel\nworld to be born into. Nature has provided a thousand sources of torture\nto direct the child mind into choosing the proper way through life. God\ndoes not temper the hot stove to the tender hand of a child, and when\none falls into the fire Nature does not halt to pull it out and pour a\nsoothing balm upon the blisters. No, Nature moves on as unrelentingly as\nthe cogs of two great wheels in a mill crushing all that falls between\nthe meshing cogs.\n\nI know an orphan boy who was one of several children when his mother\ndied, and was sent from the western home to the grandparents in the\nEast. They were kind to him and did all they could to make him happy,\nbut often in the silent hours of the night, they could hear him sobbing\nand crying as though his little heart were breaking. They were the sobs\nof a homesick child, for when they would ask him why he was crying so\nbitterly, he would say: \u201cOh, I fear I will never see my little brothers\nnor my papa again. They are so far away, and I am so small, and they will\nforget me.\u201d\n\nSomething had gone out of his life when his mother died which no human\nlove could replace. He lost something that would never, never be found\nand restored to the child; and in my blind way I can never reconcile the\ndeath of a loving mother with the work of a loving God. Does he love to\nhear the bitter cries and heart-broken sobs of a homesick child?\n\nWho knows how much influence these bitter cries have over the designs of\nthe great Creator? If God listens to prayer, is he deaf to the sobbing\ncries of a homesick orphan? Is not the pathetic music sweeter than all\nother strains of harmonious sound? Perhaps God loves the pathetic and\nthe heart-cries of children far better than the coarser songs of the\nfull-grown people.\n\nWe do not know, but there must be some reason for all these sad causes\nand effects. The child outgrows its many distresses, and the orphan\nsoon lives down its sorrows, and happiness blooms in the ashes of child\nmemories. A loving God would not send all these afflictions for sport.\nThey all mean something in the universal design. Perhaps to soften older\nhearts and to water the tender plant of love with a child\u2019s tears.\n\nThese sobs and tears may be necessary as the sunshine and showers of\nrain, else why do they exist? It may be as impossible to run this old\nsphere without human sorrow and heartaches as it is to run a living world\nwithout an atmosphere and clouds. Who knows that the clouds do not suffer\nafflictions when they pour out their raindrops, or the wind feel pain and\nheartache when it wails at our doors?\n\nDo the trees feel sad when they droop their leaves, or the vines and\nshrubs feel melancholy when their flowers wither and die on their stems?\nThey have a language of their own, no doubt, and one that we can not\nunderstand. Man can only listen and have his sympathies awakened by the\nvoices he can understand. If he knew all the pain and the suffering the\nother things are obliged to endure, he might hesitate to cut a tree or\nto plow up the bosom of the earth and force it to produce vegetables and\ngrain.\n\nWe are in the midst of a great mystery, and only the songs and laughter,\nthe sermons and the tears of others are evidence that we are all human\ncreatures.\n\n\n\n\nCHASING THE COWS UP\n\n\nI want to talk today to the boys on the farm, and the old gray-haired\nboys who were raised on the farm. I think the old boys will appreciate my\ntalk the most because they have had the experience I shall talk about.\nThe farm boy nowadays knows nothing of the old experience that used to\ncome to us older farm boys who were obliged to go barefooted the greater\npart of the summer and autumn. Say, you old gray-headed farm hand, do you\nremember how you used to chase the cows up on a cold, frosty morning, and\nuse the warm spot to warm your half-frozen feet? I do. Often when obliged\nto go to the fields for the cows on a frosty October morning I would\nchase the cows up and then stand in the warm spot to thaw out my red feet.\n\nWell, that game has been reversed on me a hundred times since that day,\nand I have been chased up from my bed that others might warm their feet\nat my expense. Once in particular I owned, or thought I owned, a tract of\nmountain land. I was saving the timber for a future day. It was all the\nproperty I had in the world. The man who owned the tract adjoining mine\nsold it to my neighbor. This neighbor was an amateur surveyor, and spent\nmuch time running old lines through the woods. I thought it was for the\npractice he was getting out of the work, but I soon learned differently.\n\nHe had discovered an old line running through the centre of my tract\nof mountain land. It was two years older than the line between his new\npossessions and my land. He jumped the tract and said that all above the\nold line he found was his\u2014that it belonged to the tract he had purchased.\nHe began at once to cut down the timber I had been saving for a future\nday, and laughed at me when I protested and told him I had bought the\nland in good faith, and it belonged to me.\n\nI employed a surveyor, who counted the growths of the trees since the\nblazes were made, and he agreed with my surveying neighbor that he was\nright\u2014the line to which he claimed was two years older than the line to\nwhich I had purchased land. I was obliged to get up and let him warm his\nfeet in the one spot on earth I had warmed.\n\nIt all came back to me how I used to chase the cows up to warm my bare\nfeet. It wasn\u2019t exactly bread coming back on the water, but it was the\ncold coming back to my feet. I was taken with cold feet and gave up the\nland.\n\nSince then I learned that the old line that served so well to swindle\nme out of my mountain land was an old township line, and had nothing to\ndo with dividing the tracts of privately owned land. Did my surveying\nneighbor know this to be a fact at the time? I fear he did, for he had\npreviously gone over that same township line from the starting point at\nthe river, and had learned the truth about the line through the woods.\nWith this knowledge he chased me out of my warm spot and proceeded to\nwarm his feet.\n\nStrange to say, we are friends today. I wouldn\u2019t do him an injury for any\nprice, and I don\u2019t think he would injure me\u2014any more than to chase me\nout of a warm spot again, and warm his feet at my expense; for this seems\nto be the game of life with most business people. Some of them prosper\nand some of them do not. My neighbor has gained but little. He took all I\nhad in the world, but it didn\u2019t prosper in his hands. I would not trade\npositions or future prospects with him today.\n\nIt doesn\u2019t always pay to chase a man up to get possession of the warm\nspot he occupied.\n\nIt didn\u2019t pay me at all when I used to chase the cows up for the same\npurpose. The intermittent moments of cold and warm feet made the cold\nfeel all the more chilly when I left the warm spot and stepped into the\nfrost-laden grass.\n\nNo doubt my neighbor realizes the same truth now. He would be far happier\nif he had never wronged me\u2014if he had never chased me up to get possession\nof the spot I had warmed. We all feel that way, dear readers, no odds\nhow hard we try to hide the fact from the world. We are far happier\nin occupying only the small spot we have warmed ourselves; for it is\nnot natural to treat human beings the same as we sometimes treat the\ninoffensive cows.\n\n\n\n\nFLOWERS FOR THE LIVING\n\n\nSending flowers to the dead is a beautiful tribute to their worth while\nliving. Some day I shall lie in my coffin with closed lips and folded\nhands, looking through dead and expressionless eyes into the great\neternity that opens to receive me; and those who loved me will bring\nsweet flowers and lay them near my hard bed and drop a tear to mark the\nplace of our parting. But I will not be able to smell the flowers, nor to\nsee the tear, nor to look into their beloved faces and catch the gleam of\nfriendship and the glory of human love. It will then be too late for a\nresponsive smile and hand squeeze and a tender word of recognition; for I\nwill be far away from the touch of friendship, and only the cold clod of\nthe senseless mortal will be there to receive the gift of love.\n\nBelow I publish a bouquet that was sent to me while my heart is hungry\nfor appreciation, and my soul longs for congenial companionship; for we\nare all groping our way through this jungle of theory and blindfolded\nguess work, and we are glad to know that others are going our way:\n\n                                      Reading, Pa., January 7, 1910.\n\n    Jake Haiden, Esq.,\n        Chatham Run, Pa.\n\n    My Dear Sir\u2014Permit me to introduce myself for the purpose\n    of expressing my appreciation of the beautiful sentiments\n    contained in your \u201cphilosophy,\u201d appearing in the \u201cReading\n    Times\u201d daily. I was particularly impressed with the article\n    in today\u2019s issue, and thank you sincerely for same. I am\n    looking forward to the time when the citizens of this community\n    will become better and more generally acquainted with you\n    personally and with your writings, and I assure you that if\n    my recommendation to my friends and neighbors will in any\n    measure help to call attention to the increasing value and\n    attractiveness of the \u201cTimes,\u201d I unreservedly give it, for\n    I feel that if our merchants, business men and men in all\n    walks in life, should spend a few moments each day in silent\n    communion with you, we will all feel better and accomplish more\n    for the philosophy of \u201cJake Haiden.\u201d\n\n    With my very best wishes, I am,\n\n                              Yours truly,\n\n                                                        JENKIN HILL.\n\nThese are the bouquets that give new life to the living, new hope to\nthe despondent, new inspiration to the writer who has often doubted the\nvalue of his work. For any one who treads on new paths and leaves the old\nbeaten tracks where the thoughtless millions have trod for centuries, is\nso likely to be misunderstood. When the independent thinker finds himself\naway from the old ruts where the heavy chariots of plodding thought\nhave left deep gutters for the millions to follow, he feels that he is\ntraveling alone, and is ever reaching out to grasp some friendly hand and\nfeel the warmth of a congenial living body and a progressive mind.\n\nSome day Mr. Hill will carry a bouquet to a dead friend, but the flowers\nwill not be able to bring new hope and new inspiration and new courage,\nlike his letter has brought to me. And yet, I have never met Mr. Hill,\nto touch his hand and look into his face and express pleasure in meeting\nhim. Our bodies are total strangers to each other, but out on the sea of\nthought we met and touched each other\u2019s boat, and now go floating down\nthe storm-tossed stream toward the land of God knows where\u2014out beyond\nthese shadows that hide our faces and our motives from our neighbors and\ncause us to misjudge our fellow man, and to throw him thorns and thistles\ninstead of the sacred flower of human love.\n\nIf you are out on the sea of thought, drifting before the winds that\nare ever blowing us away from the land of knowledge, and making life\nan endless pull against wind and current\u2014and you meet others out there\nin the shadow\u2014don\u2019t go off quietly and hide until they are past. Hail\nthem\u2014call to them in friendly tones and tell them you are going the same\nway and would enjoy their companionship. Don\u2019t wait until the storms of\nlife have wrecked their boat and you find their dead body on the shore,\nbeyond the reach of your flowers and love and appreciation.\n\nAfter all is said, the religion of humanity comes nearest to our hearts.\nWe need no towering church spires, nor cold stone walls to make our\nplace of worship a secluded spot. The world is our book, and humanity\nour altar, on which we may lay our white rose of love and our pale lily\nof charity, and reach out to the Great Jehovah, through the responsive\nheart-throbs of our friends and neighbors.\n\n\n\n\nTHE HOBO\u2019S STORY\n\n\nLooking down the new road that leads up to the church and my own humble\nhome, my wife and I saw a strange man approaching. We thought he was\ndeformed at first glance, for he seemed to be out of proportion in many\nways. As he drew nearer the window we noticed that he wore three or more\ncoats, and the same number of inseparable pants\u2014at least each pair was\ninseparable.\n\nAt the church he hesitated, glancing at the parsonage, and then back to\nour back door. He was rather an old man, past sixty, judging from his\nhair and whiskers. At last he decided to try our house.\n\nI did not ask him, but I suspect that he mistook our house for the\nMethodist parsonage, since the church and our house are painted the same\ncolors. I went to the door myself, and when he asked, \u201cCould you give a\nhungry man something to eat?\u201d I replied by inviting him inside and giving\nhim a chair.\n\n\u201cTraveling?\u201d I inquired, not from idle curiosity, but to start a\nconversation and make the stranger feel that I took an interest in him.\n\n\u201cA little,\u201d he replied, \u201cI came down from Erie last night on a freight\ntrain, and I \u2019most froze to death. No work up that way, except in the\ncoke regions, and there they have Poles and Slavs and Finlanders and\nHitalians and niggers.\u201d\n\nI knew he was English by the way he pronounced Italian.\n\n\u201cDid you use to work at the coke ovens?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cNo, but I use to work in the hard coal mines\u2014at Nanticoke and Shamokin;\nknocked off thirteen years ago, when the foreigners cut down wages. It\nwas at Nanticoke I had the narrow escape with my life. I\u2019ll tell you\nwhile I\u2019m getting warmed up. It was all the mistake of the engineer.\nWe were putting a tunnel from the new drifts up into the old abandoned\nworkings, in order to drain the old workings down into the lower level,\nand then pump it out through the great pump that was pumping out the\nlower level.\n\n\u201cThe engineer calculated to strike the old drift several feet above the\ngreat body of water lying there, and then pump it up into the tunnel and\nlet it flow down to the lower level. The engineer made a grave error in\nhis calculations, for instead of entering the old drift above the water,\nthe tunnel was almost on a level with the bottom of the old drift. There\nwas a large quantity of water in the drift. When the men put in the last\nblast it tore the intervening wall down and the river of water came\nbursting into the tunnel. There were eleven men working there besides Ed\nEvans and me. We had gone back to the shaft to get some powder and were\nback as far as the big slope when we heard the mighty roar of the rushing\nwaters.\n\n\u201cWe could not tell at first what the noise meant, but we felt there was\ndanger in the pitchy darkness. Ed and I ran up the slope, calling to big\nBilly Beck to follow us, who was then working at something near the foot\nof the slope. He waited to learn what the cause of the noise was. We\nlooked back and saw him start in our direction. We could see the light\nwaving rapidly up the slope behind us. Suddenly his light went out. We\nsoon learned why, for a moment later the water came rushing up the slope\nand soon submerged our legs up to our knees.\n\n\u201cLuckily we had reached an elevation on the slope almost as high as the\nflood could ascend when the level was filled, and we soon found ourselves\non dry ground. This slope had not been worked for over a year, and no one\nelse was penned up in the horrible trap but Ed and me.\n\n\u201cWe felt confident that all the men who were cutting the tunnel into the\nold drift had been drowned. The terrific flood came in so suddenly that\nnone could escape. Then we began to think of our own situation. It would\nrequire months to pump all the water out of the level. In the meantime\nwe would starve. We had even lost our dinner pails. We looked into each\nother\u2019s eyes through the dim light, and Ed said, \u2018We\u2019re in a hell of a\nfix now, old man! I wonder if the people outside will still think we poor\nminers demand too much pay? Will they be good to my wife and the babies?\u2019\n\n\u201cAt the word \u2018babies\u2019 poor Ed broke down and wept as only a brave man can\nweep when facing despair. Then we remembered the old abandoned air shaft,\nand we went up the slope as fast as we could go until we found it. We\ncalled up the shaft to where we could see a speck of light, but there was\nnobody there to hear us. Then we both sat down and cried in utter despair.\n\n\u201cYes, we were rescued. Men came to the old shaft next day intending to\ngo down and see if anybody had found safety in the old slope. We were\nrescued thirty hours after the accident. Our wives and Ed\u2019s children were\non hand to receive us. But, dear God, I can never forget the wail of the\npoor wives whose dear ones lay drowned down in the lower level. Big Bill\nBeck\u2019s poor old wife had to be carried home when she saw that Bill was\nnot among the rescued.\n\n\u201cYes, thank you very much for the food and your kindness. No, I\u2019ll never\ngo back to the mines again. It\u2019s a hard life, and the operators have made\nthe world believe that the miners are asking too much for their work and\ntheir lives. Say, did you ever notice? Two days after a mine accident the\nwidows and orphans need help! Too much pay? Oh, the shame of it all!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nIN THE LOOKING GLASS\n\n\nIt seems to be a human impossibility for us to see ourselves as others\nsee us. We never know exactly how we appear to our neighbors. Men are\nlike moving pictures\u2014it requires some distance from the picture to see\nthe moving figures to the best advantage. We know that our nearest\nneighbor knows less of our true character than the people living at a\ndistance. When Henry D. Thoreau built a little log cabin, with his own\nhands, on the banks of Walden Pond, Massachusetts, his neighbors saw\nthe man at close range, and failed to notice the strength of mind and\ncharacter. It was the people at a long distance who saw the real Thoreau\nat fitful glances, and anxiously magnified the man until he became a\nthing unnatural\u2014a genius.\n\nThe too-appreciative public called Thoreau a genius\u2014a man to whom thought\ncame without an effort. He himself didn\u2019t think so. He lamented his own\nweakness and ignorance of things. It required so much time to learn a\nsimple truth: to cull out the true from the false. Half the thinkers of\nthe world are thinking out a plan to live without menial labor. They\nare thinking out a plan to fool and deceive the unthinking into buying\nknowledge and secret keys to science. And the deceived people look at\nthem from a distance and put a false estimate on their ability, and pay\nthem well to be fooled and humbugged.\n\nI have seen sick people ignore their home physician and go a hundred\nmiles to consult a quack; and for a long time imagine that his knowledge\nof the healing art was almost divine. The quack\u2019s nearest neighbors\nlooked on in disgust, and repeated the immortal words of Shakespeare,\n\u201cWhat fools these mortals be!\u201d\n\nBut even Shakespeare is seen at a distance in greater lustre than around\nhis own home. There is an old saying that \u201cthe king is never great to\nhis own valet.\u201d But often this is because of the mental gulf between\nthe two men. The valet often judges only the physical man, or the moods\nof the mental man. Men are great only when they go into the silence and\napply their entire force of mind to solving the problems of life. The\ngreat speech you heard your favorite orator deliver was not gathered\nspontaneously while standing before you. The speech was but the fruit of\nmany, many hours of struggle and study and worry and of painful effort.\nDid you but know the late hour when he blew out the lamp and lay his\naching, throbbing head on his pillow, and only slept to dream over again\nhis struggles, you would not call him a genius, but a plodding student.\n\nThe man who stands looking into the mirror and beholds his own face,\nwithout finding weak spots and flaws and lack of character, is too vain\nto be judge of himself. The serious, sincere man is always finding flaws\nin himself, and seeking to find a remedy to cure them. The man or woman\nwho \u201cgets stuck\u201d on the face they see in the glass are mental quacks\u2014they\nare humbugging themselves. They see a genius in the reflection of an\nasinine mug. They go away from the glass, and a moment later cannot\ndescribe the manner of face they carry on their shoulders. If they were\never so good an artist and painter, they could not paint a picture of\nthemselves from memory.\n\nAnd if we cannot judge ourselves correctly, how can we expect our own\nneighbors to judge us even charitably. And our mental face flits before\nus and out of reach of our grasp as rapidly as the reflection of our\nphysical countenance. We seem to sit in the midst of moving pictures,\nour mind the curtain on which the pictures are flashed. If we stop the\nmachine and retain the same picture for any great length of time on our\nmental curtain, we become insane. The machine must be kept in motion, one\nscene following after the other all day long. True, we can repeat the\npassing scenes daily, but they must be in motion, passing swiftly on.\n\nWhen we apply ourselves to any particular study we learn to ignore all\nthe other passing scenes and fasten our mental eye on the screen at\na point where our favorite figures appear as they flash by, but our\nsubconscious mental eye realizes all the time that the entire picture\nshow is in progress. The truth is, dear reader, we haven\u2019t time to see\nour neighbor as he really is, nor even see ourself in all our many\nphases. Our face is passing through the mirror too rapidly for us to\nestimate the strength or force of character. In the great economy\nof nature we are only shadows cast upon the curtain of eternity and\npassing rapidly away. Our short life makes a film of limited length, the\ndifferent scenes passing before us so rapidly that even in our sensitive\nmemory only one per cent of all that transpires leaves a trace that can\nbe recalled in after years.\n\nWhat need we care what people think of us, when we cannot judge or\nestimate ourselves. If we can practice charity toward each other and\nforget our neighbor\u2019s faults, as we forget our own face, we do well. The\nmoving pictures of life will not stop long enough for us to \u201cget stuck on\nourself.\u201d If we do so, we are left behind. The rushing crowd cannot see\nus as we see ourselves in the glass.\n\n\n\n\nUNGRATEFUL YOUNG GIRLS\n\n\nGirls are so prone to over-estimate their usefulness and greatness and\nsocial prestige. The average girl of eighteen or twenty is always \u201cIt\u201d in\nher own estimation. And if she is a city-bred girl she sets a very low\nestimation on the young man from the country. \u201cHe is too slow,\u201d or \u201ctoo\nmuch of a jay,\u201d no odds how sincere he may be. She prefers the flashy,\ndashing, frivolous city-bred bubble who is always bursting with light wit\nand shady insinuations. The traveling man is her ideal, whether she knows\nanything about his character or not.\n\nA story just reached me through a mysterious channel about two rather\npretty, well-dressed but flippant school teachers, who went from a\nPennsylvania city to a nearby country village to teach in the local\nschool. They felt country life a bore at first because traveling men\nseldom came that way. So, by way of making country life more tolerable,\nthey began to cultivate the acquaintance of the neighborhood boys. Some\nof these they flattered and smiled upon and encouraged, and in return\nwere treated often to candies, fruits, and were escorted to card parties\nand country dances and given a good time. When sleighing season came two\nof the rustic swains, who earned the munificent sum of three dollars\nper week, chipped in and hired a two-horse outfit at the cost of four\ndollars, and invited the two young teachers to take a ride with them and\neat supper at a famous chicken and waffle resort at the far end of the\nvalley.\n\nThe girls pretended to be delighted, and the party drove off gaily amid\ncheers and the jingle of bells. When the hotel was reached, where an\nelaborate and expensive supper had been ordered in advance, the gay,\ngiddy teachers jumped out of the sleigh and ran into the warm parlor,\nwhile the unsuspecting young men drove around to the stable to see that\nthe horses were properly attended to. In the parlor the girls met a gay\nparty of young folks, of aristocratic tastes and manners, from their home\ncity, who knew the two teachers. \u201cWho brought you here?\u201d inquired one\nof the city girls, to which one of the deceitful and shameless teachers\nresponded: \u201cOh, a couple of country prunes\u2014a pair of dubs brought us.\nGee, but they are slow and jayish.\u201d\n\nBut at the supper table these same shameless marms made an awful fuss\nover the country boys, thoroughly disgusting their city friends. Their\nhypocrisy and duplicity and deceitfulness was actually sickening to\nthose city people who expected far greater honor and more stability of\ncharacter in women capable of teaching school. How much better for these\ndeceitful girls to have remained silent on the subject of their escorts,\nafter receiving and accepting favors from them, and pretending that they\nwere delighted with their society. They have now lowered themselves in\nthe estimation of those friends who witnessed their hypocrisy to such\nan extent that they can never reinstate themselves again. Nobody likes\na hypocrite, no difference how handsome or brilliant they may be. The\nhonest, sincere and truthful girl is always respected and admired and\nloved.\n\nTwenty years ago a young school teacher of my acquaintance was teaching\nout on the mountain, and to get taken home and back again to her boarding\nhouse, she pretended to be very fond of a young mountaineer who owned a\nhorse and sleigh and buggy. The poor fellow fell desperately in love with\nher and she encouraged him, but when the school term was ended she took\nadvantage of the first opportunity to insult him and throw him over, with\nas little feeling as though he had been a worn-out shoe.\n\nShe afterwards married a young man not half so honorable as the young\nmountaineer, whom she jilted so cruelly. He deserted her ten years ago,\nleaving her a family of helpless children and a broken heart. \u201cAs you\nsow, so shall you reap.\u201d There is no more dangerous game to play than to\nplay hypocrite. No one means to become hardened in the game, but it grows\non a person and poisons all the nobler impulses of the soul, and as age\nadvances, the face hardens and every line in the countenance tells the\nsecret thoughts that have always haunted the mind. The hypocrite cannot\nhide her sins from the trained eye of the observer, and the world is\nunforgiving toward the deceptive soul.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GIANT PINE\n\n\n    Standing on a gentle slope\n      With outstretched arms,\n    With an air of vanished hope\n      But still retaining charms\n    Of glories past and gone;\n      Of beauty most divine,\n    Standing there alone\u2014\n      The giant pine.\n\n    No companion tree is near\n      Of the dead and vanished past;\n    They have fallen, year by year\u2014\n      This giant is the last;\n    And it wears a look of age\n      Ten times the sum of nine;\n    Of trees it is the sage\u2014\n      This giant pine.\n\n    Around its feet there stands\n      The modern scrubby trees,\n    Looking up to outstretched hands,\n      That tremble in the breeze\n    Like priest who offers prayer\n      To heaven\u2019s throne divine,\n    With outstretched arms so bare,\n      The giant pine.\n\n    Grandfather saw this tree,\n      Years and years gone by,\n    When but a boy was he,\n      And, towering in the sky,\n    This mighty giant stood,\n      With fragrance like old wine\u2014\n    The guardian of the wood\u2014\n      This giant pine.\n\n    Long centuries ago\n      This giant pine was here,\n    And bending to and fro,\n      And growing, year by year,\n    When England\u2019s tyrant yoke\n      Lay heavy on this land\n    The maple and the oak\n      Reached up their feeble hand.\n\n    To ask this tree to bow\n      Its proud and lofty head,\n    That they might kiss its brow\n      Before their strength had fled.\n    They\u2019re dead these many years\u2014\n      The saw-mill carved each bone,\n    And the giant, left in tears\n      And outstretched arms\u2014alone.\n\n    But now the axmen come,\n      With no respect for years,\n    And the giant, standing dumb,\n      Drops needles, as though tears\n    To it were long denied.\n      Then heavy body blows\n    Chop deep into its side,\n      While the deep wound deeper grows.\n\n    And still each outstretched limb,\n      Above the axmen grim\n    Asks of the clouds that swim\n      Before the face of Him\n    Who made the sky and earth,\n      A blessing on each foe\n    Who toil in savage mirth\n      To lay the giant low.\n\n    And now a spasm of pain,\n      From base to topmost bough,\n    Passes again\u2014again\u2014\n      The lofty head must bow.\n    Great giant, with all those charms,\n      A violent death has found,\n    And those strong, loving arms,\n      Lie broken on the ground!\n\n    And the echo of the roar,\n      Caused by the giant\u2019s fall\n    Comes back from river shore:\n      The giant pine so tall\n    Lies prostrate on its face,\n      Broken in branch and spine;\n    The last of his giant race\u2014\n      Farewell, giant pine!\n\n    Nothing is sacred to greedy man\n      That can be changed to gold;\n    Nothing is sacred of all God\u2019s plan\n      That can be bought and sold.\n    Barren our mountains stand today,\n      Their giant trees all gone;\n    Their wondrous glories passed away\u2014\n      All but their rock and stone.\n\n    This lone giant might have been\n      Spared as a relic of the past;\n    With lofty branches, ever green,\n      Outstretched until the last.\n    But ruthless hands have slain\n      This giant\u2014half divine;\n    To say farewell gives pain\u2014\n      Farewell, oh, Giant Pine!\n\n\n\n\nTHE LITTLE HOUSEKEEPER\n\n\nA child of seven, with her mission marked out for her, and her future\npredestined to fall in hard places. Her childhood was to end at the age\nof ten, and she was to enter into the duties of a woman. Poor little\nBernice, how my heart ached for her. But she was as happy as a child of\nseven could be. She had not forgotten the caresses of her dead mother,\nbut they now seemed to be a long way back in the gloomy past\u2014a year ago.\n\nThere were four children younger than she: Albert, Lottie, Addie and\nMary; and Leonard was a year older. But he was only a boy, and boys are\nno good at keeping house. Little Bernice had heard her father tell her\nAunt Maud that Bernice would soon be old enough to keep house, and then\nhe would gather all the children in again and keep them together. Aunt\nMaud took little Addie and baby Mary to care for, and Bernice was sent\nto live with her grandmother, who had lately become a widow in very poor\ncircumstances.\n\nBernice seemed to realize the situation and was perfectly satisfied. Her\nfather was working in the lumber woods, and her brothers and sisters were\nscattered like autumn leaves. She was so anxious to become ten years old\nand gather them all under her little wings. What a laudable ambition!\n\nDear God, what an age to feel such motherly cares! Where would there be\nroom to crowd in a few years of innocent childhood?\n\nI wish this was only a story. I wish the child I am writing about was\nonly a creature of my imagination. But it is all too painfully true. She\nsat in that chair over yonder only yesterday, and told me all about it.\nTold of it all in gladness and with the sunshine of hope beaming on her\nlittle child soul. But every word sent a pang of regret to my heart. This\nchild was giving herself as a willing sacrifice to love and duty. Dear\nGod, what an age to entertain such great resolutions\u2014only seven years!\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d she said, childishly, \u201cI must not lose a day at school, \u2019cause I\u2019m\ngoin\u2019 to quit at ten and go to keepin\u2019 house for papa. I kin read now,\nand kin write purty good, only I forgit how to spell the big words. But\nI kin learn a hull lot before I\u2019m ten. It\u2019s three long years off. I wish\nit wasn\u2019t so long, \u2019cause I want to git the children all together and be\ntheir little mother. Mary isn\u2019t quite two years old yit, but she\u2019ll be\nfive when I git to be her mother, and she\u2019ll know how to do a hull lot\nof work for me. We\u2019re going to live out in the country\u2014out on a mountain\nfarm, and there\u2019ll be cows to milk and pigs and chickens to feed, but\nthe children will all help. Maybe we\u2019ll take grandma along, but she says\nshe\u2019ll have to keep house for Uncle Jim and Uncle Herman, unless they git\nmarried and set up for themselves.\n\n\u201cYes, I must be goin\u2019. Grandma will be waitin\u2019 supper for me. No, sir,\nI haven\u2019t seen brother Albert and Leonard and sister Lottie for over a\nyear. But it won\u2019t be long until we all git together. Grandma is goin\u2019\nto teach me how to bake next summer. She talks to me about keepin\u2019 house\nfor papa, and she cries about it, and kisses me and says, \u2018God bless you,\nchild!\u2019 Do you s\u2019pose God will?\u201d\n\nShe took her books and went off, singing as happily as though she were\nthe child of a millionaire father; and I sat and looked out of the\neast window to where the ice lay gorged along the banks of the river,\nand I tried to think about the ways of Providence. I knew of scores\nof children twice the age of little Bernice, who never took a single\nthought of tomorrow, who never expected to keep house until they grew\nto full womanhood and married a rich husband, who would employ servants\nand furnish everything the heart could desire. But this child of seven\nalready had her life mapped out for her\u2014a life of toil and care and\nhardships, and her only pay was to be with those she loved.\n\nAnd down the road hurried the child, skipping hipperty-hop, her soul as\nhappy as a blue-bird in May, her little red hood tilted to one side and a\nlock of escaped hair dancing in the wind. Unconsciously the tears welled\ninto my eyes as I looked after her, and the words came again into my\nmouth: \u201cDear God, what an age to give up child-life for those she loves!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE MALE FLIRT\n\n\nThe fickle man was coming to have a last meeting with the girl whose\nheart he had broken\u2014whose heart was still breaking. They had been engaged\nfor two years, and he came out to the farm to visit her every time his\nbusiness allowed him to visit the town near to the girl\u2019s home. He had\nalways lived in this particular country town, but had been traveling for\nan educational institution for several years. He had always written to\nLizzie once a week while away, but of late he had often skipped a week,\nand now his letters were growing colder and more unfeeling. It had been\nrumored that he had another girl in town to whom he wrote almost daily,\nand with whom he had been seen riding on the day he promised to call on\nLizzie and failed to appear.\n\nIt had been rumored that he was engaged to the other girl, but Lizzie\ncould not believe the rumor. She knew there was something wrong,\nbut hoped it would all be straightened out when he came. Again he\ndisappointed the girl and failed to come. He wrote her a formal letter\ntelling her that he had been detained in a distant town. But the\nfollowing day a gossipping neighbor said she had seen him in town the\nprevious night. She had gone into an ice cream parlor and saw him eating\nice cream with the girl whom it had been said he was going to marry.\n\nFor several nights her sister Maggie, who roomed with Lizzie, heard her\nsobbing silently late in the night, sobbing as though her heart was\nbreaking. Maggie longed to console her, but was it time yet to speak?\nPoor Lizzie still had hopes that the fickle lover would return and set\neverything straight.\n\nTwo weeks later the flirt made another appointment to call at eight\no\u2019clock. Maggie and her father retired, but Maggie did not undress. She\nwanted to know how serious the matter stood, for Lizzie was simply dying\nof a broken heart. If her sister broke down during the interview, Maggie\nfully intended to go down and take part in dismissing the false-hearted\nman.\n\nAt half-past eight there were sounds of horse steps and buggy wheels in\nthe road. Maggie heard a sob and smothered cry downstairs. Had her poor\nsister broken down? But it was a firm step that walked to the door to let\nthe caller in. They greeted each other coldly, and for a moment there was\nsilence. Would Lizzie fail to defend herself? A moment longer and the\ninjured girl began:\n\n\u201cDo I understand from your neglect of me that you wish our engagement\nbroken?\u201d\n\n\u201cLizzie,\u201d the man began coldly, \u201cour engagement was all a mistake. I am\nnot suited to make you an ideal husband. I am not good enough for you\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\nThe girl interrupted:\n\n\u201cIf so, then how dare you marry another woman? Don\u2019t try to defend\nyourself, sir. I know all. You tired of me because you met another girl\nwho suited you better, and you neglected me to anger me and induce me\nto break the engagement. This I will never do. You must say the words\nyourself. I loved you truly and sincerely\u2014I still love you. It is not\na child\u2019s love that will be forgotten in a few months or years. I am a\nwoman and love as a woman. I will love you after all the sunlights have\ngone out of my life and my heart is dead within me. I can not help it.\nYou taught me how to love, and I learned the lesson too well. Now you\ncast me off, but you can\u2019t take the love out of my heart. I will still\nlove the man I once thought you were. I will love you always. You take\njoy and sunshine from me and fill my life with shadows, but you can\u2019t\ntake back the love you planted in my soul.\u201d\n\n\u201cLizzie, for God\u2019s sake hear me through! Our engagement was all a\nmistake\u2014\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, a sad mistake\u2014a cruel, wicked mistake,\u201d she interrupted. \u201cBut I\nwish you no harm, no ill luck. God will punish you for your cruel work,\nI fear. I will even pray for you that you may be spared the punishment\nthat goes to the man who ruins a woman\u2019s life\u2014who steals the sincerest\nsentiments of her soul and then throws them away, when he sees a new\nheart that can be won.\u201d\n\nOnce again he attempted to explain, but she requested him to go and leave\nher alone, and he went. No one but himself will ever know the guilt and\nshame he felt at that hour as he slunk from the house. Maggie could hear\nher sister sobbing in the room below. She waited an hour and then went\ndown quietly and led her up to bed. She helped to undress the drooping\nform and put her in the bed, and then got in herself and held the weeping\ngirl in her arms during the night.\n\nOh, it was sad, sad, sad. Do these men flirts ever dream of the\nheartaches they bring to those who learn to love them and are then cast\naside like broken toys? And think of the sadness this heart tragedy\nbrought to the other members of Lizzie\u2019s family. They watched her day\nafter day, seeing the lines of despair grow deeper and deeper every week.\nAnd oh, how her sad, sweet face appealed to their love and sympathy.\nAfter the announcement of the fickle man\u2019s wedding appeared in the local\npress, the sadness seemed to deepen for a few months, and then the poor\ngirl slowly came out of the shadows. But any one who knew her could see\nthat her poor heart was buried in the ashes of her early hopes, and that\nher never-dying love still sat sighing in the ashes.\n\n\n\n\nMEMORIES OF THE OLD TRUNK\n\n\nThe other day while searching through an old trunk for a lost paper, I\ncame across a little pasteboard box. Inside the box I found a photo of\na three-year-old boy with Fontleroy curls, and in the same box I found\nthose curls of beaten gold. I called to my wife, and together we examined\nthe relics of a bygone day. This was the picture of our baby boy, and I\nrecalled how, twelve years ago, we took him to the photographer and posed\nhim for his picture; and from there we took him to the barber\u2019s and had\nhis curls cut off. He could not always remain our baby. We had postponed\nthe sad day for several months, and when we brought him back home and his\ngrandmother caught sight of the shorn boy, she took him in her arms and\ncried: \u201cOh, where is my baby? You have traded him off for a boy!\u201d\n\nStrange how these things affect us. Strange how these babies grow out\nof childhood and go exploring through boyhoodland. Our baby disappeared\nthe moment his last curl was severed, and a boy took his place in our\naffection. Now that boy is passing from us. He is growing tall and stout,\nand his voice is changing. The moment we put long trousers on him and\nhide those sturdy legs he will be a young man. The boy will pass away as\ndid the baby in curls, leaving a peculiar sadness at our hearts. That\nbaby did not die, and yet he passed away from us as completely as though\nwe had placed him in a little grave. And some day soon the boyish face\nwill change to that of a man, and the boy will be gone forever.\n\nI still recall the first evening we saw the boy sleeping on his bed,\nafter shorn of his curls, and his mother said to me: \u201cNo one can tell how\nsadly I feel at this great change.\u201d \u201cI believe I do,\u201d I replied; \u201cand I\nwill try to put down on paper some of the emotions passing through your\nheart. They are in mine too.\u201d\n\nAnd so I did try to write of her emotions, and the lines were still in\nthe old trunk, tied up with the photo and\n\n\nTHE SEVERED CURLS\n\n    My baby boy was three years old,\n      His curls were a joy to see;\n    Their color was that of beaten gold,\n      But of far more value to me.\n    They hung in clusters about his head,\n      And shaded his baby brow;\n    Surrounding his dimpled cheeks so red\u2014\n      But they\u2019re gone forever now!\n\n    The neighbors all laughed at me, and said:\n      Don\u2019t make him a Fontleroy;\n    So I kissed the curls on the darling head\n      Of my own dear baby boy.\n    And told the barber to go ahead,\n      In a voice made sad with tears;\n    And none will know how my poor heart bled\n      When I heard the swish of the shears.\n\n    I watched him through till the task was done,\n      And gathered the severed curls.\n    Then clasped to my heart my plundered son\u2014\n      Still more to me than worlds.\n    But he was no longer my baby now;\n      He seemed to have grown in years.\n    I kissed his cheeks and plundered brow,\n      And struggled with my tears.\n\n    And now in a little box I keep\n      These treasures I loved so dear,\n    And when the household is still in sleep,\n      And the breath of slumber I hear,\n    I take those curls from their little nest\n      And live o\u2019er the past again;\n    And hug them close to my aching breast,\n      To smother a strange, sad pain.\n\n    Yes, new curls may grow again, but oh,\n      They never will be like these!\n    For time is passing, and babies grow,\n      And travel over seas;\n    And mothers remain at home through years,\n      While the early memories die,\n    And I bathe those curls once more in tears,\n      And go to bed with a sigh.\n\nAnd on the day we found those curls, and read these lines aloud, we could\nlook through the window and see our boy coming home from school. \u201cIn a\nlittle while,\u201d I said, \u201cthe boy will disappear with the baby, and the man\nwill grow out of the ashes. Oh, this is a strange world, and were it not\nfor our memories, life would be short indeed! How sad, how sweet, how\nfull of sentiment, how inspiring to live over the past.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE AUCTION BLOCK\n\n\nThe old negro was past seventy years, hostler at a country hotel. Some\nof the young men were drinking, and they persuaded \u201cUncle Andy\u201d to sing\nus a song. He willingly sang several of his jolliest negro songs, and\nthen wound up with Nellie Gray. When he came to that part which concluded\nthe song, I saw tears stealing down his old wrinkled cheeks. I asked him\nto sing the chorus over again, and when he looked into my eyes and saw\nthe sympathy I knew was welling up from my heart, he began again in that\npeculiar cadence which belongs to the negro race alone:\n\n      \u201cOh, my darling Nellie Gray,\n      Up in heaven, there they say,\n    That they\u2019ll never take you from me any more;\n    I\u2019s a comin\u2019, comin\u2019, comin\u2019, as the angels clear the way,\n      Farewell to the old Kentucky shore!\u201d\n\nHe covered his old eyes with his black hands and sobbed aloud at the\nconclusion of the song, but the noisy young men who had persuaded him to\nsing were lined up against the bar for another drink, and had forgotten\nall about Uncle Andy and his song. I laid my hand on his shoulder and\nsaid:\n\n\u201cIt was an awful thing to happen in a so-called civilized country\u2014to\nseparate two loving souls and sell the woman into damnable slavery, by\na race of men who pretended to worship God and love their neighbors as\nthemselves. I have never suffered such a thing, and I cannot even imagine\nthe feelings of the man who saw his beloved wife torn from his bosom and\nsold like a horse in the market.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou should thank God, sah, dat you-all nevah \u2019sperienced sich a great\nsorrow,\u201d he said, looking toward me through his tears. \u201cI has. When I was\ntwenty I was married to Clarissa Beckon. Master died, and we all was sold\non de block de nex\u2019 year. I saw her taken away and I fainted dead off.\nShe wor strongah than me. She walked away with her head up in defiance.\nDe las\u2019 words she spoke to me was like de song, dat up in heaven we all\nshud meet again, where dey cud nevah take her away any more.\u201d\n\nAh, what a mockery to tell the poor, broken-hearted slaves that up in\nheaven their wrongs would all be righted. If the slave wife should be\nrestored to her husband up in heaven, why did not those old brutalized\nslave-owners restore the broken-hearted wife to her husband on earth? How\nwould they picture a just heaven, full of love and mercy and beauty, and\nthen turn around and make a cruel hell out of this world? Ah, yes, and\neven asked God daily to shower his divine blessings upon this hell of\ntheir own making.\n\nI went to bed thinking of the outrages and violent cruelties of the old\nslavery days, and fell asleep with the horrible picture of slavery in\nmy mind. And sleeping I dreamed that God had reversed the conditions\nand changed the white men to colored slaves, and the old black slaves\nwere now their masters. Even in that dream I said to myself that the\nproceedings were just and fair. If the black slave had been sold for the\nsake of profit long ago, it was fair that he should take advantage of the\nreversed order of things, and sell his old tormentors into slavery.\n\nSuddenly the scene changed. I stood in a market place, a lad of fourteen.\nThe auctioneer was selling a woman. Her back was toward me, but I could\nsee that she was weeping. I caught the sound of her voice and it was\nfamiliar to my ears. I had heard that voice before. Could it be the one\nwoman I had loved from birth\u2014the woman whose first embrace was my first\nlesson in human love? In heart-broken tones I called to her, \u201cMother.\u201d\n\nShe turned and raised her face to look over the crowd. \u201cGreat God!\u201d I\ncried, \u201cit is my own mother! And she is being sold into slavery!\u201d\n\nI rushed through the crowd toward the auction block, calling her name\naloud as I went. Strong men tried to catch and hold me, but I wiggled\nfrom their grasp. I reached the block and caught hold of her dress, but\nshe could not stoop down to pick me up and hug me to her heart, because\nher hands were tied behind her back. I could see her struggle in a mighty\neffort to break the cords that bound her. Sorrow gave her the strength of\na giantess, and I saw the cords break and fall to the ground. The next\nmoment she had clasped me to her breast and made an attempt to run away\nwith me through the crowd. Blood hounds caught her by the throat and she\nfell to the ground.\n\nI was torn from her bosom by the cruel hands of the man who had bought\nher, and when she reached her hands toward me the brutal man struck her\nloving hands with the butt-end of his whip. Then he raised the whip to\nstrike me in the face, and as the blow descended I awoke. I was wet with\nperspiration, and tears of agony stood on my cheeks.\n\nThink of this\u2014less than fifty years ago such scenes were common\u2014to other\nmothers and other sons.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OLD YARD MASTER\n\n\nI was waiting on the ten o\u2019clock train to leave the depot at\nWilliamsport, Pa., when a vigorous old man came into the waiting room,\naccompanied by four children. It was an hour yet before train time, and\nI happened to be the only waiting passenger up to this time. I had come\ndown from Lock Haven on the early morning train, and had two hours on my\nhands before the Reading train pulled out for Philadelphia. I had passed\nsome of the time away talking to the vigorous scrub woman, who had mopped\nup the entire floor space of the station since daylight. She had gathered\nup her buckets and brooms and mops, and was leaving when the vigorous old\nman and the four children arrived.\n\nHe bade me good morning and then seated the children, but he did not\nsit down himself. He walked to the south window and looked out over the\nfrozen river for several minutes, then turned to me and said: \u201cThe old\nriver looks tame under her lid of ice, but some day she\u2019ll get up and\nshove the lid off, and if the lid refuses to go, there will be a scene\nalong here. I\u2019ve seen her get her back up in my time and shove ice up on\nthe tracks, right here in front of the station.\u201d\n\n\u201cI wonder how deep the flood in 1889 was in the station,\u201d I ventured.\nHe put his finger on a spot a few inches up the window facing and said:\n\u201cAbout here somewhere, I think. I was here at the time. You see, I was\nyard master here up to sixteen years ago. The boys went out on a strike,\nand I went out along and I never came back. I went into business and gave\nup railroading.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you never intend to railroad again?\u201d I asked, by way of keeping up\nthe conversation.\n\n\u201cOh, no; the roads have no use for us old fellows any more. They want\nyounger blood.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you are not so old,\u201d I said.\n\n\u201cOlder than I look, sir. These are my grandchildren. We are off on a\nlittle trip together. You see, my youngest daughter is getting married\ntoday, and we are going along with the bridal party for a short distance.\nThese grandchildren are very dear to me now since my own children are all\nmarried and gone off to build homes of their own.\u201d\n\nAs the train drew near he took the children into the ladies waiting\nroom, and other people came in and attracted my attention. Pretty soon a\ncarriage drove up to the station. The horses were decorated with white\nribbons and a few white bows on the carriage. Even the driver\u2019s whip was\ndecorated with a white bow. I knew by these signs that it was a wedding\nparty. Two ladies and two gentlemen got out of the carriage, and I found\nmyself guessing which couple were the bride and groom. They entered the\nladies waiting room, and other young people appeared on the scene and\nbegan to throw rice and raise a great noise. They were having a great\ntime, a jolly, happy time.\n\nIn a few minutes the old train master came back to me, and jerked his\nthumb over his shoulder and said: \u201cThey\u2019re having their fun in there, as\nyoung people will. The bride in there is my youngest daughter, going off\non her wedding trip.\u201d\n\nI could see that his voice was trembling and that his feelings were\ngetting the better of him, but he walked to the window and looked out\nover the river and let the tears run quietly down his brave old face. He\nhad escaped from the merry crowd to look out over the frozen river. What\ndid he see? What was the fascination?\n\nIntuitively I knew that the vision out there on the river was another\nwedding party of long years ago. I knew that the fair bride he saw out\nyonder was leaning on his own strong arm, and that they were going off\non that journey this world and this life only gives but once to men and\nwomen\u2014that journey which comes so near to making this world a heaven.\nWas that bride still alive? No, the tears in the old man\u2019s eyes were\nsilent witnesses to proclaim the sad news that she had gone on another\njourney\u2014and gone alone.\n\nThe train pulled up and the crowd rushed out to get on board, and the old\ntrain master, with his untold story, drifted away from me, and I never\nsaw him again.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS THAT MADE ME THINK\n\n\nA reader writes me to learn what books did me the most good. This is\nhard to tell. As a boy we had but few books in our home, the Bible being\nthe leading book, and a Lutheran catechism being the next in importance.\nMy boyhood work was to watch cows. Our farm was small, and we raised\npatches of grain and hay, instead of whole fields. When we pastured one\nof these patches, I was obliged to keep them away from the patches of\ngrain. It was during this time that I read the entire Bible, and tried\nin vain to grasp the meaning of many passages. The chapters devoted to\nlove and charity and honesty, were within the grasp of any boy, but\nwhen it came to treating of sacrifices to please a God of love, I was\ngetting in too deep to wade through, and was obliged to back out and sit\ndown and contemplate the situation. I still hold the subject under deep\ncontemplation.\n\nThe next book I can remember was \u201cGreat Expectations,\u201d by Dickens. It\nfilled my boyish mind with a love of literature. Since then I have read\nall of Dickens\u2019 books, and he is my favorite author. In spite of his\nexaggerations and impossible characters, he is nearer in touch with all\nmanner of humanity than any other author I have read. I think still\nthat \u201cDavid Copperfield\u201d is the best book of fiction ever written, with\n\u201cLittle Dorrit\u201d a close second.\n\nI never liked Scott. There was too much war and fantastic thunder about\nhim. His heroes were of the royalty, while Dickens found his among the\ncommon people\u2014my kind of people\u2014the people I love.\n\nI read a few of Thackeray\u2019s best stories and liked them, only they lacked\nthe humor and the child sympathy I found in Dickens. He could never touch\nme in the tender spot as Dickens could.\n\nThen comes Mark Twain\u2019s early stories\u2014not for instruction alone, but\nfor amusement. His most humorous book is the most instructive, as well.\n\u201cHuckelberry Finn,\u201d to my idea of humor, is the most humorous book I ever\nread, providing one sees the pathetic and human qualities. The characters\nof the story are not trying to make sport or act ridiculous\u2014they are\nserious all the time. It is this feature that brings out the humor.\n\u201cHuckelberry Finn\u201d looks upon the subject of human slavery with the eyes\nand soul of a southern boy fifty years before the great rebellion and the\nemancipation of the negro slaves. It was part of his religion to believe\nin the institution of human slavery, and he had to make up his mind to go\nto hell for the sin of it, before he dared assist a black slave to escape\nto a free state.\n\nNever did any book give me as deep insight into human character as did\nthis one. A man can be trained to harmonize almost any outrage against\nhis weaker neighbor, if he can find a single verse of Scripture to uphold\nhis actions.\n\nOf our more modern writers, I can get more thought food from Elbert\nHubbard, and this is what a reader wants. The writer who can make you\nthink thoughts of your own, is the one who draws out the truth and the\nfaith that is in you. Some can amuse and instruct without making you\nthink along new lines. Unless you do some original thinking, after\nreading a book or a story, or a poem, you have not gained anything of\nlasting effect. The thoughts that do you the most good are the thoughts\nyou can claim as your own. We are all looking at the world and into the\nmysteries of life from different view points. Others can tell us of a\npeep hole that brings to view many unknown things, but we must do the\npeeping ourselves. We must see things with our own mental eyes before we\ncan size them up and grasp them and call them our own.\n\nHowever, it all depends on the trend of one\u2019s mind. The books that gave\nme the most instruction and entertainment might have no value at all in\nthe judgment of another. Each individual must read until he discovers the\ntrend of his mind, and then read books that satisfy. Even the much abused\nten cent novel whetted my taste for higher literature. Occasionally one\nwould make me think.\n\n\n\n\nFORGOTTEN GRAVES\n\n\nDuring the seven years I lived in my present home, I have sat on the\nfront porch and looked across the Susquehanna river to a bluff just\nbeyond the P. & E. Railroad. White tombstones, looming up above the\nweeds, like the great white teeth of Death, indicated that human bodies\nhad been laid there to rest, while the struggle with others continued for\na little while longer. Mrs. Haiden often spoke of going over to visit the\nspot. To her an old graveyard appeals with stronger force than the most\nbeautiful garden of flowers. Three years ago, when we visited Washington,\nthe wise old faces of the Senators and Representatives of the people\ndid not appeal to her. Neither did the political stench of the Capitol.\nArlington cemetery and the Egyptian mummies in the National Museum took\nher fancy. They were flowers handed down to us from a former generation,\nas they say in the Declaration of Independence.\n\nWell, Mrs. Haiden\u2019s curiosity to visit the old Quiggle cemetery overcame\nmy laziness, and one fine Sunday we persuaded Professor Stevenson to\naccompany us, and we crossed the river at the ferry and walked through\nthe fields to the place of interest. The cemetery is quite an old burial\nground for this neighborhood. We could not determine how old, because the\nfirst graves made there were marked only with mountain sand stones, and\nonly a few of them bore an inscription.\n\nOne of the graves was marked with a granite monument and surrounded\nwith an iron fence, and inside the enclosure was an iron bench, just as\nthough some loved one left behind would often come there and sit in the\nsolitude and commune with the dead man under the sod. It was a beautiful\nand tender suggestion, and if the dead could really send back a message\nto the waiting ones, how much of death\u2019s mystery could be cleared away.\nBut aching hearts and the longings of yearning souls have failed to bring\nback even a whispered message from the land beyond the shadow line. The\ndead cannot talk to us any more than the living can talk to the dead. The\nwires are all down between the living and the dead\u2014all down and out of\nuse, and when we sit at the graves of our loved ones, all we can do is to\nrecall the past; if time is a circle, then heaven lies in the past, as\nwell as in the future, and the needle of our mental compass always points\ninto the great beyond, no difference where we look.\n\nOn one mountain stone we found the figures 1803, and the name, Andrew K.\nRinder. He had been buried one hundred and seven years\u2014before the war\nof 1812 was fought between our country and Great Britain. The roar of\nthe cannons could not disturb his rest. The big trains on the \u201cPennsy\u201d\ngo thundering by only two hundred feet away, but Rinder does not hear\nthem. He never saw a steam locomotive nor a railroad track. These modern\ninventions have crowded in upon his resting place, but he is done with\nthe world\u2014he does not care. He lived his little life and lies in his\nlittle grave on this lonely little hill. Perhaps we will be as thoroughly\nforgotten in a century from now as Andrew K. Rinder. It has been over\na hundred years since that name was set up in printed letters\u2014perhaps\nit will never appear again. Did some mysterious force lead me there to\nresurrect that long forgotten name? Who can say? Life is a plan and a\npurpose; we move as the wheels in a clock, urged by a power to which we\nare attached by unseen hands.\n\nOn our return, we ran across a private burial ground we had known nothing\nabout. Here lie the two generations of Stech\u2019s. John Stech was buried in\n1815. His sons and daughters lie sleeping at his side. The sons never\nmarried, and the name of Stech died out of the neighborhood. Not a man\nbearing that good old German name is known in this county. The valuable\nfarm has fallen into the hands of strangers, and the private burial place\nis overgrown with briars and trees, and the top of the marker fallen to\nthe ground. Nobody cares. These two bachelor brothers should have married\nand left some one to carry their name and to care for their graves.\n\nI do not advocate Rooseveltian families\u2014the age for large families has\npassed away\u2014but I do believe every sane man should have a life behind\nin place of the one he takes away when he steps out. These forgotten\nand neglected graves in the Stech burial ground show that the Stechs\nneglected their duty during life. \u201cAs ye sow, so shall ye reap,\u201d is true\nin all phases of earthly existence.\n\nIn less than a century ninety-nine per cent of the world\u2019s dead are\nforgotten on earth. We, too, will be forgotten. Is there a record kept\nelsewhere? Are there more durable tablets than these rough mountain\nstones and granite?\n\n\n\n\nIN THE OPEN DOOR\n\n\nWhile out driving during the summer days of last season, I passed a\nlittle whitewashed cottage many times while returning in the evening,\nand noticed that on clear sunset days, an old woman stood in the open\ndoor and looked out toward the sunset, where the light lay like golden\nsheets upon the distant hilltops. When I spoke to her and bade her \u201cgood\nevening,\u201d she lowered her eyes for a moment and returned my salute, and\nthen raised them to study the sun set beauties. At last I stopped one\nSeptember evening and remarked: \u201cYou seem to take great pleasure in the\nglories of a Pennsylvania sunset, grandmother. Were you ever an artist or\npainter?\u201d\n\n\u201cBless your heart, no. I\u2019ve always been a plain housekeeper. My husband\nused to make and repair shoes in that little shop across the road, and I\nmarried him to keep house and cook his meals. I love the sunset for the\nsake of old memories. It was a bright sunset evening when Albert and I\ndrove up the road to the gate yonder, and the farmer\u2019s son came and took\nthe horse and buggy home. We walked down this gravel path hand in hand\nand passed in through this door. We had been married only two hours, and\nwe came here to begin our married life.\n\n\u201cThe cottage was new then, for Albert built it for our home when we first\nbecame engaged. Previous to that he had lived in the shop. He came here\na journeyman shoemaker, but the journeyman business had changed to the\nvillage shoe shop. He bought the little shop from the shoemaker who was\nremoving to Ohio. And there he worked for two years and prospered. He was\nan orphan boy and had no relatives he knew of. Had been brought up in a\nfoundling, which they called a \u201cpoor house,\u201d in those days. Albert and I\nmet at the country dances, for he could play the fiddle lovely. Nowadays\nthey call it a violin, but Albert was only a fiddler on a fiddle.\n\n\u201cSixty-two years ago and better, we walked down this gravel path hand in\nhand, and we were chums for over forty years. The old shop is falling\ninto decay and the door does not close tight any more, but the cottage\nhas been repaired since Albert died. But I don\u2019t think of his death on\nthese bright sunset evenings. I only remember and think of our wedding\nday, and of the other bright, sunny evenings when he and the children sat\non this bench after working hours, and I sat in the door with my knitting.\n\n\u201cYou only see a poor, old, lonely woman standing in the open door of\nher humble home, but I see the happiest little family circle in all the\nworld\u2014a proud father and three healthy, laughing children. Albert would\nalways come out here on a summer evening to smoke his pipe, and the\nchildren would bring toys to be mended by his dear, loving hands.\u201d\n\nShe wiped a tear from her dim old eyes, and continued: \u201cWe were so very\nhappy while the children lived; but one winter diphtheria broke out in\nthe village and swept all our darling loved ones from our grasp. Poor\nAlbert was heartbroken for several years, and every Sunday we would walk\nover to the little graveyard in yonder hill and talk of the children as\nthough the cemetery were a school and we had come to visit the children\nand bring them flowers.\n\n\u201cBut I do not see this sad picture as I stand in the open door and look\nto the sunset sky. I only see the wedding party for a moment, and then\nAlbert and the children sitting on the porch. Sometimes I talk to them\nwhile the sun is setting, and when the shadows fall, they bring back the\nfaces of those I love. It is then that I can hear Albert\u2019s voice as he\nsings the children to sleep out here on the porch, and sometimes I go\nout to bring the sleeping baby in and lay it on the bed, as I used to do\nsixty years ago.\n\n\u201cAnd I am not disappointed when I awake from my delusion, for I know that\nover yonder, beyond the sunset, Albert is singing to the children, and it\nis the echo of his voice that comes to me through the open door. You only\nsee a poor, old, gray-haired woman standing here alone in the open door,\nbut I am surrounded with dreams and visions and memories which no others\ncan behold.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nTHE JUDGE\u2019S TEARS\n\n\nOne of the nice things people tell of Judge Mayer, who served the\ncounties of Clinton, Cameron and Elk as president judge for almost forty\nyears, is of the deep sympathy he showed when Attorney Henry Harvey fell\ndead in the court room. Harvey had been a law student in the judge\u2019s\noffice, and he felt a fatherly interest in the young man. He was proud\nof his achievements and successes at the bar, and was pleased when the\nlocal Republicans spoke of Harvey as a candidate for the high office of\nGovernor of the great State of Pennsylvania. The judge much regretted\nthe conditions that robbed his pupil of the high honor, but still looked\nahead and hoped the honor might still hover near and select Mr. Harvey\nlater on.\n\nThe judge knew what disappointment tasted like, for, being a Democrat in\na Republican state, is what barred him from the Supreme bench. But he\ndeemed the honor, at the expense of his honest political convictions, to\nbe hollow and empty.\n\nBut one unfortunate day the man for whom he had seen such a brilliant\nfuture was fatally stricken in court. Harvey was addressing the jury in\nan important case, and was even more brilliant than usual, when suddenly\nhe threw up his arms and staggered backward into the arms of R. C.\nQuiggle, calling to a physician sitting near him: \u201cDoctor, I am sick.\u201d\n\nThese were the last words uttered by the man of whom such a brilliant\nfuture had been predicted. When all was over, and the dead attorney lay\ncold in front of the jury, the venerable judge broke down and wept like a\ntender-hearted woman.\n\nPeople who had come to look upon Charles A. Mayer as a stern and\nrelentless judge, never dreamed of such a display of affection and\nsympathy. The judge had revealed his humane and tender side to the\npeople, and they admired the new man far above the old one. After\nadjourning court, he stood with a bunch of attorneys and court officials\ndiscussing the tragical end of his friend, and out on the streets the\npeople were discussing the affair, and to each new man who joined the\ncrowds of startled citizens, some one would say: \u201cThe judge wept like a\nchild when Harvey died.\u201d\n\nThe writer of these lines was attending a relative\u2019s funeral on that\nday, and when a man came to the funeral who had been in court when the\ntragical death occurred, and was telling a bunch of men standing outside\nthe home and waiting for the services to begin, he did not forget to add:\n\u201cJudge Mayer cried like a loving father when he saw that his friend was\ndead.\u201d\n\nAnd all over the country the news of Attorney Harvey\u2019s death was\nwhispered in awed tones, and always in connection with the death of\nHarvey was told the story of the judge\u2019s tears.\n\nIt gave the people a peep into the real man behind the legal mask,\nand they admired the real man far above the legal sternness which the\nprofession forced upon the judge. A man always gains in power and\nadmiration when he shows evidence of a sympathetic heart. Abraham\nLincoln\u2019s tears of sympathy stand out as liquid diamonds upon his\nofficial record, never to be washed away while his beloved name remains\non the pages of American history. The world may malign him and wrongly\naccuse him of many things, but those tears of sympathy are out of reach\nof human hands or slanderous tongues, and the crown of his earthly glory\nwill always sparkle in the light of his illustrious name as indelible\nstars, forever polished by the love the American people retain for the\nman.\n\nSo, too, do the judge\u2019s tears stand out above all his other good\nqualities, and command respect and admiration from his bitterest enemies.\nThey can never be forgotten. Though he is dead and in his grave, the\ntears shed by loving friends will be forgotten by the world, while yet\nhis own tears of sympathy remain like drops of dew to keep his memory\nfresh and green in the hearts of all those who know of the tender and\nsympathetic side of the judge.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DOG\u2019S KISS\n\n\nIt was a bleak morning in April, the country roads being muddy and heavy\nand discouraging, and as the young man trudged along, his mind wandered\nback to the day he started as a tramp. His parents had become suddenly\nwealthy, through an oil strike on their mountain farm. They immediately\nmoved to the city and purchased a fine home. The boy was sent to college.\nHe was then eighteen years old. On the second year term Walter was\nprogressing in his studies rapidly, and the teachers were proud of their\nbright pupil. They told him so. Their words of praise came back in memory\nwhispers as he trudged along, footsore, sick, weary and hungry.\n\nIt was a bitter recollection to recall the day when the news was brought\nto him of his father\u2019s and mother\u2019s death. They had been killed in a\nrailroad wreck. After the funeral it was discovered that good fortune had\ngiven Aaron Burfield the big head, and he started to gamble in stocks.\nHe knew as much about it as a cow knows about Latin. He was a lamb to\nbe easily fleeced. All the fortune had been lost and the big house was\nmortgaged. Walter was a beggar when twenty years of age.\n\nHe realized that he had no rich relatives or friends to help him. His\nfoolish father had deserted all his old friends and many poor relatives\nthe hour he found himself wealthy. Walter\u2019s pride barred him from going\nback to these deserted friends and relatives. He went back to school,\nbut the news of his change of fortune reached the ears of the young\naristocratic friends with whom he had associated, and they cut him short.\nHis tuition was paid in full, but he could not remain at school and be\nthe outcast and beggar. News reached him that the big house was sold, and\ndid not satisfy the creditors. He had nothing left but his clothes and a\ngold watch.\n\nNow he regretted, as he walked along, that he had not remained at school\nand graduated. The sting of becoming an outcast was painful. Had he to\ndo it all over again, he might do just as he had done\u2014jumped a freight\ntrain one night with ten dollars in his pocket and left the college town\nforever. This was two years ago. He had harvested in the Dakotas, worked\non the lakes, tried packing-house drudgery and tried his hand at work\non a farm. He was now too sick and discouraged to beat his way by rail.\nHe had lost his old-time courage, and felt like a whipped child. He\nmust give up the careless, worthless life he was leading, and secure a\npermanent job.\n\nHe came to a large farm-house and went around to the back door to ask\nfor a bite of breakfast. A tired woman told him to go away. He asked\npermission to sit on the porch step and rest. The old farm dog came\nup and licked his hand. His heart leaped in a glad response to even\nthe friendship of a dog. He put one arm around the dog\u2019s neck and\nunconsciously spoke aloud:\n\n\u201cDo you know how heart-sick and friendless I am, old doggie?\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you like dogs?\u201d\n\nIt was a girl\u2019s voice. Walter Burfield looked up and saw it was a pretty\nred-cheeked girl addressing him. My, but she looked pretty and wholesome.\nA sinner standing outside of heaven and looking in through the open gate\nand beholding an angel would feel as Walter felt on beholding that pretty\ncountry girl.\n\n\u201cDo you like dogs,\u201d she asked again, for the tramp sat dumb before her.\nHis eyes dropped. He had reached that point in the life of a vagabond\nwhere the frank, honest eyes of some one in whom hope burns brightly,\nmakes the hopeless soul recoil and seek to hide away from questioning\neyes.\n\n\u201cI just feel like hugging the old dog,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause he offered to\nbe my friend, and I am so hungry for friendship. I would like to secure\na position, and find a home and settle down in the ways of peace once\nmore. I am without a friend in all the wide world. The touch of the dog\u2019s\ntongue on my hand is the first friendly touch I have felt for two years.\nThe woman inside allowed me to sit down and rest here, but she refused me\na bite to eat. I guess the old dog knows how hungry and friendless and\ndespondent I am, so he came up and gave me the kiss of loving friendship.\u201d\n\n\u201cWait,\u201d said the girl, \u201cI\u2019ll bring you something to eat, poor man.\u201d\n\nShe sat and talked to him while he ate. She had never found any one so\ninteresting, and he had never seen any one so beautiful. He could touch\nher heart as never any one had touched it before. He knew so much of life\nand was so discouraged and hopeless with it all. His talk opened up a\nnew world to her. Her life had been so tame and commonplace, and she had\nlonged for news from the outside world. He did not look like a tramp,\nthough he was ragged and dirty and unshaven. The girl went to her father\nand persuaded him to give the poor tramp a job.\n\nWalter Burfield stayed. He worked hard and faithfully. He resolved to\ngive up roaming forever and try to make a man of himself, though obliged\nto begin down at the bottom. The old dog followed him through the fields\nday after day, as though he felt that it was his influence that had\ncalled Walter back to a life of usefulness. And Walter well knew that it\nwas old Hector\u2019s warm kiss on his hand that brought out the heart talk\nthat morning with Adaline Blair.\n\nTwo years afterward, as he sat under a shade tree while resting his team\nof horses, he hugged the old dog and said to him:\n\n\u201cDear old Hector, that first kiss of yours opened the door to a brand new\nworld for me. God, but I must have been sick and lonely on that morning I\nsat resting on the porch, and you and Adaline found me and took me into\nyour affections. Your kisses are still warm and affectionate, old doggie,\nbut I felt a warmer one last night on my lips. Do you know that your\nlittle mistress has promised to be my wife? She says she was drawn toward\nme when she saw me hugging her dog. It was your loving kiss, old Hector,\nthat has brought all this new love and hope and sunlight into my life.\nShe would never have caught me hugging you, were it not for your friendly\nkiss.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nLOVE LETTERS\n\n\nThrough an almost fatal accident, an old lady of seventy-five years lay\nat death\u2019s door for many long weeks. She had not been as prosperous\nduring the last twenty-five years of her life as she had been in her\nearly married life, and many of her old time friends had drifted out of\nher life, and she drifted out of theirs. She thought of all this as she\nlay on her bed of affliction, too weak to move more than one arm. It was\nsad to think of the old friends who had forgotten her so completely. They\nmust all know of her illness, for her daughter Mary had read several\nnotices to her from the local papers concerning her serious accident, and\nmore serious condition since the accident occurred.\n\nSomehow she felt so lonely and isolated and neglected. Better die and be\nout of this painful existence than to lie sick in bed for weeks and weeks\nand be absolutely forgotten by the old-time friends, whose society she\nonce enjoyed so delightfully.\n\nWhen her daughter came in she had hard work to turn her feeble head to\nthe wall, so the tears on her lashes could not be seen. She even felt\none on her thin cheek, but had not the physical power to wipe it away.\nAs the daughter went about the room, tidying things up, and dusting off\nthe stand on which the medicine bottles stood, she listened carefully to\nsee if her mother was sleeping. A slight cough from the bed convinced her\nthat the invalid was awake, and she broke the silence by saying:\n\n\u201cI hope the mail today will bring a letter from brother John. He knows\nof your accident, and I feel sure he will reach us today with his answer.\u201d\n\nThe finger on the bed moved slightly and a weak voice answered; \u201cI hope\nso, Mary. It\u2019s nice to receive a letter from our absent ones, at such\ntimes like this.\u201d\n\nMary knew how it exhausted her mother to talk, so she said no more, but\npulled down the blind to shut out the light, and left the sick room with\na pain at her heart. Her keen eye had seen the tears on her mother\u2019s eye\nlashes, and she felt certain that the poor invalid had been weeping over\nconfinement and isolation from society and her friends.\n\nIn an hour the morning mail arrived, and she was agreeably surprised to\nfind five letters, addressed to her mother, besides the one from John.\nShe opened John\u2019s letter and read it over carefully, to make sure that he\nhad said nothing to hurt his mother\u2019s feelings. John was so careless at\ntimes, and would bring up business problems that should not be spoken of\nwhen the mother was not in condition for such matters. Then Mary went up\nto the sick room and read John\u2019s letter aloud.\n\n\u201cI\u2019m glad to hear he\u2019s well,\u201d the invalid said laboriously, and closed\nher eyes again from sheer weakness.\n\n\u201cBut mother,\u201d exclaimed Mary, \u201chere\u2019s a letter from Mrs. Moore\u2014your old\nfriend, Mrs. Moore, of whom you spoke only yesterday.\u201d\n\nThe invalid opened wide her eyes and listened until the letter was\nfinished. It spoke of the old time friendship, and expressed hope that\nthe invalid would soon recover, and be in condition to enjoy a visit from\nher friend, just so soon as the weather was settled.\n\n\u201cHow kind of Mrs. Moore to think of me in my affliction,\u201d exclaimed\nthe invalid in much stronger tones. \u201cIt\u2019s better than medicine to hear\nfrom her. Old friends are so dear to the heart, for they bring up old\nmemories.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut here are letters from more of your old friends, mother. Here is\none from Mrs. Bridgens, and one from Mrs. Jones, and one from old Miss\nChristie, and from Mrs. Cook.\u201d And Mary sat for almost an hour reading\nthe messages from old friends to the invalid of whom the writers spoke so\ntenderly, and wrote of old-time adventures and scenes from their girlhood\ndays.\n\nMary was delighted to see the change these messages of love had worked\nin her invalid mother. The faded old eyes were lighted with a new\nillumination, and a little color had struggled back to her cheeks. She\nasked to have the letters given to her, and she brought both hands\ntogether to receive them, holding them as tenderly as a little girl would\nhold her first doll. Mary went downstairs, leaving the invalid holding\nher love letters so fondly, and when she returned in half an hour, she\nfound her sleeping sweetly, and fondly holding those letters in one\nfeeble hand. And Mary whispered:\n\n\u201cIf they only knew how much pleasure and hope their letters brought to my\ndear old mother, they would never neglect writing to their old friends\nwhen affliction is upon them. God bless them for the hope and happiness\nthey brought to this home.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nAT THE POOL OF LIFE\n\n\nThe unsatisfied hunger we experience during this life, creates a longing\nin every human heart for another trial at living after this life has been\nlived to the end. Once out on a desert, some travelers were perishing\nfrom thirst. The man came to a small oasis amidst a few gnarled and\ntwisted trees. The sight of the trees was evidence that water was near,\nso he hurried his steps and came near to the desired spot. He found water\nthere, but it was stagnated and foul, wild animals had been drinking and\nwading and wallowing in the pool until it looked sickening and disgusting\nto the traveler.\n\nThe hopes that filled his heart as he approached the promising oasis\nbegan to ooze out through his fingers, and a sickly sensation filled his\nsoul. Yet this was all the available water to be had. His wife joined him\na few minutes later, bringing two children. They remained over night at\nthe pool, finding that the foul water had revived them in spite of the\nfilth. They did not know which way to go to find the inhabited country,\nso they erected an improvised tent and thought to live there until some\ntraveling caravan came that way, when they would follow it back to the\ngreen earth.\n\nThey could secure flesh to eat from the fowls that came to the trees\nand the young of wild animals brought there to get a drink of water.\nAnd so days passed into weeks and months and years, and the longing to\nbe rescued became as a dead hope. None were satisfied with the befouled\nwater, nor the narrow life, but the wife and children were afraid to\nagain brave the desert and go in search of inhabited land. One night the\nhusband and father became so sick and disgusted with the water that he\narose and stole away by the light of the moon determined to find a better\nplace of existence or become lost and perish out on the burning sands.\n\nNext morning there was deep sorrow at the pool. The mother and children\nmourned him as one dead. They tried to follow him, but his tracks were\nsoon lost in the shifting sands, so they returned to the pool and the\nfriendly trees, resolved to wait until some one came to take them away.\n\nThis is a good illustration of man\u2019s life on earth. He is never satisfied\nnor contented. The shallow pool of stagnated water never satisfies his\nlongings for a deeper and broader life. And finally he goes away into the\nnight of darkness, and the winds of mystery blow the sands of oblivion\nover his tracks, and no one knows whither he went. And the living sit at\nthe pool and look out over the desert of life and wonder, and wonder,\nand grow more and more dissatisfied and say to themselves: \u201cThis life is\nso unsatisfactory and barren of real pleasure\u2014there must be sweeter and\npurer water away over yonder.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nA PALACE WITHOUT LOVE\n\n\nThe divorce trial of a handsome young woman and her wealthy husband,\nbrings up the story of her early environment and her unfortunate mother\u2019s\ndisappointed life. The woman now seeking a divorce was reared in the\nmidst of matrimonial unrest and social misery\u2014what other ending could the\nworld expect in her own case? Where the union is not purely a union of\nheart and soul, a harmony of taste and temperament, where the souls are\nnot tuned to respond to the same vibrations, conjugal happiness is simply\nimpossible.\n\nThe mother of this woman in the divorce court was once a beautiful\nIrish girl, the daughter of a man who kept a small crockery store\nin Philadelphia. His store was located around the corner from the\naristocratic neighborhood, where the scions of the old Quaker families\nreside in magnificent palaces. Sometimes a few of them would condescend\nto stop at the modest shop and make a purchase, but the liveried negro\nservants came more frequently to make the purchases desired by their\nmasters. At such times they would sit and gossip with the Irish merchant\nand his wife about their aristocratic and proud employers.\n\nThese conversations with the servants revealed the great social chasm\nexisting between the humble shop people and the wealthy aristocrats\nliving just around the corner. The shopman\u2019s eldest daughter, a beautiful\ngirl of sixteen, listened to the tales told by the liveried servants of\nthe rich, and a longing grew daily stronger in her humble soul to become\nrich and aristocratic some day, too. She cared not by what means. She\nonly thought of the glorious end of the road leading up to one of these\nmagnificent palaces, and gave no thought to the mud and the mire and the\ndangerous chasms to cross before arriving at the end of all this golden\nglory and glitter of gilded gladness. She dreamed of it night and day.\nHer pure soul became sordid and hard with an ambition that was ever in\nher dreams. On the street where the shop was located, students bound for\nthe University of Pennsylvania would pass daily, and among them were a\nnumber of young aristocrats, exquisitely attired, with their coats thrown\nback to display their jeweled fraternity pins. As time went on, the\ndaughter of the shop man developed into a tall, slender, beautiful girl,\nwith violet eyes and chestnut brown hair, and a complexion of lovely\npink. In the morning she would go outside the store to put the goods\non display, and was noticed by the wealthy university students. One of\nthem in particular fell desperately in love with the bewitching girl.\nThey began to slyly flirt as the students passed. It would not be fair\nnor true to put all the blame upon the student. The ambitious shop girl\nwas just as anxious to make a conquest as was the young man. She knew he\nwas rich and could see that he was handsome. She felt only hatred toward\nthe rich people who ignored her, and her humble parents. She could never\nlove this young man sincerely, but she would sell herself for the grand\nposition he could give her. He would always hold himself at an elevation\nfar above her parents, and this would always be a sting in her soul, but\nshe was too ambitious to hesitate at this.\n\nOne day he stopped at the shop to buy a shaving mug, and she waited on\nhim. They became acquainted. She was fascinated with his beauty and fine\nclothes and polite manners. He made love to her from that day with ardor,\nand she was in the heaven of glory she had dreamed of as she attended\nto the shop. One day he proposed to her, and she gladly accepted his\noffer. Her ambition was to be gratified. Oh, the fascination and the\nwild ambition and magnificent hopes! But all the time she knew she did\nnot love him with a sincere heart. Her humble origin, and his proud and\naristocratic parents, made a chasm that could not be bridged in so short\na time. Her parents thought it a fine bargain and sale, and encouraged\nthe courtship. Love would come later on. A woman must learn to love where\nlove pays the largest dividends in gold.\n\nSo the beautiful, ambitious Irish girl and the aristocratic youth were\nquietly married. When he told his proud mother that he had married the\ngirl from the crockery store, the last happy smile died on her lips, and\nshe never smiled again. She had such high ambitions for her boy, and he\nhad spoiled them by a rash marriage.\n\nIs it any wonder the marriage proved a failure? They had six children,\nyet the mother never loved her husband as a woman should love the father\nof her babies. She was ever conscious of the social chasm between them,\nand it was a thorn that never ceased to give pain. She had reached the\nplace her ambition craved, but it did not reward her with happiness.\nThere was more pleasure in slowly falling from it, than trying to go\nhigher. The home and money and position were not satisfying. Her popular\nyoung husband and the social distinction he gave her were not satisfying.\nShe was not happy.\n\nShe filled the aching void with lovers. One was a society man in her\nhusband\u2019s set, and one other was a big, dark, much-married actor. She\nbroke her husband\u2019s heart, she broke the heart of his adoring mother, and\nshe grew more wretched herself every year. She then took to drink, and\nsoon after to drugs. Coming home one night from a party she fell on the\nicy pavement and broke both lower limbs. She never saw a well day after\nthe accident, and died at the age of thirty-four. She had starved her\nheart for wealth and position. She went without love to a high position\nand found it a bitter mockery. She had outraged her own soul. Then began\nthe work of turning to ruin the palace in which she tried to live without\nlove.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SOLDIER\u2019S DIARY\n\n\nIn an old trunk, up in the garret where the family letters were deposited\nfor more than half a century, I found the diary of a soldier, in which\nthe following notes attracted my attention: \u201cAugust 14, 1864. Yesterday\nwas a terrible day for me. The battle at Deep Bottom, near Richmond,\ntook the last of my messmates. Andrew Brown was wounded early in the\nengagement\u2014shot through the thigh. Comrade Charles Pepperman assisted\nhim to the rear. While they were gone, the man at my side, Amos Friedel\nwas shot through the head and died instantly. Thus three of my messmates\nleft my side within fifteen minutes. Pepperman joined the ranks an hour\nlater, and a few minutes after was shot and fatally wounded. This morning\nHenry Traveler was found on the battle field, with his arm shattered\nhorribly, and was taken to the hospital.\n\n\u201cIn noting these fatalities and injuries, I cannot help but recall\nComrade Shoemaker, the first of my messmates to pass out. His was the\nmost pitiable death of all. He died three months ago of nostalgia. This\nis simply a melancholy growing out of homesickness. Shoemaker had married\na pretty girl only a few weeks before he enlisted and went to the front.\nThe army lay in supine idleness for several weeks, and Shoemaker had\nnothing to do but brood over his separation from the one he loved so\nfondly. A deep melancholia settled down upon his soul and we could not\nawaken an interest in his heart. Hour after hour his mind dwelt upon the\nscenes of his Pennsylvania home, and his deserted wife\u2019s sad face looked\nout of the shadows and smiled the lonely smile of a forsaken woman.\n\n\u201cThey took him to the hospital, but the doctors could find no organic\ndisease in his body. He was simply dying of loneliness and a longing,\nlonging to be with the people he loved. He was a large man, standing six\nfeet in his bare feet, and this made his death all the more pathetic.\nWe tried to get him a furlough and send him to his family at home, for\nthirty days, but the officers laughed at us, and said the man would come\nout of his melancholia in a few days and go to eating hard-tack. They\nwere men without heart or sentiment, and they did not know the depth of\nShoemaker\u2019s gloom.\n\n\u201cThree weeks after being taken to the hospital, he died, and was buried\nin Virginia, and the longing wife never saw his face again.\n\n\u201cAugust 25th. Was to see Comrade Brown today, before they removed him\nto the hospital at Washington. He is very badly wounded, the bone being\nshattered and there is danger of gangrene. He gave me a letter to read\nwhich he received the previous day from home, written by his sister,\nBarbara. Among the many things she wrote was this: \u2018On the night of the\n15th and about two o\u2019clock in the morning I dreamed that you came home.\nI could see you walking up to the door as plainly as I ever saw your\nfamiliar face. Your knock on the door wakened me out of a troubled sleep,\nand so sure was I that you were down at the door waiting to be admitted,\nthat I insisted on some one going down to let you in. Of course it was\nall a dream, but so realistic, that I was sorely troubled until father\nread in the Tribune that you were wounded. Surely you must have been\nthinking of home at that hour.\u2019\u201d\n\nThere the diary ended. For it was only a portion of the book in which\nthis unknown comrade had been jotting down the events of his army life.\nThe hand that put those written pages in the old trunk has been dead for\nmany years, and we can only guess who the writer was. He, too, may have\nleft his bones to decay in Virginia soil, and his diary sent back to\nNorthern friends. But I knew this Samuel Shoemaker, and I still remember\nof hearing my parents talking about his sad death. No doubt there were\nmany thousands of young men taken from their mountain homes and rushed\nto the front, and the change was so great that they could not prevent\ntheir hearts from longing for the dear old scenes of home\u2014for the dear\nold mother, wife or sweetheart. And then came the hopelessness and\nmelancholia and the loss of courage, and finally death.\n\nAnd yet that war settled nothing. The negro question is still the\novershadowing problem calling for a solution. Burning negroes at the\nstake marks America as one of the barbarous nations.\n\n\n\n\nTWO MEN WHO TOUCHED MY SOUL\n\n\nWhen I was a young man I had occasion to write something for the local\npaper, published near my home. The late Girard Wright, brother of\nTheodore, editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia Record, was managing the\npaper at the time. He sent for me. Timidly I called at the office, for\nI was an awkward country youth and afraid of men who were established\nin the business world. There did not seem to be any place in the world\nfor me outside of a barren hillside farm, and I always felt like a thief\nstealing off in the dark when I looked out over the world for something\nbetter.\n\nMr. Wright was a revelation and an inspiration to me. Why, he was just\nas approachable as a boy. A handsome man, with the kindliest and most\nsympathetic face I had ever seen. I can shut my eyes and see that\nintelligent face, with those sympathetic eyes, into which the hopeless\ncould look and find hope and courage.\n\nHe wanted me to write for his paper. I told him frankly that I lacked\neducation and vocabulary, and could write only in a crude style. And he\nreplied:\n\n\u201cWhy, that is what the people want. The world is tired of rounded\nphrases and poetical lines and erudite sentences. What the people want\nis original thought, new ideas\u2014a new and original way of looking at\nevery-day events, without prejudice or superstition or cant. You can\ndo this, for there is an originality about your ideas\u2014an independent\npeephole, through which you observe the world, without fear or favor.\nAll you want is practice. You do not ape or copy after any writer I ever\nheard of, and practice will polish your original style to a surprising\nextent. If your style was borrowed, practice would do you little good.\nIt might add to your ability to ape and copy after others, but the style\nwould never be your own.\u201d\n\nSomething happened soon after this, and Mr. Wright went back to\nPhiladelphia before I could send in my contributions. Then my old mother\nwas taken very ill, and I had no time for literature. Mr. Wright kept\nin touch with the country paper, and when my contributions no longer\nappeared, he wrote me to know the reason why. I told him that I was\nnursing my dying mother, and was obliged to drop literature until all was\nover. He wrote me again and extended his sympathy, and what was of still\nmore material benefit\u2014a bank note. It came when poverty and sorrow were\nsweeping over me, and it gave me courage.\n\nIt was so pleasant to know that this big-hearted man was thinking\nof me, away down in the big city. He was the first educated man to\nfind any merit in my feeble attempts at writing for publication. His\nappreciation came like rain to a famishing flower. It was something I\nhad been hungering for through the miserable years when all the future\nlooked like a narrow horizon, that dipped down into a coming storm of\nhopelessness.\n\nI never saw Mr. Wright but that one time, and never heard directly\nfrom him again. I never had the opportunity to tell him how much good\nhis kind words of appreciation had done for me. He died while I was\nliving in Colorado, and my soul was filled with sorrow and regret. I\nhad always hoped to meet him again and thank him for the good he had so\nunconsciously imparted to me. I knew that an inspiration had gone out of\nmy life when he died, though he never dreamed of the great uplift he had\ngiven me.\n\nI am writing these lines to show the reader how much good one man\u2019s\nappreciative words can do for another. We all have a subtle force within\nourselves for doing good or harm to our fellow men. The thought pebble we\ncarelessly toss into the intellectual stream of our neighbor may start\nlittle waves to vibrating and extending into a circle around him, which\nwill greatly influence his future life.\n\nAfter Mr. Wright\u2019s death there was a space of fifteen years in which\nno man could transmit an inspiration to my soul and give my mind a new\nimpetus. Then, outside a little country church, I met for the first time\nthe other man who touched a vibrating chord in my soul, and a new world\nof hope opened up, like the lifting of a dense fog often reveals the\ndistant mountains.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\n                                       Page\n    Frontispiece                          1\n    Biographical Appreciation             3\n    I Plead Guilty                        9\n    Religion of Humanity                 10\n    Joe Bailey\u2019s Ride                    12\n    The Other Man\u2019s Baby                 13\n    The Pathos of Humor                  15\n    The Pine Creek Tragedy               16\n    The Homesick Boy                     18\n    Friends Who Pass in the Dark         19\n    Voice of the Stone                   20\n    Ingratitude                          22\n    Orphan Eva                           23\n    Loving the World                     24\n    Lost in the Snow                     26\n    A Plea for Childhood                 27\n    Thoughts of Immortality              29\n    Teach Sentiment                      30\n    The Soul of Sorrow                   31\n    Visiting the Old Home                32\n    The Wayward Boy                      34\n    A Wasted Life                        35\n    Garret Memories                      36\n    Your Baby Still                      38\n    Wish I were a Jew                    39\n    Memories                             40\n    Sweetened with Sorrow                42\n    In Her Dreams                        43\n    The Mortgaged Mother                 45\n    The Toy Maker                        46\n    The Mother-in-Law                    47\n    Bob White                            49\n    Whipping a Child                     51\n    Not a Clinging Vine                  52\n    The Saloon in Our Town               53\n    The Homesick Child                   55\n    Why He Quit Hunting                  56\n    The Hard-Luck Showman                58\n    Playing with Hearts                  59\n    True Friendship                      61\n    Sighing of the Pines                 62\n    The Homesick Horses                  64\n    The Blind Cigarmaker                 65\n    The Three Classes                    66\n    Hissed and Hooted                    68\n    The War with Self                    69\n    Crippled Joe and the Showman         71\n    Race Suicide                         73\n    For a Stage Career                   74\n    The Dead of the Land and Sea         76\n    Where Dreams Come True               77\n    It Might Have Been                   79\n    A Misguided Mother                   80\n    The World is Blind                   82\n    Wrong on the Throne                  83\n    The Voices We Understand             84\n    Chasing the Cows Up                  86\n    Flowers for the Living               87\n    The Hobo\u2019s Story                     89\n    In the Looking Glass                 90\n    Ungrateful Young Girls               92\n    The Giant Pine                       93\n    The Little House-Keeper              95\n    The Male Flirt                       96\n    Memories of the Old Trunk            98\n    The Auction Block                   100\n    The Old Yard Master                 101\n    Books that Made Me Think            103\n    Forgotten Graves                    104\n    In the Open Door                    105\n    The Judge\u2019s Tears                   107\n    The Dog\u2019s Kiss                      108\n    Love Letters                        110\n    At the Pool of Life                 112\n    A Palace Without Love               113\n    The Soldier\u2019s Diary                 114\n    Two Men Who Touched My Soul         116","title":"The philosophy of Jake Haiden (late Jacob K. Huff) : $b selected from the columns of the Reading Times, Reading, Pennsylvania : with a biographical appreciation by his friend Henry W. Shoemaker","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":63426}