Part 6

Miss Ward soon tried her wings in other spheres beyond New York. She found a ready welcome in Boston's select inner circle, where she made the acquaintance of Longfellow, Emerson, Whittier, Holmes, and other leading figures in the literary world. Charles Sumner, the brilliant statesman and reformer, was an intimate friend of her brother, and through him she met Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe, who not long after became her husband.

From both Longfellow and Sumner Miss Ward had heard glowing accounts of their friend Howe, who was, they declared, the truest hero that America and the nineteenth century had produced and the best of good comrades. He had earned the name of "Chevalier" among his friends because he was "a true Bayard, without fear and without reproach," and because he had, moreover, been made a Knight of St. George by the King of Greece for distinguished services during the Greek war for independence. For six years he had fought with the patriots, both in the field and as surgeon-in-chief. While in hiding with his wounded among the bare rocks of the heights, he had sometimes nothing to eat but roasted wasps and mountain snails. When the people were without food, he had returned to America, related far and wide the story of Greece's struggles and dire need, and brought back a shipload of food and clothing. Having relieved the distress of the people, he had helped them to get in touch with normal existence once more by putting them to work. A hospital was built, and a mole to enclose the harbor at Ægina. Then, after seeing the hitherto distracted peasants begin a new life as self-respecting farmers, he had returned to America.

At this time he was doing pioneer work in the education of the blind. As director of the Perkins Institution, in Boston, he was not only laboring to make more efficient this first school for the blind in America, but he was also going about through the country with his pupils to show something of what might be done in the way of practical training, in order to induce the legislatures of the several States to provide similar institutions for those deprived of sight. In particular, Dr. Howe's success in teaching Laura Bridgman, a blind deaf-mute, was the marvel of the civilized world.

One day, when Longfellow and Sumner were calling upon Miss Ward, they suggested driving over to the Perkins Institution. When they arrived the hero of the hour--and the place--was absent. Before they left, however, Mr. Sumner, who had been looking out of the window, suddenly exclaimed, "There is Howe now on his black horse!" Miss Ward looked with considerable eagerness in her curiosity, and saw, as she afterward said, "a noble rider on a noble steed."

In this way the Chevalier rode into the life of the fair lady. As the knight of the ballad swung the maiden of his choice to the croup of his charger and galloped off with her in the face of her helpless kinsmen, so this serious philanthropist and reformer carried off the lovely society favorite, in spite of the fact that he cared not at all for her gay, care-free world, and was, moreover, twenty years her senior. The following portion of a letter which Miss Ward wrote to her brother Sam shows how completely she was won:

The Chevalier says truly--I am the captive of his bow and spear. His true devotion has won me from the world and from myself. The past is already fading from my sight; already I begin to live with him in the future, which shall be as calmly bright as true love can make it. I am perfectly satisfied to sacrifice to one so noble and earnest the day-dreams of my youth.

Dr. Howe and his bride went to Europe on their wedding-trip--on the same steamer with Horace Mann and his newly made wife, Mary Peabody, the sister of Mrs. Nathaniel Hawthorne. The teacher of Laura Bridgman was well known in England through Dickens's "American Notes," and people were anxious to do him honor. Dickens not only invited the interesting Americans to dinner, but he offered to pilot Dr. Howe and his brother reformer, Horace Mann, about darkest London and show them the haunts of misery and crime which no one knew better than the author of "Oliver Twist," "Little Dorrit," and "Bleak House." The following note, written in Dickens's characteristic hand, shows the zest with which the great novelist undertook these expeditions and his boyish love of fun:

My dear Howe,--Drive to-night to St. Giles's Church. Be there at half past 11--and wait. Somebody will put his head into the coach after a Venetian and mysterious fashion, and breathe your name. Follow that man. Trust him to the death.

So no more at present from

Ninth June, 1843. THE MASK.

It had been the plan to go from England to Berlin; but Dr. Howe, who had once incurred the displeasure of the king of Prussia by giving aid to certain Polish refugees, and had, indeed, been held for five weeks in a German prison, was now excluded from the country as a "dangerous person." This greatly amused Horace Mann, who remarked, "When we consider that His Majesty has 200,000 men constantly under arms, and can in need increase the number to two million, we begin to appreciate the estimation in which he holds your single self." When, some years later, the king sent Dr. Howe a medal in recognition of his work for the blind, the Chevalier declared laughingly: "It is worth just what I was obliged to pay for board and lodging while in the Berlin prison. His Majesty is magnanimous!"

After traveling through Switzerland, Italy, and France, the Howes stopped for a second visit to England, where they were entertained for a time by the parents of Florence Nightingale. A warm attachment sprang up between them and the earnest young woman of twenty-four.

"I want to ask your advice, Dr. Howe," said Miss Nightingale, one day. "Would it be unsuitable for a young Englishwoman to devote herself to works of charity in hospitals and wherever needed, just as the Catholic sisters do?"

The doctor replied gravely, "My dear Miss Florence, it would be unusual, and in England whatever is unusual is apt to be thought unsuitable; but I say to you, go forward, if you have a vocation for that way of life; act up to your inspiration, and you will find that there is never anything unbecoming or unladylike in doing your duty for the good of others."

After the Howes had returned to Boston and settled down to the work-a-day order in the Institution the young wife's loyalty to the new life was often sorely tried. She loved the sunshine of the bright, gracious world of leisurely, happy people, and she felt herself chilled in this bleak gray place of sober duties. If only she could warm herself at the fire of friendship oftener! But all the pleasant people lived in pleasant places too far from the South Boston institution for the give and take of easy intercourse. Dr. Howe, moreover, was much of the time so absorbed in the causes of which he was champion-in-chief that few hours were saved for quiet fireside enjoyment.

"I hardly know what I should have done in those days," said Mrs. Howe, "without the companionship of my babies and Miss Catherine Beecher's cook-book."

The Chevalier loved to invite for a weekly dinner his especial group of intimates--five choice spirits, among whom Longfellow and Sumner were numbered, who styled themselves "The Five of Clubs." These dinners brought many new problems to the young hostess, who now wished that some portion of her girlhood days lavished on Italian and music had been devoted to the more intimate side of menus. However, she was before long able to take pride in her puddings without renouncing poetry; and to keep an eye on the economy of the kitchen and her sense of humor at the same time, as the following extract from a breezy letter to her sister Louisa can testify:

Our house has been enlivened of late by two delightful visits. The first was from the soap-fat merchant, who gave me thirty-four pounds of good soap for my grease. I was quite beside myself with joy, capered about in the most enthusiastic manner, and was going to hug in turn the soap, the grease, and the man, when I reflected that it would not sound well in history. This morning came the rag man, who takes rags and gives nice tin vessels in exchange.... Both of these were clever transactions. Oh, if you had seen me stand by the soap-fat man, and scrutinize his weights and measures, telling him again and again that it was beautiful grease, and that he must allow me a good price for it--truly, I am a mother in Israel.

The hours spent with her wee daughters were happy times. Sometimes she improvised jingles to amuse Baby Flossy (Florence, after Florence Nightingale) and tease the absorbed father-reformer at the same time:

Rero, rero, riddlety rad, This morning my baby caught sight of her dad, Quoth she, "Oh, Daddy, where have you been?" "With Mann and Sumner a-putting down sin!"

Sometimes she sang little bedtime rhymes about lambs and baby birds, sheep and sleep; and, when the small auditors demanded that their particular pets have a part in the song, readily added:

The little donkey in the stable Sleeps as sound as he is able; All things now their rest pursue, You are sleepy too.

As soon as Dr. Howe could find a suitable place near the Institution he moved his little family into a home of their own. On the bright summer day when Mrs. Howe drove under the bower formed by the fine old trees that guarded the house, she exclaimed, "Oh, this is green peace!" And "Green Peace" their home was called from that day. The children enjoyed here healthful outdoor times and happy indoor frolics--plays given at their dolls' theater, when father and mother worked the puppets to a dialogue of squeaks and grunts; and really-truly plays, such as "The Three Bears" (when Father distinguished himself as the Great Big Huge Bear), "The Rose and the Ring," and "Bluebeard."

In the midst of the joys and cares of such a rich home-life, how was it that the busy mother still found time for study and writing? For she was always a student, keeping her mind in training as an athlete keeps his muscles; and the need of finding expression in words for her inner life became more insistent as time went on. One of her daughters once said:

"It was a matter of course to us children that 'Papa and Mamma' should play with us, sing to us, tell us stories, bathe our bumps, and accompany us to the dentist; these were the things that papas and mammas did! Looking back now with some realization of all the other things they did, we wonder how they managed it. For one thing, both were rapid workers; for another, both had the power of leading and inspiring others to work; for a third, so far as we can see, neither wasted a moment; for a fourth, neither ever reached a point where there was not some other task ahead, to be begun as soon as might be."

Life with the beloved reformer was often far from easy, but there were never any regrets for the old care-free days. "I shipped as captain's mate for the voyage!" she said on one occasion, with a merry laugh that was like a heartening cheer; and then she added seriously, "I cannot imagine a more useful motto for married life." Always she realized that she owed all that was deepest and most steadfast in herself to this union. "But for the Chevalier, I should have been merely a woman of the world and a literary dabbler!" she said.

A volume of verse, "Passion Flowers," was praised by Longfellow and Whittier and won a wide popularity. A later collection, "Words for the Hour," was, on the whole, better, but not so much read. Still, the woman felt that she had not yet really found herself in her work. She longed to give something that was vital--something that would fill a need and make a difference to people in the real world of action.

The days of the Civil War made every earnest spirit long to be of some service to the nation and to humanity. Dr. Howe and his friend were among the leaders of the Abolitionists at the time when they were a despised "party of cranks and martyrs." It was small wonder that, when the struggle came, Mrs. Howe's soul was fired with the desire to help. There seemed nothing that she could do but scrape lint for the hospitals--which any other woman could do equally well. If only her poetic gift were not such a slender reed--if she could but command an instrument of trumpet strength to voice the spirit of the hour!

In this mood she had gone to Washington to see a review of the troops. On returning, while her carriage was delayed by the marching regiments, her companions tried to relieve the tensity and tedium of the wait by singing war songs, among others:

"John Brown's body lies a-moldering in the grave; His soul is marching on!"

The passing soldiers caught at this with a "Good for you!" and joined in the chorus. "Mrs. Howe," said her minister, James Freeman Clarke, who was one of the company, "why do you not write some really worthy words for that stirring tune?"

"I have often wished to do so," she replied.

Let us tell the story of the writing of the "nation's song" as her daughters have told it in the biography of their mother:

Waking in the gray of the next morning, as she lay waiting for the dawn the word came to her.

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord--"

She lay perfectly still. Line by line, stanza by stanza, the words came sweeping on with the rhythm of marching feet, pauseless, resistless. She saw the long lines swinging into place before her eyes, heard the voice of the nation speaking through her lips. She waited till the voice was silent, till the last line was ended; then sprang from bed, and, groping for pen and paper, scrawled in the gray twilight the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

And so the "nation's song" was born. How did it come to pass that the people knew it as their own? When it appeared in the "Atlantic Monthly" it called forth little comment; the days gave small chance for the poetry of words. But some poets in the real world of deeds had seen it--the people who were fighting on the nation's battle-fields. And again and again it was sung and chanted as a prayer before battle and a trumpet-call to action. A certain fighting chaplain, who had committed it to memory, sang it one memorable night in Libby Prison, when the joyful tidings of the victory of Gettysburg had penetrated even those gloomy walls. "Like a flame the word flashed through the prison. Men leaped to their feet, shouted, embraced one another in a frenzy of joy and triumph; and Chaplain McCabe, standing in the middle of the room, lifted up his great voice and sang aloud:

"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!"

Every voice took up the chorus, and Libby Prison rang with the shout of 'Glory, glory, hallelujah!'"

Later, when Chaplain McCabe related to a great audience in Washington the story of that night and ended by singing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," as only one who has lived it can sing it, the voice of Abraham Lincoln was heard above the wild applause, calling, as the tears rolled down his cheeks, "Sing it again!"

It has been said that what a person does in some great moment of his life--in a moment of fiery trial or of high exaltation--is the result of all the thoughts and deeds of all the slow-changing days. So the habits of a lifetime cry out at last. Is it not true that this "nation's song," which seemed to write itself in a wonderful moment of inspiration, was really the expression of years of brave, faithful living? All the earnestness of the child, all the dreams and warm friendliness of the girl, all the tenderness and loyal devotion of the wife and mother, speak in those words. Nor is it the voice of her life alone. The trumpet-call of her forebears was in those stirring lines. Only a tried and true American, whose people had fought and suffered for freedom's sake, could have written that nation's song.

Julia Ward Howe's long life of ninety-one years was throughout one of service and inspiration. Many people were better and happier because of her life. It was a great moment when, on the occasion of any public gathering, the word went around that Mrs. Howe was present. With one accord those assembled would rise to their feet, and hall or theater would ring with the inspiring lines of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

The man who said, "I care not who shall make the laws of the nation, if I may be permitted to make its songs," spoke wisely. A true song comes from the heart and goes to the heart. A nation's song is the voice of the heart and life of a whole people. In it the hearts of many beat together as one.

A CHAMPION OF "THE CAUSE":

ANNA HOWARD SHAW

Nothing bigger can come to a human being than to love a great Cause more than life itself, and to have the privilege throughout life of working for that Cause.

ANNA HOWARD SHAW.

A CHAMPION OF "THE CAUSE"

A young girl was standing on a stump in the woods, waving her arms and talking very earnestly. There was no one there to listen except a robin a-tilt on a branch where the afternoon sun could turn his rusty brown breast to red, and a chattering, inquisitive bluejay. All the other little wood folk were in hiding. That strange creature was in the woods but not of them. She belonged to the world of people.

The girl knew that she belonged to a different world. She was not trying to play that she was a little American Saint Francis preaching to the birds in the forests of northern Michigan. She was looking past the great trees and all the busy life that lurked there to the far-away haunts of men. Somehow she felt that she would have something to say to them some day.

She raised her clasped hands high above her head and lifted her face to the patch of sky that gleamed deep blue between the golden-green branches of the trees. "There is much that I can say," she declared fervently. "I am only a girl, but I feel in my heart that some day people will listen to me."

A gray squirrel scampered noisily across the dry brown leaves and frisked up a tree trunk, where he clung for a moment regarding the girl on the stump with shining, curious eyes.

"Saucy nutcracker!" cried the child, tossing an acorn at the alert little creature. "Do you too think it strange for a girl to want to do things? What would you say if I should tell you that a young girl once led a great army to victory?--a poor girl who had to work hard all day just as I do? She did not know how to read or write, but she knew how to answer all the puzzling questions that the learned and powerful men of the day (who tried with all their might to trip her up) could think to ask. They called her a witch then. 'Of a truth this girl Joan must be possessed of an evil spirit,' they said. 'Who ever heard of a maid speaking as she speaks?' Years afterward they called her a saint. She was the leader of her people even though she was a girl--Now I don't mean, fellow birds and squirrels, that I expect to be another Joan of Arc, but I know that I shall be something!"

Anna Shaw's bright dark eyes glowed with intense feeling. Like the maid of whom she had been reading, she had her vision--a vision of a large, happy life waiting for her--little, untaught backwoods girl though she was. Her book led the way down a charmed path into the world of dreams. For the time she forgot the drudgery of the days--the plowing and planting and hoeing about the stumps of their little clearing, the cutting of wood, the carrying of water. She walked back to the cabin that was home, with her head held high and her lips parted in a smile. But all at once she was brought back to real things with a rude bump.

"What have you been doing, Anna?" demanded her father, who stood waiting for her in the doorway.

"Reading, sir," the girl faltered.

"So you have been _idling_ away precious hours at a time your mother has needed your help?" the stern voice went on accusingly. "What do you suppose the future will bring to one who has not proved 'faithful in little'?"

The girl looked at her father without speaking. She knew that her share in the work of the household was not "little." Her young hands hardened from rough toil twitched nervously; the injustice cut her to the quick. Couldn't her father imagine what holding down that claim in the woods had meant for the little family during the eighteen months that he and the two older boys had remained behind in the East? In his joy at securing the grant of land from the Government, he already pictured the well-conditioned farm that would one day be his and his children's. "The acorn was not an acorn, but a forest of young oaks."

In a flash she saw as if it were yesterday the afternoon when their pathetic little caravan had at last reached the home that awaited them. She saw the frail, tired mother give one glance at the rude log hut in the stump-filled clearing, and then sink in a despairing heap on the dirt floor. It was but the hollow shell of a cabin--walls and roof, with square holes for door and windows gaping forlornly at the home-seekers. She heard the wolves and wildcats as she had on that first night when they had huddled together--helpless creatures from another world--not knowing if their watch-fires would keep the hungry beasts at bay. She saw parties of Indians stalk by in war-paint and feathers. She saw herself, a child of twelve, trudging wearily to the distant creek for water until the time when, with her brother's help, she dug a well. There was, too, the work of laying a floor and putting in doors and windows. Like Robinson Crusoe, she had served a turn at every trade; to-day that of carpenter or builder, to-morrow that of farmer, fisherman, or woodcutter.

As these pictures flashed before the eye of memory she looked at her father quietly, without a word of defense or self-pity. All she said was, "Father, some day I am going to college."

The little smile that curled his lips as he looked his astonishment drove her to another boast. The dreams of the free calm woods and the heroic Maid of Orleans had faded away. Somehow she longed to put forth her claim in a way to impress any one, even a man who felt that a girl ought not to want anything but drudging. "And before I die I shall be worth $10,000," she prophesied boldly.

However, the months that succeeded gave no sign of any change of fortune. A sudden storm turned a day of toil now and then into a red-letter day when one had chance to read the books that father had brought with him into the wilderness. Sometimes one could stretch at ease on the floor and dreamily scan the pages of the "Weekly" that papered the walls. There was always abundant opportunity in the busy hours that followed to reflect on what one had read--to compare, to contrast, and to apply, and so to annex for good and all the ideas that the books had to give.