Part 10
And Uncle Isaac finally had his chance. Perhaps you remember how at one time during the war things seemed dark enough. Our boys were swarming across the ocean, and submarines were watching for them. Food was scarce. Frost and storm had turned against us. Money was flowing out like water. Spies and German sympathizers were poisoning the public mind, and the Liberty Loan campaign was lagging. Uncle Isaac, reading it all day by day in his paper, felt like a man in prison galled to the soul by his inability to help. There came a big patriotic meeting at the county town. It was a factory town with many European laborers. They were restless and uneasy, opposed to the draft, tired of the war and not yet in full sympathy with America. Uncle Isaac determined to go to this meeting, though his daughter did all she could to dissuade him. There was no stopping him when he once made up his mind, so his daughter let him have his way, but she sent old John Zabriski along with him. Old John was a German Pole who came to this country as a young man out of the German army. He had lived on Uncle Isaac’s farm for years, and just as a cabbage or a tomato plant seems the stronger and better for transplanting, so this transplanted European in the soil of this country had grown into the noblest type of American. So the daughter, standing in the farmhouse door with eyes that were a little dimmed, watched these two old men drive away to the meeting.
They had the speaker’s stand in front of the court house. The street was packed with a great crowd. Right in front was a group of sullen, defiant foreigners who had evidently come for trouble. The sheriff was afraid of them, and inside the court house out of sight, but ready for instant service, was a squad of soldiers. A young man who was running for the Legislature caught sight of Uncle Isaac and led him through the court house to the speaker’s platform, and John went, too, as bodyguard. The old veteran sat there in his blue coat and hat with the gold braid, unable to hear a word, but full of the spirit which had come down to him from the old days.
Something was wrong. Even Uncle Isaac could see that, and John Zabriski beside him looked grave and anxious. That solid group of rough men in front began to sway back and forth like the movement of water when the high wind blows over it, and a sullen murmur, growing louder, came from the crowd. A small, effeminate-looking man was making a speech. Very likely his ancestors came originally to this country two centuries ago, but somewhere back in the years this man’s forebears had made a fortune. Instead of serving as a tool to spur the family on to finer things it had been spread out like a soft cushion to carry them through life without a bruise or bump. And these rough men, whose life had been all bruise and turmoil, knew that this soft little American was here talking platitudes when he should have been over in France. Perhaps you have never heard the angry murmur of a sullen crowd grow into a roar of rage, until the crowd becomes like a wild beast. The sheriff had heard this, and he was frankly frightened. He started a messenger back into the court house to notify the soldiers, but old John Zabriski stopped him.
“Wait,” he said, “do not that. You lose those men by fighting. We gain them.”
Then, before anyone could stop him, old John stepped up in front and barked out strange words which seemed like a command. Then a curious thing happened. The angry murmur stilled. The crowd stopped its movement, and then every man stood at attention! Almost every man there had in former years served in one of the European armies, and what old John had barked at them was the old army command which had been drilled into them years before. And through force of habit which had become instinct, that order, for the moment, changed that mob into an army of attentive soldiers. The bandmaster was a man of imagination, and as quickly as his men could catch up their instruments they began playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” Poor old Uncle Isaac heard nothing of this. He could only guess what it was all about until John Zabriski laboriously wrote on a piece of paper:
“Dey blay der Shtar Banner!”
Then there came into Uncle Isaac’s sad life the great, glorious joy of power and opportunity. He walked down to the front of the stage, took off his gold-braided hat and bowed his white head before them all. And old John Zabriski, the transplanted European, came and stood at his side. A young woman, dressed all in white, caught up a flag and came and stood beside the two old men. Then a wounded soldier with one empty sleeve pinned to his breast followed her. And there in that sunlit street a great, holy silence fell over that vast crowd. For there before them on that platform stood the glory, the pride, the precious legacy of American history. The last Grand Army man, the European peasant made over into an American, and the young people who represented the promise and hope shining in the legacy which men like Uncle Isaac and John Zabriski have given them.
When the band stopped playing a mighty cheer went up from that great crowd, and one by one the men of that sullen group in front took off their hats and joined in the cheering. They made Uncle Isaac get up again and again to salute, and no less a person than Judge Bradley shook both hands and said:
“We all thank you, Captain Randall. You have saved this great meeting and made this town solidly patriotic.” It was a proud old soldier who marched into the farmhouse kitchen that night, and in answer to his daughter’s questioning eyes he said:
“Annie, I want you to write those boys all about it. Tell ’em they are not doing it all. Tell ’em Judge Bradley called me cap’n and said I saved the meeting. I only wish General Grant could have been there!”
All of which goes to show that those of you who have come to white hair should not feel that you are out of the game yet. Material things may go by us, but the spirit of the good old days is still the last resort!
“SNOW BOUND”
This is the one night of the year for reading “Snow Bound.” Every man with New England blood in his veins should read Whittier’s poem at least once a year. That becomes as much of a habit as eating baked beans and fishballs. For two days now the storm has roared over our hills and shut us in. It must have been on just such a night as this that Emerson wrote:
“The sled and traveler stopped; the courier’s feet Delayed; all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.”
Of course, Emerson lived at a time when the telephone and the electric light and the steam-heated house were dreams too obscure even for his great mind to comprehend. So, in spite of this fearful storm, the strong arm of the electric current still reaches our house, and while the telephone is slow, we can get our message through, after a fashion. But we are shut in. The car and the truck are useless tonight. The horses stamp contentedly in the barn—not troubling about the head-high drifts which are piled along the roadway. A bad night for a fire or for a hurry call for the doctor; but why worry about that as we sit here before the fire?
I got my copy of “Snow Bound” in 1872, and I have read the poem at least once each year since, and I have carried it all over the country with me. It is a little shabby now, but somehow that is the way I like to see old friends:
“Shut in from all the world without We sat the clean winged hearth about, Content to let the north wind roar In baffled rage at pane and door, While the red logs before us beat The frost-line back with tropic heat.
...
“Between the andiron’s straddling feet The mug of cider simmered low, The apples sputtered in a row And close at hand the basket stood With nuts from brown October’s wood.
...
“What matter how the night behaved? What matter how the north wind raved? Blow high, blow low, not all its snow Could quench our hearth fire’s ruddy glow.”
...
There is no finer picture of the old-time Northern farm home, and we Yankees are bound to think that with all her faults New England did in those days set the world an example of what a farm home ought to be. So I lay aside the book and look about me to see how close New Jersey can come on this fearful night to matching this old-time picture.
Here we are before the fire. Great logs of apple wood are blazing up into the black chimney. In Whittier’s day the open fire produced all the light, but here we have our electric light blazing, and I think as I sit here how miles away the great engines are working to send the current far up among the lonely hills to our home. For supper we had a thick tomato soup, a big dish of cornmeal mush—the grain ground in our little grinder—pot cheese, entire wheat bread and butter, baked apples and all the milk we could drink. Just run that over and see if it does not furnish as fine a balanced ration and as good a lot of vitamines as any $2 dinner in New York—and nearly 80 per cent of it was produced on this farm. Now the girls have washed the dishes and planned breakfast, and here we are. Mother sits in the first choice of seats before the fire. That is where she belongs. She is mending a pair of stockings, and as her fingers fly, no doubt she is thinking of those warmer days back in Mississippi. My daughter has just put a new record into her Victrola. The music comes softly to us—“Juanita.”
“Soft o’er the fountain Lingering falls the Southern moon.”
I wonder what Whittier’s folks would have said to that! Two of the little girls are looking over some music, trying to get the air in “I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls!” There is no “frost line” in this house for the fire to drive back, for there is a good hot-water radiator in the corner. The pipe from the spring seems to have frozen, but the faithful old windmill, standing over the well at the barn, has stretched out its arms to catch this roaring gale and make it carry the water up to the tank. Thomas and three of the boys are playing parchesi, while the rest of the company give them all advice about playing from time to time. I have a big chair by the corner of the fireplace—where grandfather is supposed to sit—and little Rose is curled up on my lap eating an apple. I wish you were here. We could easily make room for you right in front of the fire, and we would surely call on you for a new story.
The wind is howling on the outside. As we sit here in comfort there comes an eager, pitiful face at the window pleading to be taken in. No, it is not the old story of the wayward child coming back to the lights of home. The nearest we can come to that at Hope Farm is the black cat with the dash of white at her face and throat. She and her tribe are expected to stay at the barn and catch rats, but there she is out in the cold looking in at the window. Mother is as stern as a Spartan mother when it comes to cats in the house. She _will not_ have them there. But, after all, they are Hope Farm folks, and the little girls plead so hard that the good lady looks the other way when the baby opens the door. In comes the black cat and, though they were not invited, three of her brothers and sisters run in with her! So now I shall sit with little Rose on my lap, while on her lap is a cushion on which the white-faced kitty purrs contentedly. In the original “Snow Bound” the mug of cider simmered between the andirons. No hot drinks for us. A little of that cold pasteurized apple juice goes well. We see no use in cooking apples before the fire. There is that big basket of Baldwins by the table. Help yourself—we like them cold. Cherry-top was ahead in the game, but Thomas has just taken his leading “man” and sent him back to the starting point. The boy is a good sport. He takes a big bite out of a fresh Baldwin and goes after them again. The nearest we can come to “nuts from brown October’s wood” is a big bag of roasted peanuts. We have all been eating them and throwing the hulls at the fire. They have accumulated so that Mother’s idea of neatness compels her to get up and brush them all into the blaze. I did not tell you that we are starting up our little Florida farm again. Jack will grow a crop of sugar cane and peanuts.
And so, here in New Jersey, as well as in old-time New England, we care not how the wind blows or how the storm roars. This is home, and we are satisfied with it—all of us, from the white-faced kitty up to the Hope Farm man. We have all worked to make this home. It is a co-operative affair. None of us could be called rich or great, yet nothing could ever buy what we see in our big fire. Every now and then Mother looks up from her work and glances across the room at me with a smile. I know what she has in mind. Some of us rise to the power of animals in our ability to communicate thought without words. Life has been very much of a fight with us, but it seems worth while as we look at this big room full of eager young people, content and happy with the simple things of life. As little Rose snuggles up closer to me and pulls the kitty with her I begin to think of some of the complaining fault-finding people I know. I _do_ know some star performers at the job of pitying themselves and magnifying their own troubles. On a night like this I will wager an apple that they are pouring out the gloom and trouble like a man tipping over a barrel of cold water. It’s their rheumatism or their debts or the Administration or the Republican party, or something else that they hold responsible for their troubles. I wish I could have some of those fellows here tonight, and also some of you folks who know the joy of looking on the bright side. We would do our best to rub some of the gloom out of them. I will guarantee that any one of us could, if we wanted to, tell the truth about our own troubles so that these gloomy individuals would look like “pikers” in their poor little self-pity! I would like to read extracts from two new books to them. One is “A Labrador Doctor,” by W. T. Grenfell; the other, “The Great Hunger,” by John Bojer.
I have just been reading these books, and I shall read them over again. Dr. Grenfell has given his life to service in the far North among the fishermen of Labrador. A man of his ability could easily have gained fame and wealth by practising his profession in some great city. He went where he was most needed—into the cold, lonely places where humanity hungers and suffers for help. It has always seemed to me just about the noblest thing in life for a man of great natural ability to gain what science and education can give him and carry that great gift out to those who need it most. Grenfell did that, and this modest story of his life is wonderful to anyone who can get the message. I have always thought that the greatest teachers and preachers and wise men generally are not so much needed in the big cities as in the lonely country places. The city owes all it has in men and money to the country, but it will seldom acknowledge the gift. The city itself is able to offer as a gift knowledge, science and training. Yet those who receive this gift desire for the most part to remain in the city, when they should carry their gift out into the lonely and hard places where the city must finally go for strength. The storm seems hard tonight, but it is a mere zephyr to the Winters which Dr. Grenfell’s people endure. I wish I could tell you some of the wonderful things which have happened in that lonely land. At one place the doctor found a girl dying of typhoid. There was no way of saving her, and as soon as she was buried it was necessary to burn the rude bunk and the straw in which she lay. They carried it to the top of a hill and built a fire. For several days one of the fishing boats had been lost at sea in the fog, and had been given up for lost with all on board. The despairing men in that boat—far out at sea—saw the light when that hideous bed was burned and were able to get to land! Some of you self-pitying people ought to read how Dr. Grenfell organized a little orphans’ home to care for the little waifs of this lonely place. In one case a little girl of four, while her father was away hunting, crawled out into the snow, so that both legs were badly frozen. Gangrene set in halfway to the knee, and the father actually chopped both legs off to save her life! Think of such a child in the frozen North. I think of her as little Rose hugs the kitty close. Dr. Grenfell took this child, operated on her, obtained artificial legs, and now she can run about like other children. I wish I could tell you more about this book. At one time two men came together after medicine. One took a bottle of cough mixture, the other a strong turpentine liniment for a sprained knee. By mistake they mixed up the medicine. One rubbed the cough medicine on his knee, the other drank the liniment. If I had some fellow who thinks the Lord has put a special curse on him before our fire tonight I would tell him what others have endured. The chances are we could make him contribute something to the cause before we were done with him.
The other book I mentioned, “The Great Hunger,” is a story of Norwegian life and, as I think, very powerful. A boy born to poverty and disgrace grew up with a great hunger in his heart—he knew not what it was. He felt that power and material wealth would bring him the happiness he sought. He gained education, power, wealth and love, yet still the great hunger tortured him. Poverty, sickness, the deepest sorrow fell upon him, and at last the great hunger was satisfied by doing a needed service for the man who had done him the most hideous wrong! I wish I could tell you more about it. It is a powerful book; but it is time for little Rose to go to bed. Off she goes with a hug for all, and the children follow her one by one. I am not going to put more logs on that fire. Let it die down. The end of the day has come. Let the storm howl through the night like a pack of wolves at the door. They cannot get at us. Even if they did they can never destroy the memory of this night.
“CLASS”
The other day the papers announced the death of the ex-Empress Eugénie. She lingered along, feeble and half-blind, until she was nearly 95 years old. She has been called “the Queen of Sorrows,” for few other women have lived a sadder life. Very few of this generation knew or cared anything about her. I presume most of our young people skipped the details of her life as given in the papers. Yet when I was a boy, shortly before the war between France and Germany, the women of the world regarded this sad empress as the great model of beauty and fashion. I suppose it would be hard for women in these days to realize how this beautiful empress dictated to people in every land how they should arrange their hair and wear their dresses. At that time most women wore their hair in short nets bunched just below the neck, and it was the age of “hoopskirts”—most of them, as it seemed, four to five feet wide. Just how this woman managed to put her ideas of fashion into the imagination of her sisters I never could understand. From the big city to the little backwoods hamlet women were studying to see what “Ugeeny” advised them to wear. I have often wondered if in her last days the poor, blind, feeble woman remembered those days of power.
Her death brings to mind an incident that had long been forgotten. I had been sent to one of the neighbors to borrow some milk, since our cow was dry. In those days, any caller—even a little boy—was like a pond in which one went fishing for compliments. The woman of the house, an immense, fat creature, with the shape of a barrel, a short, thick neck and a round moon face, had arrayed herself in glad clothes of the latest style—several years, I imagine, behind Paris. She wore an immense hoopskirt, which gave her the appearance of walking inside of a hogshead. Her hair was parted in the middle and brought down beside her wide face to be caught in a net just below her ears. I know so little and care so much less about style in clothes that I can remember in detail only two costumes that I have ever seen women wear. This outfit is one of them.
“This is just what Ugeeny is wearing,” said the fat lady as she poured out the milk. “You can tell your aunt that you have seen one lady dressed just like Paris.”
It did not strike me as very impressive, but I was glad to have the experience.
“You can tell her, too, that a very fine gentleman came here today and said I looked enough like Ugeeny to be her half-sister—dressed as I am now. He has been in Paris, too.”
“It was a book agent,” put in her husband, “and sold her a book on the strength of that yarn. Say, Mary, you don’t look any more like Ugeeny than old Spot does—and you don’t need to.”
“The trouble with you, John Drake, is that you have no idea of beauty.”
“I know it. I may not have any soul, but I’ve got a stomach, and I know that you can make the best doughnuts and Indian pudding ever made in Bristol County. That’s more than Ugeeny ever did, or ever can do. You are worth three of her for practical value to the world, and I think you a handsome woman—but you can’t look like her, because you haven’t got the shape, and I’m glad of it.”
But where was there ever a woman who could be satisfied with such evident truth, and who did not reach out after the impossible? She turned to old Grandpa, who sat back in the corner, away from the light.
“Now, Grandpa, you seen a lot of the world. What do you say? Don’t I look like Ugeeny?”
Old Grandpa nodded his white head and looked at her critically.
“You’re in her class, Mary—that’s what I’ll say—you’re in her class!”
“You’re in her class,” repeated Grandpa. “The people in this world are divided into two classes—strung together like beads on different strings. Some strings are like character, others like looks or shape or thinking or maybe meanness. You can’t get out of your class—for the Lord organized it and teaches it. You look at me; I’m in the class with some of the finest men that ever lived on earth!”
“Now, Mary, see what you’ve done,” said John Drake. “You’ve got Grandpa started on that class business. He’s worse than Ugeeny.”
But Grandpa went right ahead. “Ain’t I in the class with the old and new prophets? Here I have for years been telling what is coming to the world. Folks won’t always be down as they are now. My wife killed herself carrying water and fuel to get up vittles and keep the house clean. Some day or ’nuther every farmhouse will have water and heat and light right inside. There’ll be power to do all this heavy work. In those days farmers will be kings.”
The old man’s face lighted up as he talked.
“You don’t believe me now, but it will all come. I’m out ahead of the crowd. So was Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner on the slavery question. Folks hooted at them, laughed them down and did all they could to stop their ideas. But you can’t stop one of these ideas when there’s a man back of it. Those men lived to see what the world called fool notions made into wisdom. They just had visions which don’t come to common men. That’s what I’ve got now, and what I ask is, _Ain’t I in their class?_”
“If I was in your place I wouldn’t mind, Grandpa,” said Mary, as she shook out that great hoopskirt. “That’s not good talk for boys; it makes them discontented!”