Chapter VII: Part 7

I went to bed thinking of the outrages and violent cruelties of the old slavery days, and fell asleep with the horrible picture of slavery in my mind. And sleeping I dreamed that God had reversed the conditions and changed the white men to colored slaves, and the old black slaves were now their masters. Even in that dream I said to myself that the proceedings were just and fair. If the black slave had been sold for the sake of profit long ago, it was fair that he should take advantage of the reversed order of things, and sell his old tormentors into slavery.

Suddenly the scene changed. I stood in a market place, a lad of fourteen. The auctioneer was selling a woman. Her back was toward me, but I could see that she was weeping. I caught the sound of her voice and it was familiar to my ears. I had heard that voice before. Could it be the one woman I had loved from birth—the woman whose first embrace was my first lesson in human love? In heart-broken tones I called to her, “Mother.”

She turned and raised her face to look over the crowd. “Great God!” I cried, “it is my own mother! And she is being sold into slavery!”

I rushed through the crowd toward the auction block, calling her name aloud as I went. Strong men tried to catch and hold me, but I wiggled from their grasp. I reached the block and caught hold of her dress, but she could not stoop down to pick me up and hug me to her heart, because her hands were tied behind her back. I could see her struggle in a mighty effort to break the cords that bound her. Sorrow gave her the strength of a giantess, and I saw the cords break and fall to the ground. The next moment she had clasped me to her breast and made an attempt to run away with me through the crowd. Blood hounds caught her by the throat and she fell to the ground.

I was torn from her bosom by the cruel hands of the man who had bought her, and when she reached her hands toward me the brutal man struck her loving hands with the butt-end of his whip. Then he raised the whip to strike me in the face, and as the blow descended I awoke. I was wet with perspiration, and tears of agony stood on my cheeks.

Think of this—less than fifty years ago such scenes were common—to other mothers and other sons.

THE OLD YARD MASTER

I was waiting on the ten o’clock train to leave the depot at Williamsport, Pa., when a vigorous old man came into the waiting room, accompanied by four children. It was an hour yet before train time, and I happened to be the only waiting passenger up to this time. I had come down from Lock Haven on the early morning train, and had two hours on my hands before the Reading train pulled out for Philadelphia. I had passed some of the time away talking to the vigorous scrub woman, who had mopped up the entire floor space of the station since daylight. She had gathered up her buckets and brooms and mops, and was leaving when the vigorous old man and the four children arrived.

He bade me good morning and then seated the children, but he did not sit down himself. He walked to the south window and looked out over the frozen river for several minutes, then turned to me and said: “The old river looks tame under her lid of ice, but some day she’ll get up and shove the lid off, and if the lid refuses to go, there will be a scene along here. I’ve seen her get her back up in my time and shove ice up on the tracks, right here in front of the station.”

“I wonder how deep the flood in 1889 was in the station,” I ventured. He put his finger on a spot a few inches up the window facing and said: “About here somewhere, I think. I was here at the time. You see, I was yard master here up to sixteen years ago. The boys went out on a strike, and I went out along and I never came back. I went into business and gave up railroading.”

“Do you never intend to railroad again?” I asked, by way of keeping up the conversation.

“Oh, no; the roads have no use for us old fellows any more. They want younger blood.”

“But you are not so old,” I said.

“Older than I look, sir. These are my grandchildren. We are off on a little trip together. You see, my youngest daughter is getting married today, and we are going along with the bridal party for a short distance. These grandchildren are very dear to me now since my own children are all married and gone off to build homes of their own.”

As the train drew near he took the children into the ladies waiting room, and other people came in and attracted my attention. Pretty soon a carriage drove up to the station. The horses were decorated with white ribbons and a few white bows on the carriage. Even the driver’s whip was decorated with a white bow. I knew by these signs that it was a wedding party. Two ladies and two gentlemen got out of the carriage, and I found myself guessing which couple were the bride and groom. They entered the ladies waiting room, and other young people appeared on the scene and began to throw rice and raise a great noise. They were having a great time, a jolly, happy time.

In a few minutes the old train master came back to me, and jerked his thumb over his shoulder and said: “They’re having their fun in there, as young people will. The bride in there is my youngest daughter, going off on her wedding trip.”

I could see that his voice was trembling and that his feelings were getting the better of him, but he walked to the window and looked out over the river and let the tears run quietly down his brave old face. He had escaped from the merry crowd to look out over the frozen river. What did he see? What was the fascination?

Intuitively I knew that the vision out there on the river was another wedding party of long years ago. I knew that the fair bride he saw out yonder was leaning on his own strong arm, and that they were going off on that journey this world and this life only gives but once to men and women—that journey which comes so near to making this world a heaven. Was that bride still alive? No, the tears in the old man’s eyes were silent witnesses to proclaim the sad news that she had gone on another journey—and gone alone.

The train pulled up and the crowd rushed out to get on board, and the old train master, with his untold story, drifted away from me, and I never saw him again.

BOOKS THAT MADE ME THINK

A reader writes me to learn what books did me the most good. This is hard to tell. As a boy we had but few books in our home, the Bible being the leading book, and a Lutheran catechism being the next in importance. My boyhood work was to watch cows. Our farm was small, and we raised patches of grain and hay, instead of whole fields. When we pastured one of these patches, I was obliged to keep them away from the patches of grain. It was during this time that I read the entire Bible, and tried in vain to grasp the meaning of many passages. The chapters devoted to love and charity and honesty, were within the grasp of any boy, but when it came to treating of sacrifices to please a God of love, I was getting in too deep to wade through, and was obliged to back out and sit down and contemplate the situation. I still hold the subject under deep contemplation.

The next book I can remember was “Great Expectations,” by Dickens. It filled my boyish mind with a love of literature. Since then I have read all of Dickens’ books, and he is my favorite author. In spite of his exaggerations and impossible characters, he is nearer in touch with all manner of humanity than any other author I have read. I think still that “David Copperfield” is the best book of fiction ever written, with “Little Dorrit” a close second.

I never liked Scott. There was too much war and fantastic thunder about him. His heroes were of the royalty, while Dickens found his among the common people—my kind of people—the people I love.

I read a few of Thackeray’s best stories and liked them, only they lacked the humor and the child sympathy I found in Dickens. He could never touch me in the tender spot as Dickens could.

Then comes Mark Twain’s early stories—not for instruction alone, but for amusement. His most humorous book is the most instructive, as well. “Huckelberry Finn,” to my idea of humor, is the most humorous book I ever read, providing one sees the pathetic and human qualities. The characters of the story are not trying to make sport or act ridiculous—they are serious all the time. It is this feature that brings out the humor. “Huckelberry Finn” looks upon the subject of human slavery with the eyes and soul of a southern boy fifty years before the great rebellion and the emancipation of the negro slaves. It was part of his religion to believe in the institution of human slavery, and he had to make up his mind to go to hell for the sin of it, before he dared assist a black slave to escape to a free state.

Never did any book give me as deep insight into human character as did this one. A man can be trained to harmonize almost any outrage against his weaker neighbor, if he can find a single verse of Scripture to uphold his actions.

Of our more modern writers, I can get more thought food from Elbert Hubbard, and this is what a reader wants. The writer who can make you think thoughts of your own, is the one who draws out the truth and the faith that is in you. Some can amuse and instruct without making you think along new lines. Unless you do some original thinking, after reading a book or a story, or a poem, you have not gained anything of lasting effect. The thoughts that do you the most good are the thoughts you can claim as your own. We are all looking at the world and into the mysteries of life from different view points. Others can tell us of a peep hole that brings to view many unknown things, but we must do the peeping ourselves. We must see things with our own mental eyes before we can size them up and grasp them and call them our own.

However, it all depends on the trend of one’s mind. The books that gave me the most instruction and entertainment might have no value at all in the judgment of another. Each individual must read until he discovers the trend of his mind, and then read books that satisfy. Even the much abused ten cent novel whetted my taste for higher literature. Occasionally one would make me think.

FORGOTTEN GRAVES

During the seven years I lived in my present home, I have sat on the front porch and looked across the Susquehanna river to a bluff just beyond the P. & E. Railroad. White tombstones, looming up above the weeds, like the great white teeth of Death, indicated that human bodies had been laid there to rest, while the struggle with others continued for a little while longer. Mrs. Haiden often spoke of going over to visit the spot. To her an old graveyard appeals with stronger force than the most beautiful garden of flowers. Three years ago, when we visited Washington, the wise old faces of the Senators and Representatives of the people did not appeal to her. Neither did the political stench of the Capitol. Arlington cemetery and the Egyptian mummies in the National Museum took her fancy. They were flowers handed down to us from a former generation, as they say in the Declaration of Independence.

Well, Mrs. Haiden’s curiosity to visit the old Quiggle cemetery overcame my laziness, and one fine Sunday we persuaded Professor Stevenson to accompany us, and we crossed the river at the ferry and walked through the fields to the place of interest. The cemetery is quite an old burial ground for this neighborhood. We could not determine how old, because the first graves made there were marked only with mountain sand stones, and only a few of them bore an inscription.

One of the graves was marked with a granite monument and surrounded with an iron fence, and inside the enclosure was an iron bench, just as though some loved one left behind would often come there and sit in the solitude and commune with the dead man under the sod. It was a beautiful and tender suggestion, and if the dead could really send back a message to the waiting ones, how much of death’s mystery could be cleared away. But aching hearts and the longings of yearning souls have failed to bring back even a whispered message from the land beyond the shadow line. The dead cannot talk to us any more than the living can talk to the dead. The wires are all down between the living and the dead—all down and out of use, and when we sit at the graves of our loved ones, all we can do is to recall the past; if time is a circle, then heaven lies in the past, as well as in the future, and the needle of our mental compass always points into the great beyond, no difference where we look.

On one mountain stone we found the figures 1803, and the name, Andrew K. Rinder. He had been buried one hundred and seven years—before the war of 1812 was fought between our country and Great Britain. The roar of the cannons could not disturb his rest. The big trains on the “Pennsy” go thundering by only two hundred feet away, but Rinder does not hear them. He never saw a steam locomotive nor a railroad track. These modern inventions have crowded in upon his resting place, but he is done with the world—he does not care. He lived his little life and lies in his little grave on this lonely little hill. Perhaps we will be as thoroughly forgotten in a century from now as Andrew K. Rinder. It has been over a hundred years since that name was set up in printed letters—perhaps it will never appear again. Did some mysterious force lead me there to resurrect that long forgotten name? Who can say? Life is a plan and a purpose; we move as the wheels in a clock, urged by a power to which we are attached by unseen hands.

On our return, we ran across a private burial ground we had known nothing about. Here lie the two generations of Stech’s. John Stech was buried in 1815. His sons and daughters lie sleeping at his side. The sons never married, and the name of Stech died out of the neighborhood. Not a man bearing that good old German name is known in this county. The valuable farm has fallen into the hands of strangers, and the private burial place is overgrown with briars and trees, and the top of the marker fallen to the ground. Nobody cares. These two bachelor brothers should have married and left some one to carry their name and to care for their graves.

I do not advocate Rooseveltian families—the age for large families has passed away—but I do believe every sane man should have a life behind in place of the one he takes away when he steps out. These forgotten and neglected graves in the Stech burial ground show that the Stechs neglected their duty during life. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” is true in all phases of earthly existence.

In less than a century ninety-nine per cent of the world’s dead are forgotten on earth. We, too, will be forgotten. Is there a record kept elsewhere? Are there more durable tablets than these rough mountain stones and granite?

IN THE OPEN DOOR

While out driving during the summer days of last season, I passed a little whitewashed cottage many times while returning in the evening, and noticed that on clear sunset days, an old woman stood in the open door and looked out toward the sunset, where the light lay like golden sheets upon the distant hilltops. When I spoke to her and bade her “good evening,” she lowered her eyes for a moment and returned my salute, and then raised them to study the sun set beauties. At last I stopped one September evening and remarked: “You seem to take great pleasure in the glories of a Pennsylvania sunset, grandmother. Were you ever an artist or painter?”

“Bless your heart, no. I’ve always been a plain housekeeper. My husband used to make and repair shoes in that little shop across the road, and I married him to keep house and cook his meals. I love the sunset for the sake of old memories. It was a bright sunset evening when Albert and I drove up the road to the gate yonder, and the farmer’s son came and took the horse and buggy home. We walked down this gravel path hand in hand and passed in through this door. We had been married only two hours, and we came here to begin our married life.

“The cottage was new then, for Albert built it for our home when we first became engaged. Previous to that he had lived in the shop. He came here a journeyman shoemaker, but the journeyman business had changed to the village shoe shop. He bought the little shop from the shoemaker who was removing to Ohio. And there he worked for two years and prospered. He was an orphan boy and had no relatives he knew of. Had been brought up in a foundling, which they called a “poor house,” in those days. Albert and I met at the country dances, for he could play the fiddle lovely. Nowadays they call it a violin, but Albert was only a fiddler on a fiddle.

“Sixty-two years ago and better, we walked down this gravel path hand in hand, and we were chums for over forty years. The old shop is falling into decay and the door does not close tight any more, but the cottage has been repaired since Albert died. But I don’t think of his death on these bright sunset evenings. I only remember and think of our wedding day, and of the other bright, sunny evenings when he and the children sat on this bench after working hours, and I sat in the door with my knitting.

“You only see a poor, old, lonely woman standing in the open door of her humble home, but I see the happiest little family circle in all the world—a proud father and three healthy, laughing children. Albert would always come out here on a summer evening to smoke his pipe, and the children would bring toys to be mended by his dear, loving hands.”

She wiped a tear from her dim old eyes, and continued: “We were so very happy while the children lived; but one winter diphtheria broke out in the village and swept all our darling loved ones from our grasp. Poor Albert was heartbroken for several years, and every Sunday we would walk over to the little graveyard in yonder hill and talk of the children as though the cemetery were a school and we had come to visit the children and bring them flowers.

“But I do not see this sad picture as I stand in the open door and look to the sunset sky. I only see the wedding party for a moment, and then Albert and the children sitting on the porch. Sometimes I talk to them while the sun is setting, and when the shadows fall, they bring back the faces of those I love. It is then that I can hear Albert’s voice as he sings the children to sleep out here on the porch, and sometimes I go out to bring the sleeping baby in and lay it on the bed, as I used to do sixty years ago.

“And I am not disappointed when I awake from my delusion, for I know that over yonder, beyond the sunset, Albert is singing to the children, and it is the echo of his voice that comes to me through the open door. You only see a poor, old, gray-haired woman standing here alone in the open door, but I am surrounded with dreams and visions and memories which no others can behold.”

THE JUDGE’S TEARS

One of the nice things people tell of Judge Mayer, who served the counties of Clinton, Cameron and Elk as president judge for almost forty years, is of the deep sympathy he showed when Attorney Henry Harvey fell dead in the court room. Harvey had been a law student in the judge’s office, and he felt a fatherly interest in the young man. He was proud of his achievements and successes at the bar, and was pleased when the local Republicans spoke of Harvey as a candidate for the high office of Governor of the great State of Pennsylvania. The judge much regretted the conditions that robbed his pupil of the high honor, but still looked ahead and hoped the honor might still hover near and select Mr. Harvey later on.

The judge knew what disappointment tasted like, for, being a Democrat in a Republican state, is what barred him from the Supreme bench. But he deemed the honor, at the expense of his honest political convictions, to be hollow and empty.

But one unfortunate day the man for whom he had seen such a brilliant future was fatally stricken in court. Harvey was addressing the jury in an important case, and was even more brilliant than usual, when suddenly he threw up his arms and staggered backward into the arms of R. C. Quiggle, calling to a physician sitting near him: “Doctor, I am sick.”

These were the last words uttered by the man of whom such a brilliant future had been predicted. When all was over, and the dead attorney lay cold in front of the jury, the venerable judge broke down and wept like a tender-hearted woman.

People who had come to look upon Charles A. Mayer as a stern and relentless judge, never dreamed of such a display of affection and sympathy. The judge had revealed his humane and tender side to the people, and they admired the new man far above the old one. After adjourning court, he stood with a bunch of attorneys and court officials discussing the tragical end of his friend, and out on the streets the people were discussing the affair, and to each new man who joined the crowds of startled citizens, some one would say: “The judge wept like a child when Harvey died.”

The writer of these lines was attending a relative’s funeral on that day, and when a man came to the funeral who had been in court when the tragical death occurred, and was telling a bunch of men standing outside the home and waiting for the services to begin, he did not forget to add: “Judge Mayer cried like a loving father when he saw that his friend was dead.”

And all over the country the news of Attorney Harvey’s death was whispered in awed tones, and always in connection with the death of Harvey was told the story of the judge’s tears.

It gave the people a peep into the real man behind the legal mask, and they admired the real man far above the legal sternness which the profession forced upon the judge. A man always gains in power and admiration when he shows evidence of a sympathetic heart. Abraham Lincoln’s tears of sympathy stand out as liquid diamonds upon his official record, never to be washed away while his beloved name remains on the pages of American history. The world may malign him and wrongly accuse him of many things, but those tears of sympathy are out of reach of human hands or slanderous tongues, and the crown of his earthly glory will always sparkle in the light of his illustrious name as indelible stars, forever polished by the love the American people retain for the man.

So, too, do the judge’s tears stand out above all his other good qualities, and command respect and admiration from his bitterest enemies. They can never be forgotten. Though he is dead and in his grave, the tears shed by loving friends will be forgotten by the world, while yet his own tears of sympathy remain like drops of dew to keep his memory fresh and green in the hearts of all those who know of the tender and sympathetic side of the judge.

THE DOG’S KISS

It was a bleak morning in April, the country roads being muddy and heavy and discouraging, and as the young man trudged along, his mind wandered back to the day he started as a tramp. His parents had become suddenly wealthy, through an oil strike on their mountain farm. They immediately moved to the city and purchased a fine home. The boy was sent to college. He was then eighteen years old. On the second year term Walter was progressing in his studies rapidly, and the teachers were proud of their bright pupil. They told him so. Their words of praise came back in memory whispers as he trudged along, footsore, sick, weary and hungry.

It was a bitter recollection to recall the day when the news was brought to him of his father’s and mother’s death. They had been killed in a railroad wreck. After the funeral it was discovered that good fortune had given Aaron Burfield the big head, and he started to gamble in stocks. He knew as much about it as a cow knows about Latin. He was a lamb to be easily fleeced. All the fortune had been lost and the big house was mortgaged. Walter was a beggar when twenty years of age.

He realized that he had no rich relatives or friends to help him. His foolish father had deserted all his old friends and many poor relatives the hour he found himself wealthy. Walter’s pride barred him from going back to these deserted friends and relatives. He went back to school, but the news of his change of fortune reached the ears of the young aristocratic friends with whom he had associated, and they cut him short. His tuition was paid in full, but he could not remain at school and be the outcast and beggar. News reached him that the big house was sold, and did not satisfy the creditors. He had nothing left but his clothes and a gold watch.

Now he regretted, as he walked along, that he had not remained at school and graduated. The sting of becoming an outcast was painful. Had he to do it all over again, he might do just as he had done—jumped a freight train one night with ten dollars in his pocket and left the college town forever. This was two years ago. He had harvested in the Dakotas, worked on the lakes, tried packing-house drudgery and tried his hand at work on a farm. He was now too sick and discouraged to beat his way by rail. He had lost his old-time courage, and felt like a whipped child. He must give up the careless, worthless life he was leading, and secure a permanent job.

He came to a large farm-house and went around to the back door to ask for a bite of breakfast. A tired woman told him to go away. He asked permission to sit on the porch step and rest. The old farm dog came up and licked his hand. His heart leaped in a glad response to even the friendship of a dog. He put one arm around the dog’s neck and unconsciously spoke aloud:

“Do you know how heart-sick and friendless I am, old doggie?”

“Do you like dogs?”

It was a girl’s voice. Walter Burfield looked up and saw it was a pretty red-cheeked girl addressing him. My, but she looked pretty and wholesome. A sinner standing outside of heaven and looking in through the open gate and beholding an angel would feel as Walter felt on beholding that pretty country girl.

“Do you like dogs,” she asked again, for the tramp sat dumb before her. His eyes dropped. He had reached that point in the life of a vagabond where the frank, honest eyes of some one in whom hope burns brightly, makes the hopeless soul recoil and seek to hide away from questioning eyes.

“I just feel like hugging the old dog,” he said, “because he offered to be my friend, and I am so hungry for friendship. I would like to secure a position, and find a home and settle down in the ways of peace once more. I am without a friend in all the wide world. The touch of the dog’s tongue on my hand is the first friendly touch I have felt for two years. The woman inside allowed me to sit down and rest here, but she refused me a bite to eat. I guess the old dog knows how hungry and friendless and despondent I am, so he came up and gave me the kiss of loving friendship.”

“Wait,” said the girl, “I’ll bring you something to eat, poor man.”

She sat and talked to him while he ate. She had never found any one so interesting, and he had never seen any one so beautiful. He could touch her heart as never any one had touched it before. He knew so much of life and was so discouraged and hopeless with it all. His talk opened up a new world to her. Her life had been so tame and commonplace, and she had longed for news from the outside world. He did not look like a tramp, though he was ragged and dirty and unshaven. The girl went to her father and persuaded him to give the poor tramp a job.

Walter Burfield stayed. He worked hard and faithfully. He resolved to give up roaming forever and try to make a man of himself, though obliged to begin down at the bottom. The old dog followed him through the fields day after day, as though he felt that it was his influence that had called Walter back to a life of usefulness. And Walter well knew that it was old Hector’s warm kiss on his hand that brought out the heart talk that morning with Adaline Blair.

Two years afterward, as he sat under a shade tree while resting his team of horses, he hugged the old dog and said to him:

“Dear old Hector, that first kiss of yours opened the door to a brand new world for me. God, but I must have been sick and lonely on that morning I sat resting on the porch, and you and Adaline found me and took me into your affections. Your kisses are still warm and affectionate, old doggie, but I felt a warmer one last night on my lips. Do you know that your little mistress has promised to be my wife? She says she was drawn toward me when she saw me hugging her dog. It was your loving kiss, old Hector, that has brought all this new love and hope and sunlight into my life. She would never have caught me hugging you, were it not for your friendly kiss.”

LOVE LETTERS

Through an almost fatal accident, an old lady of seventy-five years lay at death’s door for many long weeks. She had not been as prosperous during the last twenty-five years of her life as she had been in her early married life, and many of her old time friends had drifted out of her life, and she drifted out of theirs. She thought of all this as she lay on her bed of affliction, too weak to move more than one arm. It was sad to think of the old friends who had forgotten her so completely. They must all know of her illness, for her daughter Mary had read several notices to her from the local papers concerning her serious accident, and more serious condition since the accident occurred.

Somehow she felt so lonely and isolated and neglected. Better die and be out of this painful existence than to lie sick in bed for weeks and weeks and be absolutely forgotten by the old-time friends, whose society she once enjoyed so delightfully.

When her daughter came in she had hard work to turn her feeble head to the wall, so the tears on her lashes could not be seen. She even felt one on her thin cheek, but had not the physical power to wipe it away. As the daughter went about the room, tidying things up, and dusting off the stand on which the medicine bottles stood, she listened carefully to see if her mother was sleeping. A slight cough from the bed convinced her that the invalid was awake, and she broke the silence by saying:

“I hope the mail today will bring a letter from brother John. He knows of your accident, and I feel sure he will reach us today with his answer.”

The finger on the bed moved slightly and a weak voice answered; “I hope so, Mary. It’s nice to receive a letter from our absent ones, at such times like this.”

Mary knew how it exhausted her mother to talk, so she said no more, but pulled down the blind to shut out the light, and left the sick room with a pain at her heart. Her keen eye had seen the tears on her mother’s eye lashes, and she felt certain that the poor invalid had been weeping over confinement and isolation from society and her friends.

In an hour the morning mail arrived, and she was agreeably surprised to find five letters, addressed to her mother, besides the one from John. She opened John’s letter and read it over carefully, to make sure that he had said nothing to hurt his mother’s feelings. John was so careless at times, and would bring up business problems that should not be spoken of when the mother was not in condition for such matters. Then Mary went up to the sick room and read John’s letter aloud.

“I’m glad to hear he’s well,” the invalid said laboriously, and closed her eyes again from sheer weakness.

“But mother,” exclaimed Mary, “here’s a letter from Mrs. Moore—your old friend, Mrs. Moore, of whom you spoke only yesterday.”

The invalid opened wide her eyes and listened until the letter was finished. It spoke of the old time friendship, and expressed hope that the invalid would soon recover, and be in condition to enjoy a visit from her friend, just so soon as the weather was settled.

“How kind of Mrs. Moore to think of me in my affliction,” exclaimed the invalid in much stronger tones. “It’s better than medicine to hear from her. Old friends are so dear to the heart, for they bring up old memories.”

“But here are letters from more of your old friends, mother. Here is one from Mrs. Bridgens, and one from Mrs. Jones, and one from old Miss Christie, and from Mrs. Cook.” And Mary sat for almost an hour reading the messages from old friends to the invalid of whom the writers spoke so tenderly, and wrote of old-time adventures and scenes from their girlhood days.

Mary was delighted to see the change these messages of love had worked in her invalid mother. The faded old eyes were lighted with a new illumination, and a little color had struggled back to her cheeks. She asked to have the letters given to her, and she brought both hands together to receive them, holding them as tenderly as a little girl would hold her first doll. Mary went downstairs, leaving the invalid holding her love letters so fondly, and when she returned in half an hour, she found her sleeping sweetly, and fondly holding those letters in one feeble hand. And Mary whispered:

“If they only knew how much pleasure and hope their letters brought to my dear old mother, they would never neglect writing to their old friends when affliction is upon them. God bless them for the hope and happiness they brought to this home.”

AT THE POOL OF LIFE

The unsatisfied hunger we experience during this life, creates a longing in every human heart for another trial at living after this life has been lived to the end. Once out on a desert, some travelers were perishing from thirst. The man came to a small oasis amidst a few gnarled and twisted trees. The sight of the trees was evidence that water was near, so he hurried his steps and came near to the desired spot. He found water there, but it was stagnated and foul, wild animals had been drinking and wading and wallowing in the pool until it looked sickening and disgusting to the traveler.

The hopes that filled his heart as he approached the promising oasis began to ooze out through his fingers, and a sickly sensation filled his soul. Yet this was all the available water to be had. His wife joined him a few minutes later, bringing two children. They remained over night at the pool, finding that the foul water had revived them in spite of the filth. They did not know which way to go to find the inhabited country, so they erected an improvised tent and thought to live there until some traveling caravan came that way, when they would follow it back to the green earth.

They could secure flesh to eat from the fowls that came to the trees and the young of wild animals brought there to get a drink of water. And so days passed into weeks and months and years, and the longing to be rescued became as a dead hope. None were satisfied with the befouled water, nor the narrow life, but the wife and children were afraid to again brave the desert and go in search of inhabited land. One night the husband and father became so sick and disgusted with the water that he arose and stole away by the light of the moon determined to find a better place of existence or become lost and perish out on the burning sands.

Next morning there was deep sorrow at the pool. The mother and children mourned him as one dead. They tried to follow him, but his tracks were soon lost in the shifting sands, so they returned to the pool and the friendly trees, resolved to wait until some one came to take them away.

This is a good illustration of man’s life on earth. He is never satisfied nor contented. The shallow pool of stagnated water never satisfies his longings for a deeper and broader life. And finally he goes away into the night of darkness, and the winds of mystery blow the sands of oblivion over his tracks, and no one knows whither he went. And the living sit at the pool and look out over the desert of life and wonder, and wonder, and grow more and more dissatisfied and say to themselves: “This life is so unsatisfactory and barren of real pleasure—there must be sweeter and purer water away over yonder.”

A PALACE WITHOUT LOVE

The divorce trial of a handsome young woman and her wealthy husband, brings up the story of her early environment and her unfortunate mother’s disappointed life. The woman now seeking a divorce was reared in the midst of matrimonial unrest and social misery—what other ending could the world expect in her own case? Where the union is not purely a union of heart and soul, a harmony of taste and temperament, where the souls are not tuned to respond to the same vibrations, conjugal happiness is simply impossible.

The mother of this woman in the divorce court was once a beautiful Irish girl, the daughter of a man who kept a small crockery store in Philadelphia. His store was located around the corner from the aristocratic neighborhood, where the scions of the old Quaker families reside in magnificent palaces. Sometimes a few of them would condescend to stop at the modest shop and make a purchase, but the liveried negro servants came more frequently to make the purchases desired by their masters. At such times they would sit and gossip with the Irish merchant and his wife about their aristocratic and proud employers.

These conversations with the servants revealed the great social chasm existing between the humble shop people and the wealthy aristocrats living just around the corner. The shopman’s eldest daughter, a beautiful girl of sixteen, listened to the tales told by the liveried servants of the rich, and a longing grew daily stronger in her humble soul to become rich and aristocratic some day, too. She cared not by what means. She only thought of the glorious end of the road leading up to one of these magnificent palaces, and gave no thought to the mud and the mire and the dangerous chasms to cross before arriving at the end of all this golden glory and glitter of gilded gladness. She dreamed of it night and day. Her pure soul became sordid and hard with an ambition that was ever in her dreams. On the street where the shop was located, students bound for the University of Pennsylvania would pass daily, and among them were a number of young aristocrats, exquisitely attired, with their coats thrown back to display their jeweled fraternity pins. As time went on, the daughter of the shop man developed into a tall, slender, beautiful girl, with violet eyes and chestnut brown hair, and a complexion of lovely pink. In the morning she would go outside the store to put the goods on display, and was noticed by the wealthy university students. One of them in particular fell desperately in love with the bewitching girl. They began to slyly flirt as the students passed. It would not be fair nor true to put all the blame upon the student. The ambitious shop girl was just as anxious to make a conquest as was the young man. She knew he was rich and could see that he was handsome. She felt only hatred toward the rich people who ignored her, and her humble parents. She could never love this young man sincerely, but she would sell herself for the grand position he could give her. He would always hold himself at an elevation far above her parents, and this would always be a sting in her soul, but she was too ambitious to hesitate at this.

One day he stopped at the shop to buy a shaving mug, and she waited on him. They became acquainted. She was fascinated with his beauty and fine clothes and polite manners. He made love to her from that day with ardor, and she was in the heaven of glory she had dreamed of as she attended to the shop. One day he proposed to her, and she gladly accepted his offer. Her ambition was to be gratified. Oh, the fascination and the wild ambition and magnificent hopes! But all the time she knew she did not love him with a sincere heart. Her humble origin, and his proud and aristocratic parents, made a chasm that could not be bridged in so short a time. Her parents thought it a fine bargain and sale, and encouraged the courtship. Love would come later on. A woman must learn to love where love pays the largest dividends in gold.

So the beautiful, ambitious Irish girl and the aristocratic youth were quietly married. When he told his proud mother that he had married the girl from the crockery store, the last happy smile died on her lips, and she never smiled again. She had such high ambitions for her boy, and he had spoiled them by a rash marriage.

Is it any wonder the marriage proved a failure? They had six children, yet the mother never loved her husband as a woman should love the father of her babies. She was ever conscious of the social chasm between them, and it was a thorn that never ceased to give pain. She had reached the place her ambition craved, but it did not reward her with happiness. There was more pleasure in slowly falling from it, than trying to go higher. The home and money and position were not satisfying. Her popular young husband and the social distinction he gave her were not satisfying. She was not happy.

She filled the aching void with lovers. One was a society man in her husband’s set, and one other was a big, dark, much-married actor. She broke her husband’s heart, she broke the heart of his adoring mother, and she grew more wretched herself every year. She then took to drink, and soon after to drugs. Coming home one night from a party she fell on the icy pavement and broke both lower limbs. She never saw a well day after the accident, and died at the age of thirty-four. She had starved her heart for wealth and position. She went without love to a high position and found it a bitter mockery. She had outraged her own soul. Then began the work of turning to ruin the palace in which she tried to live without love.

THE SOLDIER’S DIARY

In an old trunk, up in the garret where the family letters were deposited for more than half a century, I found the diary of a soldier, in which the following notes attracted my attention: “August 14, 1864. Yesterday was a terrible day for me. The battle at Deep Bottom, near Richmond, took the last of my messmates. Andrew Brown was wounded early in the engagement—shot through the thigh. Comrade Charles Pepperman assisted him to the rear. While they were gone, the man at my side, Amos Friedel was shot through the head and died instantly. Thus three of my messmates left my side within fifteen minutes. Pepperman joined the ranks an hour later, and a few minutes after was shot and fatally wounded. This morning Henry Traveler was found on the battle field, with his arm shattered horribly, and was taken to the hospital.

“In noting these fatalities and injuries, I cannot help but recall Comrade Shoemaker, the first of my messmates to pass out. His was the most pitiable death of all. He died three months ago of nostalgia. This is simply a melancholy growing out of homesickness. Shoemaker had married a pretty girl only a few weeks before he enlisted and went to the front. The army lay in supine idleness for several weeks, and Shoemaker had nothing to do but brood over his separation from the one he loved so fondly. A deep melancholia settled down upon his soul and we could not awaken an interest in his heart. Hour after hour his mind dwelt upon the scenes of his Pennsylvania home, and his deserted wife’s sad face looked out of the shadows and smiled the lonely smile of a forsaken woman.

“They took him to the hospital, but the doctors could find no organic disease in his body. He was simply dying of loneliness and a longing, longing to be with the people he loved. He was a large man, standing six feet in his bare feet, and this made his death all the more pathetic. We tried to get him a furlough and send him to his family at home, for thirty days, but the officers laughed at us, and said the man would come out of his melancholia in a few days and go to eating hard-tack. They were men without heart or sentiment, and they did not know the depth of Shoemaker’s gloom.

“Three weeks after being taken to the hospital, he died, and was buried in Virginia, and the longing wife never saw his face again.

“August 25th. Was to see Comrade Brown today, before they removed him to the hospital at Washington. He is very badly wounded, the bone being shattered and there is danger of gangrene. He gave me a letter to read which he received the previous day from home, written by his sister, Barbara. Among the many things she wrote was this: ‘On the night of the 15th and about two o’clock in the morning I dreamed that you came home. I could see you walking up to the door as plainly as I ever saw your familiar face. Your knock on the door wakened me out of a troubled sleep, and so sure was I that you were down at the door waiting to be admitted, that I insisted on some one going down to let you in. Of course it was all a dream, but so realistic, that I was sorely troubled until father read in the Tribune that you were wounded. Surely you must have been thinking of home at that hour.’”

There the diary ended. For it was only a portion of the book in which this unknown comrade had been jotting down the events of his army life. The hand that put those written pages in the old trunk has been dead for many years, and we can only guess who the writer was. He, too, may have left his bones to decay in Virginia soil, and his diary sent back to Northern friends. But I knew this Samuel Shoemaker, and I still remember of hearing my parents talking about his sad death. No doubt there were many thousands of young men taken from their mountain homes and rushed to the front, and the change was so great that they could not prevent their hearts from longing for the dear old scenes of home—for the dear old mother, wife or sweetheart. And then came the hopelessness and melancholia and the loss of courage, and finally death.

And yet that war settled nothing. The negro question is still the overshadowing problem calling for a solution. Burning negroes at the stake marks America as one of the barbarous nations.

TWO MEN WHO TOUCHED MY SOUL

When I was a young man I had occasion to write something for the local paper, published near my home. The late Girard Wright, brother of Theodore, editor-in-chief of the Philadelphia Record, was managing the paper at the time. He sent for me. Timidly I called at the office, for I was an awkward country youth and afraid of men who were established in the business world. There did not seem to be any place in the world for me outside of a barren hillside farm, and I always felt like a thief stealing off in the dark when I looked out over the world for something better.

Mr. Wright was a revelation and an inspiration to me. Why, he was just as approachable as a boy. A handsome man, with the kindliest and most sympathetic face I had ever seen. I can shut my eyes and see that intelligent face, with those sympathetic eyes, into which the hopeless could look and find hope and courage.

He wanted me to write for his paper. I told him frankly that I lacked education and vocabulary, and could write only in a crude style. And he replied:

“Why, that is what the people want. The world is tired of rounded phrases and poetical lines and erudite sentences. What the people want is original thought, new ideas—a new and original way of looking at every-day events, without prejudice or superstition or cant. You can do this, for there is an originality about your ideas—an independent peephole, through which you observe the world, without fear or favor. All you want is practice. You do not ape or copy after any writer I ever heard of, and practice will polish your original style to a surprising extent. If your style was borrowed, practice would do you little good. It might add to your ability to ape and copy after others, but the style would never be your own.”