Nellie L. McClung - The Next of Kin

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* * * * *

I wandered idly through the house--what a desolate thing a house can
be when every corner of it holds a memory!--not a memory either, for
that bears the thought of something past,--when every corner of it is
full of a boyish presence!... I can hear him rushing down the stairs
in the morning to get the paper, and shouting the headlines to me as
he brings it up. I can hear him come in at the front door and thump
his books down on the hall seat, and call "Mother!" I sit down and
summon them all, for I know they will fade soon enough--the thin,
sharp edge of everything wears mercifully blunt in time!

* * * * *

Then I gathered up his schoolbooks, and every dog-eared exercise-book,
and his timetable, which I found pinned on his window curtain, and I
carried them up to the storeroom in the attic, with his baseball
mitt--and then, for the first time, as I made a pile of the books
under the beams, I broke my anti-tear pledge. It was not for myself,
or for my neighbor across the street whose only son had gone, or for
the other mothers who were doing the same things all over the world;
it was not for the young soldiers who had gone out that day; it was
for the boys who had been cheated of their boyhood, and who had to
assume men's burdens, although in years they were but children. The
saddest places of all the world to-day are not the battle fields, or
the hospitals, or the cross-marked hillsides where the brave ones are
buried; the saddest places are the deserted campus and playgrounds
where they should be playing; the empty seats in colleges, where they
should be sitting; the spaces in the ranks of happy, boisterous
schoolboys, from which the brave boys have gone,--these boys whose
boyhood has been cut so pitifully short. I thought, too, of the little
girls whose laughter will ring out no more in the careless, happy
abandonment of girlhood, for the black shadow of anxiety and dread has
fallen even on their young hearts; the tiny children, who, young as
they are, know that some great sorrow has come to every one; the
children of the war countries, with their terror-stricken eyes and
pale faces; the unspeakable, unforgivable wrong that has been done to
youth the world over.

* * * * *

There, as I sat on the floor of the storeroom, my soul wandered down a
long, dark, silent valley, and met the souls of the mothers of all
countries, who had come there, like me, to mourn ... and our tears
were very hot, and very bitter ... for we knew that it was the Valley
of Lost Childhood!

CHAPTER IV

PICTURES

Nothing is lost that our memories hold,
Nothing forgotten that once we knew;
And to-day a boy with curls of gold
Is running my fond heart through and through--
In and out and round and round--
And I find myself laughing without a sound
At the funny things he said that time
When life was one glad nursery rhyme.

It should not be so hard for mothers to give up their children. We
should grow accustomed to it, for we are always losing them. I once
had a curly-haired baby with eyes like blue forget-me-nots, who had a
sweet way of saying his words, and who coined many phrases which are
still in use in my family. Who is there who cannot see that
"a-ging-a-wah" has a much more refreshing sound than "a drink of
water"? And I am sure that nobody could think of a nicer name for the
hammer and nails than a "num and a peedaw." At an incredibly early age
this baby could tell you how the birdies fly and what the kitty says.

All mothers who have had really wonderful children--and this takes us
all in--will understand how hard it is to set these things down in
cold print or even to tell them; for even our best friends are
sometimes dull of heart and slow of understanding when we tell them
perfectly wonderful things that our children did or said. We all know
that horrible moment of suspense when we have told something real
funny that our baby said, and our friends look at us with a dull
is-that-all expression in their faces, and we are forced to supplement
our recital by saying that it was not so much what he said as the way
he said it!

Soon I lost the blue-eyed baby, and there came in his place a sturdy
little freckle-faced chap, with a distinct dislike for water as a
cleansing agent, who stoutly declared that washing his hands was a
great waste of time, for they were sure to get dirty again; which
seems to be reasonable, and it is a wonder that people have not taken
this fact into account more when dealing with the griminess of youth.
Who objected to going to church twice a day on the ground that he
"might get too fond of it." Who, having once received five cents as
recompense for finding his wayward sister, who had a certain
proclivity for getting lost, afterwards deliberately mislaid the same
sister and claimed the usual rates for finding her, and in this manner
did a thriving "Lost and Found" business for days, until his
unsuspecting parent overheard him giving his sister full directions
for losing herself--he had grown tired of having to go with her each
time, and claimed that as she always got half of the treat she should
do her share of the work. Who once thrashed a boy who said that his
sister had a dirty face,--which was quite true, but people do not need
to say everything they know, do they? Who went swimming in the gravel
pit long before the 24th of May, which marks the beginning of swimming
and barefoot time in all proper families, and would have got away with
it, too, only, in his haste to get a ride home, he and his friend
changed shirts by mistake, and it all came to light at bedtime.

Then I lost him, too. There came in his place a tall youth with a
distinct fondness for fine clothes, stiff collars, tan boots, and
bright ties; a dignified young man who was pained and shocked at the
disreputable appearance of a younger brother who was at that time
passing through the wash-never period of his life and who insisted
upon claiming relationship even in public places. Who hung his room
with flags and pennants and photographs. Who had for his friends many
young fellows with high pompadours, whom he called by their surnames
and disputed with noisily and abusively, but, unlike the famous
quarrel of Fox and Burke, "with no loss of friendship." Who went in
his holidays as "mule-skinner" on a construction gang in the North
Country, and helped to build the railway into "The Crossing," and came
home all brown and tanned, with muscles as hard as iron and a luscious
growth of whiskers. Who then went back to college and really began to
work, for he had learned a few things about the value of an education
as he drove the mules over the dump, which can be learned only when
the muscles ache and the hands have blisters.

Then came the call! And again I lost him! But there is a private in
the "Princess Pats" who carries my picture in his cap and who reads my
letter over again just before "going in."

CHAPTER V

SAVING OUR SOULS

O work--thrice blessed of the gods--
Abundant may you be!
To hold us steady, when our hearts
Grow cold and panicky!

I cannot fret--and drive the plough,--
Nor weep--and ply the spade;
O blessed work--I need you now
To keep me unafraid!

No terrors can invade the place
Where honest green things thrive;
Come blisters--backache--sunburnt face--
And save my soul alive!

No wonder that increased production has become a popular cry. Every
one wants to work in a garden--a garden is so comforting and
reassuring. Everything else has changed, but seedtime and harvest
still remain. Rain still falls, seeds sprout, buds break into leaves,
and blossoms are replaced by fruit.

We are forced back to the elemental things. Horses and cattle look
better to me every day. Read the war news--which to-day tells of the
destruction of French villages--and then look at the cattle grazing
peacefully on the grass which clothes the hillside, and see how good
they look! They look like sanctified Christians to me!

Ever since the war I have envied them. They are not suspicious or
jealous; they are not worried, hurried, troubled, or afraid; they are
oblivious of public opinion; they have no debts to pay; they do not
weary you with explanations; they are not sorry for anything they have
ever done; they are not blaming God for anything! On every count the
cattle seem to have the best of us!

It is a quiet evening here in northern Alberta, and the evening light
is glinting on the frozen ponds. I can see far up the valley as I
write, and one by one the lights begin to glimmer in the farmhouses;
and I like to think that supper is being prepared there for hungry
children. The thought of supper appeals to me because there is no
dining-car on the train, and every minute I am growing hungrier. The
western sky burns red with the sunset, and throws a sullen glow on the
banks of clouds in the east. It is a quiet, peaceful evening, and I
find it hard to believe that somewhere men are killing each other and
whole villages are burning.... The light on the ponds grows dimmer,
with less of rose and more of a luminous gray.... I grow hungrier
still, and I know it is just because I cannot get anything. I eat
apples and nut-bars, but they do not satisfy me; it is roast beef,
brown gravy, potatoes, and turnips that I want. Is it possible that I
refused lemon pie--last night--at Carmangay? Well--well--let this be a
lesson to you!

The sunset is gone now, and there is only a brightness in the western
sky, and a big staring moon stands above the valley, shining down on
the patches of snow which seem to run together like the wolves we used
to see on the prairies of Manitoba long ago. The farmhouses we pass
are bright with lights, and I know the children are gathered around
the table to "do" their lessons. The North Country, with its long,
snowy winters, develops the love of home in the hearts of our people,
and drives the children indoors to find their comfort around the fire.
Solomon knew this when he said that the perfect woman "is not afraid
of the snow for her household." Indeed, no; she knows that the snow is
a home-developing agency, and that no one knows the joy and comfort of
home like those of us who have battled with cold and storm and drifted
roads all day, and at nightfall come safely to this blessed place
where warmth and companionship await us! Life has its compensations.

Across the aisle from me two women are knitting--not in a neighborly,
gossipy way, chatting meanwhile, but silently, swiftly, nervously.
There is a psychological reason for women knitting just now, beyond
the need of socks. I know how these women feel! I, even I, have begun
to crochet! I do it for the same reason that the old toper in time of
stress takes to his glass. It keeps me from thinking; it atrophies the
brain; and now I know why the women of the East are so slow about
getting the franchise. They crochet and work in wool instead of
thinking. You can't do both! When the casualty lists are long, and
letters from the Front far apart--I crochet.

Once, when I was in great pain, the doctor gave me chloroform, and it
seemed to me that a great black wall arose between me and pain! The
pain was there all right, but it could not get to me on account of the
friendly wall which held it back--and I was grateful! Now I am
grateful to have a crochet-needle and a ball of silcotton. It is a
sort of mental chloroform. This is for the real dark moments, when the
waves go over our heads.... We all have them, but of course they do
not last.

More and more am I impressed with the wonderful comeback of the human
soul. We are like those Chinese toys, which, no matter how they are
buffeted, will come back to an upright position. It takes a little
longer with us--that is all; but given half a chance--or less--people
will rise victorious over sin and sorrow, defeat and failure, and
prove thereby the divinity which is in all of us!

As the light dimmed outside, I had time to observe my two traveling
companions more closely. Though at first sight they came under the
same general description of "middle-aged women, possibly
grandmothers, industriously knitting," there was a wide difference
between them as I observed them further. One had a face which bore
traces of many disappointments, and had now settled down into a state
of sadness that was hopeless and final. She had been a fine-looking
woman once, too, and from her high forehead and well-shaped mouth I
should take her to be a woman of considerable mental power, but there
had been too much sorrow; she had belonged to a house of too much
trouble, and it had dried up the fountains of her heart. I could only
describe her by one word, "winter-killed"! She was like a tree which
had burst into bud at the coaxing of the soft spring zephyrs again and
again, only to be caught each time by the frost, and at last, when
spring really came, it could win no answering thrill, for the heart of
the tree was "winter-killed." The frost had come too often!

The other woman was older, more wrinkled, more weather-beaten, but
there was a childlike eagerness about her that greatly attracted me.
She used her hands when she spoke, and smiled often. This childish
enthusiasm contrasted strangely with her old face, and seemed like the
spirit of youth fluttering still around the grave of one whom it
loved!

I soon found myself talking to them; the old lady was glad to talk to
me, for she was not making much headway with her companion, on whom
all her arguments were beating in vain.

"I tell her she has no call to be feeling so bad about the war!" she
began, getting right into the heart of the subject; "we didn't start
it! Let the Kings and Kaisers and Czars who make the trouble do the
fretting. Thank God, none of them are any blood-relation of mine,
anyway. I won't fret over any one's sins, only my own, and maybe I
don't fret half enough over them, either!"

"What do you know about sins?" the other woman said; "you couldn't sin
if you tried----"

"That's all you know about it," said the old lady with what was
intended for a dark and mysterious look; "but I never could see what
good it does to worry, anyway, and bother other people by feeling
sorry. Now, here she is worrying night and day because her boy is in
the army and will have to go to France pretty soon. She has two others
at home, too young to go. Harry is still safe in England--he may never
have to go: the war may be over--the Kaiser may fall and break his
neck--there's lots of ways peace may come. Even if Harry does go, he
may not get killed. He may only get his toe off, or his little finger,
and come home, or he may escape everything. Some do. Even if he is
killed--every one has to die, and no one can die a better way; and
Harry is ready--good and ready! So why does she fret? I know she's had
trouble--lots of it--Lord, haven't we all? My three boys went--two
have been killed; but I am not complaining--I am still hoping the last
boy may come through safe. Anyway, we couldn't help it. It is not our
fault; we have to keep on doing what we can....

"I remember a hen I used to have when we lived on the farm, and she
had more sense than lots of people--she was a little no-breed hen, and
so small that nobody ever paid much attention to her. But she had a
big heart, and was the greatest mother of any hen I had, and stayed
with her chickens until they were as big as she was and refused to be
gathered under wings any longer. She never could see that they were
grown up. One time she adopted a whole family that belonged to a
stuck-up Plymouth Rock that deserted them when they weren't much more
than feathered. Biddy stepped right in and raised them, with thirteen
of her own. Hers were well grown--Biddy always got down to business
early in the spring, she was so forehanded. She raised the Plymouth
Rocks fine, too! She was a born stepmother. Well, she got shut out one
night, and froze her feet, and lost some good claws, too; but I knew
she'd manage some way, and of course I did not let her set, because
she could not scratch with these stumpy feet of hers. But she found a
job all right! She stole chickens from the other hens. I often
wondered what she promised them, but she got them someway, and only
took those that were big enough to scratch, for Biddy knew her
limitations. She was leading around twenty-two chickens of different
sizes that summer.

"You see she had personality--that hen: you couldn't keep her down;
she never went in when it rained, and she could cackle louder than any
hen on the ground; and above all, she took things as they came. I
always admired her. I liked the way she died, too. Of course I let her
live as long as she could--she wouldn't have been any good to eat,
anyway, for she was all brains, and I never could bear to make soup
out of a philosopher like what she was. Well, she was getting pretty
stiff--I could see that; and sometimes she had to try two or three
times before she could get on the roost. But this night she made it on
the first try, and when I went to shut the door, she sat there all
ruffled up. I reached out to feel her, she looked so humped-up, and
the minute I touched her, she fell off the roost; and when I picked
her up, she was dead! You see, she got herself balanced so she would
stay on the roost, and then died--bluffed it out to the last, and died
standing up! That's what we should all try to do!" she concluded; "go
down with a smile--I say--hustling and cheerful to the last!"

I commended her philosophy, but the other woman sat silent, and her
knitting lay idle on her knee.

After all, the biggest thing in life is the mental attitude!

This was the third time a boy on a wheel
Had come to her gate
With the small yellow slip, with its few curt words,
To tell her the fate
Of the boys she had given to fight
For the right to be free!
I thought I must go as a neighbor and friend
And stand by her side;
At least I could tell her how sorry I was
That a brave man had died.

She sat in a chair when I entered the room,
With the thing in her hand,
And the look on her face had a light and a bloom
I could not understand.
Then she showed me the message and said,
With a sigh of respite,--
"My last boy is dead. I can sleep. I can sleep
Without dreaming to-night."

CHAPTER VI

SURPRISES

When all the evidence is in--
When all the good--and all the sin--
The Impulses--without--within
Are catalogued--with reasons showing--
What great surprises will await
The small, the near-great and the great
Who thought they knew how things were going!

Stories crowd in upon me as I write. Let no one ever say that this is
a dull world! It is anything but dull! It is a pitiful, heartbreaking
world, full of injustice, misunderstandings, false standards, and
selfishness, but it is never dull. Neither is it a lost world, for the
darkest corners of it are illuminated here and there by heroic deeds
and noble aspirations. Men who hilariously sold their vote and
influence prior to 1914, who took every sharp turn within the law, and
who shamelessly mocked at any ideals of citizenship, were among the
first to put on the King's uniform and march out to die.

To-day I read in the "paper from home" that Private William Keel is
"missing, believed killed"; and it took me back to the old days
before the war when the late Private Keel was accustomed to hold up
the little town. Mr. Keel was a sober man--except upon occasions. The
occasions were not numerous, but they left an undying impression on
his neighbors and fellow townsmen; for the late private had a way all
his own. He was a big Welshman, so strong that he never knew how
strong he was; and when he became obsessed with the desire to get
drunk, no one could stop him. He had to have it out. At such times his
one ambition was to ride a horse up the steps of the hotel, and
then--George Washington-like--rise in his stirrups and deliver an
impassioned address on what we owe to the Old Flag. If he were blocked
or thwarted in this, he became dangerous and hard to manage, and
sometimes it took a dozen men to remove him to the Police Station.
When he found himself safely landed there, with a locked door and
small, barred window between himself and liberty, his mood changed and
the remainder of the night was spent in song, mostly of "A life on the
ocean wave and a home on the rolling deep"; for he had been a sailor
before he came land-seeking to western Canada.

After having "proved up" his land in southern Manitoba--the
_Wanderlust_ seized him and he went to South America, where no doubt
he enlivened the proceedings for the natives, as he had for us while
he lived among us.

Six weeks after the declaration of war he came back--a grizzled man of
forty; he had sold out everything, sent his wife to England, and had
come to enlist with the local regiment. Evidently his speech about
what we owe to the Old Flag had been a piece of real eloquence, and
Bill himself was the proof.

He enlisted with the boys from home as a private, and on the marches
he towered above them--the tallest man in the regiment. No man was
more obedient or trustworthy. He cheered and admonished the younger
men, when long marches in the hot sun, with heavy accouterments, made
them quarrelsome and full of complaints. "It's all for the Old Flag,
boys," he told them.

To-day I read that he is "missing, believed killed"; and I have the
feeling, which I know is in the heart of many who read his name, that
we did not realize the heroism of the big fellow in the old days of
peace. It took a war to show us how heroic our people are.

Not all the heroes are war-heroes either. The slow-grinding, searching
tests of peace have found out some truly great ones among our people
and have transmuted their common clay into pure gold.

It is much more heartening to tell of the woman who went right rather
than of her who went wrong, and for that reason I gladly set down here
the story of one of these.

Mrs. Elizabeth Tweed is the wife of Private William Tweed--small,
dark-eyed, and pretty, with a certain childishness of face which makes
her rouged cheeks and blackened eyebrows seem pathetically, innocently
wicked.

Mrs. Elizabeth Tweed, wife of Private William Tweed, was giving
trouble to the Patriotic Society. It was bad enough for her to go out
evenings with an officer, and dance in the afternoon at the hotel
_dansant_ in a perfect outburst of gay garments; but there was no
excuse for her coming home in a taxi-cab, after a shopping expedition
in broad daylight, and to the scandal of the whole street, who watched
her from behind lace curtains.

The evil effects of Mrs. Tweed's actions began to show in the
falling-off of subscriptions to the Patriotic Fund, and the collectors
heard many complaints about her gay habits of life and her many and
varied ways of squandering money. Mrs. Tweed became a perfect wall of
defense for those who were not too keen on parting with their money.
They made a moral issue of it, and virtuously declared, "That woman is
not going to the devil on my money." "I scrimp and save and deny
myself everything so I can give to the Patriotic Fund, and look at
her!" women cried.

It was in vain that the collectors urged that she was only getting
five dollars a month, anyway, from the Patriotic Fund, and that would
not carry her far on the road to destruction or in any other
direction. When something which appears to set aside the obligation to
perform a disagreeable duty comes in view, the hands of the soul
naturally clamp on it.

Mrs. Tweed knew that she was the bad example, and gloried in it. She
banged the front door when she entered the block late at night, and
came up the stairs gayly singing, "Where did Robinson Crusoe go with
Friday on Saturday night?" while her sleepy neighbors anathematized
all dependents of the Patriotic Fund.

The Red Cross ladies discussed the matter among themselves and decided
that some one should put the matter before Mrs. Tweed and tell her how
hard she was making it for the other dependents of soldiers. The
president was selected for the task, which did not at first sight look
like a pleasant one, but Mrs. Kent had done harder things than this,
and she set out bravely to call on the wayward lady.

The D.O.E. visitor who called on all the soldiers' wives in that block
had reported that Mrs. Tweed had actually put her out, and told her to
go to a region which is never mentioned in polite society except in
theological discussions.

"I know," Mrs. Tweed said, when the Red Cross President came to see
her, "what you are coming for, and I don't blame you--I sure have been
fierce, but you don't know what a good time I've had. Gee, it's great!
I've had one grand tear!--one blow-out! And now I am almost ready to
be good. Sit down, and I'll tell you about it; you have more give to
you than that old hatchet-face that came first; I wouldn't tell her a
thing!

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