III
THE ORDINARY WOMAN
I wish that I had the distributing of some of the Carnegie medals for heroes. I would give one to just the Ordinary Woman. It is true that she never manned a lifeboat in a stormy sea, or plunged into a river to save a drowning person. It is true that she never stopped a runaway horse, or dashed into a burning building, or gave any other spectacular exhibition of courage.
She has only stood at her post thirty, or forty, or fifty years, fighting sickness and poverty and loneliness, and disappointment so quietly, with such a Spartan fortitude that the world has never noticed her achievements. Yet, in the presence of the Ordinary Woman, the battle-scarred veteran, with his breast covered with medals signifying valor, may well stand uncovered before one braver than he.
There is nothing high and heroic in her appearance. She is just a commonplace woman, plainly dressed, with a tired face and work-worn hands—the kind of woman that you meet a hundred times a day upon the street without ever giving her a second glance, still less saluting her as a heroine. Nevertheless, as much as the bravest soldier, she is entitled to the cross of the Legion of Honor for distinguished gallantry on the Battlefield of Life.
Years and years ago, when she was fresh and young, and gay, and light-hearted, she was married. Her head, as is the case with most girls, was full of dreams. Her husband was to be a Prince Charming, always tender and considerate and loving, shielding her from every care and worry. Life itself was to be a fairy tale.
One by one the dreams fell away. The husband was a good man, but he grew indifferent to her before long. He ceased to notice when she put on a fresh ribbon. He never paid her the little compliments for which a woman’s soul hungers. He never gave her a kiss or a caress, and their married life sank into a deadly monotony that had no romance to brighten it, no joy or love to lighten it.
Day after day she sewed and cooked and cleaned and mended to make a comfortable home for a man who did not even give her the poor pay of a few words of appreciation. At his worst he was cross and querulous. At his best he was silent, and would gobble his food like a hungry animal and subside into his paper, leaving her to spend a dull and monotonous evening after a dull and monotonous day.
The husband was not one of the fortunate few who have the gift of making money. He worked hard, but opportunity does not smile on every man, and the wolf was never very far away from their door.
Women know the worst of poverty. It is the wife, who has the spending of the insufficient family income, who learns all the bitter ways of scrimping and paring and saving. The husband must present a decent appearance, for policy’s sake, when he goes to business; certain things are necessities for the children; and so the heaviest of all the deprivations fall upon the woman who stays at home and strives to make one dollar do the work of five.
That is the way of the Ordinary Woman; and what sacrifices she makes, what tastes she crucifies, what longings for pretty things and dainty things she smothers, not even her own family guess. They think it is an eccentricity that makes her choose the neck of the chicken and the hard end of the loaf and to stay at home from any little outing. Ah, if they only knew!
For each of her children she trod the Gethsemane of woman, only to go through that slavery of motherhood which the woman endures who is too poor to hire competent nurses. For years and years she never knew what it was to have a single night’s unbroken sleep. The small hours of the morning found her walking the colic, or nursing the croup, or covering restless little sleepers, or putting water to thirsty little lips.
There was no rest for her, day or night. There was always a child in her arms or clinging to her skirts. Oftener than not she was sick and nerve-worn and weary almost to death, but she never failed to rally to the call of “Mother!” as a good soldier rallies to his battle-cry.
Nobody called her brave, and yet, when one of the children came down with malignant diphtheria, she braved death a hundred times, in bending over the little sufferer, without one thought of danger. And when the little one was laid away under the sod, she who had loved most was the first to gather herself together and take up the burden of life for the others.
The supreme moment of the Ordinary Woman’s life, however, came when she educated her children above herself and lifted them out of her sphere. She did this with deliberation. She knew that in sending her bright boy and talented girl off to college she was opening up to them paths in which she could not follow; she knew that the time would come when they would look upon her with pitying tolerance or contempt, or perhaps—God help her!—be ashamed of her.
But she did not falter in her self-sacrifice. She worked a little harder, she denied herself a little more, to give them the advantages that she never had. In this she was only like millions of other Ordinary Women who are toiling over cooking-stoves, slaving at sewing-machines, pinching and economizing to educate and cultivate their children—digging with their own hands the chasm that will separate them almost as much as death itself would.
Wherefore I say the Ordinary Woman is the real heroine of life.