CHAPTER III.—WHICH PRESENTS THE STORY OF THE SMOTHERED SON
Our dinner over, Mr. Potter put a new log on the fire. Then we set the table aside and lighted our cigars.
“There is another sector in the line of the Williamites that is pretty thoroughly dug in,” said the Honorable Socrates, as he put his feet upon the fender and leaned back comfortably in his chair. “Let me tell you the story of
THE SMOTHERED SON.
“She was a Williamistic widow—the relict of the late Samuel Butters.
“She was also a Shrimpstone, of Kalamazoo. My friend, why do you sit there in cold indifference when I mention a fact so inspiring?”
“Who were the Shrimpstones?” I inquired.
“The Shrimpstones! Jiminy crickets! Is it possible that you are not familiar with the fame of Joshua Shrimpstone?”
“I have to plead guilty,” was my answer.
“To tell you the truth, so do I,” he went on, “but my own ignorance never surprises me. There is so much of it that a little more or less does not matter. It is the ignorance of so many of my fellow countrymen regarding this important subject that fills me with pity and astonishment. I have never met a man who could give me the slightest information regarding the Shrimpstones.
“It would seem that Mrs. Butters enjoys an arrogant and heartless monopoly of all knowledge about them. One does not feel like asking her to dispel his ignorance when she speaks the word 'Shrimpstone' as if it opened vistas of incomparable splendor and inspiration. No, there are things which even a lawyer can not do. There is a special look in her eye and a lyrical note in her voice when she says 'my grandfather, the late Joshua Shrimpstone.' I imagine that Bill Hohenzollern looks like that when he says: 'My grandfather, Frederick the Great' But I imagine, too, that Bill's manner is a bit more casual.
“I had done some business for Mrs. Butters now and then, and one day she came to get my advice on a strictly personal matter. Her son, John Shrimpstone Butters, was just out of college. She had expected Butters & Bronson, of the great corset factory, in which she had a considerable interest, to take him into the firm and give him a commanding position in the office. As they had not come forward with an invitation, she had asked them for that favor. They had refused—actually and firmly refused—and what do you think they had offered John—a great grandson of Joshua Shrimpstone? Why, they had offered him a place as errand boy at five dollars a week. They actually expected him to begin at the bottom of the ladder and work his way up as if he were nothing more than the ambitious son of a ditch digger. Mrs. Butters lost her self-control and sobbed as she confided the distressing fact to me.
“I told her that I would have a talk with Bill Bronson, the head of the firm, and see what could be done about it, and she left me.
“In my talk with him, Bill said:
“'We should like to do anything we can for Mrs. Butters's boy but all we can do is to give him a chance—the same chance that my own boy will have. He can begin at the bottom and we will push him along from one department to another as rapidly as he can master its details. He must learn every process from the making to the delivery of the goods. Above all, he must learn to be a good salesman. After a few years he might become the Butters of Butters & Bronson if he were willing to work hard.'
“I wired Mrs. Butters to call again at my office. She called. I told her what Bill Bronson had said to me.
“'What!' she exclaimed. 'He expects my son to become a common drummer and travel around selling goods to little shopkeepers! Impossible!'
“'Why?' I asked.
“'Because he does not have to. My grandfather, the late Joshua Shrimp-stone, left us enough so that we do not have to do that kind of thing. Besides. I do not think it is necessary. My son has intelligence enough to learn those menial pursuits without having to do them.'
“'You are wrong,' I said. 'The American way is to begin at the bottom. It's a very good way—the only way by which one may be thoroughly prepared for management. In that way he gets hold of the sense that is common in the rank and file of his army, and knowing that, he will know what to do in every emergency.'
“'If that is true, John might as well have been born poor. Does his position and the fact that I have five thousand shares of stock count for nothing?'
“'Well, you get dividends on the stock. If you expect to get dividends also on the position that you got from your grandfather you are wrong. In this country we have no crown princes who begin at the top. Inherited superiority is an amusing thing to look at but a poor foundation for credit. In this country we bank on demonstrated superiority.'
“Mrs. Butters rose and haughtily withdrew from my office with the pride of the Shrimpstones glittering in her eye.
“Now, John Butters was a good fellow. He was over-mothered. Indeed, the word for it is smothered. He was like a man cast into the sea with a Shrimpstone tied around his neck. He would have done well with half a chance. I never saw a man so badly in need of poverty, so damned with affectionate, gilded, comfortable female despotism. She bought one business after another for him and put him in at the top. He has failed in all these undertakings. His way is littered with broken crowns and the wreckage of little kingdoms.
“Now his youth is gone and he is the same useless, ineffective good fellow that he was in the beginning. For years he and his mother have been sitting on that high horse of hers and galloping around to the amusement of all beholders. He has got tired of it and jumped off and settled down as the clerk of a wife who takes him lightly.
“He is the victim of assumed superiority which is nothing more or less than Williamism.”
CHAPTER IV.—WHICH HANDS OUT SOME SOME COMMON TO THE SUPERERS IN AMERICA
The Honorable Socrates Potter went to the typewriter and got some oil and a cloth and began to clean the gun of his great grandfather as he talked.
“You see, William says: To hell with the common man. Let him do the work and the fighting. We'll take the product of toil and the loot of war and enjoy ourselves. We will not have a thing to do but super. If we glut the officers of the army and our leading citizens with, the product and the loot, they'll stand by us.
“Is it not significant that the number of plutocrats in Germany has doubled since the war began? William proposes to make human slaughter a business. He is running a giant butcher shop.
“Every idler, every superer is an ally of William and an enemy of Democracy.”
“But they seem to get the best of it—these superers,” I suggested. “They have a lot of fun.”
“They seem to, but, soon or late, they learn it hasn't paid. They come to grief or insanity—these slackers in the game of life. Let me tell you the little story of
THE WEDDING TOURIST.
“She had the most curious and painful brainful of sense preferred in the whole show.
“When I was a small boy my pocket was one day dispossessed of some green apples, a quantity of horse nails and lead sinkers, a squirt gun, a bird's nest; a piece of beeswax and a hawk's wing. This collection would rank high as an exhibit of eccentric assets, but the contents of this lady's mind belongs in the same alcove.
“It is to be credited to Alabama where she was born about sixty years before I met her in Paris last summer. She had a charming southern accent. It was the best thing she had. I liked it. I like all those little provincialisms which have the flavor of their native air and soil. Why shouldn't the manner of decent men and women grow in the way of nature out of their environment? I love the drawl that is the natural product of New England, the quaint, indolent slur of Dixieland, the breezy dialect of the Far West. If they all talked alike what a dull country we should have!
“Certain of the schools are trying to force a common method of speech. It is the dialect of Mayfair and Fifth Avenue. It would seem that they wish to turn us into human bricks of the same size, grade and color. Under the encouragement of Mr. Henry James, whose slender Americanism perished at last in formal expatriation, our New York and New England girls have begun to talk like Duchesses. But among women of the South and the Far West, you may still hear the real, genuine American talk. To me it is refreshing.
“At least this may be said for The Wedding Tourist—she was no school-made, rococo Duchess. She was as real and unaffected as a bale of hay.
“Sometimes I call her The Grasshopper Widow because she was always on the move. She had hopped twice around the world and back. When she needed a husband she reached out and grabbed one and hastened away on another wedding tour as if nothing had happened.
“To her, life was a series of wedding tours. She had jumped from one honeymoon to another in the most casual and engaging fashion. She was, indeed, a kind of professional honey-mooner who from the beginning of her matrimonial career had enjoyed the pseudonym of Baby. Inns, table d'hôtes, ruins, art galleries, theaters, scenery and honey-fuglement had filled her life.
“She had explored the capitals of the world with real feminine curiosity. She had loved their music and doted upon their art and tasted their religion and rustled in their silks and generally beat the bushes to see what would run out.
“When we first met, a remark of hers suggested my query:
“'Was your husband a Yale man?'
“'Which one? I've had two an' a half.'
“'Two and a half I I never heard of a fractional husband before.'
“'My first husband was only half a man, suh. I married my guardian when I was sixteen. He nevah would do a thing between trips but sit around an' eat an' drink mint juleps. We went on our wedding tour and I kept him going for two years, but it was hard work. Nearly wore me out. He was like one of those toys that you have to wind up before it will go. Always had a pain in his feet—nevah could dance or do a thing but just sit, or ride on the cars or in a spring wagon. Lordy, girls! don't evah marry a man 'til you've tried his feet an' have confidence in 'em. Now, you hear me! He nevah did do a thing to please me but call me “Baby.”
“The next man I married had a sistuh with a weak mind by the name of Peggy. I had to look after her an' she'd take out her mind, like, an' open it an' show it to everybody that came into the house, an' turn it inside out as if she was right proud of it. Honestly, it reminded me of my boy when he got his first watch—how he'd open it an' show you the works an' then hold it up to your ear so you could hear it tick. That's what Peggy was always doing with her mind, recitin' poetry or showin' you pearls of thought taken out of the clam beds of her intellect. It certainly was awful!
“Tercy Higginbottom had a wooden leg an' limped some, but the worst thing about him was Peggy. I have erected a monument a mile high to that man in the graveyard of my memory. He was right good to me. He would stump around all day lookin' at sights and take me to the theater in the evening and to supper afterwards and nevah murmured. Sometimes his leg got sore but he kept up.
“'I married him in Paris. We started off on our weddin' tour an' it lasted about fifteen years. We traveled an' traveled all that time. We played we was just married and on our honeymoon.
“'He used to say: “Baby, what a wonderful time we are having on this wedding tour.”'
“'We had two children—a boy and a girl. Once a year we'd come back to Paris and spend two or three months with them.'
“'You didn't take them with you?'
“'We left them with Mr. Higginbottom's mothah an' a nurse an' governess. Peggy, the sistuh with a weak mind, went with us—she was all the care we needed. She knew enough to hook an' button my dresses an' help me pack. She was the only black spot in all those happy years.
“'Percy took care o' my jewels. It was all he had to do.'
“'A tender husband and a watch dog of the jewels!' I remarked.
“'And there were hours when it kept him mighty busy—you hear me. I can't help laughin' whenever I think of it.
“'Once we missed one of my rings. We thought it had been stolen. The hotel manager had every maid and bell boy brought into our room and searched. Suddenly Percy found it in a waistcoat pocket.
“'One evening we were gettin' off a steamer. Suddenly I slapped my hand on my breast and yelled:
“'"My sunburst! Lord o' mercy! it's gone!”'
“'I was suah that I had put it on. We ran back up the gangway. We had only five minutes. Peggy fainted away—she was that weak-minded. You didn't dare sneeze for fear she would faint away. Percy grabbed her. I ran for the stateroom an' found the sunburst where I had left it under my pillow. We were all in, believe me—it nearly killed us. When we moved Percy always called the roll like: “The ruby ring,” an' I answered, “Here.”'
“The jade necklace.”
“Here.” Like that, until we knew that we had them all. That evening we didn't have time.
“'But we certainly did see the world until we lost something better than all the jewels. Lordy! Lordy! what a world it is!'
“'The boy died when he was eight. We were in Cairo. We hurried back to Paris. Mr. Higginbottom was nevah the same after that. I nevah could get him out of Paris again. He died there.
“'My next husband was the dearest and best man that evah did live. I met him here in Paris. His name was Horton. Weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. Some man! I says to myself: Now here's a man that'll las' me as long as I live. He drank too much, but I soon cured him o' that. He gave it up entirely an' our weddin' tour lasted 'til he died.'
“'Perhaps it wore him out,' I suggested.
“'No, he liked it and we were just as happy as two turtle doves. When I asked him to do anything, he would always say: “Well, Baby, you know best.”'
“'But he couldn't walk much. Weight was his great weakness. If you were jus' to think of him as a husband he was a little heavy; but no man is perfect.'
“'We had a big limousine an' he toted me around in that an' hired a maid to climb stairs an' go to the churches an' theaters an' art galleries with me.'
“'My daughtah had married an' settled in Chicago. One Decembah we thought it would be nice to go and spend Christmas with her. I just thought I'd stop beating around and get acquainted with my own family. We left Paris on the tenth and reached Chicago on the twenty-second. I called my daughtah on the telephone from our hotel.'
“'"My goodness! Is that you?” she said.
“'"Yes,” I said, “we have come all the way from Paris to spend Christmas with you.”
“'I'm awfully sorry, mothah,” she says. “The house will be full Christmas Day, but we'll have you for New Yeah's.”
“She stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes.
“'Say, I felt as if I had been hit with an axe. My husband said:
“'Well, Baby, I guess they don't want us. Don't you mind. We'll have a good Christinas dinner here at the hotel and then we'll go and spend a month in New York.”
“'I stopped traveling and went to thinking. Poor Mr. Horton didn't live long. Now he's gone an' I haven't anybody. No, my daughtah does not care for me. Her ol' nurse lives with her—an ignorant French woman. I offered to work hard if she would send that nurse away an' take me to live with her. She wouldn't do it—no, suh! She loves that nurse an' doesn't care for me—not the snap of her fingah. I have been trying to get a chance to work for the Red Cross. My money is about gone. They say money talks but all it evah says to me is “good-by.” My daughtah's husband has offered me a small allowance, but I will not take their money—no, suh! One wants affection from her daughtah—not charily! Lordy! what a world it is an' what fools we are!'
“'You've been playing ever since you were a little girl, and you're tired.'
“'Yes, I'm tired. I remember how my big brother used to come an' plague me an' break my toys. That is what Death has been doing to me. Wouldn't let me alone. I reckon he saw how foolish I was. I've seen about everything but I think the grandest sight in the world would be some one who was glad to see me. You can't make friends an' be always on the move.'
“I suppose she had come back to Paris to comb the beach for another wreck. But her beauty was gone—so was her occupation of Baby.
“Often, I wonder just how the story is to end—the story of that pathetic woman who was reaping what she had sown—the harvest of the childless mother.
“Well, anyhow, at last, common sense had landed in her intellect. She had never given it a chance before. Hadn't stood still long enough.”
CHAPTER V. WHICH DROPS A FEW ROUNDS OF SHRAPNEL ON THE HUNS IN AMERICA
Mr. Potter had got through with the gun. He rose and went to the wash basin as if intending to wash his hands. He turned suddenly as if he thought Germany were more in need of a washing. He strode toward me with a new idea gleaming in his eye and said:
“Darn it, I ain't got time to wash now. These Germans claim that they are the freest people in the world, and they are right.”
He thumped the table with a shut fist as he resumed his talk.
“One kind of liberty thrives under the Hohenzollerns: license is the precise word for it—not liberty—license to eat and drink and be sorry- -to satisfy the appetites of the flesh. The great crowd will stand a lot of tampering with its rights if you give it a good time—a broad privilege of self-indulgence. The Germans were a great people when Bill Hohenzollern took the reins of power—good-natured, industrious, God- fearing. The young men were encouraged to found their happiness on the sands of women, wine and song.
“The wine press and the beer vat are the indispensable adjuncts of Hohenzollerism. Alcohol is the balm of the mislaid conscience, the nourishment of the big-head and the pneumatic brain. These things lead to worse things. Swinish indulgence leads to the morals of the swine-yard.
“The church began to lose its power. The clergy were treated as Frederick treated the common soldier. They were kicked into servility. At first this kicking was politely done. Often the sore part was salved by the gift of a hundred marks. They were treated like hired men. They were to understand that they were just humble servants and that the Kaiser needed none of their advice. He knew all about the plans of God. Of course, in a little while, no man of brains and character would go near a pulpit. The priests of God became servile sycophants. The people ceased to respect them. The church had lost its power. To Germany it was an immeasurable loss.
“In France I found good evidence of the utter depravity of the German soldier. God knows I would not have thought it possible—the raping, the maiming of children, the daughters of whole communities carried into bondage. I would have thought that the decency common among dogs, even, in a Christian country, these days, would have shielded the helpless from such cruelty. It is evident that the officers gave countenance and encouragement to these crimes, or they could not have been accomplished. At the knowledge of these things, a cry of shame for their brothers in Germany has risen from the lips of all civilized men the world over.
“The infamy goes back to the men higher up—to Bill Hohenzollern and his gang of pirates and highwaymen. They have slain the soul of Germany.
“I am told by men who have lived there that in certain provinces a chaste woman is a thing unknown. Let us hope this exaggerates the truth. As to that I have no knowledge. But that the land of the Kaiser has lost its chivalry I have no doubt whatever. The loss of chivalry stands for the loss of conscience—for moral degradation. A man's value as a man may be accurately measured by his respect for women. A man who has no respect for women will have respect for your rights only because he has to. He would steal your purse if he dared. He is rotten to the core. Moreover, unless women are pure there can be no purity because they have the tender soul of childhood in their keeping.
“We ought to establish a moral quarantine here and save ourselves from the peril of German leprosy. It has arrived. It is spreading. You will find its symptoms in our theaters, now largely in the hands of the Germans.
“I have traveled much these late years and have failed to find an American city in which there was not one or more plays or moving pictures which reflected the morals of the swine-yard. There I have found girls and boys and children who are to make the life of America, drinking at the fountain of pollution, cleverly designed by the sex maniacs who live in the white lights of Broadway. On every sort of specious pretext—mostly that of warning the young—spaniel youths and porcelain-faced daughters of iniquity are paraded in libidinous enterprises. The cabarets and brothels of New York, with their fist fights between young women, their desperate, bull-dog encounters between sex maniacs, their ogling, besotted degenerates, sometimes with a lame pretense of a moral and sometimes without it, are shown for the entertainment of young America.
“The Huns have already invaded America, my friend. They are armed with things more deadly than guns and bullets. Their gun is the camera, their ammunition, the moving picture. That picture penetrates to the heart and soul of the young and no surgery can remove it. To them, seeing is believing.
“A man is mostly the sum of his memories. Think back and tell me what you remember of your childhood. It's the pictures you saw. I think the first thing I remember is the picture of a cat which my mother drew on a slate for me—a highly benevolent cat it was. The one I have remembered best is that of my mother standing in the morning sunlight among the hollyhocks by the open door and waving her handkerchief to me the day I went away to school. How often it has flashed out of my memory in these last forty years. There is no power like that of a picture for good or evil in the life of a child. Pictures are, indeed, the universal language of childhood.
“Now what is there in this special claim of the sex mongers that the truth about life—however hideous and revolting it may be—would best be known of all? Just this—it should be made known but not publicly in books and theaters. It should not be made a familiar thing—sitting at meat and lying down in bed with the sensitive imagination of the young. That will be sure to make it the one great truth of life. I prefer the privacy of home and the loving caution of a mother, taking care to impart the whole truth with its setting of perils and with no glamour of romance about it. I would as soon have my daughter's feet enter a brothel as her brain. She might shake the dust from her feet.
“What were the fruits of this home method in old New England? I would remind these European Americans who provide our amusements for us that the world has never seen a civilization like that of old New England. I am not saying that it had no faults, but its human product has justly excited the wonder and admiration of the world. There was not much of it. You could pick up those six little states and set them down within the boundaries of Minnesota and have 19,200 square miles to spare. Yet they gave to the world in the space of forty years, men of the stamp of Daniel Webster, Silas Wright, Charles Sumner, William Lloyd Garrison, William M. Evarts, George F. Edmunds, James G. Blaine, E. J. Phelps, Rufus Choate, Henry Ward Beecher, Dr. Channing, Lyman Abbott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry W. Longfellow, John G. Whittier, James Russell Lowell, Edmund C. Stedman, the Dwights, the Washburns.
“Wouldn't that seem to be doing fairly well?
“Now the fact is, men and women long for inspiration to a nobler life. There are those who will tell you that the crowds who go to hear Billy Sunday, do it simply to be amused. It is not true. It is a deeper thing. They go, driven by soul hunger. They long for wholesome food for the spirit. They wish to be stirred to nobler action and feel the inspiration of better ideals. They come by tens of thousands.
“There never was a clean, uplifting, noble work of fiction that did not number its readers by the million. There never was a strong inspiring play—like Peter Pan or Shore Acres—that failed to play to the full capacity of the house in which it was presented for years.
“Why then, ask us to wallow in all uncleanness—in the swine-yard of humanity?
“It is because uncleanness is cheaper and easier to get and is sure of an audience equally large and less discriminating; it is because these Huns care only for their own pockets and not a fig for the public good.
“Now, here is a work for the women of America. Here is a battle front on which they can fight the Huns. Men can help and will help, but they are busy with the more obvious and commonplace problems. This is a job of housecleaning. It is primarily a woman's job—that of setting in order the great house of America and looking after the welfare of its children. There is no greater work to be done than that of regenerating the theater. They can do it if they will.”
CHAPTER VI.—WHICH IS MOSTLY FOR THE BOYS OF OUR ARMY
The Honorable Socrates Potter hung up the old rifle and washed his hands. There was a very gentle look in his eyes as he began pacing the floor. I saw: that another mood was coming.
“We must learn that wealth is no excuse for idleness or pride,” he went on. “Every one must find his work and do it, or come to grief—that is the conclusion of the whole matter. We have our European Americans—our Mislaid Consciences, our Leatherhead Monarchs, our Smothered Sons, our Shrimpstones, our Wedding Tourists. We must use the slipper with a firm but kindly hand, and remind them that they are of the Hohenzollern breed and request them to fall in line and get the pace and spirit of Democracy.
“With all our faults we are, in the main, sound and healthy. Our average man can be relied upon. He is our heart and sinew. We need not boast of him. He is willing to give all rather than see the spirit of man yield an inch of the progress it has made. That is enough to say of him. If any European country can match him, we are glad and he is glad—not envious.
“Our average man would enjoy a drink now and then, but in many of our states he has said: 'If the good of humanity demands it, let there be prohibition—anyhow we will give it a trial.'
“The trouble with Russia lies in the fact that among its people there are no individuals—no men trained in the use of the intellect and the conscience. Its people are like bricks, all of the same shape, size and color—all two inches wide and six inches long. They have a common denominator of material and a common numerator of ignorance. Between them and their rulers there has been no average man to speak for them, so the people are helpless. They know not what to say or do. They have been Kerenskyed and Trotskyfied and driven about like cattle.
“The Germans have an average man, but he has suffered himself to be Williamized. His conscience has been mislaid.
“Since 1860 this average man of ours has given of his blood and substance for the ideals of Democracy and with not the remotest hope of gain. His God is the father of the whole human family—a God of progress whose aim is not the selfish enjoyment of a favored few, but the welfare of all men the world over. His aim is, in short, common sense—a common sense of honor and decency and brotherhood in the great family.
“Again we fight for this ideal—driven to it by the hateful conduct of our brothers in Germany.
“I wish you would say for me to the folks at home that there is a great opportunity in this big common purpose of ours—an opportunity to drop all outworn and unessential differences of creed and get together. Let us inaugurate the Ismless Sunday and cut out the waste—the waste of rent and interest and coal and light and energy. Let us cut out the empty seats and the empty preachers and the quarrelsome brothers and sisters and get together in the biggest meeting-house in town on a basis of common sense—the common sense of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man with Christ as the great example. Let us not worry and quarrel as to whether Christ was God or man. He was the first and greatest Democrat and would have us work together in peace for Democracy. That is the important thing.
“Tell those ladies who sit around the fireplace knitting sweaters and indulging in delicious chills of pessimism, to quit. There should be an asylum for the misery lovers who sit in snug security and dream of misfortunes—Zeppelin raids, submarine bombardments and the end of the world. They grab at every straw of pessimism. Nothing pleases them so much as to find fault with the Government, which is doing its best with a difficult problem, and mighty well at that.
“Tell them to stop shooting at the pianist. He is the only one we have. All faces to the front! The spirit of Democracy is confidence in the justice and the success of its cause. Let there be no discordant voices in our chorus.
“That reminds me of the story of
THE CUFFING OF ANN MARIA.
“In the town of my birth there lived a hen-pecked farmer of the name of Amos Swope. He was a peaceful and contented soul without any good excuse for it. His wife, Ann Maria, was a scold and a fault finder. She had pecked upon Amos for years. When she got tired her sister came and helped her. My father used to say that they reminded him of Philo Scott's pet crane. Philo used to lead him around with a big cork stuck on the end of his bill.
“'What is that cork on his bill for?' my father asked.
“'So's 't he can't peck,' said Philo.
“'Can he peck?'
“'Tolerable severe, an' when he hits anything he calcallates to put a hole in it, an' he ain't often disapp'inted. One day my dog, Christmas, tackled him and the old crane fetched Christmas a peck on the forward an' I ain't seen that dog since. He's just naturally mean an' he ain't never learnt how to control himself.'
“So it was with Ann Maria and her sister. But Amos used to sit as quiet and unconcerned as an old tree with a pair of wood-peckers knockin' away at it. He never pecked back but once.
“They had gone up to the St. Lawrence to camp out an' fish for a week or so—Amos and his boy, Bill, and Ann Maria and her sister. One day when they were landing a big fish they got into the stiff current above the Long Sault. Something had to be done right away. Amos dropped his tackle and began pulling on the oars. Bill went to work with his paddle. The women began to complain an' move around and rock the boat. They knew they were going to be drowned. They insisted upon it with loud cries. Amos, in the midst of heroic efforts, tried to quiet them. They continued to cry out and when the boat shipped water they dodged. It was a bad situation.
“Amos fetched Ann Maria a cuff and told her to dry up an' sit still. The women obeyed him. When they were out of danger he said:
“'It ain't fair to expect a man to rassle with a strong current an' run an insane asylum all in the same minute. If ye can't help, don't hinder. You two have been rockin' the boat for years an' I guess it's about time ye quit.'
“People used to say that Ann Maria turned over a new leaf and behaved herself proper after that.
“There's some folks that are pecking at the country these days. We're in the current of the Long Sault and Uncle Sam has the oars. We should remember that if we can't help we mustn't hinder. We can help William a lot by just yelling and rocking the boat.
“I wish you would say to the boys in camp on both sides of the ocean that I should like to go and share their work and perils. Last autumn I crossed the French and British lines where hostile shells were bursting—sometimes uncomfortably near me—and went within ninety feet of the German trenches. I have tried the perils which our boys will have to suffer, but, unfortunately, I am too old to fight with them.
“It is a great privilege they enjoy—that of going out to battle for honor and decency and the good of the world. They have entered the great university of common sense. There is no other like it. What a school is that comradeship of the camp and the trenches! For the first time in history the whole civilized world stands shoulder to shoulder.”
“Do you think our boys are likely to profit by their experience?” I asked.
“It all depends on the boy.
“Let me tell you a story just as I heard it from the lips of an American soldier lad. I would call it:
THE ALL HE LIFE
“He was a big, broad shouldered, brawny man with a rugged manner of speech. He described himself very well when he said to me: I can think as pure white as anybody but I want to talk like a he man.'
“He had been wounded by a burst of shrapnel and was not badly hurt, although one side of his face looked as if it had been raked by the claws of a leopard. He had told me that for a day after the accident he had heard a sound in his head 'like two skeletons rassling on a tin roof.'
“Who but an American soldier in France would talk like that? Indeed I found that he was from Kansas City and had the mixed dialect of the midcountry.
“'Do you think it makes ye better or worse—this game of war?' I asked.
“'Well, sir, I'd say better,' he answered. 'Ye get things measured up right, over here. Ye learn how to use yer thinker. Nobody knows what peace and home and friends are worth 'til they're gone and ye don't know whether you're ever going to see 'em again or not It ain't a bad thing to live the all he life a while and see the family in dreams. They look so gol durnably different. I reckon it's helped me. Maybe I better tell ye a little story and you'll see what I mean. It'll be a Christmas story.
“'We were in the ruined city of Peronne that Christmas Day. My friend and I were homesick and had tramped across country from the camp of our engineering corps to send a message to our wives in Kansas City, and to blow ourselves to a good dinner with a bottle of wine and cigars if money could buy 'em. We were a little over beaned and tea!—gosh! we were soaked in it, and that French tobacco reminded me of my father's cure for the epizootic. We had been gander-dancing on a new railroad for weeks. We were shovel tired and kind o' man weary. By thunder! we hadn't seen a woman in three months.
“'You who see women every day don't realize that they're a pretty necessary part of the scenery. Oh, you don't miss 'em for a week or so, but by and by you begin to find out there's something wrong. Things don't look right. The hole in the doughnut is too big. You'd be kind o' glad to hear what somebody said at the Woman's Club, and all about Betsey Baker's new pink silk, and how shabby that one old dress of your wife's was getting to be. You'd like to see a set o' skirts come along—I guess. It would kind o' comfort you. If you didn't have pretty good self-control you'd get up and wave your hat and holler.
“'Then—children—that's another thing you miss. We don't see 'em on the battle front—ne'er a one! What a hole they make in the world when you take 'em out of it!—especially if you've got some of your own. They come to me in my dreams—the wife and babies! I'll bet ye there's more'n a thousand of 'em crowding into that big camp every night, about dream-time, and looking for theirs.
“'Oh, I wouldn't have ye get the idea that we set and sob and talk mush and look sorrowful there. If you just grabbed a look at us and went on you'd say we were no Hamlets. Gosh, no! We play cards and joke and laugh and tell stories a plenty. You wouldn't get what's down under it all unless some feller kind o' confessed and turned state's evidence. No, sir—I don't believe you would.
“'I'm just telling ye enough to make ye understand why We went out to Peronne that Christmas Day and what happened to us there. I speak French pretty glib—that's another reason why we went. My mother was a Louisiana French woman. I got it from her when I was a little chap—never forgot it—and I bossed a gang of Frenchmen for two years.
“'We found a man who ran a little grocery shop and restaurant down in one of the old cellars. He had had a fine big café up-stairs before the German army swatted the town with dynamite. He was a sad little man who lived down there in the lamplight with his wife. The Huns had carried their two daughters away with them. He had cleaned the litter out of his cellars and repaired their walls and so they had a home and something to do.
“'I asked him if he could get up a good dinner for us.
“'"Oui, Monsieur,” he answered promptly. “I can get you a fine duck and celery and preserved strawberries, and I could make a little pastry.”
“'"How much for the dinner?”
“'"Thirty francs—I can not make it less.”
“'"Make it forty and we'll call it a bargain,” I urged.
“'You should have seen the smile on his face then.
“'"Les Americans! They always talk like that—God be with them!” he said. “Trust me, Monsieur. I will make you happy.”
“'Dinner would be ready in two hours and we went out for a walk and a look at the waste of ruins. It seemed as if there were miles of them—honestly! You see they loaded every basement with dynamite and wired the whole place and then touched the button. Down it came. There isn't a roof standing. We tramped about looking for relics. It was a pretty day and warm in the sunlight.
“'Suddenly a woman, dressed in black, with a little girl about six years old—spick and span and pretty as a picture—came along. They looked like angels to us. Didn't seem so they was exactly human. We stood watching 'em.
“'I reckon I'd have give about a year o' my life for a day's use o' that kid—honestly. I'd just like to have got down on the ground and rolled and hollered and tickled and tossed her just as I used to play with my own kids. My hands itched to get hold of her. We followed along behind 'em kind o' hankerin' and a wishin'. She was a pretty little thing as ye ever looked at, with curly hair hanging down on her shoulders and shiny, silver buckled slippers and white stockin's. I just wanted to frame up some kind of excuse to speak to 'em, but I suppose they wouldn't have understood me.
“'They stopped and looked around a minute and then the woman opened an iron gate and they went into one of the old dooryards. When we came along we saw that the woman was sitting amongst the rubbish and crying.
“'"It's her home—dummed if it ain't,” I whispered.
“'I reckon 'twas natural for 'em to come back to it on Christmas Day—plumb natural to come back to where they had been happy once with all the family around. What a place! You'd think that an earthquake and a cyclone had gone into partnership for about a minute and done a smashing business. About half the back wall was standing and there hung a little corner of the attic floor and the wind had blown the dirt up there and some flowers and grass all withered by the cold had sprung up in it, and beyond that was an old baby carriage with a ragged top and a spinning-wheel.
“'The little girl didn't seem to notice her mother. She was running around on the ruins and picking up broken dishes. I reckon that kid had got used to the crying of men and women. The sight of grief didn't worry her any more—not a bit. She was flying around like a bird on the ruins.
“'We sat down behind some bushes by the iron fence just to see what happened.
“'By and by I heard the little girl call in a voice that kind o' made me swaller—honest it was as sweet as the first bird song in the spring.
“'"Mother! Mother!” she called.
“'"What is it—little one!” the mother answered.
“'"Dinner's ready.”
“Talk about silver bells! Say, mister, never again! Honest, I never heard a sound like the voice of that kid. It kind o' floored me—sure thing! Up there at the front we just hear the growling of cannon and the whinnying of horses and the swearing of men day and night. Maybe that's why the kid's voice took hold of us that way. I don't know. After I had heard it I felt as if I could walk to Kansas City. Honest Injun!
“'We peeked through the bushes and saw that the little girl had dragged a board between her and her mother and covered it with broken dishes. Then she began to chitter-chatter.
“'Here's some lovely soup and there's a fine goose and a great bowl full of the best jelly that ever was and potatoes and celery and spinach and everything that you like, mother. It's a Christmas dinner you know. Papa will sit here and Henri will sit there and we are going to have the grandest time.”
“'So the little chatter-box went on—good deal like a fine lady—and her mother said:
“'"Papa! Henri! They are not here! They will eat no more with? us.”
“'"Why?”
“'“Mort pour la patrie—both of them! my child!”
“'"No, mother, they are here. I can see them just as plain! Come, mother, they are waiting!”
“'Oh, by thunder! If I only had a mind like that I said to myself—a mind that hadn't got so kind of stiff and sore and muscle bound—a mind that was so clean and supple and that hadn't forgotten how to believe in the things I do not see. Or do ye suppose that the clear eyes of a kid can realty see things that we can't?
“'"God bless you—nay little saviour! You know how to make me happy—don't ye?” said the mother with her handkerchief at her eyes.
“Then they both sat down there and began to eat that ghostly dinner with the ghosts of the dead.
“'Gosh all hemlock! I just shut my eyes and heard a sound like a wind blowing in my head. I turned and whispered to my pal.'
“'"You stay here. I'll be back right away.”'
“Then I sloped on my tiptoes. Went to the cellar and found that man and brought him with me. I told him to invite them to dinner and that I would pay for it. I didn't care if it took the last sous marquee in my breeches.
“When we got back they were both singing The Marseillaise, that my mother taught me when I was a kid, as they sat at their Christmas dinner:=
````Amour sacré de la patrie
````Conduis soutiens nos bras vengeurs
````Liberté Liberté cherie,
````Combats avec tes défenseurs!=
“They heard us coming and stopped. Can ye beat it? Say, mister, the boches might as well try to conquer the birds of the air.
“The man knew them. They had been well off and respectable folks in Peronne before the war. Now they were refugees living on charity in a distant village.
“'We gave them a part of our dinner but I do not think they were as happy in the cellar as they had been with the ghosts. They were very glum but we—well, ye know, sir, I reckon they helped our Christmas a lot. You bet I do.
“'Ye know I had him put three extra plates at oar table—one for Mary and one for little Kate and one for my roguish boy Bill. Say, I had learned something from that kid—you bet. It isn't necessary for me to fall asleep to have 'em with me now.
“The eats! Say, Fred Harvey wouldn't be deuce high with that little Frenchman.
“'We had some dinner, don't you doubt it, my friend, and forgot that there was a war.
“'And ye know the funny part of it is this: Mary wrote me of her dream that she and the kids had dinner with me on Christmas Day.'
“I have told you this story because it gives you a day in the life of an American soldier, with its psychological background and a glimpse of the fatherless children. If you were one of the boys in khaki I would remind you that, after all, there is only one great thing in the world—man. What an extension of human sympathy and understanding is coming to you, my bright young soldier lad! As it comes it will go out in some measure to the duller fellows who share your thought and meat and perils.
“You will have a wiser brain, a nobler spirit and a stronger body. This digging and marching and sweating in the open is the best thing that can happen to you. I often thought that no wiser thing could be done for our college boys than mobilize them every summer and send them to camp in the wheat-fields for two or three months of hard work.
“What's the matter with an army of peace, with its companies, regiments and divisions, doing, under military discipline, constructive instead of destructive work—doing the things that need most to be done, getting in the harvests or building roads? It might give a part of its time each day to military training, especially to rifle practise. It would be a school of Democracy. Its best product would be spirit, its next best brawn, and last of all the work done.
“You will encounter perils in France, my brave lad, and the least of them will be those of the battle-field. It is when you go to Paris on leave that I would have you look out for yourself.
“I'm not much of a preacher. I am not so foolish as to think that all wisdom is in the Bible. To speak honestly, I am inclined to think that there are many things in the Bible which oughtn't to be there. The Kaiser seems to me to be imitating the sanctified slayers of the Old Testament. You will find chapters there which read like a report of the German General Staff after a successful drive. It is there that crazy Bill finds his warrant for disemboweling so many people and mistreating his prisoners. That kind of history should be summarily deprived of the odor of sanctity, in my humble opinion.
“But there is one sentence of Scripture that I would have you remember—my brave, fine fellows who are to fight under this flag of ours. Having lived some fifty years and been a somewhat careful observer, I would call it the most impressive sentence ever written. It is full of vital truth. Every young man ought to read it once a day and think of it as often as he is tempted. It is from the book of Job and it says:
“'His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.'
“Think it over, boys. Think of that word 'bones' which indicates how deeply it lays hold of you, and of the clause 'which shall lie down with him in the dust,' which indicates that only death can break its hold.
“Don't let the optimistic young doctors fool you. It is a serious matter. You can get along with the mud and vermin of the trenches. They will only afflict the outside of you. The main thing is to keep clean inside. Don't allow your life currents to be polluted. See that you bring bade to your home a clean body.
“You will do this, unless, when you go to Paris or to some other city, on leave, you fall for that French wine and lose your head in the process. Let it alone, I beg of you, and remember that your greatest peril is not on the battle-field.
“Do not for a moment lose faith in the issue. 'The cause of Liberty bequeathed from sire to son, though baffled oft is ever won.'
“I have seen how eagerly, how cheerfully the young men at the front give their lives for something greater than they. It has filled me with wonder.
“I have a little farm out here on the hills. It has helped me to understand the world I live in and especially these boys. How often I have seen the winds of autumn strip the grove and garden of their loveliness until nothing was left but dead stalks and bare branches. The captains and the kings had departed. I have seen them returning—the delicate green of the new leaves in spring, the grass, the violets, and here are the familiar sprouts of the poison ivy. I thought that I had tom the last of it out of the ground last summer, but here it is.
“Everything passes away but it returns, and the noxious ivy is the most persistent returner of all. I am busy fighting it every spring and summer.
“So it is with this world of men. Caesar dies, despotism is uprooted, as we thought, and we discover that they have returned and are busy growing and spreading their roots. Everything returns if you give it a chance. Herod has returned and is slaying the male children. Pilate has returned and is sitting in judgment.