TRADITION
It was summer time--growing time.
The children of the little brown birds that had nested in the hedgenear the cherry tree, that year, were flying now, quite easily, awayfrom their little brown mother's counsel and advice. Even to the topof the orchard hill, they went in search of brave adventure, rejoicingrecklessly in their freedom. But, for the parent birds, the ties ofthe home in the hedge were still strong. And, every day, they examinedwith experienced eyes the cherries, that, on the near by tree, werefast nearing ripening time.
With every gesture expressing more clearly than any spoken word hisstate of mind, the man jerked down the top of his desk, slammed thedoor, jabbed the elevator bell, and strode grimly out of the building.
The man's anger was not one of those flash like bursts of wrath, that,passing as quickly as they come, leave the sky as clear as though nostorm had crossed it. Nor was it the slow kindling, determined, anger,that, directed against a definite object, burns with steady purpose.It was rather that sullen, hopeless, helpless rage, that, findingnothing to vent itself upon, endures even while recognizing that itsendurance is in vain. It was the anger of a captive, wild thingagainst the steel bars of its cage, which, after months of effort, ithas found too strong. It was the anger of an explorer against theimpassable crags and cliffs of a mountain range that bars his path. Itwas the anger of a blind man against the darkness that will not lift.
The man's work demanded freedom and the man was not free. In hisdreams, at the beginning of his manhood, he had thought himself freeto work out his dreams. He had said to himself: "Alone, in my ownstrength, I will work. Depending upon no man, I will be independent.Limited only by myself, I will be free." He said this because he didnot, then, know the strength of the bars. He had not, at that time,seen the mountain range. He had not faced the darkness that would notlift. Difficulties, hardships, obstacles, dangers, he had expected toface, and, in his strength, to overcome. But the greatest difficulty,the severest hardship, the most trying obstacle, the gravest danger,he had not foreseen.
Little by little, as the days and months had passed and the man hadmade progress in his work, this thing had made itself felt. Little bylittle, this thing had forced itself upon him until, at last, he wasmade to realize the fact that he was not independent of but dependentupon all men. He found that he was limited not alone by himself but byothers. He understood, now, that he was not free to work out hisdreams. He saw, now, that the thing most difficult to overcome--thething that forbade his progress and refused him freedom--wasTradition. On every side he met this: "It has never been done; it,therefore, can never be done. The fathers of our fathers believedthis, therefore we must believe it. This has always been, thereforethis must always be. Others do this, think this, believe this,therefore you must so do and think and believe." The man found, that,beyond a point which others could see, others denied him the right togo. The established customs and habits of others fixed the limit ofthe progress he could make with the approval of the world.
At first he had laughed--secure in his own strength, he had laughedcontemptuously. But that was because he did not then realize the powerof this thing. Later he did not laugh. He became angry with a sullen,hopeless, helpless, rage that accomplished nothing--that couldaccomplish nothing--but only weakened the man himself. As one shut ina cell exhausts himself beating against the walls, so he weariedhimself.
Not until he was in the full swing of his work had this thing comeupon him in force. At the beginning of his manhood life, when, in thestrength of his first manhood dreams he had looked out upon the worldas a conquering emperor upon the field of a coming battle, he had notseen this thing. When he was crying out to the world for something todo this thing had not made itself felt. Not until he had madenoticeable progress--not until he was in the full swing of hiswork--did he find himself forced to reckon with what others had doneor said or thought or believed.
And never had the man felt his own strength as he felt it now whenface to face with this thing against which his strength seemed sohelpless. If only he could have freedom! He asked nothing but that. Asin the beginning he had asked of the world only room and something todo, he asked now only for freedom to do. And the world granted him thefreedom of the child who is permitted to play in the yard but must notgo outside the fence. He was free to do his work--to play out hisdreams--only so far as the established customs and fixedhabits--Tradition--willed. "Beyond the fence that shuts in thefamiliar home ground," said the world, "you must not go. If you dareclimb over the fence--if you dare go out of the yard," said the world,"I will punish you--I will ridicule you, condemn you, persecute you,ostracize you. I will brand you false, a self-seeker, a pretender, acharlatan, a trickster, a rogue. I will cry you unsafe, dangerous, amenace to society and the race, an evil to all that is good, anunspeakable fool. Stay in the yard," said the world, "and you may dowhat you like."
Even in matters of personal habits and taste, the man found that hewas not free. In his dress; in the things he ate and drank; in hispleasures; in the books he read, the plays he attended, the pictureshe saw, the music he heard, he found that he was expected to obey themandates of the world--he found that he was expected to conform toTradition--to the established customs and habits of others. Inreligion, in politics, in society, in literature, in art--as in hiswork--the world said: "Don't go outside the yard."
I do not know what work it was that the man was trying to do. It doesnot matter what his work was. But this I know: in every work that man,since the beginning, has tried to do, man has been hindered as thisman was hindered--man has been denied as this man was denied, freedom.Tradition has always blocked the wheels of progress. The world hasmoved ahead always in spite of the world. Just as the world has alwayscrucified its saviors, so, always, it has hindered and held back itsleaders.
And this, too, I know: after the savior is crucified, those who nailhim to the cross accept his teaching. While the world hinders andholds back its leaders, it always follows them.
But the man did not think of this that day when he left the scene ofhis labor in such anger. He thought only of that which he was tryingto do. When he went back to his work, the next day, he was still angryand with his anger, now, came discontent, doubt, and fear, to cloudhis vision, to clog his brain and weaken his heart.
A friend, at lunch, said: "You look fagged, knocked out, done up, oldman. You've been pegging away too long and too steadily. Why don't youlet up for awhile? Lay off for a week or two. Take a vacation."
Again and again, that hot, weary, afternoon, the words of the man'sfriend came back to him until, by evening, he was considering thesuggestion seriously. "Why not?" he asked himself. He wasaccomplishing little or nothing in his present mood. Why not acceptthe friendly advice? Perhaps--when he came back--perhaps, he couldagain laugh at the world that denied him freedom.
So he came to considering places and plans. And, as he considered,there was before him, growing always clearer as he looked, the scenesof his boyhood--the old home of his childhood--the place of hisYesterdays. There were many places of interest and pleasure to whichthe man might go, but, among them all, there was no place soattractive as the place of his Yesterdays. There was nothing he sowished to do as this: to go back to the old home and there to be, fora little while, as nearly as a man could be, a boy again.
If the man had thought about it, he would have seen in this desire tospend his vacation at the old home something of the same force that soangered him by hindering his work. But the man did not think about it.He wrote a letter to see if he might spend two weeks with the peoplewho were living in the house where he was born and, when the answercame assuring him a welcome, quickly made his arrangements to go.
With boyish eagerness, he was at the depot a full half hour before thetime for his train. While he waited, he watched the crowd, feeling aninterest in the people who came and went in the never endingprofession that he had not felt since that day when he had first cometo the city to work out his dreams among men
. In the human tide thatebbed and flowed through this world gateway, he saw men of wealth andmen of poverty--people of culture and position who had come or weregoing in Pullman or private cars and illiterate, stupid, animallooking, emigrants who were crowded, much like cattle, in the lowestclass. There were business men of large affairs; countrymen withwondering faces; shallow, pleasure seekers; artists and scholars; idlefools; vicious sharks watching for victims; mothers with flocks ofchildren clinging to their skirts; working girls and business women;chattering, laughing, schoolgirls; and wretched creatures of theoutcast life--all these and many more.
And, as he watched, perhaps because he was on his vacation, perhapsbecause of something in his heart awakened by the fact that he wasgoing to his boyhood home, the man felt, as he had never felt before,his kinship with them all. With wealth and poverty, with culture andilliteracy, with pleasure and crime, with sadness and joy, asevidenced in the lives of those who passed in the crowd, the man felta sympathy and understanding that was strangely new. And, more thanthis, he saw that each was kin to the other. He saw that, in spite ofthe wide gulf that separated the individuals in the throng, there wasa something that held them all together--there was a force thatinfluenced all alike--there was a something common to all. In spite ofthe warring elements of society; in spite of the clashing forces ofbusiness; in spite of the conflicting claims of industry representedin the throng; the man recognized a brotherhood, a oneness, a kinship,that held all together. And he felt this with a strange feeling thathe had always known that it was there but had never recognized itbefore.
The man did not realize that this was so because he was not thinkingof the people in their relation to his work. He did not know, that,because his heart and mind were intent upon the things of hisYesterdays, he saw the world in this new light. He did not, then,understand that the force which hindered and hampered him in hiswork--that denied him the full freedom he demanded--was the same forcethat he now felt holding the people together. Even as they all,whether traveling in Pullman, private car, or emigrant train, passedover the same rails, so they all, in whatever class they traveled onthe road of Life, were guided by the Traditions--the establishedcustoms--the fixed habits--that are common to their race or nation.And the strength of a people, as a people, is in this oneness--thisforce that makes them one--the Traditions and customs and habits oflife that are common to all. It is the fences of the family dooryardsthat hold the children of men together and make the people of a raceor nation one.
So it was that the man, knowing it not, left his work behind and went,for strength and rest, back to the scenes of his Yesterdays inobedience to the command of the very thing that, in his work, hadstirred him to such rage. For what, after all, are Traditions andcustoms and habits but a going back into the Yesterdays.
As the train left the city farther and farther behind, the man'sthoughts kept pace with the fast flying wheels that were bearing himback to the scenes of his childhood. From the present, he retraced hissteps to that day when he had dreamed his first manhood dreams and tothose hard days when he was asking of the world only something to do.As, step by step, he followed his way back, incidents, events,experiences, people, appeared, even as from the car window he caughtglimpses of the whirling landscape, until at last he saw, across thefields and meadows familiar to his childhood, the buildings of the oldhome, the house where the little girl had lived, the old church, andthe orchard hill where he had sat that day when the smoke of a distanttrain moving toward the city became to him a banner leading to thebattle front. Then the long whistle announced the station. Eagerly theman collected his things and, before the train had come to a fullstop, swung himself to the depot platform where he was met by hiskindly host.
As they drove past the fields and pastures, so quiet after the noisycity, the man grew very still. Past the little white church among itsold trees at the cross roads; down the hill and across the creek; andslowly up the other side of the valley they went: then past the housewhere the little girl had lived; and so turned in, at last, to thehome of that boy in the Yesterdays. And surely it was no discredit tothe man that, when they left him alone in his old room to prepare forthe evening meal, he scarce could see for tears.
Scenes of childhood! Memories of the old home! Recollections of thedear ones that are gone! No more can man escape these things of theYesterdays than he can avoid the things of to-day. No more can mandeny the past than he can deny the present. Tradition is to men as agovernor to an engine; without its controlling power the race wouldspeed quickly to its own destruction. One of the Thirteen Truly GreatThings of Life is Tradition.
For two happy, healthful, restful, strengthening, inspiring weeks, theman lived, so far as a man can live, in his Yesterdays. In the coolshade of the orchard that once was an enchanted wood; under the oldapple tree ship beside the meadow sea; on the hill where, astride hisrail fence war horse, the boy had directed the battle and led thedesperate charge and where the man had dreamed the first of hismanhood dreams; in the garden where the castaway had lived on hisdesert island; in the yard near mother's window where the boy hadbuilded the brave play house for the little girl next door; in thevalley, below where the little girl lived, beside the brook that inits young life ran so pure and clear; at the old school house in theedge of the timber; in the ancient cemetery, beside the companiongraves; through the woods and fields and pastures; beside the old millpond with its covered bridge; the man lived again those days of thelong ago.
But, in the places of his Yesterdays, the man found, already, manychanges. The houses and buildings were a little more weather-beaten,with many of the boards in the porch floors and steps showing decay.The trees in the orchard were older and more gnarled with here andthere gaps in their ranks. The fences showed many repairs. The littleschoolhouse was almost shabby and, with the wood cleared away, lookednaked and alone. The church, too, was in need of a fresh coat ofwhite. And there were many new graves in the cemetery on the hill. Astime had wrought changes in the man himself, even so had it alteredthe scenes of his boyhood. Always, in men and in things, time workschanges.
But it is not the changes wrought by time that harms. These come asthe ripening of the fruit upon the tree. It is the sudden, violent,transformations that men are ever seeking to make, both in things andin themselves, that menace the ripening life of the race. It is well,indeed, for the world to hold fast to its Traditions. It is well tocling wisely to the past.
Nor did the man live again in his Yesterdays alone. He could not.Always, she was there--his boyhood mate--the little girl who livednext door.
But the opening in the hedge that, at the lower end of the garden,separated the boy's home from the home of the little girl, was closed.Long and carefully the man searched; smiling, the while, at a foolishwish in his heart that time would leave that little gate of theYesterdays always open. But the ever growing branches had woven athick barrier across the green archway hiding it so securely that, tothe man, no sign was left to mark where it had been.
With that foolish regret still in his heart, the man asked, quitecasually, of the people who were living in the house if they knewaught about his playmate of the Yesterdays.
They could tell him very little; only that she lived in a city somedistance from his present home. What she was doing; whether married oralone; they could not say.
And the man, as he stood, with bared head, under the cherry tree inthe corner near the hedge, told himself that he was glad that thepeople could tell him nothing. In his busy, grown up, life there wasno room for a woman. In his battle with the things that challenged hisadvance, he must be free to fight. It was better for him that thelittle girl lived only in his Yesterdays. The little girl who hadhelped him play out his boyhood dreams must not hinder him while heworked out the dreams of his manhood. That is what the man toldhimself as he stood, with bared head, under the cherry tree. With thememory of that play wedding and that kiss in his heart, he toldhimself _that_!
I wonder, sometimes, what would happen if men sho
uld chance todiscover how foolish they really are.
No doubt, the man reflected--watching the pair of brown birds as theyinspected the ripening cherries--no doubt she has long ago forgottenthose childish vows. Perhaps, in the grown up world, she has eventaken new and more binding vows. Would he ever, he wondered, meet onewith whom he could make those vows again? Once he had met one withwhom he thought he wished to make them but he knew, now, that he hadbeen mistaken. And he knew, too, that it was well that he had foundhis mistake in time. Somehow, as he stood there again under the cherrytree, the making of such vows seemed to the man more holy, moresacred, than they had ever seemed before. Would he dare--He wondered.Was there, in all the world, a woman with whom he could--The manshrugged his shoulders and turned away. Yes, indeed, it was muchbetter that she lived only in his Yesterdays. And still--still--in theman's heart there was regret that Time had closed that gateway of hisYesterdays.
And often, in the twilight of those evenings, after a day of wanderingabout the place, visiting old scenes, or talking with the long timefriends of his people, the man would recall the traditions of hisfamily; hearing again the tales his father would tell by the winterfireside or listening to the stories that his mother would relate on aSunday or a stormy afternoon. Brave tales they were--brave tales andtrue stories of the man's forbears who had lived when the country wasyoung and who had played no small part in the nation's building. And,as he recalled these traditions of his people, the man's heartthrilled with loyal pride while he determined strongly to keep thesplendid record clean. As a sacred heritage, he would receive thesetraditions. As a holy duty he would be true to that which had been.
Reluctantly, but with renewed strength and courage, when the time camefor his going, the man set his face away from his Yesterdays--set itagain toward his work--toward the working out of his dreams. And, ashe went, there was for the thing that checked his progress somethingmore than anger--for the thing that forced him to go slowly there waspatience.
Standing on the rear platform, as his train moved slowly away past anincoming train that had just pulled onto a siding, the man saw theneighbor who lived next door to his old home drive hurriedly up. Theman in the carriage waved his hand and the man on the moving train,answering in like manner, wondered idly what had brought the neighborthere. Surely he had not come to bid one who was almost a strangergood-bye. And, strangely enough, as the man watched from the windowfor a last view of the scenes of his Yesterdays, there was in hisheart, again, regret that the little opening in the hedge was closed.
* * * * *
The city was sweltering in a summer heat wave. The sun shone through adingy pall of vile smoke with a sickly, yellow, glare. From thepavement and gutter, wet by the sprinkling wagons, in a vain effort tolay the dust, a sticky, stinking, steam lifted, filling the nostrilsand laving the face with a combination of every filthy odor. Theatmosphere fairly reeked with the smell of sweating animals,perspiring humanity, rotting garbage, and vile sewage. And, in themidst of the hot filth, the people moved with languid, feeble manner;their faces worn and pallid; their eyes dull and weary; their voicesthin and fretful.
The woman's heart was faint with the weight of suffering that she washelpless to relieve. Her quivering nerves shrieked with the horror ofconditions that she could not change. Her brain ached withcontemplation of the cruel necessity that tortured humankind. Her verysoul was sick with the hopelessness of the gasping, choking,struggling, multitude who, in their poverty and blindness, toiled topreserve their lives of sorrow and pain and sought relief from theirlabors in pleasures more horrible and destructive, by far, than theslavery to which they gave themselves for the means to pay.
The woman was tired--very tired. Heart and nerves and brain and souland body were tired with a weariness that, it seemed to her, wouldnever pass. She was tired of the life into which she had gone becauseit was the custom of the age and because of her necessity--the lifeinto which she had not wished to go because it denied her womanhood.Because she knew herself to be a woman, she felt that she was beingrobbed of the things of her womanhood. The brightness and beauty, thestrength and joyousness of her womanhood were, by her, held as sacredtrusts to be kept for her children and, through them, for the race.She wearied of the struggle to keep the things of her womanhood fromthe world that was taking them from her--that put a price uponthem--that used them as thoughtlessly as it uses the stone and metaland wood that it takes from the earth. She was tired of the horridlife that crowded her so closely--that crushed itself against her inthe crowded cars--that leered into her face on the street--thatreached out for her from every side--that hungered for her with afierce hunger and longed for her with a damnable, fiendish, longing.She was faint and weak from contact with the loathsome things that shewas forced to know and that would leave their mark upon her womanhoodas surely as the touch of pitch defiles. And she was weary, so weary,waiting for that one with whom she could cross the threshold of theold, old, open door.
Little time was left to her, now, for thought and preparation for thelife of which she had dreamed. Little heart was left to her, now, fordreaming. Little courage was left for hope. But still her dreamslived. Still she waited. Still, at times, she hoped.
But the thing that most of all wearied the woman, who knew that shewas a woman, was this: the restless, discontented, dissatisfied,uneasy, spirit of the age that, scorning Tradition in a shallow, sillypride, struggles for and seems to value only that which is newregardless of the value of the thing itself. The new in dress,regardless of beauty or fitness in the costume--the new in thought,regardless of the saneness of the thinking--the new in customs andmanner of living--the new in the home, in marriage relation, in theeducation and rearing of children--new philosophy, new science, newreligion, new art, new music, new books, new cooking, new women--itsometimes appears that the crime of crimes, the most degradingdisgrace, these days, is to be held old-fashioned, behind-the-times,out-of-date, and that everything, _everything_, not new isold-fashioned--everything not of the times isbehind-the-times--everything not down-to-date is out-of-date.
Patriotism, love of country, is old, very old, and is also--ortherefore--quite out-of-date. To speak or write of patriotism,seriously, or to consider it a factor in life--to live it, depend uponit, or appeal to it, is to be considered very strange and sadlyold-fashioned. The modern, down-to-date, age considers seriously notpatriotism but "graft" and "price" and "boodle." These are the modernforces by which the nation is said to be governed; these are the meansby which the nation strives to go ahead. To talk only of these things,to believe only in these things, to live only these things, is to bemodern and down--low down--to-date. To work from any motive but themaking of money is to be queerly behind-the-times. To write a book orpaint a picture or sing a song, to preach a sermon, to do anything forany reason under heaven but for cash marks you a fanatic and a fool.To believe, even, that anyone does anything save for the money thereis in it stamps you simple and unsophisticated, indeed. To professsuch belief, save you put your tongue in your cheek, marks youpeculiar.
Long, long, ago mankind put its best strength, its best thought, itsbest life, into its works, without regard for the price, simplybecause it was its work. And the work so wrought in those queerold-fashioned days has most curiously endured. There is little dangerthat much of our modern, down-to-date work will endure for the verysimple reason that we do not want it to endure. "The world wantssomething new." Down-to-date-ism does not want its work to last longerthan the dollar it brings. Never fear, the world is getting somethingnew! But, though we have grown so bravely away from those queer,old-fashioned days we have not succeeded yet in growing altogetheraway from the works that those old-fashioned days produced. But,patience, old world--patience--down-to-date-ism may, in time,accomplish even this.
In those old, old, times, too, it was the fashion for men and women tomate in love. In love, they planned and builded their homes. In love,they brought forth children and reared them, with queer, old-fashionednotions ab
out marriage, to serve the race. In those times, now sosadly old and out-of-date, men planned and labored for homes andchildren and women were home makers and mothers. But the world is nowfar from those ancient ways and out-of-date ideals. Marriage haslittle to do with home making these modern days. It has almost nothingto do with children. We have, in our down-to-date-ism, come to be anation of childless wives and homeless husbands. We are dwellers inflats, apartments, hotels, where children would be in the way but dogsare welcome if only they be useless dogs. We live in houses that arealways for sale or rent. It is our proud boast that we possess nothingthat is not on the market for a price. The thought of selling a homeis not painful for we do not know, the value of a home. We have, forconvenience, to gratify our modern, down-to-date, ever changingtastes, popularized the divorce court as though a husband or wife ofmore than three seasons is old-fashioned and should be discarded forone of a newer pattern, more in harmony with our modern ideals ofmarriage.
From the down-to-date--the all-the-way-down-to-date woman, I mean--onegains new and modern ideas of the service that womankind is to renderto the race. Almost it is as though God did not know what he was aboutwhen he made woman. To place a home above a club; a nursery above thepublic platform; a fireside above politics; the prattle of childrenabove newspaper notoriety; the love of boys and girls above theexcitement of social conquest; the work of bearing strong men and truewomen for the glory of the race above the near intellectual pursuitsand the attainments of a shallow thinking; all this is to be sadlyold-fashioned. All this is so behind-the-times that one must confesssuch shocking taste with all humiliation.
I hereby beg pardon of the down-to-date powers that be, and mosthumbly pray that they will graciously forgive my boorishness. I assureyou that, after all, I am not so benighted that I do not realize howseriously babies would interfere in the affairs of those down-to-datewomen who are elevating the race. By all means let the race beelevated though it perish, childless, in the process. Very soon, now,womanhood itself will be out-of-date for the world, in this also,seems to be evolving something new.
So the woman, who knew herself to be a woman, most of all, was tiredof things new and longed, deep in her heart, for the old, old, thingsthat were built into the very foundation of the race and that noamount of gilding and trimming and ornamenting can ever cover up orhide; and no amount of disregarding or ignoring can do away with; lestindeed the race perish from the earth.
"And when do you take your vacation?" asked a fellow worker as theywere leaving the building after the day's work.
"Not until the last of the month," returned the woman wearily. "Andyou?"
"Me, oh, I must go Monday! And it's such a shame! I've just received acharming invitation for two weeks later but no one cares to exchangetime with me. No one, you see, can go on such short notice. I don'tsuppose that you--" she paused suggestively.
"I will exchange time with you," said the woman simply.
"Will you really? Now, that _is_ clever of you! Are you_sure_ that you don't mind?"
"Indeed, I will be glad to get away earlier."
"But can you get ready to go so soon?"
The woman smiled. "I shall do very little getting ready."
The other looked at her musingly. "No, I suppose not, you are so queerthat way. Seems to me I can't find time enough to make new things. Onejust _must_ keep up, you know."
"It is settled then?" asked the woman, at the corner where theyparted.
"It will be so good of you," murmured the other.
The woman had many invitations to spend her brief vacation withfriends, but, that night, she wrote a letter to the people who livedin her old home and asked if they would take her for two weeks,requesting that they telegraph their answer. When the message came,she wired them to meet her and went by the first train.
At the old home station, her train took a siding at the upper end ofthe yards to let the outgoing express pass. From the window where shesat the woman saw a tall man, dressed in a business suit of quietgray, standing on the rear platform of the slowly moving outboundtrain and waving his hand to someone on the depot platform. Just aglimpse she had of him before he passed from sight as her own trainmoved ahead to stop at the depot where she was greeted by her host.Not until they were driving toward her old home did the woman know whoit was that she had seen.
The woman was interested in all that the people had to tell about herold playmate and asked not a few questions but she was glad that hehad not known of her coming. She was glad that he was gone. The manand the woman were strangers and the woman did not wish to meet astranger. The boy lived, for her, only in her Yesterdays and the womantold herself that she was glad because she feared that the man, if shemet him, would rob her of the boy. She feared that he would be like somany that she had been forced to know in the world that denied herwomanhood. She had determined to be for two weeks, as far as it ispossible for a woman to be, just a girl again and she wanted nocompany other than the little boy who lived only in the long ago.
As soon as supper was over she retired to her room--to the little roomthat had been hers in her childhood--where, before lighting the lamp,she sat for awhile at the open window looking out into the night,breathing long and deep of the pure air that was sweetly perfumed withthe odor of the meadows and fields. In the brooding quiet; in the softnight sounds; in the fragrant breeze that gently touched her hair; shefelt the old, old, forces of life calling to her womanhood and felther womanhood stir in answer. For a long time she sat there givingfree rein to the thoughts and longings that, in her city life, she wasforced to suppress.
Rising at last, as though with quick resolution, she lighted her lampand prepared for bed; loosening her hair and deftly arranging thebeautiful, shining, mass that fell over her shoulders in a long braid.Then, smiling as she would have smiled at the play of a child, sheknelt before her trunk and, taking something from its depth, quicklyput out the light again and once more seated herself in a low rockingchair by the open window.
Had there been any one to see, they would not have understood. Who isthere, indeed, to understand the heart of womanhood? The woman,sitting in the dark before the window in that room so full of thememories of her childhood, held close in her arms an ancient dollwhose face had been washed so many times by its little mother that itwas but a smudge of paint.
That night the woman slept as a child sleeps after a long, busy,happy, childhood day--slept to open her eyes in the morning while thebirds in the trees outside her window were heralding the coming of thesun. Rising she looked and saw the sky glorious with the light ofdawning day. Flaming streamers of purple and scarlet and silverfloated high over the buildings and trees next door. The last of thepale stars sank into the ocean of blue and, from behind the oldorchard above the house where the boy lived, long shafts of goldenlight shot up as if aimed by some heavenly archer hiding behind thehill.
When the day was fully come, the woman quickly dressed and went outinto the yard. The grass was dew drenched and fragrant under her feet.The flowers were fresh and inviting. But she did not pause until, outin the garden, at the farther corner, close by the hedge, she stoodunder the cherry tree--sacred cathedral of her Yesterdays.
When she turned again to go back to the house, the woman's face wasshining with the light that glows only in the faces of those women whoknow that they are women and who dream the dreams of womanhood.
So the woman spent her days. Down in the little valley by the brook,that, as it ran over the pebbly bars, drifted in the flickering lightand shade of the willows, slipped between the green banks, or creptsoftly beneath the grassy arch, sang its song of the Yesterdays: up inthe orchard beyond the neighboring house where so many, many, timesshe had helped the boy play out his dreams; on the porch, in the softtwilight, watching the stars as they blossomed above while up from thedusky shadows in the valley below came the call of the whip-poor-willand the bats on silent wings flitted to and fro; out in the gardenunder the cherry tree in the corner near the hedge--in all
the lovedhaunts of the boy and girl--she spent her days.
And the tired look went out of her eyes. Strength returned to herweary body, courage to her heart, and calmness to her over-wroughtnerves. Amid those scenes of her Yesterdays she was made ready to goback to the world that values so highly things that are new, and, inthe strength of the old, old, things to keep the dreams of herwomanhood. And, as she went, there was that in her face that all menlove to see in the face of womankind.
Poor old world! Someday, perhaps, it will awake from its feverishdream to find that God made some things in the heart of the race toobig to be outgrown.
Their Yesterdays Page 7