In Times Like These Part 11

Everything is done there. (I am speaking now of the homes in the country.) In each of the homes there is a little bit of washing done, a little dressmaking, a little b.u.t.ter-making, a little baking, a little ironing going on, and it is all by hand-power, which is the most expensive power known. It is also being done largely by amateurs, and that adds to the amount of labor expended. Women have worked away at these endless tasks for generations, lovingly, unselfishly, doing their level best to do everything, with no thought of themselves at all.

When things get too many for them, and the burdens overpower them, they die quietly, and some other woman, young, strong and fresh, takes their place, and the modest white slab in the graveyard says, "Thy will be done," and everybody is apparently satisfied. The Lord is blamed for the whole thing.

Now, if men, with their good organizing ability and their love of comfort and their sense of their own importance, were set down to do the work that women have done all down the centuries, they would evolve a scheme something like this in each of the country neighborhoods.

There would be a central station, munic.i.p.ally owned and operated, one large building fitted out with machinery that would be run by gasoline, electricity, or natural gas. This building would contain in addition to the school-rooms, a laundry room, a bake-shop, a creamery, a dressmaking establishment, and perhaps a butcher shop.

The consolidated school and the "Beef-rings" in the country district are already established facts, and have opened the way for this larger scheme of cooperation. In this manner the work would be done by experts, and in the cheapest way, leaving the women in the farm homes with time and strength to raise their children.

This plan would solve the problem, too, of young people leaving the farm. Many of the young people would find occupation in the central station and become proficient in some branch of the work carried on there. They would find not only employment, but the companionship of people of their own age. The central station would become a social gathering place in the evenings for all the people of the district, and it is not too visionary to see in it a lecture hall, a moving-picture machine, and a music room. Then the young people would be kept on the farms because their homes would be pleasanter places. No woman can bake, wash, scrub, cook meals and raise children and still be happy.

To do all these things would make an archangel irritable, and no home can be happy when the poor mother is too tired to smile! The children feel an atmosphere of gloom, and naturally get away from it as soon as they can. The overworked mother cannot make the home attractive; the things that can be left undone are left undone, and so the cushions on the lounge are dirty and torn, the pictures hang crooked on the walls, and the hall lamp has had no oil in it for months. That does not matter, though, for the family live in the kitchen, and, during the winter, the other part of the house is of the same temperature as a well. Knowing that she is not keeping her house as it should be kept has taken the heart out of many a woman on the farm. But what can she do? The meals have to be cooked; the b.u.t.ter must be made!

There are certain burdens which could be removed from the women on the farm; there is part of their work that could be done cheaper and better elsewhere, and the whole farm and all its people would reap the benefit.

But right about here I think I hear from Brother Bones of Bonesville:

"Do you mean to say that we should pay for the washing, ironing, bread-making, sewing?" he cries out. "We never could afford it, and, besides, what would the women put in their time at if all that work was done for them?"

Brother Bones, we can always afford to pay for things in money rather than in human flesh and blood. That is the most exorbitant price the race can pay for anything, and we have been paying for farm work that way for a long time. If you doubt this statement, I can show you the receipts which have been chiseled in stone and marble in every graveyard.

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JANE

BELOVED WIFE OF EDWARD JAMES.

AGED 32 YEARS AND 6 MONTHS.

Who can estimate the worth of a mother to her family and the community?

An old widower, who was reproved for marrying a very young girl for his third wife, exonerated himself from blame by saying: "It would ruin any man to be always buryin', and buryin'."

But Brother Bones is not yet satisfied, and he is sure the women will have nothing to do if such a scheme would be followed out, and he tells us that his mother always did these things herself and raised her family, too.

"I can tell you," says Brother Bones, "my mother knew something about rearing children; she raised seven and buried seven, and she never lay in bed for more than three days with any of them. Poor mother, she was a very smart woman--at least so I have been told--I don't remember her."

That's just the point, Brother Bones. It is a great thing to have the memory of such a self-sacrificing mother, but it would be a greater thing to have your mother live out her days; and then, too, we are thinking of the "seven" she buried. That seems like a wicked and unnecessary waste of young life, of which we should feel profoundly ashamed. Poor little people, who came into life, tired and weak, fretfully complaining, burdened already with the cares of the world and its unending labor--

Your old earth, they say, is very weary; Our young feet, they say, are very weak,

and when the measles or whooping-cough a.s.sails them they have no strength to battle with it, and so they pa.s.s out, and again the Lord is blamed!

It is very desirable for the world that people should be born and brought up in the country with its honest, wholesome ways learned in the open; its habits of meditation, which have grown on the people as they have gone about their work in the quiet places. Thought currents in the country are strong and virile, and flow freely. There is an honesty of purpose in the man who strikes out the long furrow, and turns over every inch of the sod, painstakingly and without pretense; for he knows that he cannot cheat nature; he will get back what he puts in; he will reap what he sows--for Nature has no favorites, and no short-cuts, nor can she be deceived, fooled, cajoled or flattered.

We need the unaffected honesty and sterling qualities which the country teaches her children in the hard, but successful, school of experience, to offset the flashy supercilious lessons which the city teaches hers; for the city is a careless nurse and teacher, who thinks more of the cut of a coat than of the habit of mind; who feeds her children on colored candy and popcorn, despising the more wholesome porridge and milk; a slatternly nurse, who would rather buy perfume than soap; who allows her children to powder their necks instead of washing them; who decks them out in imitation lace collars, and cheap jewelry, with bows on their hair, but holes in their stockings; who dazzles their eyes with bright lights and commercial signs, and fills their ears with blatant music, until their eyes are too dull to see the pastel beauty of common things, and their ears are holden to the still small voices of G.o.d; who lures her children on with many glittering promises of ease and wealth, which she never intends to keep, and all the time whispers to them that this is life.

The good old country nurse is stern but kind, and gives her children hard lessons, which tax body and brain, but never fail to bring a great reward. She sends them on long journeys, facing the piercing winter winds, but rewards them when the journey is over with rosy cheeks and contented mind, and an appet.i.te that is worth going miles to see; and although she makes her children work long hours, until their muscles ache, she gives them, for reward, sweet sleep and pleasant dreams; and sometimes there are the sweet surprises along life's highway; the sudden song of birds or burst of sunshine; the glory of the sunrise, and sunset, and the flash of bluebirds' wings across the road, and the smell of the good green earth.

Happy is the child who learns earth's wisdom from the good old country nurse, who does better than she promises, and always "makes her children mind"!

CHAPTER XII

THE WAR AGAINST GLOOM

Not for all sunshine, dear Lord, do we pray-- We know such a prayer would be vain; But that strength may be ours to keep right on our way, Never minding the rain!

It is a great thing to be young, when every vein throbs with energy and life, when the rhythm of life beats its measures into our hearts and calls upon us to keep step with Joy and Gladness, as we march confidently down the white road which leads to the Land of our Desire.

G.o.d made every young thing to be happy. He put joy and harmony into every little creature's heart. Who ever saw a kitten with a grouch?

Or a little puppy who was a pessimist? But you have seen sad children a-plenty, and we are not blaming the Almighty for that either. G.o.d's plans have been all right, but they have been badly interfered with by human beings.

When a young colt gallops around the corral, kicking and capering and making a good bit of a nuisance of himself, the old horses watch him sympathetically, and very tolerantly. They never say; "It is well for you that you can be so happy--you'll have your troubles soon enough.

Childhood is your happiest time--you do well to enjoy it, for there's plenty of trouble ahead of you!"

Horses never talk this way. This is a distinctively human way of depressing the young. People do it from a morbid sense of duty. They feel that mirth and laughter are foreign to our nature, and should be curbed as something almost wicked.

"It's a fine day, today!" we admit grudgingly, "but, look out! We'll pay up for it!"

"I have been very well all winter, but I must not boast. Touch wood!"

The inference here is that when we are healthy or happy or enjoying a fine day, we are in an abnormal condition. We are getting away with a bit of happiness that is not intended for us. G.o.d is not noticing, and we had better go slow and keep dark about it, or He will waken up with a start, and send us back to our aches and pains and our dull leaden skies! Thus have we sought to sow the seeds of despondency and unbelief in the world around us.

In the South African War, there was a man who sowed the seeds of despondency among the British soldiers; he simply talked defeat and disaster, and so greatly did he damage the morale of the troops that an investigation had to be made, and as a result the man was sent to jail for a year. People have been a long time learning that thoughts are things to heal, upbuild, strengthen; or to wound, impair, or blight.

After all we cannot do very much for many people, no matter how hard we try, but we can contribute to their usefulness and happiness by holding for them a kind thought if we will.

There are people who depress you so utterly that if you had to remain under their influence they would rob you of all your ambition and initiative, while others inspire you to do better, to achieve, to launch out. Life is made up of currents of thought as real as are the currents of air, and if we could but see them, there are currents of thought we would avoid as we would smallpox germs.

Sadness is not our normal mental condition, nor is weakness our normal physical condition. G.o.d intended us to laugh and play and work, come to our beds at night weary and ready to sleep--and wake refreshed.

"As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he!" No truer words were ever spoken, and yet men try to define themselves by houses and lands and manners and social position, but all to no avail. The old rule holds.

It is your thought which determines what manner of man you are. The respectable man who keeps within the law and does no outward harm, but who thinks sordidly, meanly, or impurely, is the man of all others who is farthest from the kingdom of G.o.d, because he does not feel his need, nor can anyone help him. Thoughts are harder to change than ways.

"Let the wicked man forsake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts," declared Isaiah long ago, and there is no doubt the unrighteous man has the hardest and biggest proposition put up to him.

When the power of thought is understood, there will be a change in our newspapers. Now the tendency is to ignore the good in life and underline the evil in red ink. If a man commits a theft, it will make a newspaper story, bought and paid for at regular rates. If it is a very big steal, you may wire it in and get telegraphic rates. If the thief shoots a man, too, send along his picture and you may make the story two columns. If he shoots two or three people, you may give him the whole front page, and somebody will write a book about him. It will sell, too. How much more wholesome would our newspapers be, if they published the good deeds of men and women rather than their misdoings. Why should not as much s.p.a.ce be given to the man who saves a life, as is given to the man who takes a life? Why not let us hear more of the boy who went right, rather than of the one who went wrong?

I remember once reading an obscure little paragraph about a man who every year a few days before Christmas sent twenty-five dollars to the Postal Department at Ottawa, to pay the deficit on Christmas parcels which were held up for insufficient postage. Such a thoughtful act of Christian charity should have been given a place on the front page, for in the words of Jennie Allen: "Life ain't any too full of nice little surprises like that." Why should people enjoy the contemplation of evil rather than good? Is it because it makes their own little contribution of respectability seem larger by comparison?

We have missed a great deal of the joy of life by taking ourselves too seriously. We exaggerate our own importance, and so if the honor or distinction or the vote of thanks does not come our way, we are hurt!

Then, too, we live in an atmosphere of dread and fear--we fear poverty and hard work--we fear the newspapers and the neighbors, and fear is h.e.l.l!

When you begin to feel all fussed up, worried, and cross, frayed at the edges, and down at the heel--go out and look up at the stars. They are so serene, detached, and uncaring! Calmly shining down upon us they rebuke the fussiness of our little souls, and tell us to cheer up, for our little affairs do not much matter anyway.

The earthly hope men set their hearts upon Turns ashes, or it prospers--and anon Like snow upon the desert's arid face, Cooling a little hour or two--is gone!

It is a great mistake for us to mistake ourselves for the President of the company. Let us do our little bit with cheerfulness and not take the responsibility that belongs to G.o.d. None of us can turn the earth around; all we can ever hope to do is to hit it a few whacks on the right side. We belong to a great system; a system which can convince even the dullest of us of its greatness. Think of the miracle of night and day enacted before our eyes every twenty-four hours. Right on the dot comes the sun up over the saucer-like rim of the earth, never a minute late. Think of the journey the earth makes around the sun every year--a matter of 360,000,000 miles more or less--and it makes the journey in an exact time and arrives on the stroke of the clock, no washout on the line; no hot box; no spread rail; no taking on of coal or water; no employees' strike. It never drops a stick; it never slips a cog; and whirls in through s.p.a.ce always on the minute. And that without any help from either you or me! Some system, isn't it?

I believe we may safely trust G.o.d even with our affairs. When the war broke out we all experienced a bad attack of gloom. We were afraid G.o.d had forgotten us and gone off the job. And yet, even now, we begin to see light through the dark clouds of sorrow and confusion. If the war brings about the abolition of the liquor traffic, it will be justified.

Incidentally the war has already brought many by-products which are wholly good, and it would almost seem as if there is a plan in it after all.