Their Yesterdays Part 13

Everyone was very kind to the woman that morning when the word came that her uncle had been killed in a railroad accident. All that kind hearts could do for her was done. Every offer of a.s.sistance was made.

But there was really nothing that anyone could do just then. She must first go as quickly as she could to her aunt.

The man of authority, who had always seemed to understand her woman heart and who had paid to her the highest tribute possible for a man to pay a woman, had broken the news to her as gently as news of Death can be told, and, as soon as she was ready, his own carriage was waiting before the entrance in the street below. Nor did he burden her with talk as they were driven skillfully through the stream of the down town traffic and then, at a quicker pace, through the more open streets of the residence district.

There is so little that can be said, even by the most thoughtful, when Death enters thus suddenly into a life. The man knew that the woman needed him. He knew that, save for the invalid aunt, there was now no near relative to help her do the necessary things that must be done.

There was no one to help her think what would be best to do. So he asked her gently, as they neared the house, if she would not permit him, for the next few days, to take the place in her life that would have been taken by an older brother. Kindly he asked that she trust him fully--that she let him think and do for her--be a help to her in her need--even as he would have helped her had she consented to come into his life as he wished her to come. And the woman, because she knew the goodness and honor of this man's heart, thanked him with grat.i.tude too great for words and permitted him to do for her all that a most intimate relative would have done.

At last it was over. The first uncontrollable expressions of grief--the arrangements for the funeral--the service at the house and the long ride to the cemetery with the final parting and the return to the house that would never again be quite the same--all those hard, first, days were past and to-morrow--to-morrow--the woman would go back to her work. In the final going over of affairs, the finishing of unfinished business, the ending of undeveloped plans and prospects, the settling and closing of accounts, and the considering of new conditions enforced by Death, it had been made very clear that for the woman to work was, now, more than ever necessary. There was, now, no one but her upon whom the invalid aunt could depend for even the necessities of life.

And the woman was glad that she was able to provide for that one who had always been so gentle, so patient, in suffering and who, in her sorrow, was now so brave. Since the death of the girl's own mother, the aunt had taken, so far as she could, a mother's place in the life of the child; and, as the years had pa.s.sed and the little girl had grown into young womanhood, she had grown into the heart of the childless woman until she was as a daughter of her own flesh. So the woman did not feel this added care that was forced upon her by the changed conditions as a burden other than a burden of love. But still, that afternoon, when it was all over, and she faced the new future that Death had set before her, she realized the fact of Death as she had never realized it before.

The years since her mother's death had not been many, and, it seemed to her, now, that they had pa.s.sed very quickly. She was only a little girl, then, and her uncle and his wife had taken her so fully into their hearts that she had scarcely felt the gap in her life after the first weeks of the separation had pa.s.sed. Her mother belonged to the days of her childhood and, though the years were not many as she looked back, those childhood days seemed far, far, away. Death had come to her, now, in the days of her womanhood. Suddenly, unexpectedly, with awful, startling, reality, the fact of Death had come into her life; forcing her to consider, as she had never considered before, the swiftly pa.s.sing years.

What--she asked herself as she thought of the morrow--what, for her, lay at the farthermost end of that procession of to-morrows? When the best of her strength was gone with the days and weeks and months and years--what then? When Death should come for that one who was, in everything but blood, her mother and who was, now, her only companion--what then? To be left alone in the world--to go, alone, all the rest of the journey--this was the horror that Death brought to her. As she looked, that afternoon, into the years that were to come, this woman, who knew that she was a woman, and who was still in the glory and beauty of her young womanhood, felt suddenly old--she felt as though every day of the sad days just pa.s.sed had been a year.

And then, at last, from her grief of the present and from her contemplation of the years that were to come, she turned wearily back to the long ago. In the loneliness and sorrow of her life she went, again, hack into her Yesterdays. There was, indeed, no other place for her to go but back into her Yesterdays. Only in the Yesterdays can one escape the sadness and loneliness that attend the coming of Death.

Death has little power in the Yesterdays. In childhood life, Death is not a fact.

Funerals were nothing more than events of surpa.s.sing interest in those days--a subdued, intense, interest that must not be too openly expressed, it is true, but that nevertheless could not be altogether suppressed. Absorbed in her play the little girl would hear, suddenly, the ringing of the bell in the white church across the valley; and it would ring, not joyously, cheerily, interestingly, as on Sundays but with sad, solemn, measured, notes, that would fill her childish heart with hushed excitement. And then--it mattered not where he was or what he was doing--the little boy would come, rushing with eager haste, to join her at the front gate where they always watched together for the procession and strove for the honor of sighting first the long string of vehicles that would soon appear on one of the four roads leading to the church. And oh, joy of joys, if it so happened that the procession came by the way that led past the place where they danced with such eager impatience!

First would come, moving with slow feet and drooping head, the old gray horse and time worn phaeton of the minister; and they would feel a little strange and somewhat hurt because the man of G.o.d, who usually greeted them so cheerily, would not notice them as he pa.s.sed. But the sadness in their hearts would be forgotten the next moment as they gazed, with excited interest and whispered exclamations, at the shining, black, hea.r.s.e with its beautiful, coal black, horses that, stepping proudly, tossing their plumed heads, and shaking the ta.s.sels on the long nets that hung over their glossy sides, seemed to invite the admiration that greeted them. And then, through the gla.s.s sides of the hea.r.s.e, the boy and the girl, with gasps of interest, would discover the long black coffin half hidden by its load of flowers; or, perhaps, the hea.r.s.e, the horses, and the coffin, would all be snow white which, the little girl thought, was prettiest of all. Then would follow the long line of carriages, filled with people who wore their Sunday clothes; and the boy and the girl, recognizing a friend or acquaintance, here and there, would wonder to themselves how it would seem to be riding in such a procession. One by one, they would count the vehicles and recall the number in the last funeral they had watched; gleefully triumphant, if this procession were longer than the last; scornfully disappointed, if it were not so imposing. And then, when the last carriage had gone up the hill on the other side of the creek and had disappeared from sight among the trees that half hid the church, they would wait for the procession to reappear after the services and would watch it crawling slowly along the distant road on its way to the cemetery.

And the next day they would play a funeral.

Even as they had played a wedding, they would play a funeral. Only, they played a wedding but that once, while they played funerals many, many, times.

Sometimes it would be a doll's funeral when the chief figure in the solemn rites would be taken from the grave, after it was all over, and would be rocked to sleep with the other dollies, none the worse, apparently, for the sad experience. Again, the part of the departed would be taken by a mouse that had met a violent death at the hands of the cook; or, perhaps, they would find a baby bird that had fallen from its nest before its wings were strong. But the grandest, most triumphant, most successful funeral of the Yesterdays was a kitten that had most opportunely died the very day a real grown up funeral had pa.s.sed the house. What a funeral that was--with an old shoe box for a coffin, the boy's wagon draped with pieces of black cloth borrowed from the rag bag for a hea.r.s.e, the shepherd dog for a proudly stepping team, and all the dolls in their carriage following slowly behind! In a corner of the garden, not far from the cherry tree, they dug a real grave and set up a real tombstone, fashioned by the boy, to mark the spot. And the little girl was so earnest in her sorrow that she cried real tears at which the boy became, suddenly, very gay and boisterous, as boys will upon such occasions, and helped her to forget right quickly.

Oh, boy of the Yesterdays, who would not let his little girl mate grieve but made her laugh and forget! Where was he now? The woman wondered. Had Death come into his life, too? Were the years ever, to him, as a funeral procession? Did ever he feel that he was growing old? Could he, now, make her forget her grief--could he help her to laugh again--or had his power gone even as those Yesterdays when Death, too, was only a pleasing game?

From the next room, a gentle voice called softly and the woman arose to go to her aunt. For that one who was left dependent upon her she would be brave and strong--she would go back to her work in the morning.

Only children are privileged to play with the fact of Death. Only in the Yesterdays are funerals events of merely pa.s.sing interest. Only in the Yesterdays does Death go always past the door.

FAILURE

And that year, also, went to join the years of the Yesterdays.

It is as though Life, bringing to man every twelve months a new year, bids him try again. Always, it is necessary for man to try again.

Indeed Life itself is nothing less than this: a continual trying again.

In the world laboratory, mankind is conducting a series of elaborate experiments--always on the verge of the great discovery but never quite making it--always thinking that the secret is about to be revealed but never quite uncovering it--always failing in his experiments but always finding in the process something that leads him, with hope renewed, to try again.

The man had failed.

Sadly, sternly, with the pa.s.sing of the year, he admitted to himself that he had failed. Humiliated and ashamed, with the coming of the new year, he admitted that he must begin again. Bitterly he called himself a fool. And perhaps he was--more or less. Most men are a little foolish. The man who has never been forced to swallow his own folly has missed a bitter but wholesome tonic that, more than likely, he needs. This man was not the kind of a man who would blame any one but himself for his failure. If he had been that particular kind of a fool his failure would have been of little value either to him or to any one. Neither would there be, for me, a story.

I do not know the particulars of this man's failure--neither the what, the why, nor the how. I know only that he failed--that it was necessary for him to fail. Nor is this a story of such particulars for they are of little importance. A man can fail in anything. Some, even, seem to fail in everything. This, therefore, is my story: that as Failure enters into the life of every man it came into the life of this man. In some guise or other Failure seems to be a necessity. It is one of the Thirteen Truly Great Things of Life. But the man did not, at that time, understand that his failure was a necessity.

_That_ understanding came to him only with Success.

You may say that this man was too young to accomplish a real Failure.

But you need not bother about that, either. One is never too young to experience Failure. And Failure, to the one who fails, is always, at the time, very real.

So this man saw the castles that he had toiled so hard to build come tumbling down about him. So he was awakened from his bright dreams to find that they were only dreams. So he came to see his work as idleness and folly. Sorrowfully he looked at the ruin of his building.

Hopelessly he recalled his dreams. Despairingly he looked upon his fruitless labor. With his fine manhood's strength dead within him, he bitterly felt himself to be but a weakling; fit only to be pushed aside by the stronger, better, men among whom he went, now, with lifeless step and downcast face. There was left in his heart no courage and no hope. He saw himself a most miserable coward, and, ashamed and disgraced in his own sight, he shrank from the eyes of his fellows and withdrew into himself to hide.

And the only thing that saved the man was this: he did not pity himself. Self-pity is debilitating. It is the dry rot that weakens the life lines. It is the rust that eats the anchor chains. At the last a.n.a.lysis, a man probably knows less about himself than he knows about others. The only difference is that what he knows about others is sometimes right while that which he thinks he knows about himself is nearly always wrong. Salvation is in pitying someone else. If one must have pity he should accept it from strangers only. The pity of strangers is harmless to the object of it and very gratifying--to the strangers. Self-accusation, self-censure, self-condemnation: these are the antidotes for the poison that sometimes enters the soul through Failure. But these antidotes must be administered with care.

Self-accusation has, usually, a very low percentage of cause.

Self-censure, undiluted, is dangerous to self-respect. And self-condemnation is rarely to be had pure. When one brings himself to trial before himself his chance for justice is small--the judge is nearly always prejudiced, the jury packed, and the evidence incomplete.

The man, when he had withdrawn into himself, saw the world moving on its way without him as though his failure mattered, to it, not at all.

He was forced to realize that the work of the world could be done without him. He was compelled to see that the sum of human happiness and human woe would be neither less nor more because of him. The world did not really need his success--he needed it. The world did not suffer from his failure--he suffered. He did not understand, then, that no man is in line for success until he understands how little either his success or his failure matters to the world. He did not know, then, how often a good strong failure is the corner stone of a well builded life.

A child is not crippled for life because it falls when it is learning to walk; neither has a man come to the end of his upward climb because he "stubs his toe." The man knew this later but just then he was too sore at heart to think of even trying to get up again. All those first months of that new year he did nothing but the labor that was necessary for him to do in order to live. And, in that which he did, he had no heart but toiled as a dumb beast toils in obedience to its master. The joy of work which is the reward of labor was gone.

So the spring came. The air grew warm and balmy. The gra.s.s on the lawns and in the parks began to look soft and inviting to feet that were weary with the feel of icy pavements. The naked trees were being clothed in spring raiment, fresh and green. The very faces of the people seemed to glow with a new warmth as though a more generous life was stirring in their veins. As the sun gathered strength, and the coldness and bleakness of winter retreated farther and farther before the advance of summer, the manner and dress of the crowds upon the streets marked the change as truly as the habits of the birds and flowers, until, at last, here and there, straw hats appeared and suddenly, as bluebirds come, barefooted boys were playing marbles in the alleys and fishing tackle appeared in the windows of the stores.

All his life the man had been an ardent fisherman. And so, when his eyes were attracted that noon, as he was pa.s.sing one of those windows filled with rods and reels and lines and hooks and nets and all things dear to the angler's heart, he paused. His somber face brightened. His form, that was already stooped a little, straightened. His listless eyes, for a moment, shone with their old time fire. Then he went on to his work.

But, less than ever, that afternoon, was the man's heart in his labor.

While his hands mechanically performed their appointed tasks and his brain as mechanically did its part, the man himself was not there. He had gone far, far, away into his Yesterdays. Once again, in his Yesterdays, the man went fishing.

The boy was a very small boy when first he went fishing. And he fished in the brook that ran through the valley below the little girl's house. His hook was only a pin, bent by his own fingers; his line, a bit of string or thread borrowed from mother's work basket; and his rod, a slender branch of willow or a green shoot from one of the trees in the orchard, or, it might be, a stalk of the tall pigweed that grew down behind the barn; and for bait, those humble friends of boyhood, the angle worms. How the boy shouted and danced with glee when he found a big one; even though he did shudder a little as he picked it up, squirming and wiggling, to drop it into the old baking powder can he called his bait box! And how the little girl shrieked with fear and admiration! Very proud was the boy that he had courage to handle the crawling things--though many of them did escape into their tiny holes before he could bring himself quite to the point of catching them and pulling them out. "Only girls are afraid of worms and toads and bugs.

Boys can bait their own hooks." Manfully, too, did he hide his thoughts when conscience p.r.i.c.ked him, even as he the worm. "Do worms have feelin's?" He wondered. "Does it hurt?" Half frightened, he had laughed, one day, when the little girl asked: "What if some wicked giant should catch you and stick you on a great hook and swing you through the air, kicking and squirming, and drop you into the water where it's deep, and leave you there till some great fish comes along to swallow you like the man in the Bible that mother reads about?"

But the boy in his Yesterdays carried home no fish from that little brook; though he spent many hours in the hot summer sun watching eagerly for a bite. He knew there must be fish there--great big fellows--there were such lovely places for them under the gra.s.sy banks--if only they would come out--but they never did. Not until he was older did the boy understand the real reason of this failure. The water was not deep enough. He learned, in time, that big fish are not found in shallow streams.

I do not know, but perhaps, the man, even as the boy, was fishing in a too shallow stream.

As he grew older, the boy wandered farther down the creek. A "sure 'nough" fishhook took the place of the bent pin and a real "boughten"

line, with a sinker, was tied to the hook though he still used the slender willow rods. And, now, he sometimes brought home a fish or two from the deeper water down in the pasture lot; and no success in after life would ever bring to the man the same thrill of delight that was felt by the boy when he landed a tiny "chub" or "shiner." No Roman general, returning in triumph from the wars with captives chained to his chariot, ever moved with a prouder spirit than he, when he went home to mother with his little string of captured fishes.

Then there came a day that was the proudest in his life--the day when he was given a larger hook, a longer line, a cane pole, and permission to go to the mill pond. No more fishing for him in the brook now! He had outgrown all that. How small the little stream seemed, now, as he crossed it on his way down the road! Could it be possible, he asked himself, that he was ever content to fish there, and with a bent pin, at that? And he felt carefully in his pocket to see if those extra hooks were safe; and took another peep at the big worms in his bait box--an old tomato can this time. There would be no twinge of conscience when he baited his hook that day. And proudly he tried to take longer steps in the dusty road; almost breaking into a run as he neared the turn where he knew that he would see the pond.

Often, the boy wondered if there could be anywhere in all the world such another body of water as that old mill pond. Often, he wondered how deep it was down by the dam in the shadow of the giant elms that half hid the mill. Many times, he questioned: "Where did all the water come from anyway?" Surely it could not _all_ come from the tiny stream that flowed down the valley below the little girl's house! Why, he could wade in that and there were boats on this!

Once again, the man, in his Yesterdays, stood at that turn in the road; under his bare, boyish, feet the hot, hot, dust; over his head the blue, blue, sky; before him the beautiful water that mirrored back the trees, the clouds, and the buildings. Once again, he sat in the shadow of the old covered bridge, fish pole in hand, and, with boyish delight and pride, hailed each addition to the string of catfish and suckers that swam near by, safely anch.o.r.ed to the bank. He could hear the drowsy hum of the mill across the pond and the merry shout of the miller hailing some pa.s.ser-by. And, now and then, would come, the clatter of horses' hoofs and the rumble of a farmer's wagon on the planks above his head and he would idly watch the ever widening circles in the water as some bit of dirt, jarred from the beams above, marred the gla.s.sy surface. The swallows were wheeling here and there in swift, graceful motions; one moment lightly skimming the surface of the pond and the next, high in air above the trees and buildings. A water snake came gliding toward an old log close by. A turtle was floating lazily in the sun. And a kingfisher startled him with its harsh, discordant, rattle as it pa.s.sed in rapid flight toward the upper end of the pond where the tall cat-tails were nodding in the sunlight and the drooping willows fringed the bank with green.

The shadows of the giant elms near the dam grew longer and longer. A workman left the mill and started across the pasture toward his home.

A farmer stopped on his way from the field to water his team. The frogs began to call shrilly from the reeds and rushes. The swallows, twittering, sought their nests beneath the bridge. It was time that the boy was going home.

Slowly, reluctantly, the little fisherman drew his line from the water and wrapped it carefully round the pole. Then, picking up his string of fish, he inspected them thoughtfully--admiring the largest and wishing that the others were like him--and, casting one last glance at the water, the trees, the mill, started down the road toward home.