Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 3

When the evening is warm and the moon full I often spend an hour or two on Big Rock; and musing by night, with the water and moon for company, I feel happy and queer and both. Remembrance frequently retenders that night of long ago; and I hear you speaking in a voice no bigger than the heart of a whisper. The reason it is your voice is because you gave me my first doll and what is a little girl's life without a doll?

The night of October twenty-fourth, the night of the day you were wounded, I was out on the rock a long while; and never before had I heard your voice nor seen you as distinctly as then. On that night you and I held quite a conversation; and this may be the mystical explanation why I was the one with you as you pa.s.sed through the valley of the shadow. Life on Big Creek has taught me, that not alone to the Elijahs, to the shepherds of the hills and to the Jean d'Arcs come voices and visitation. All who will may hear.

I knew then that you were snared in the net of tragedy and distress spread over most of the world by this horrible war; which the honest men of every land condemn and regret, as utterly useless and wish at an end.

They ask to live in peace and on good terms with everybody. But honest men have nothing to do with making war or dictating terms of peace. They are cannon fodder; mere p.a.w.ns in the game of nations, moved about by one who sits in the sun and serves the devil.

Before the millennium, there must be a world wide charity, to take the place of what we call patriotism; which is either national selfishness or a make-shift provincialism. There must be a development of the national soul until man knows no nation; and in a national sense loves his neighbor as himself. The first step towards it is to understand that those calamities that are destroying an enemy country do not halt at the yellow map boundary that marks our own land.

When you escape from beneath the sombre shadow of war, come to our mountains. Here we look at the peaceful face of nature and enjoy the poetry of silence. We are never very much alone, Granny and I. The soul in the radiance of its love creates friends and though we are isolated from the world we are rich in love and happiness.

Bear your sufferings and loneliness as best you may, until your ship comes home. Know that to suffer is the dowry of G.o.d's elect and when all else is lost you still have Him. I know He cares for the birds; and "are ye not much better than they?" You know why and when the birds sing?-because they are building or have a nest. May you soon recover, find peace and love; and some day your nook-nest lined with soft down, awaiting treasures G.o.d will send.

I have tried to put a few thoughts into words. There is enough of the seed of thought in my mind and it germinates-but alas, it dies before I can put it into words. My treasures come forth, half smothered by the burden of the flesh. I hope you may understand what I have tried to tell you.

I am, and ever shall be, your friend,

Jeannette.

Jeannette counted upon receiving an answer to her letter about the first of March. She waited patiently until the seventh, then there was a great rain and the creek was so swollen they had no mail until the tenth; and even then, among the letters and papers that came, there was no letter from Italy.

She reasoned: he is well and fighting again; he has not gotten my letter; the censor held it because of my comments upon the war.

Lieutenant Allen was in the hospital at Verona until the twentieth of April, 1918, when he was discharged as an incurable, his lungs having been horribly lacerated by a soft-nosed bullet.

When discharged from the hospital he was taken to Genoa and there placed aboard ship and sent to Liverpool; and on a returning transport which had brought over fifteen hundred Canadians, he and forty-seven other helpless, war-wrecked men, were returned to Montreal, Canada, the city where they had enlisted.

On Sunday, the twenty-sixth of May, he arrived in Lexington and to keep from frightening his mother, by a mighty effort managed to walk from a taxicab to his father's door and into the house; when he had a severe coughing spell which prostrated him. His father and the servants carried him to his own room; while his mother lay unconscious on a lounge where they had placed her.

A little s.p.a.ce was given to his return, his war record and present precarious condition in the Lexington and Louisville papers. A few of his old friends called and not being able to see him, left cards and sent flowers. Some of the men he had known were on their way to Europe, some already in France and one of his friends, Lieutenant Gardner, had been killed. The attention of the public was on those over there or leaving-not upon the wounded and disabled who were being returned.

For several weeks he seemed to improve, as the weather was pleasant and he had the most careful nursing. But one night he had a severe hemorrhage and after it was checked his doctor informed his parents that there was no chance for his recovery. He did not suffer greatly, but grew slowly weaker until he knew the end was near.

The postman, several days before his death, brought Jeannette's letter.

It was marked with many addresses; and by the censor "To be held." Then later stamped, "Pa.s.sed by base censor No. --. Verificato per censura."

The letter, which he read several times, first brought a few big tears; then he seemed to gather resignation; then happiness from it.

Early in June, the month of brides and roses, Jeannette received a letter from Mrs. Allen:

"Dear Jeannette:

"John, my boy, died last Sunday, with your letter in his hand and it was buried with him. He requested that his books be sent to you, and they will be forwarded tomorrow.

"As soon as you can get away from your school and leave your grandmother, if she will not come too, come and see me. I must have some one to talk with about John; some one whom he knew and loved. When I try it with his father, he rushes from the room. John was an only child-now I am childless.

"He claimed to have seen you before he died, saying: 'Mother, I have just seen Jeannette; she is very beautiful.' Then he described you. I believe he really saw; and if his description fits, you can help me now.

You were sitting on the Big Rock by the creek. It was the night of the fourth of June. I can write no more.

"John's mother, "Mary R. Allen."

Jeannette had always felt that her life, which she knew was a silent, empty and colorless one without, was gloriously full and lit up within by a mystical treasure, which in some way she had stumbled upon and appropriated. She had soul companions who spoke to her with voices she alone could hear; that told of things in her own and other people's lives, that she and they might know, if they would but listen. She had lived a soul life; and it had a far-flung horizon.

When she received Mrs. Allen's letter telling of the death of her son, who had been her one friend around whom her childlike super-idealism and innocence had built a gorgeous bower, her heart was rent by its first great shock. She felt that her G.o.d of providence and love had cast her from heaven into a place of utter darkness where she had been caught by the net of fate and was now being dragged through all the sorrows and tragedies of life. Her voices were gone; she hated the silence about her; the mountain seemed dark and dangerous; the sun seemed harsh and cold; the gra.s.s but to cover graves; and the trees but mourners for the departed. He is gone! G.o.d has deserted me! She had yet to learn that the voices would return; that other friends would come; that life is neither tragic nor sad, though it has its hours of sadness and tragedy; and that sorrows make for themselves deep beds in our hearts wherein they sleep until life draws near its end and more than half of all our soul loves has pa.s.sed to the other side.

All of Thursday night she sat in Granny's great rocking chair, and when day came, while her joys seemed gone forever, her grief had been dulled.

She found a dulling consolation in working about the house and in looking after the creatures of the barnyard. In the afternoon her head ached so, she laid down; and sleep came and comforted her.

Friday night after her grandmother was in bed and asleep, she went out upon Big Rock and in the quiet of the night listened for her voices, but they would not come. For more than an hour she cried, her frame shaking with sobs and low, gasping moans. Then she was still a long time-thinking of what life had been, what it now was, and hereafter would be to her broken soul. Gradually she drew out from under the shadow of her sorrow, until instead of being overwhelmed by it, it was a sorrow which her soul possessed. She began to think that the wound might some day close but she knew her heart would always bear the scar and her days never again be quite so bright. She found that although she was still unhappy she was consoled, and thanked G.o.d that she had this man's friendship, perhaps his love; and began to look upon death as a very simple affair; the soul shedding the shackles of flesh.

She slept. In her dreams the voices came back; and her sorrows were cast off as one does a cloak, serviceable in a shower, but when the sun comes out an uncomfortable burden. Past midnight she awoke, stiff and sore from her hard bed, and went to the house.

Sunday afternoon, she wrote Mrs. Allen:

"About four years ago, your son on his way to Hyden, asked for and found shelter for the night at our home. Ten days later he sent us a few little things; among them my first real dolls. I have never seen him since except as fancy pictured nor heard his voice as a materialist may hear, though many times it seemed he spoke to me in a way I cannot explain. I have four letters; they are the four treasures of my life.

"His death is my greatest loss; and through life I shall carry a scar from the wound. But what I suffer is not worth mentioning when compared with the grief his mother must feel. She who gave him life; who felt his little chubby, helpless hands moving about over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s seeking his food; who taught him to stand alone; to walk; to lisp his first words; who tried to teach him first to say father, but nature and his own heart put the name of mother in his mind and in his mouth. Then you taught him to say his prayers; and those prayers have been answered. He prayed: 'Thy kingdom come,'-and it has come for him; while you and I weep, refusing to be comforted; until we learn that those we love must pa.s.s to the other side, in order that His kingdom may come for us, and we escape death for ourselves and lose the fear of death for our dear ones.

"It is thus we find happiness in our anguish; and love for G.o.d while we suffer from the raw realities of life; knowing he has found us worthy of both love and unhappiness.

"How I shall love his books when they come. I hope he has marked the pa.s.sages which pleased him and noted some of his own thoughts upon their margins.

"I shall come to you. Just now it is impossible. My school is not out until July; and teaching to me is more than bread; it is an implacable duty. Granny is very feeble; her condition may also delay my coming. I have been planning for a year to take a teacher's course at the State University. If this hope is realized, Lexington will be my home for some time; and if you wish it, I will come many times to talk with you about your son.

"With love and sympathy, "Jeannette."

The following week one of the freight wagons hauling goods from the railroad to Hyden stopped at the house and unloaded four heavy packing cases. They contained nearly five hundred books; which had been shipped, still in the sections of the mahogany sectional book cases; and just as John had arranged them. She had two of her school boys unpack and set up the cases in her room.

These, with the books she had acc.u.mulated, and those which her father's grandfather had brought overland from Virginia, gave to her simple bed room much the appearance of a library.

On Sunday the 18th of August, Jeannette's grandmother, the last of her blood kin, died, and was buried on the mountain side, where were the white, picketed graves of her father, mother and grandfather and the unpicketed, almost unmarked, sunken-in graves of those of the Litmans she did not know, who had gone before her day.

The day after the funeral she rented the place to Simeon Blair but as his family was small, they had only a child, a girl of seven, there was room for Jeannette; so she kept her room and paid four dollars a week board. The Blairs bought her cows and chickens, but refused the mule as a gift; so she paid Simeon five dollars a month for looking after old Silas.

On the fifth of September she left Big Creek for Lexington, Kentucky; and upon her arrival on the seventh, went directly to the room she had reserved at the University dormitory; and on the tenth matriculated as a junior.

The eighth, she spent in most careful shopping. Sunday, the ninth, she attended services at the First Presbyterian Church and heard her first pipe organ. As she walked back to the dormitory she drew comparisons between her new clothes and those of the girls she pa.s.sed. While satisfied with her modest blue suit and her shoes and stockings, she concluded her hat had too great variety and quant.i.ty of coloring and on Monday, as soon as they were dismissed, exchanged it; having first informed the milliner that she had worn it to church. The milliner replied: "That's nothing, many of my customers have hats sent on approval and wear them to church, returning them on Monday."

After exchanging her hat she called upon Mrs. Allen. The Allen home, an old red brick house with ma.s.sive colonial pillars, a slate roof, thick walls and large rooms with high ceilings, was more than sixty years old; and Judge Allen, who was fifty-five, had been born in it. Several of the rooms had open fire places. It had first been heated in that way; then with grates and a large anthracite stove; then a furnace had been installed. Recently it had been remodeled and fitted with steam heating and the most modern electrical appliances. These things were now demanded by the servants, who refused service in houses not having them.

The Judge would not permit the open fire place of the library to be removed. They used this as a sitting and informal reception room and an open fire was kept burning from October to May. One of his clients who had an extensive woodland on Elkhorn, furnished the oak and hickory logs. It was in this room that Mrs. Allen received Jeannette.

Mrs. Allen was about fifty years of age, with beautiful, wavy, white hair. She and Jeannette were of the same weight, one hundred and thirty pounds, though Jeannette was more than an inch taller. Both had the general appearance of women who trace their lineage from English ancestry, through the cavalier stock of Colonial Virginia; brunettes, of clear cut feature and slender, graceful bodies; eyes either gray or brown-Mrs. Allen's were brown, Jeannette's were gray.