Читать книгу Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant - Mathew Joseph Holt - Страница 5

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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.

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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.

[pg 31] 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 space 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, [pg 32] “Passed 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.

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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 [pg 33] 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 God 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 grass but to cover graves; and the trees but mourners for the departed. He is gone! God 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 passed 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 [pg 34] 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 God 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 breasts 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 [pg 35] 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 pass 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 God 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 passages 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 accumulated, and those which her father’s grandfather had brought overland [pg 36] 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 passed. While satisfied with her modest blue suit and her shoes and stockings, she concluded her hat had too great variety and quantity 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.”

[pg 37] After exchanging her hat she called upon Mrs. Allen. The Allen home, an old red brick house with massive 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.

When shown into the library, she took a seat in a great chair in an alcove which commanded a view of the street, and while waiting sat thinking how many times John might have sat in that place and perhaps in that very chair. Mrs. Allen came to the door, where she stood looking at Jeannette a moment or two, until she turned her [pg 38] head and saw her; then she stepped forward and took Jeannette’s hands and stood looking her in the face.

“You are just as John said you looked; a serene and beautiful face; eyes that make even an old mule trust you.” Then she put her arms about her and kissed her; and led her back to the chair in which she had been sitting.

“Mrs. Allen, I believe I would have known you anywhere. John had your nose and eyes and the same general expression. I am glad I look as John said I did. If you had shown surprise at my appearance I would have been disappointed.”

“I do not understand how John could have described you so accurately. I could have picked you out among the hundreds of girls in the University. There are many things we will never be able to understand.”

Mrs. Allen did most of the talking; telling Jeannette all about John from the first hour she held him in her arms, until he died with her arms about him. They shed no tears, feeling that he was with them and wished they should be happy when together.

When Jeannette rose to go Mrs. Allen said: “No! You must remain for dinner. My husband will be home soon and he is anxious to see you. Only the other night he said: ‘I am sorry John did not marry Jeannette before he died. She would be here as our daughter and we would have something to live for. It would be nice to have the young people coming to our home again; and we could find a good husband for her; such as our boy would have made. When she comes do not let her go until I see her’.”

Jeannette sat down again.

A little later they heard a step in the hall; the door was opened and a man stood in the doorway. Just such [pg 39] a looking person as John would have been at his age, only slightly larger.

“Mary you need not introduce us. It is Jeannette. We are glad to have you in our home; would be glad to have you make it your own.” He came forward as she arose and took her hand; and as he held it looking into her face his eyes slowly filled with tears.

From then until after dinner, which was almost immediately announced, the conversation was general. When they returned to the library Jeannette had to relate her past life in detail and disclose all her plans for the future. When they finally let her go it was late, and though she told them she did not mind walking home alone, they accompanied her to the dormitory.

Upon their insistent invitation she gave up her room at the dormitory and came to live with them at the beginning of the mid-winter term; remaining a welcome guest until the close of the school year in June, 1919, when she returned to Big Creek.

Mrs. Allen wrote repeatedly, addressing her as daughter; and in each letter insisted that she must return to Lexington and live with them as such. She also received a letter from Judge Allen in which he stated: “Mary and I desire formally to adopt you as our daughter.” She answered: “You and Mrs. Allen have taken from life much of its loneliness and filled it with more happiness and love that I expected to be mine. When I return, if you still wish it, I will live at your home as a daughter during my remaining school year; and though I must leave you then, will always give you a daughter’s love. I cannot consent to a formal adoption, which necessitates a change of name. I owe it to my parents to bear the name they gave me until I am married. Had your son [pg 40] lived, I have indulged the dream-like joy, that at his suggestion it would have been changed to your own.”

She telegraphed when she took the train for Lexington. They drove to Winchester where they met her and taking her into their car brought her home with them. She was given John’s room which was large and cheerful and was delighted with it.

Mrs. Allen made the young people of her set welcome at her home; and it was not long before all the time that Jeannette could spare from her studies was given to entertaining her friends and being entertained by them. Late in November she gave Jeannette a formal party; and it was reported in the Lexington and Louisville papers as a brilliant affair. From then on, the old home, which had been closed to social gayety so long witnessed many entertainments; the first being a Christmas house-party of Jeannette’s school friends.

She graduated with class honors the following June. Judge Allen, in order to keep her with them, used his influence to secure a position for her as a substitute teacher in the university; and it was tendered, though she was not yet nineteen. She declined, saying: “I am too young and inexperienced for so responsible a position. They can easily find some one better fitted for the work; I must return to Big Creek to my own people; they need me.”

She took leave of Judge and Mrs. Allen, who were as a father and mother; gave up a luxurious home, agreeable society, the association with educated people; refused a position of some honor, with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars a year; and returned to Big Creek; where the only human ties were the hill-side graves; where she had no personal friends, only the old mule, the birds, her mountain, the creek, Big Rock and her books.

[pg 41] At a salary of fifty dollars a month she resumed teaching the Big Creek school. There were thirty-three, boys and girls of all sizes; she had to mother some, to whip others, to use diplomacy with those too big to whip; she had to teach them manners and religion; the girls to sew and read and write; the boys to respect their mothers and their sisters; to leave moonshine alone; to quit swearing and “chawing” tobacco; to inject ambition into them—make them understand that the “big man” was not he who could drink the most moonshine and spit the furthest. It required no study on her part to teach them; that is the book part, as they were intelligent. The mental strain was to manage them, to improve their manners and morals, in the face of adverse home influence in many instances—this required much patience; and once when very severely tried, she murmured: “What would Job have done today?”

The Blairs still occupied her house; and she boarded with them, walking two miles to the school house, except when the creek was up when she rode the old mule. Her world had suddenly narrowed to the two miles of creek valley; her companions were the Blairs, the children and her books; life had grown lonely and serious. She still heard voices, but they were sad; what they told she wrote into story and verse. These stories and verses she mailed to the editors of the magazines she read. They were all returned with printed declarations: “The editor regrets that the enclosed manuscript is not available for publication, etc., etc.”

She would then read the verse and stories published by the periodicals which had rejected her productions; and being satisfied that hers were equal in thought and literary merit, despite the rejections, persevered in her [pg 42] attempts, accumulating quite a collection of rejected manuscripts.

Last week’s mail had brought back two poems, which scanned perfectly and which she thought quite satisfactory. She had called them—“A Questionnaire,” and “Other Little Boats.” At the foot of the printed rejection slip the reader had scribbled in an almost illegible hand: “Why not select a more cheerful subject and adopt a jazzier style—we of today would reject Milton’s Paradise Lost. M. A.” Bearing this criticism in mind, she wrote and forwarded “A Genealogy” and it was accepted.

These three poems are reproduced in order that the reader may himself judge of their merit; and because to a certain extent they convey an idea of Jeannette’s mental state at the time.