Читать книгу The Stream Runs Fast - Nellie Letitia McClung - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe Family
Our first born arrived in the grey dawn of June 16th, when the scent of wild roses came down the village street, carried on the dewy breeze of morning. It was at a time of great heat but there had been a cooling rain in the night, and so the hour of Jack's arrival bore that odor which is dear to every prairie dweller—that good earthy smell when the rain has laid the dust. This bit about the scent of roses is all hearsay on my part. I was not noticing anything except the handsome young stranger who had come with the dawn; his round pink head covered with soft-silky brown hair, tight little ears and doubled up fists covering his eyes; his perfect finger nails, and his regular breathing—that was the sweetest sound I ever heard. He came with a cry of distress, but that was soon hushed when he found he was among friends. There was a white and blue-lined cradle ready for him, with white blankets and a down pillow. But I wanted him beside me in his white shawl; I think that was the most exquisite moment I have ever known!
Before the week was over his two grandmothers had arrived. My mother-in-law was ecstatic in her praise of the baby's beauty. She said she had never seen such a beautiful child. My mother, who already had ten grandchildren, was more conservative. "The child", she said, "is well enough. We should all be thankful that he appears normal and healthy; looks do not matter, and children change greatly anyway. If he is as good as he looks he will do very well." But she was really pleased when she knew the child was to be called John Wesley. Among her ten grandchildren "John" had only been given as a second name, and I knew it was her favorite name.
I have a vivid memory of the first night we were left alone with the baby. I was all right until I heard Mrs. Law's footsteps going down the stairs. The baby was asleep in his cradle, and I assured Mrs. Law that I would get along all right. But when the darkness settled in, and the streets grew quiet, I began to be afraid. What would I do if he should suddenly take sick? He might have colic, or even a convulsion.
I pretended I was asleep. I did not want Wes to know I was frightened. Then suddenly we clutched each other's hands in the darkness. He was worse than I was. We were almost afraid to breathe. The baby slept on. He might not have been so composed, if he had known he had two fraidy-cats to take care of him.
But he grew and thrived and every day absorbed us more. Talk about the influence parents have on children! It is nothing to the way children change their parents! My heart was always tender towards children, and I would do anything for their pleasure and comfort. I was brought up in the tradition that a mother who neglected her baby was the lowest form of sinner. One woman in our neighborhood was branded for life when it became known that she had made no preparation at all for the child who was coming. She said she did not think it would live. She might better have robbed the collection plate or killed a policeman on duty. But a new responsibility came to me after Jack was born, as I thought about him and his future. All children now were my children. I remembered the story in Uncle Tom's Cabin about the colored woman who was ordered by her cruel mistress to wean her own baby so she could nurse the white child, and how, when her own baby cried, she was compelled to leave it in the cabin, where its cries could not be heard in the house. It had shocked me when I read it years before. Now it filled me with rage. I wanted to do something about it.
Women must be made to feel their responsibility. All this protective love, this instinctive mother love, must be organized some way, and made effective. There was enough of it in the world to do away with all the evils which war upon childhood, undernourishment, slum conditions, child labor, drunkenness. Women could abolish these if they wanted to.
I determined to join the W.C.T.U. It was the most progressive organization at that time, and I determined that I would stir the deep waters of complacency. It could be done in one generation. These flashes of the crusading spirit often assailed me. I wanted to raise a family who would be like the Booths, and scatter the darkness of humanity, and light the candles of freedom in the dark places of the world. But a good hard streak of Scotch caution told me my first job was to raise a family, and give them sound bodies and sound minds and cheerful memories, not rolling the sins of the world on them at too early an age. Let them have all the fun in life that I could give them. I knew what a heritage a happy childhood can be. I had had one. I believe my devotion to the Dickens' stories saved me from a fatal error. I remembered that awful woman, Mrs. Jellyby, who was intent on saving the population of Ballyaboolaga, while her own children had to shift for themselves.
In the course of time Florence was born, one cold January morning. We had moved out of the four rooms over the drug store to accommodate our increasing family, and rented a house opposite the Orange Hall. We put in two Klondike heaters downstairs and made grated openings in the floors to let some heat come into the bedrooms, and there, as the rising sun was struggling to pierce the thick frost on an eastern window, Florence Letitia McClung lifted up her voice and wept. Outside it was fifty-two degrees below zero. But the Klondike heaters were gorged with wood, and diligently tended by one Alice Foster, a fine looking girl from a farm, who knew all about stoves and their ways. I have no recollection of any discomfort, but I do remember how that child gave tongue. Jack, one year and eight months old, a good walker but not yet talking, stood still and listened, with a great wonder in his eyes. The house, which was a poor old shell, carried every sound. Then he ran to his clothes box where his own modest wardrobe was kept, and began to pitch out his belongings like a badger digging a hole. When Alice brought up the news, I was sure Jack, generous and provident, was offering his all on the altar of brotherly love, but Alice thought he was preparing to leave.
For six weeks the thermometer stayed around forty degrees below zero, and the old house cracked with frost. But the good provider I had married fulfilled his promise to feed me and keep me warm, me and my offspring, many or few, and after all these years I must say the obligations have been faithfully met.
In less than another two years Paul joined our family; one snowy November morning at an early hour, Dr. MacCharles and Mrs. Law again seeing me safely through. With three children now, I remembered the old rhyme which I had often heard, relative to this matter of family increase:
"When you have one, You can take it and run, When you have two, Perhaps you can do. But when you have three, You stay where you be."
Jack, being the eldest, assumed responsibility early. He did his best to shepherd his sister when she was able to run about. He got into a fight one day with Alec Macnab, who lived across the street, and who had said Florence's face was dirty. When I went out to quiet the disturbance, and heard the cause, I ventured the opinion that Alec had not misstated the case. Miss McClung's face was all he needed as evidence to prove his statement. Jack gave me a look of exasperation and said: "But that's none of his business". I talked to him afterwards and he explained: "I could tell her her face is dirty, or you could tell her, and that would be all right. We would be telling her so she would wash her face. But Alec flung it at her to make little of her."
Another day he was scolding a boy who had kicked our dog, and the boy said in his own defence: "You stepped on Jim's tail one day and hurt him just as bad as I did." Jack was indignant. "I stepped on his tail by mistake. You kicked him on purpose. A dog knows the difference. I did not hurt his feelings, and you did." I began to think there was some virtue in the hours I had spent in working mathematical problems before he was born. With three children under four years old, I did not spend much time studying world happenings, but I did read poetry to them, believing they would get the rhythm of it, even if they did not understand it. I loved to hear them repeating snatches of it before they went to sleep. They loved Eugene Field's:
"Sleep little pigeon and fold your wings, Little blue pigeon with velvet eyes,"
and, of course, "Winken, Blinken and Nod" and "Little Orphan Annie."
Another prime favorite was the story about the little boy who was so fond of sugar and ate so much of it that he melted and ran away at last. The tragedy of his latter end did not depress them at all.
"He ran away like melted butter, When before the fire it is put to warm, And the ducks and the drakes ate him up in the gutter, And that was the end of Sugary Sam."
The picture of Sam in his final dissolution was well-thumbed and worn.
I am convinced it is just as easy to bring up three children as one. They bring each other up, really. No one could be busier than I was, when I had only Jack. He was on my mind both night and day. Now that I had three to think of, it was really easier, and in all this I had the assistance of Alice Foster, who deserves to have a whole book written about her alone. I had her for twelve years and depended on her as I did on my own right arm.
Alice was so patient with children and so wise in handling them I always knew she would marry a widower with a family of small children. Character is destiny. And I could see Alice heading into some dead woman's place and filling it nobly. Some man probably a minister, recovering from his loss and just beginning to take notice, would be sure to see her as the answer to his prayers. Eight small children was the allotment I gave her!
Alice trained for a deaconess and went to the Gower Street Church in St. John's, Newfoundland, and there she met a Methodist minister.
"Please note", she wrote in announcing her engagement, "that Sidney has only three children. You said eight, but you were always a bit free-handed". I knew the answer to that one too, but I did not say it. I sent a letter of sincere congratulations to Sidney, and told him his judgment was excellent, and I record with pride that Alice named her first boy "Paul" and her first girl "Florence", so it would seem that she, too, had pleasant memories of the years we spent together.
