the last celebration of thanksgiving was about the most startling that any of the hope farmers remember. i have passed this holiday under quite varied conditions. “boy” on a new england farm and in a boarding-house, cattle herder on a colorado ranch, sawyer in a lumber camp, teacher in a country school district, hired man and book agent on a michigan farm, “elocutionist” in a dramatic company, “professor of modern languages” (with a slim grip on english alone) in a young ladies’ seminary, printer’s devil in a southern newspaper office, ditcher in a swamp, and other capacities too numerous to mention. a man may perhaps lay claim to a bit of helpful philosophy if he can find some fun in all such days and carry along in his mental pocket “much to be thankful for.” he is sure to come to a time in life when these “treasures of memory” will be very useful. i would not refer to family matters that might well be marked “private” and locked away with the skeleton in the closet if i did not know that the plain, simple matters of family record are things that all the world have in common.
a pirate or a man trying to hide himself might have seen virtues in the dull, misty fog that settled upon the city the night before thanksgiving. grandmother had been slowly failing through the day. the night brought her greater pain than ever. all through these long months we had been able to keep from her the real nature of her disease. i took it upon myself to keep the children happy. if we grown-ups found it hard to be thankful we would see that the little folks put out enough thanks for the whole family. i took them down to the market to pick out a turkey! we had a great time, and finally found a turkey fat enough. the market man gave each of the children a handful of nuts—and they now want mother to give him all her trade. they went home fairly radiant with happiness. was it not better for them to go to sleep with the pleasant side of the day in their hearts rather than the shadow which the rest of us could feel near us?
the morning came dark and dismal. it didn’t seem like thanksgiving as the bud and i went after the doctor. the clerks and professional people seemed to be taking a holiday, but the drivers, the diggers and heavy workmen were at their jobs as usual. the streets were filled with children dressed up in ridiculous costumes, wearing masks or with faces blackened. these urchins went about begging money from passers-by. our little folks were rather shocked at this way of celebrating thanksgiving. where this ridiculous mummery came from or how it crept into a thanksgiving celebration is more than i can say. it may be as close as a city child can come to thanking nature for a bountiful harvest! charlie and his family came in from the farm, and jack came from his school. grandmother made a desperate struggle and was finally able to sit up so that her children and grandchildren might be about her. as the children grew restless in the house i took them out and we walked along the river. my mind was busy with other matters relating to other days, but the little folks, happily, saw only the great bright side of the future. their past was too small to cast any shadow. we went as far as grant’s tomb and passed through the room where the great general’s remains are lying. as we passed in, the graft and scion saw the men take off their hats and they did the same.
“why do they make you take off your hat?” asked the graft, when we came out.
i tried to explain to him that this was one of the things that people should not be made to do. they should do it because they wanted to show their respect or reverence. i doubt if i made him understand it, for when a boy is hungry and other boys are playing football in a nearby vacant lot even the gentlest sermon loses its point. our dinner was such a success that we did not have chairs enough to go around. the children had to sit on boxes and baskets. a taste of everything from turkey down went in to grandmother, but she could eat little. the plates came back again and again until the hope farm man was obliged to say:
“well, mother, i shall have to turn this turkey over after all.”
he had not only to turn it over but scrape many of the bones clean. the farm folks finally went home and jack too was obliged to go. happily the little folks were tired out and they were asleep early. about two o’clock mother woke me. she did not do it before, because it might have alarmed grandmother, who did not, i think, clearly understand her true condition. there was apparently no pain or struggle at the end. we noticed that her face lighted up with a strange, puzzled look, of surprise and wonder—and well it might when one is called upon to lay down the troubles and toil of such a life as hers in the dim, mysterious country which one must die to enter.
perhaps the hardest part of it all was to tell the children about it. they must have known that some strange thing was happening. they woke up early and saw the undertaker passing through the room. then mother got them together and told them that poor grandmother had suffered so long that god pitied her and had taken her to him. the little folks sat with thoughtful faces for a while and then one of them said with wide-open eyes:
“is grandmother dead then?”
and so the body of poor grandmother passed away from us while her spirit and memory passed deeper than ever into the lives of the hope farm folks. life with her had ceased to be comfortable. it was merely a steady, hopeless struggle against pain and depression. mother was able to go through these long months calmly and hopefully because she knows that her mother had every service that love could render. it is with that thought in mind that i feel like saying a solemn word to those whom i have never met, yet who seem to be as close as personal friends can be. do not for an instant begrudge the money, the time or toil which you may spend upon those of your loved ones who need your help. that is a part of the cross which you must carry cheerfully or reject. do not let those whom you serve see that it is a cross, but glorify it from day to day. it is not merely a part of hard, cold duty, but the vital force in the development of character. it may be that i am now talking to someone who is putting personal comfort above the self-denial which goes with the sacred trust which god has put into our lives. where will the flag of “comfort” lead them when the discomforting days come? a conscience is a troublesome thing at best, but one that has been gently and truly developed through self-sacrifice is a better companion than the barbed finger of trouble thrust into the very soul at last by the relentless hand of fate!
a novelist could weave a startling romance out of the plain life record of this typical american woman. she was born in massachusetts—coming from the best stock this country has ever produced. this is not the narrow-eyed, cent-shaving yankee, but the children from the hillside farms who went to the valleys and at the little water-powers laid the foundations of new england’s manufacturing. these sturdy people saw clearly into the future, and as they harnessed and trained the power of the valley streams they cultivated and restrained their own powers until the man as well as the machine became a tremendous force. honorable misfortune befell this manufacturing family, but could not crush it. in those days the boys, under such circumstances, dropped all their own ambitions and took the first job that presented itself, without a murmur and with joy that they could do it. the girls did the same, though there were few openings for women then outside of housework and the schoolroom. grandmother had a taste for music, and became a music teacher. she finally secured a position as teacher in a little town in mississippi, and in about the year that the hope farm man was born she went into what was then a strange country for the daughter of a massachusetts abolitionist! what a journey that must have been, before the civil war, for a young woman such as grandmother was then. the south was in a blaze of excitement, yet this quiet, gentle northern girl won the love and respect of all. there she met the man who was to be her husband—a young lawyer, able and ambitious, but weighted down by family cares, political convictions and ill health. he was a union man whose family had made their slaves free and who opposed secession to the last. grandmother was married and went to the south just before the storm broke. what a life that was in the dreary little town during those years of fighting! her husband was at one time drafted into the confederate service and sent to the front only to have a surgeon declare him too feeble and sick for even that desperate service. he cobbled shoes, leached the soil in old smokehouses for salt, and “lived” as best he could. once he took grandmother through the lines with a bale of cotton which he sold to pay passage money to the north. after the war he was state senator and judge under the patched-up government which followed. carpetbaggers and rascals from the north lined their pockets with gold and brought shame upon their party and torture and death to the ignorant black men who followed them. in the midst of this carnival of shame and thieving grandmother’s husband never touched a dishonest dollar and did his best to give character to a despised and degraded race. of course he failed, for the race did not have strength enough to see that what he tried to offer them was better than the hatred of their old masters and the dollars which the carpet-baggers held out. it was not all lost, for when he was buried i am told that around his grave there was a thick fringe of white people and back—at a respectful distance—acres of black, shining faces which betrayed the crude, awkward stirring of manhood in hearts untrained yet appreciating true service to country.
i speak of these things to make my point clear that grandmother was a woman capable of supporting her husband through these trials and still capable of holding the love of those who opposed him. in the face of an opposition so frightful that few of us can realize it this quiet, unflinching woman kept steadily on, respected and trusted by all. she took up her burdens without complaint, hid her troubles in her heart, and walked bravely on in her quiet, humble way, until at last she found a safe haven with her children. a true and sincere christian woman she lived and acted out her faith and did her life’s duty with dignity and cheerfulness. the little folks as they sit beneath the tree at hope farm and talk of grandmother will have only blessed memories of her.
