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4
VICTORIES WON.
(Continued from page one.)
sparkling eyes, just clouded by wistful
yearning.
•‘Yes, papa says that those men were
brave and did their duty as they were
called to do. But he says that our country
needs now, not men to die tor it, but to live
for it; to fight the wickedness and crime
that is dragging her down. You drink
hard I” she faced him abruptly, and his
head drooped—“l could see it if you had
not told me. And yet you know all the
dreadful misery it is bringing on this
country ! Papa says the jails, almshouses
and insane asylums are mostly kept filled
by drinkers. Suppose you would do all
you could to let into this country some
enemy from some other land, that was try
ing to get in just so he could kill one hun
dred thousand of our people every year.
You would be a coward and a traitor!”
“And I would deserve to be hanged 1” he
said, half to himself.
“Yes ; but you are doing all you can to
help this wicked drunkenness, and that’s
what it does. And in not coming up and
being a man when your country needs
men, it seems to me that you area deserter
just as bad as those men who wouldn’t
fight for their cause in the war. And why
don’t you be a man?” she added, changing
her tone of grieved arraignment for one of
girlish coaxing. “ I don’t see why you
can’t! You are only about as old as my
brother, and you are strong and—and—”
her glance swept from the well-shaped head
and bright, brown eyes to the firmly knit
muscles of his folded arms—“you would
be nice looking if you were dressed up,
and you look as if you could be anything
you tried to be! ”
He stepped back a little, and looked at
her strangely.
“ Do you think I could?” he said.
“Os course you could! ” she reiterated,
frowning prettily.
A wistful look came into his eyes. He
was not all hardened, this young victim of
misfortune and neglect.
“ Nobody ever cared whether I lived
or died, before. Would you care?”
The girl stepped closer to him in her
eagerness—so close that he could breathe
the perfume from the roses in her hand.
The flower-face was raised to his, and the
blue eyes were filled with tears.
“ If you would be a soldier of that other
kind that papa tells of—a man!—oh, I
would care so much!”
He touched the roses in her hand.
“ Will you give me one of these?” he
said, humbly.
“All, if you want them ”
She held them out impulsively.
“ No, only one! ” he said, taking a five
leaved wild rose from the bunch. “ This
one; it is like you, I think.”
Then he turned and walked rapidly
away, down the dusty road, without once
looking back. Down where the road
branched oft into a cool, green grove of
trees, he paused and took something from
his ragged pocket. It was a small, flat
bottle. He put his foot on it and crushed
it to a thousand atoms.
“ Maybe I’ll get another to-morrow,” he
muttered, looking down at the pieces.
“A fellow can’t tell what he will do
when he is a tough, as I am. But it don’t
seem now as if I ever would touch the
stuff again. And I can’t keep that and
this, too.”
He held the wild rose in his hand a
moment, stooped, and gatberinga broad,
dew-wet leaf from the ground at his feet,
wrapped it around the blossom and put it
into his breast.
* * * * *
“ What’s the use? I’m tired of it all.
It seems to me sometimes as if the world
is growing worse and worse; that people
will continue to rush headlong to destruc
tion, and smite the hand that tries to save
them.
“ ’Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars grow old,
And the leaves of the judgment book unfold.’>
“If I could only know that all my talk
and work helps one human being to a bet
ter life, I would gladly go on, even to
death. But the world seems so blind ! So
stupidly, viciously blind to its best inter
ests ! What is the use ?”
“You are in the ‘dolefuls’ to-night,
Evelyn!” said a soft voice, and the gray
haired old lady looked at her beautiful
niece with smiling sympathy. “It isn’t
like you to lose faith in your work.”
“It isn’t the work,” replied Evelyn,
putting one slender hand to her cheek,
where a hot, scarlet spot burned, adding a
strange brilliancy to her darkly blue eyes
and stately beauty. “It is myself that I
have lost faith in, I’m afraid. But think,
auntie; you know how papa’s heart and
soul and life were given to the work of
fighting the greatest evil of the age—the
liquor curse. You know how, for five
years, I have talked and worked in the
same cause, and how I see splendid men
and women the world over doing the same.
Yet what do we see? To-night in the big
City Hall is held a political meeting of
one of the ‘ old parties,’ while we hold one
in our little hall to welcome our nominee
for governor. An empty honor ! He will
not win, of course. But in that big hall
will be a crowd, hooting and howling for a
man who made his money by the ruin of
their homes, and who does more to fill their
jails and penitentiaries and poor-houses
than any twenty men in the state. They
take that kind of men to fill their offices of
trust, then pretend to wonder when they
betray their confidence and disgrace the
state or city that put them there. What can
they expect? Can a stream rise higher
than its source ?
“ And then their, orators to-night will
sneer at the little meeting over the way,
and refer to these good, honorable men—
simply because they are honorable, and
have the real good of their country at
heart instead of schemes to rob her and
advance themselves—they will call these
men ‘cranks’and ‘agitators.’ And the
poor fools that listen will stultify them
selves, in the face of the fret that two men
were shot to death, in the saloon adjoining
the hall, in a drunken brawl this very
morning, and of a thousand other worse
crimes every day, and applaud his utter
ances ! Do you wonder that one questions
if all this work pays ?”
“No, I don’t wonder!” returned the old
lady, tranquilly. “We all get the ‘blues’
sometimes, even in the face of bright facts.
Go to the meeting now, dear; and think
of this match for the poetry you quoted to
me;
“ Behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow
Keeping watch above His own.’ ”
Evelyn had not entirely shaken off her
unwonted depression when she entered the
hall. The speaker of the evening was
then addressing the meeting, and his first
words seemed a direct answer to her
“ grumblings ” of a few minutes before.
He was a stately and handsome person,
with a persuasive voice and eloquent ut
terance.
“Do you grow discouraged sometimes,
and say that the work does not pay ? That
the world is too full of drunkenness, greed
and wilful wickedness for a few to fight
against it successfully ? I don’t ask you,
now,to remember how the cause has grown.
Figures and statistics are dull things. But
I want to tell you what one very frail little
girl did for me.” He paused and smiled
whimsically. “ I don’t much believe in
holding oneself up as a horrible example,
but to tell you how I discovered myself a
‘ coward ’ and ‘ traitor,’ to prove to you
that no good word is lost, I must admit
that twelve years ago I was a tramp, and a
worthless drinking one at that. I must tell
it to enforce my moral.
“ I wandered one evening to a country
Cemetery; it was decoration day—”
Then Evelyn heard, with fast-beating
heart, grown suddenly strong and happy
at sight of her own good work before her,
the story of that almost forgotten evening
so long ago, when she, a country school
girl, talked to the wandering tramp in the
church-yard. Could it be? She lost his
words in a maze of delighted wonder un
til their close.
“ I don’t remember that the little wo
man;” and Evelyn’s face flushed not un
happily at the infinite tenderness in the
tones with which he uttered the name;
“ I don’t remember that she coaxed or
even pitied me much. But she scolded
me; I remember that! She contrasted
me severely with the heroes lying in the
decorated graves, and showed me wherein
I was a traitor to my country, a coward
and a deserter, in making a brute of my
self when my country needed men. But
she gave me some kind words before I left.
I had not thought of myself as a traitor
and coward, before, but I was—as every
man is who has not courage to be a man
in these days of dire need. The little school
girl taught me that.”
Evelyn listened in a tumult of happy
amazement, as he told of the years of
struggle for a better manhood, and the peo
ple only had to gaze at the perfect speci
men of Nature’s nobleman before them, to
know that it had been crowned with suc
cess at last.
It was with his closing sentence that the
orator cast his glance down upon a beauti
ful woman who sat close to the stage,
breathlessly drinking in every word of his
story. His heart gave a great throb and
seemed to stand still. For, looking at the
suffused, happy, violet eyes, the soft
curling rings of hair over the white brow,
the rose leaf flush on the cheeks and
dimpled chin, Warren Herbert knew that
he had found the face that his heart had
hungered for and that had led him on like
WOMAN’S WORK.
a guiding star through all these years of
discouragement and triumph.
*****
Once more the still country cemetery is
left to the dying echoes of retreating
bugles and drums. Once more the fading
wreaths and bouquets give forth a dewy
fragrance like the memory of the heroes to
whose honor that day had been given, and
robins twitter sleepily in the tall trees.
Two figures wander through the still
walks overhung by flowering shrubs and
vines. One, a man with well-knit figure
and brown eyes; the other, a beautiful
woman, dressed in rose pink that matched
the roses on her cheeks and in her hand.
He stopped suddenly and faced her with
both hands outstretched.
“ Evelyn!” he said softly, looking down
on the drooping head, “ I asked you once,
twelve years ago, for a rose; I have carried
it with me as I have the memory of your
dear face, all these years. Now, I ask for
those you have; but understand that, if
you give them to me, a dearer gilt goes
with them—yourself, my darling! May I
have them, Evelyn ?”
The sunny head drooped lower, and the
rose flush spread over cheek and throat.
“But you are not a dead hero,” she
laughed nervously.
“No, but there is a dead coward buried
in my life somewhere,” he replied lightly;
“for his sake then, will you give them to
me, Evelyn; or for my own sake, the un
worthy beggar, who sues you now ?”
She turned and put the fragrant bunch
of flowers into his hand, with a swift, sweet
gesture.
“ For victories won I” she said shyly, as
he took her to his heart.
For Woman’s Work.
A COROLLARY.
I must thank Naomi Wolcott and
Kate Carrington for the view and re
view of my article on Our Domestic Ser
vice Problem. They but emphasize the
importance of the subject under discussion;
for despite the assertion that much has
been written concerning it, agitation is
greatly needed.
While Kate Carrington agrees with
me on many points, she evidently mistakes
the animus of the earnest and well-consid
ered expression of my views on this prob
lem. If our Editress will kindly allow me
the space, I shall try to put the matter in
a somewhat clearer light.
The Southerners I referred to belonged
to the class of ante bellum planters who
still reside in the “cotton belt;” I have
no reference to those who may now claim
this section as their home, but have neither
hereditary nor social connection with the
“ Old South.” My home has lately been in
southern Georgia. I know that the cus
toms and manners in the northern part of
my native state are different from what
they are in the southern and middle por •
tions; and the people of the “ gulf states ”
differ materially from those, of other
southern states, as Tennessee and Ken
tucky. Understand that I use the term
southern in a restricted sense.
I am not ignorant of southern life, and
the knowledge that I have makes me un
derstand this peculiar case; how a woman
may not be lazy, nor lacking in ability and
inclination, and still be ignorant of system
and economy of time and labor.
Kate Carrington says she does not feel
complimented at my statement of this
deficiency; it is not intended as a compli
ment, neither is it slander, but a simple
truth fuliy recognized by thinking people.
The reason is evident to those familiar
with the past and present conditions of
southern life; it is a most natural result
of custom, tradition, climatic and social
environments. I do not believe that
women of any nationality would have met
the emergency better than we have done;
but time and experience are requisite for a
complete acceptance of a new order of
things.
Unfortunately, some of us need more
than “ one year’s experience ” to make a
complete revolution of domestic regulations
and adopted customs that were not taught
by our mothers, nor by our grand-mothers,
neither by our great great grand-mothers.
If Kate Carrington would spend a few
months in a typical southern home, she
might begin to see the reason of things.
She would soon understand, if she is the
bright woman I think her to be, judging
from her many admirable articles that
have appeared in Woman’s Wokk.
There has been in the South too much
deference to the old idea that drudgery is
detrimental to social caste, a prejudice
which is so rapidly disappearing that I
have written of it in the past tense. A
gentleman of one of our oldest and most
aristocratic southern towns said to me the
other day:
“ A few years ago it was an unheard of
thing for the ladies of W to do their
own work, but now the best of them are at
it. It is wonderful,” he continued, “ what
a change is coming over our customs; just
after the war some of our women thought
it was impossible to do without at least
three house servants, after being used to a
dozen. Now they say that they get on
much better without any than they did
with three. They just had to learn how.”
A charming little woman said to me
two weeks ago:
“When I was a young mother and house
keeper I thought I could not manage at all
without two servants,a nurse and a cook.
Now I have neither, and get along much
better, physically and spiritually,for the
worthless servants we get these days kept
my temper ruffled all the while. I did not
know how much I could do until 1 tried.”
She has such a well-regulated, hospitable
home that it is a pleasure to visit it. I
wish there were more like her, but I am
sorry to say she is in the minority. The
day is coming when all of us will pull out
of the old ruts, I hope.
As I have said before, we need, first of
all, to have our primitive domestic arrange
ments replaced by modern, labor-saving
inventions, and our kitchens must be plan
ned with a view to convenience. Ido not
know one family that uses a washing ma
chine; good washer women are getting
scarcer all the while. I drive three miles
twice a week to take my clothes to the only
first class one I can find in this community.
If she should die, or leave the neighbor
hood, I suppose I would get a machine
and learn how. I will do myself the
credit to say that I might do so now, but
as lam boarding it is impracticable. It is
not from lack of independence. I believe
I know of only one woman who does not
still move the churn dasher up and down
in the old-fashion way ; only one who has
a machine for making beaten biscuit; only
one country home with the convenience of
water brought to the kitchen in pipes.
This gives some suggestion of what we
have to contend with. Our southern men
are gentlemen, but, like the women, they
have not yet learned how, and poverty is
often in the way. Still there are many
conveniences they could add to the home
appointments if they realized the necessity
of them. Men all over the world are very
likely to think that their wives can get on
in the same way that “mother” did. I
am sure that if we women would demand
more conveniences, we would get them.
I do not agree with Kate Carrington
when she says the food of northern people
“ is more wholesome and quite as palatable
as ours.” Os course I refer to people in
the same circumstances, and I judge, by
the northern cook books I have used and
the recipes in northern home papers. The
southern housewife is famous for the
variety and delicacy of the viands she
provides for her table. The recipes that
are contributed to Woman’s Work by
Hannah Hughes, I consider the most
valuable that I have ever seen in print;
they are distinctively southern.
I do not think any women understand
the art of entertaining, or the sweet grace
of true hospitality, better than do our
women; but they have much to learn about
every day economy and system. Helping
them to see their fault is better than mere
flattery. We need each others sympathy
and encouragement.
I have never written anything to “ give
the world the impression that all the help
less women and neglected children are in
our beloved Southland.”
If Kate Carrington will give my article
a more thoughtful reading she will see
that she has misjudged. I have written
candidly, earnestly, loyally.
It is wiser and braver to face our prob
lem with the determination to solve it by
untiring energy and the independence
that acknowledges the need of reform and
accepts innovations; it is a foolish self-love
that makes one ashamed to admit an evi
dent deficiency.
Howard Meriwether Lovett.
To each one of us reading may become
a blessing or a curse, according to the use
we make of this talent entrusted to us.
Let us then reject what is evil, and choose
what is good. No mere cleverness should
lead us to read a doubtful book. No dis
play of genius, however brilliant, should
allure us to open a volume whose pages are
unclean. A book whose general charac
ter is one of irreverent skepticism should
be shunned for conscience sake. Let it be
remembered that a book positively evil
in its tendencies is a great and dangerous
enemy; no poison more deadly than that
contained in a wicked book—it is a poison
to the body, and to the soul it is a poison
even more fatal. Nay, even the thousand
weak and trashy volumes scattered about
our homes are not without danger. If
read to any extent, they weaken the mind,
and enervate the character. One cannot
be in a healthy condition when feeding on
froth,