Newspaper Page Text
“The Woman Thou Gavest Me” L Streets--“for Baby’s Sake*’
W*%mW
-■.■ft >•«:•«?
■umL
M§m.
smm
i»ira
ip
■;
sraE**
i;T ■*>„;■>}*'
ASp'
H 4 |Kpl
v >.; 'M
f. ■'• '''-4£ : . r
-?. -" -A'-: '■
fg5$V&
Sv.V": S\
•f-T'wVi
. ' ■ :.: :.
Hall Caine’s Descriptive Masterpiece of
Maternal Self-Sacrifice in the Current
Number of HEARST’S MAGAZINE
¥ N all Hall Calm*. the dlstinKuinhod Eng
I llsh novelist, has written of the ad
ventures of his heroine in “The Woman
Thou Gavest Me,' he has not produced a
chapter sci poignantly Interesting and
truly illuminative as the chapter that deals
with her despair in this month’s Issue of
Hearst s Magazine Here, as on a great
canvas, he has drawn the picture of the
wicked Piccadilly Circus of London and
the hapless women who march about it.
Properly to appreciate this masterpiece of
maternal self-sacrifice, a brief synopsis of
what has gone before is necessary.
Mary O’Neill, the delicate convent-bred
daughter of a self-made millionaire, is sold
n marriage by her ambitious father to the
dissipated and profligate Lord Ilea. Too
late she realizes the horror and sin of a
loveless marriage, and on her wedding night
she and her husband enter Into an agree
ment to live as man and wife In name only.
She meets Martin Conrad, an old friend
of her childhood, whc has become an ant
arctic explorer. Mary and Conrad fall into
the trap set fop them by her husband and
the woman with whom he has become In
fatuated. Conrad sails on another polar
xploration trip leaving Mary to face the
consequences of their passion. Lord Rea
discovers the situation, and Mary O’Neill
flies to London, and there her baby is born.
Cut off by her family, Conrad far away,
she faces want. The baby becomes ill
through lack of nourishment. Mary, who
has been earning a meagre pittance by
needlework, meets another old friend who
has joined the women of Piccadilly Circus.
8he spends a night with her. She returns
to the people who are looking after her
baby, only to find it perilously ill. She is
turned away by the people for whom she
has been working.
In her distress she is faced by the prob
lem of earning enough money to give her
baby life. How will she do it?
Following is the way Mr. Caine presents
the situation.
From the current instalment of “The
Woman Thou Gavest Me,” in Hearst’s Mag
azine and reprinted by permission of
Hearst’s Magazine.
F EELING tliat I did not yet know the
whole truth (though I was trembling In
terror of it), I handed baby to Mrs.
Oliver and followed the doctor t<» the door.
“Doctor/* I said, “Is my baby very 111?"
He hesitated for a moment and then an
swered. “Yes.”
“Dangerously 111?"
Again he hesitated, and then, looking closely
.it me (I felt my lower lip trembling), ho said,
■f won’t say that. She’s suffering from mar
asmus, provoked by overdoses of the perni
cious stuff that is given by ignorant and un
scrupulous people to a restless child to k<»ep
her cjuiet. Hut her real trouble comes from
maternal weakness, and the only cure for
that is good nourishment, and, above all, fresh
air and sunshine.”
“Will she get bet ter V"
“If you can take her away into the country
she will, certainly.”
“And if ... if I c^n’t,” I asked, the
words fluttering up to my Ups, “will she . .
dirt"
The doctor looked steadfastly at me again
• I was biting my lip to keep it firm), and said.
“.She mat/."
When I returned to the kitchen I knew that
I was face to face with another of the great
mysteries of a w-oman’s life—Death the death
of my child, which my very love and tender-
ness had exposed her to.
• • *
A ND now' God looked down on the sufferings
** of my baby, who was being killed for my
conduct—killed by my poverty!
By this time a new kind of despair had
taken hold of me. It was no longer tin* para
lyzing despair, but the despair that has a driv
ing force in it.
“My child shall not. die,” I thought. “At
least Poverty shall not kill her'"
Mauy times during the day I had heard Mrs.
Oliver Lying to comfort me w ith various forms
of sloppy sentiment. Children were a great
rial; they were alius makin' and keepln' peo
ple pore, and it was sometimes better for the
dears themselves to be in their ’eavenly Fath
er’s boosim.
I hardly listened It was the same as if
somebody were talking to me In my sleep. But
toward nightfall my deaf ear caught some
thing about myself—that “it" (1 knew what
that meant > might be better for me also, for
then 1 should be free of encumbrances and
could marry again.
“Of course you could—you so young and
good lookin'. Only the other day the person
at number five could tell me as you were the
prettiest woman ns comes up the Row, and
the Vicar’s w ife couldn’t hold a candle to you.
'Fine feathers makes flue birds.’ says she.
‘-Give your young lady a nice frock and a bit
o' color in her cheeks, and there ain't many
Rn could best her in the West End either.’”
1 s the woman talked dark thoughts took
possession of me. 1 began to think of Angela
1 tried not to. but I could not help it.
\ml Wien came the moment of my fiercest
trial. With a sense of Death hanging over my
child, I told myself that the only way to drive
it off was to make some great Sacrifice.
Hitherto 1 had thought of everything 1 pos
sessed as belonging to baby, but now I felt
that I myself belonged to tier. 1 had brought
her into the world, and it was my duty to see
tiiat she did not suffer.
All this time the inherited instinct of my
religion was fighting hard with me. and I was
saying many Hail Marys to prevent myself
from doing what I meant to do.
“//ail, 3/ary, full of grace; the Lord is with
I felt as if I were losing mv reason. But
was of no use tniggling against the awful
up * -v of self-sacrifice (for such I thought It)
bleb had taken hold of my mind, and at last
•j.iquered me.
I f
“I must, have money/' I thought. “Unless
I get money my child will die. I—must—get
—money.”
Toward 7 o’clock I got up. g ive baby to Mrs.
Oliver, put on my coat and fixed with nervous
fingers my hat and hatpins.
"Where are you going to, pore thing?” asked
Mrs. Oliver
“I am going out. I'll lie back In the morn
ing,” I answered.
Ami then, after kneeling and kissing my
baby again my sweet child, my Isabel—I tore
the street door .open and pulled it shut noisily
behind mo.
* • *
I OPENED my trunk and took out my clothes
—nil that remained of the dresses I had
brought from Elian. They were few, and more
than a little out of fashion, but one of them,
though far from gay. was bright and stylish
a light blue frock with a high collar and some
white lace over the bosom.
1 remember wondering why 1 had not
thought of pawning It during the week, when
I had had so much need of money, and then
being glad that I had not done so.
It was thin and ligh\ being the dress I had
worn on the day I cam*** first to tin* East End,
carrying my baby to Ilford, when the weather
was warm, which now was cold, but I paid
no hoed to that, thinking only that it was my
best and most attractive
After I had put it on and glanced at myself
In my little swinging looking glass. I was
pleased, but I saw at the same time that my
face was deadly pale, and that made me think
of some bottles and cardboard boxes which
lay in the pockets of my trunk.
I knew what they contained—the remains
of the cosmetics which I had bought in Egypt
in the foolish days when I was trying to make
my husband love me. Never since then had I
looked at them, but now I took them out
(with a rabbit’s foot and some pads and
brushes) and began to paint my pale face—
reddening my cracked ami colorless lips and
powdering out the dark lings under my eyes.
“What a farce!” I thought. “What a heart
less farce!”
Then I put on my hat, which was also not
very gay, and, taking out of my trunk a pair
of long, light gloves, which I had never worn
since I left Elian. I began to pull them on.
I *vas standing before the looking-glass in
the art <»f doing this, and trying (God pity
me!) to smile at myself, when 1 was suddenly
smitten by a new thought.
I was about to commit suicide—the worst
kind of suicide, not the suicide which is fol
lowed by oblivion, but by a life on earth after
death!
After that night Mary O’Neill would no
longer exist. 1 should never be able to think
of her again! I should have killed lus and
buried her and stamped the earth down on
her. and she would be gone from me for ever!
That made a grip at my heart—awakening
memories of happy days in my childhood,
bringing back the wild bliss of the short period
of my great love, and even making nit* think
of my life in Rome, with its confessions, its
masses and the sweetness of its church hells.
I w r as saying farewell to Mary O’Neill! And
parting with one’s self seemed so terrible that
when I thought of it my heart seemed to be
ready to burst.
“Hut who can blame me when my child’s
lift* is in danger?" 1 asked myself again, still
tugging at my long gloves
By the time I had finished dressing the Sal
vatlonists were going off to their barracks with
their followers behind them. Under the sing
ing I could fantly hear the shuffling of bad
shoes, which made a sound like the wash of an
ebbing tide over the teeth of a rocky beach—
up our side street, past the Women’s Night
Shelter (where the beds never had time to he
roine cool) and beyond the public house, with
the placard in the window saying the ale sold
then* could be guaranteed to make everybody
drunk fur fourpence.
“11 r'll stand the storm, it won't he long,
ind we'll anchor in the street by and bp.”
I listened and tried to laugh again, but l
could not do so now. There was one. last
spasm of my cruelly palpitating heart in which
I covered my face with both bands, and cried:
"For baby’s sake! For my baby’s sake!”
And then I opened my bedroom door, walked
boldly downstairs and went out into the street.
* 0 *
1 remember taking the electric car going
west and swing the Whitechapel road shooting
by me. with its surging crowds of pedestrians,
its public houses, its Cimerna shows and Jew
ish theatres *
1 remember getting down at Ahlgate Pump
and walking through that dead belt of ihe city,
which, lying between east and west, Is alive
like a beehive by day aud silent and deserted
by night.
Then
her that.
remem
walking
at random round
St. Martin’s
Church Into Lei
cester Square, I
came upon three
“public women”
who were swing
ing along with a
li 1 gli step and
laughing loudly,
and that one if
them was Angela,
n n d t h a t. she
stopped on seeing
me and cried:
“Hello! Here I
nm again, you see!
Out on tin* streets
for money? Uto
rn uni's dead, and
/ don't rare a
damn /”
I retnem her
11) a t she sa id
something else—
it was about Sis
ter Mildred, but
rny mind did not
take It in—and
at the next
moment she left
me and I heard
her laughter once
m ore ns she
swept round the
(•.•iiier and out of
sight.
1 hardly know
xvhat happened
next, for here
comes one of
the blank places
In my memory,
with nothing to
1 i g bt it except
vague thoughts of
Martin (and that
soulless night in
Bloomsbury, when
the newspapers
announced that he
was lost), until,
wandering a i m-
lessly t h r o u gh
streets a i d streets
of people — such
multitudes of peo
ple. no end of peo
ple— I found my
self back at Char
ing Cross.
The w a i t lng
crowd was now
eager and more
excited than before, and the traffic at both
sides of the station was stopped and dammed
back in long waiting lines.
“He’s coming! He’s coining! Here he is!
the people *-rled. and then the r e were deafen
ing shouts and cheers a.& for the return of a
hero
1 recall the sight of a line of policemen push
ing people back (I was myself pushed back); i
recall the sight of a big motor ear containing
three men and a woman, ploughing it* way
through; I recall the sight of one of the men
raising his cup; of the crowd rushing to shake
hands with him; then of the car swinging
u:i' aud of the people running after »i with
a noise like that of the racing of a noisy river.
It is the literal truth that never once did I
ask myself what this tumult was about, and
that for tome time after it was over—a full
hour at least—1 had a sense of walking in my
sleep, as if my body were passing through the
streets of the* West End of London while my
soul was somewhere else altogether.
Thus at one moment, as I was going by the
National Gallery and thought 1 caught the
sound of Martin’s name, 1 felt as if I were
back in Glen Ran, and it was myself who bad
been calling it iu the fratio hunger of my
desire.
At another moment, when 1 was standing at
the edge of the pavement in Piccadilly Circus,
which was ablaze with electric lights anS
thror ged w ith people (for the theatres and
music halls were emptying men in uniform
were running . bout with whistles, policemen
were directing the traffic and streams of car
riages were Mowing by), i felt us if 1 were
back in my native island, where 1 was alone
on the dark shore, while the sea was smiting
me.
Again, after a brusque voice had said. “Move
on, please,” I followed the current of pedes
trians down Piccudilly—it must have been Pic
cadilly- and saw lines of public women, chiefly
French and Belgian, sauntering along, and
heard men throwing light word to them as
they passed, I was thinking of the bleating
sheep and the barking dog.
>'4 r
■ ' : A
\ .’2 ~ 2A,. '
A ND again, when I was passing a man s club
and the place where I had met Angela.
1 began to paint my pale face red, for I was going out into the
streets—for baby’s sake!”
Another Craig Drawing for “The Woman Thcu Gavest Me.”
my dazed mind was harking back to Ilford
(with a frightened sense of the length of time
since I hml been there—“Good heavens, it must
be five hours, at least!”), and wondering if
Mrs. Olivf
brandy
But some!
seemed to
I saw things clearly and sharply
out of Oxford street into Regent street.
The traffic was then rapidly dying down, the
streets were darker, the cafes were closing,
men and women were coming out of supper 44
looms, smoking cigarettes, getting into taxis ‘You have been out ail night.” he said. “Can you tell me where you have been?”,
and driving away; and another London day
was passing into another night.
People spoke to me. I made no answer. At
one moment an elderly woman said something
to which I replied, “No, no,” and hurried on
At another moment a foreign-looking man ad
dressed me, and I pushed past without reply
ing. Then a string of noisy young fellows,
stretching across the* broad pavement arm in
arm, encircled me and cried, "Here we are,
my dear. Let’s have a kissing-bee.”
Rut with angry words and gestures 1 com
pelled them to let me go, whereupon one of
the foreign women who were sauntering by
said derisively for me to hear:
“What does she think she’s out for, I
wonder?”
At length 1 found myself standing under a
kind of loggia at the corner of Piccadilly Cir
cus. which was now half-dark, the theatres
and music halls being closed, and only one
group of arc lamps burning on an island about
a statue.
There were few people now where there had
been so dense a crowd a while ago; police
men were tramping leisurely along; horse
cabs were going at walking pace, and taxis
were moving slowly; but a few gentlemen
(walking home from their clubs apparently)
were passing at intervals, often looking at me
One of Frank Craigs Charming Illustrations for “The Woman Thou
Gavest Me” in HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
and sometimes speaking as they went by.
Then plainly and pitilessly the taunt of the
foreign woman came back to me—what was I
there for?
I knew quite well, and yet I saw that not
3nly was I not doing what I came out to do,
Out every time an opportunity had offered I
had resisted it.
It was just as if an inherited instinct of re
pulsion had restrained me, or some strong
unseen arm had always reached out and
snatched me away.
This led me—was it some angel leading me?
—to think again of Martin and to remember
our beautiful and sacred parting at Castle
Raa.
"Whatever happens to either of us. we be
long to each other forever." he had said, and
I had answered from my heart, "Forever and
ever."
It was a fearful shock to think of this now.
I saw that if I did what I had come out to do
not only would Mary O’Neill be dead to me
alter to-night, but Martin Conrad would bo
dead also.
When I thought of that, I realized that al-
Seaweeds to Supply Fertility to Farms-
By Prof. JOHN L. COWAN, i
the Noted Farming Expert.
T
fHAT the value of all products of the farms
of the United States now approximates
nine thousand millions of dollars an
nually is justly regarded as good cause for
national felicitation That a very large num
ber of the farmers who contribute to the pro
duction of this enormous total pursue the sui
cidal policy of taking from the soil all they can
get. with no attempt to restore to it the ele
ments taken from it by growing crops, is a fact
as undeniable as it is lamentable.
Hence the i nited States Department
of Agriculture and the State Agricultural Col
leges and Experiment Stations have been of late
assiduously preaching to the farmers of this
country the fact that profitable farming, in the
long run. is possible ouly when the elements
taken from the soil are restored to it. at least
in part.
Roughly speaking, fertilizers are composed of
phosphoric ucid, nitrate of soda and some form
of potash salts. Florida. South Carolina and
Tennessee contain great deposits of phosphate
rock, so that, as yet. the provision of an ade
quate supply of phosphoric acid presents no
uiuiculties.
In a recent report of Secretary Wilson, of
the Department of Agriculture, based upo in
VMStlgations made by scientists of the Bureau
of Soils, the following important and ignificaut
statements are made:
"The most promising bouice of potash at
present is found in the large areas of kelp
proves, or sea algae, lying along the Pacific
Coast, growing wherever there is a rocky bot
tom and a rapid tideway, at depths of from six
to ten fathoms. These groves are of various
areas, from beds of a fraction of an acre up to
stretches five miles in length and two or more
miles in width. During the past Summer about
100 square miles of kelp groves have been
mapped in different localities from Puget Sound
to Point Doma. and have studied the character
of the algae, as well as ti e conditions neces
sary to their utilization commercially, and their
maintenance as a permanent resource of the
country. Many more areas yet remain to be
studied and mapped, but from what has been
accomplished in this preliminary work I am
assured that a conservative estimate shows
that the kelp which could be gathered from the
100 square miles already surveyed, and without
detriment to the permanence of the groves,
should yield 1,000,000 tons of chloride of potash
annually, worth at least $:>o,00u,o00, or about
thrice the value of present importations of
potash salts from Germany.
"Satisfactory methods of gathering the keip
are * t to be worked out. out present only
minor mechanical difficulties. The value of tiie
kelp is. moreover, probably much greater titan
is represented by the contents of the pot? h
, , ue Our laboratories have shown that iod.ne
nod other useful products can he obtained
v.u.ca will pay in large measure, if not fatly.
the cost of gathering and abstracting the pot
ash salts. Enough has been accomplished to
show that this country has wdthin its borders
resources to meet the fertilizer requirements
of the present and a greatly increased use in
the coming years."
The investigations undertaken by tlis
Bureau of Soils, upon which Secretary Wilson s
report is based, constitute the first serious at
tempt that has ever been made at a systematic
study of the kelp beds that border the coasts
of California, Washington and Oregon. It has
never before been thought worth while to map
the forests of the sea, or to ascertain their ex
tent or the character and possible usesAff the
vegetation found in them.
However, the principal office of seaweeds in
the economy of nature is to perform the same
function in the water that ordinary forms of
vegetation perform on land—that of making
animal life possible. They assimilate inorganic
matter, existing in the water as impurities, and
transform it into materials essential to animal
life. Beyond doubt by far the greater mass of
seaweeds exists in microscopic forms, floating
everywhere, near the surface of the water, in
inconceivable numbers. These seaweeds form
the basis of the food supply of all animal life in
the ocean, and fishes aud other animals that do
not subsist directly upon seaweeds must prey
upon smaller or weaker creatures that do.
Scientists, then, have long recognized the
t-d u.u. toe economic value of seaweeds is
very great; but this form of vegetation has
been regarded, in general, as of little value for
industrial purposes. Until the official an
nouncement was made by Secretary Wilson,
tile thought could have occurred to but few' that
the kelps of the Pacific Coast might be of ines
timable value to agriculturists of the interior,
and were capable of bringing to pass a material
modification of our trade relations with Ger
many . However, months before Secretary Wil
son's report was made public a company was
organized at San Diego for the purpose of har
vesting kelps and extracting from them the
potash and other valuable constituents. The
plans of this company, and the methods it pro
poses to follow, have been kept profoundly se
cret.
It is roughly estimated that there are about
15.000 species of seaweeds. The simplest of
all plants are the minute algae (both salt and
fresh water), known as the blue-green slimes,
of which there are approximately 1,000 species,
found on rocks, wharves, the sides of ditches
aud on mud almost everywhere. The most
numerous of the algae are the grass-green sea
weeds (also both fresh water and marine), of
which there are from 8,000 to 10,000 species
found floating on the surface of the ocean,
lakes, rivers, brooks, ponds, ditches and pud^
dies; on damp earth, walls, fences, on the sur
face of leaves and the bark of trees in damp
forests, and existing in almost every place
where there is moisture.
though I had accepted without question the
newspaper reports of Martin's death, he ha^
never hitherto been really dead to me at all.
He had lived wdth me every moment of my
life since, supporting me, sustaining me, and
inspiring me, so that nothing I had ever done—
not one single thing—would have been differ
ent if I had believed him to be alive and been
sure that he was coming back.
But now 1 was about to kill Martin Conrad
as well as Mary O’Neill by breaking the pledge
(sacred as any sacrament) which they had
made tor life and for ail eternity.
Could I do that? In this hideous way, too?
Never! Never! Never! I should die in tho
streets first.
I remember that I was making a movement
to go back to Ilfcrd (God knows how), w'hen,
on -he top of all my brave thinking, came the
pitiful thought of my child. My poor helples?
little baby; who had made no promise and was
party to no pledge. She needed nourishment
and fresh air and sunshine, and if she could
not get them—if I went back to her penniless
—there was no help for it, she would die!
My- sweet darling! My Isabel! My only
treasure! Martin’s child and mine!
That put a quick end to all my qualms.
Again I bit my lip until it bled, and told my
self that I should speak to the very next man
who came along.
“Yes, the very next man who comes along,’
I thought. •
1 was standing at that moment in the
shadow of one of the pilasters of the ioggia,
almost leaning against it, and in the silence of
the street I heard distinctly the sharp firm
step of somebody w'ho was coming my way.
It was a man. As he came near to me he ,
slowed down and stopped. He was then tm- “
mediately behind me. I heard his quick
breathing. I felt that his eyes were fixed on
me One sidelong glance told me that he was
wearing a long ulsti* and a cap, that he was
young, tall, powerfully built, had a strong, firm,
clean-shaved face, and an indescribable sense
of the open air about him.
"Now', now!” I thought, and (to prevent my
self from running away) I turned quickly
round to him and tried to speak, really tried
to speak.
But I said nothing. I did not know what
women say to men under such circumstances!
I found myself trembling violently, and befor ’
1 was aware of what was happening 1 had
burst into tears.
Then came another blinding moment and
over me there sw-ept a tempest of conflicting
feelings.
1 felt that the man had laid hold of me. tlia:
his strong hands w'ere grasping my arms, and
that he was looking into my face.
(The full Instalment of "The Woman Thou
Gavest Me,” from which the foregoing excerpt)
are taken, will be found in the current numb»
of HEARST’S MAGAZINE.)