Mary Ware's Promised Land

by Annie F. Johnston

"But I'll tell you what I'd like," she added, seeing the shade of disappointment that clouded Mary's face for a second. "I'd like to have that description published in The Survey, and I'd like to take you with me this afternoon to the meeting of a committee of the Commercial Club, and have you tell them about this visit, just as you have told it in this letter. It's one of the most realistic things I ever read. It fairly makes my flesh creep in places."

Mary gave a gasp of astonishment, unable to believe at first that Mrs. Blythe was serious. To be pushed forward as a magazine writer and a public speaker, both in one day, was too much for her comprehension.

"Oh, Mrs. Blythe! I couldn't make a speech in public!" protested Mary, half frightened at the mere thought.

"I don't want you to," was the placid answer. "I merely want you to come with me and sit at a big table with a dozen or more people around it, and answer the questions that we put to you about what you've seen. You're not afraid to do that, are you?"

"No, if that's all," admitted Mary hesitatingly. "It's never been any trouble for me to do just plain talking. It used to be that my difficulty was I never knew when to quit."

"I'll attend to that part of it," laughed Mrs. Blythe.

So it came about that afternoon that Mary sat at the big directors' table in an upper room of the Commercial Club building, and told once more the story of her visit to the tenement on Myrtle and Tenth Streets. She began it a little hesitatingly, with a quicker beating of pulses and a deepening of color, but gradually she lost her self-consciousness. The inspiration of many interested listeners gave her a sense of power. She was conscious of the breathless silence in which her story held them. She felt rather than saw that no one stirred, and that they were all moved by the story of the old blind grandmother, grieving over the golden curl that was all that was left to her of the child who was her sunshine. When she mimicked the agent's voice and manner, the ripple of appreciation which passed around the table gratified her more than the applause which followed. It showed that she had made what Sandford Berry would have called "a decided hit."

"You will do it again," Mrs. Blythe said when the meeting was over and they were on their way home, and Mary nodded assent. She didn't mind any amount of "just plain talking," especially when it succeeded in arousing such interest as this first effort had done. She told the same story several times that week in Riverville to small audiences, and then again in Maysport, in a room so large that she had to stand in order to make herself heard. But even then she was not embarrassed, for Mrs. Blythe was standing too. She had turned in the midst of her own talk to say quite naturally, "You tell them about that part of it, Miss Ware. You can make them see it more plainly than I."

Again Mary, in the midst of profound silence, saw eyes grow misty with sympathy and saw faces light up with indignation at her recital. It never occurred to her to write home that she had spoken in public. She didn't really count it as such, for, as she told Sandford Berry, it wasn't a real speech. It was just as if she had seen a case that needed the attention of a Humane officer, and had stopped in off the street to report it. It was Mrs. Blythe who made the real speeches, who put their duty so clearly before the people of Riverville that before August was over a Better Homes society had been organized, and a score of members enrolled as active workers.

When Mary had time to stop and think, she realized that she was truly in the thick of things at last, for the more she tried to interest people the more necessary she found it to go often to the tenements for fresh pictures of their need. And sometimes a day that began by sending her to a needy family on Myrtle Street, ended by taking her to a musicale or a lawn fête in one of the most beautiful homes of the city. Mrs. Blythe's introduction of her everywhere as her friend, rather than her secretary, would have opened Riverville doors to her of its own self, but, aside from that, Mary won an entrance to many a friendship on her own account. She was so sincerely interested in everything and everybody, so glad to make friends, so fresh in her enthusiasm, and so attractive in all the healthy vigor of heart and body which a sturdy outdoor life had given her.