It fell to my lot the other day to witness a scene that I shall not soon forget. Death has myriad ways of coming to the sons and daughters of men, and it chanced that death had drawn near to a certain dear woman in a way that well might blanch the cheek of the bravest hero. As surely condemned to die as is the murderer when he hears the judge's sentence, with absolute hopelessness of any cure, and with the certainty of no more than a brief span of weeks wherein to live, this brave woman faced her doom with all the condemned man's certainty, and yet without his shame. Grown old in a life of peculiar usefulness, with not a single abated enthusiasm and with a heart as keenly attuned to nature's as is the flute to the master's touch, this dear old heroine calmly renounced the world she had so loved and turned her face direct to "headquarters," with no friend to interfere between herself and God. For one bitter hour, perhaps, she wept and watched alone in her Gethsemane, then turned about to await the chariot wheels of her deliverance with a heart as glad and a faith as warm and bright as a little child's who waits in the shadow the coming of a loving father to lead her home. Taken to the hospital to die, knowing that those doors swung for her last entrance within any earthly home, fully realizing that from beneath that roof her soul should ascend to its home beyond the stars, bidding good-bye forever to the sunset skies and the rural walks that she had so loved, to all the bright company of wild flowers she had known by name, to the pomp of seasons and the communion of happy homes, she took up her abode in the ward of the incurables. Every day she sits in the sunshine and reads her books or indites letters to her friends. Every day she struggles with devastating pain, and every day she grows a little thinner and a little weaker in the body, while her soul springs heavenward like a white flower from the dust, which no earthly blight can reach. As I sat by her side the other morning and held her wasted hand in mine it seemed the most natural thing in the world to send a message by this sweet soul to the unseen land, and we almost forgot the pain of parting in the bright anticipation of the many who would throng to meet the gray-headed voyager when at last her sail should beat across the blue waters into the heavenly harbor. And as we talked there came a message that a very old friend had called to see the sufferer; one who had been the closest comrade of her brilliant youth and the companion of her maturer years. Slowly the guest entered the shrine wherein a soul awaited the sacrament of death, silently she stretched out her arms and gathered that wasted frame within their close embrace. As a mother comforts the baby at her breast, so they comforted one another with tender words. The years of their life fell away from them as petals from a rose which the wind lightly rocks, and they were girls again. "Oh, my dear child, how sweet, how brave, how grand you are!" said the guest. "My precious girl, my poor, dear one, how can I bear to see you here!" she cried again and yet again, while her tears fell like rain, and the turmoil of her sobs rent her very inmost heart. I shall live long before I see so touching a sight again. In the presence of a love so perfect and so true I felt to be almost an interloper and an alien, so I quietly stole away and left these two old women, bowed with the weight of many years, sustaining and sustained by the trust that the portals of the tomb, within whose shadows they stood, were but the gates that usher the soul into the full affluence of life and love.
It is almost impossible to get the average young person past the florist's window nowadays. She has a way of clasping her hands and pursing her lips over the roses that would make the average young man shed his last dollar, as the almond tree shakes its blossoms. I am always sorry for a poor young man in love with a pretty girl. He longs to buy the world for her and she longs quite as ardently to receive it as a gift, and so he is hurrying along his bankrupt career until matrimony or estrangement checks him. Have you not a pitying remembrance in your own heart of a certain youth of the long ago who deluged your house with roses, confectionery and novels until his salary was wildly wasted in the unequal contests? Girls, be a little less receptive, as it were; be just a bit more thoughtful and delicate in your orders at the restaurant and your selection from the florist's window, and I think your matrimonial chances will be the better for it. How often have I seen a young woman order a costly dinner when some young man whom she well knew to be the recipient of a small salary was to foot the bill, yet when ordering for herself I am told she never goes higher than beans and bread and butter. Now, girls, don't think Amber is an everlasting old grandmother! Not a bit of it, but she has tossed about the world so much and heard so many "little birds" telling their secrets that she has taken unto herself quite a pack of knowledge of the ways and manners of mankind. I positively adore a young girl, and always have, and, what is more, expect I always shall. But admiring and loving them as I do, from the tip of their bangs to the click of their boot heels, I cannot bear to see them do unlovely things. I want to see them helpful, lovable, sweet. I want to see them slow to wound another's feelings, and quick as sunshine after rain with tender smiles and womanly ways. I want to see them brave, yet gentle; gay, yet kind; fun-loving, yet never loud and rude. I want to hear the young men in speaking of them speak of something besides their extravagance and their greed. I want the very air to be the sweeter for their passing, as when one carries roses through a room their fragrance lingers. And what shall make you sweet, dear girls? Not fashionable gowns and dainty clothing; not beauty nor grace nor wealth so much as womanliness and unselfish thought for others.
The woman who can wear an arctic overshoe over a No. 5 shoe and make no moan ought to have been born a Joan of Arc or a Charlotte Corday. She is made of the "dust" that heroines have a corner on. At one time in my life I owned a dog—a guileless pup—whose darling aim on earth was to drag my colossal arctics before admiring gentlemen callers and lay them by the fireside, where they overshadowed the big base-burner with their bulk. I was rid of the dog long before I was rid of the feeling that it was a disgrace for a woman to wear the feet God gave her. The most colossal overshoe is neither so big nor so objectionable as an early grave, and that is just what lies before some of you girls if you don't quit wearing French heels and going about in damp and chilly weather without protection for your feet. Burn up the high-heeled slippers, then, with their atrocious shape; cultivate health and common-sense rather than the empty flattery of a world that cares nothing for you. So shall you be as beautiful as houris, as healthy as Hebes, as long lived as Sarahs and as light-footed as the shadow that dances to a wind-blown Columbine.
A graveyard never saddens me. It seems nothing more than one of the flies behind the scenes when the actors have gone on in front. What matters the room where we doff our toggery when we are once out of it? So, not long since, when in rambling about one of the Apostle Islands, away up in Lake Superior country, I ran across a sunshiny little graveyard, and I was glad to loiter about for an hour and read the inscriptions on the age-worn stones. It was a blue day—blue in the sky above and blue in the haze on the hills, blue in the sparkling waters of the lake and bluer yet in the far distance that marked a score of miles from shore. Before the gateway of the graveyard a clump of golden rod stood, like an angel barring the way with a sword of light. A tangle of luxuriant vines had curtained most of the graves from sight A few, more carefully tended than the rest, stood bravely out from behind fences of ornamental woodwork, but most of them were sheltered and peaceful within their neglected bowers of green. When my time comes to lie down in my narrow home, I pray you, kind gentlefolks, grant me the seclusion of an unremembered grave rather than the accentuated desolation of a painted fence and a padlocked gate. There is rest in neglect, and nature, if left alone, will never allow a grave to grow unsightly. She folds it away in added coverings of mossy green from year to year as a mother when the nights are long will tuck her sleeping children under soft, warm blankets. She appoints her choristers from the leafy belfry of the woods to keep the chimes ringing when the days are long and slow and sweet, and lights her tapers nightly in the wavering shimmer of the stars. In a secluded corner we found a handbreadth space where a baby was laid to rest many a year ago. No chronicle of the little life remains, and yet a stranger stands beside its grave and drops a tear. I don't know why, I'm sure, for why should we cry when a baby dies? So roses are picked before the frost finds them! Another stone was erected to a young bride who died at twenty. Looking about at the stoop-shouldered, care-lined and prematurely old women who toiled in those island homes, we could not feel very sorry for the young bride who died, perhaps, while life still held an illusion. With lingering step at last we left the graveyard, repassed the golden sentry at the gate and sought the little boat that awaited us on the beautiful bay. Long after other details of that pleasant outing are forgotten the memory of that blue day among the quiet graves on the island of the great lake shall linger like a song within our hearts.