When she received Mrs. Allen’s letter telling of the death of her son, who had been her one friend around whom her childlike super-idealism and innocence had built a gorgeous bower, her heart was rent by its first great shock. She felt that her God of providence and love had cast her from heaven into a place of utter darkness where she had been caught by the net of fate and was now being dragged through all the sorrows and tragedies of life. Her voices were gone; she hated the silence about her; the mountain seemed dark and dangerous; the sun seemed harsh and cold; the grass but to cover graves; and the trees but mourners for the departed. He is gone! God has deserted me! She had yet to learn that the voices would return; that other friends would come; that life is neither tragic nor sad, though it has its hours of sadness and tragedy; and that sorrows make for themselves deep beds in our hearts wherein they sleep until life draws near its end and more than half of all our soul loves has passed to the other side.
All of Thursday night she sat in Granny’s great rocking chair, and when day came, while her joys seemed gone forever, her grief had been dulled. She found a dulling consolation in working about the house and in looking after the creatures of the barnyard. In the afternoon her head ached so, she laid down; and sleep came and comforted her.
Friday night after her grandmother was in bed and asleep, she went out upon Big Rock and in the quiet of the night listened for her voices, but they would not come. For more than an hour she cried, her frame shaking with sobs and low, gasping moans. Then she was [pg 34] still a long time—thinking of what life had been, what it now was, and hereafter would be to her broken soul. Gradually she drew out from under the shadow of her sorrow, until instead of being overwhelmed by it, it was a sorrow which her soul possessed. She began to think that the wound might some day close but she knew her heart would always bear the scar and her days never again be quite so bright. She found that although she was still unhappy she was consoled, and thanked God that she had this man’s friendship, perhaps his love; and began to look upon death as a very simple affair; the soul shedding the shackles of flesh.
She slept. In her dreams the voices came back; and her sorrows were cast off as one does a cloak, serviceable in a shower, but when the sun comes out an uncomfortable burden. Past midnight she awoke, stiff and sore from her hard bed, and went to the house.
Sunday afternoon, she wrote Mrs. Allen:
“About four years ago, your son on his way to Hyden, asked for and found shelter for the night at our home. Ten days later he sent us a few little things; among them my first real dolls. I have never seen him since except as fancy pictured nor heard his voice as a materialist may hear, though many times it seemed he spoke to me in a way I cannot explain. I have four letters; they are the four treasures of my life.
“His death is my greatest loss; and through life I shall carry a scar from the wound. But what I suffer is not worth mentioning when compared with the grief his mother must feel. She who gave him life; who felt his little chubby, helpless hands moving about over her breasts seeking his food; who taught him to stand alone; to walk; to lisp his first words; who tried to teach him first to say father, but nature and his own heart put the [pg 35] name of mother in his mind and in his mouth. Then you taught him to say his prayers; and those prayers have been answered. He prayed: ‘Thy kingdom come,’—and it has come for him; while you and I weep, refusing to be comforted; until we learn that those we love must pass to the other side, in order that His kingdom may come for us, and we escape death for ourselves and lose the fear of death for our dear ones.
“It is thus we find happiness in our anguish; and love for God while we suffer from the raw realities of life; knowing he has found us worthy of both love and unhappiness.
“How I shall love his books when they come. I hope he has marked the passages which pleased him and noted some of his own thoughts upon their margins.
“I shall come to you. Just now it is impossible. My school is not out until July; and teaching to me is more than bread; it is an implacable duty. Granny is very feeble; her condition may also delay my coming. I have been planning for a year to take a teacher’s course at the State University. If this hope is realized, Lexington will be my home for some time; and if you wish it, I will come many times to talk with you about your son.