The other woman was older, more wrinkled, more weather-beaten, but there was a childlike eagerness about her that greatly attracted me. She used her hands when she spoke, and smiled often. This childish enthusiasm contrasted strangely with her old face, and seemed like the spirit of youth fluttering still around the grave of one whom it loved!
I soon found myself talking to them; the old lady was glad to talk to me, for she was not making much headway with her companion, on whom all her arguments were beating in vain.
"I tell her she has no call to be feeling so bad about the war!" she began, getting right into the heart of the subject; "we didn't start it! Let the Kings and Kaisers and Czars who make the trouble do the fretting. Thank God, none of them are any blood-relation of mine, anyway. I won't fret over any one's sins, only my own, and maybe I don't fret half enough over them, either!"
"What do you know about sins?" the other woman said; "you couldn't sin if you tried——"
"That's all you know about it," said the old lady with what was intended for a dark and mysterious look; "but I never could see what good it does to worry, anyway, and bother other people by feeling sorry. Now, here she is worrying night and day because her boy is in the army and will have to go to France pretty soon. She has two others at home, too young to go. Harry is still safe in England—he may never have to go: the war may be over—the Kaiser may fall and break his neck—there's lots of ways peace may come. Even if Harry does go, he may not get killed. He may only get his toe off, or his little finger, and come home, or he may escape everything. Some do. Even if he is killed—every one has to die, and no one can die a better way; and Harry is ready—good and ready! So why does she fret? I know she's had trouble—lots of it—Lord, haven't we all? My three boys went—two have been killed; but I am not complaining—I am still hoping the last boy may come through safe. Anyway, we couldn't help it. It is not our fault; we have to keep on doing what we can....
"I remember a hen I used to have when we lived on the farm, and she had more sense than lots of people—she was a little no-breed hen, and so small that nobody ever paid much attention to her. But she had a big heart, and was the greatest mother of any hen I had, and stayed with her chickens until they were as big as she was and refused to be gathered under wings any longer. She never could see that they were grown up. One time she adopted a whole family that belonged to a stuck-up Plymouth Rock that deserted them when they weren't much more than feathered. Biddy stepped right in and raised them, with thirteen of her own. Hers were well grown—Biddy always got down to business early in the spring, she was so forehanded. She raised the Plymouth Rocks fine, too! She was a born stepmother. Well, she got shut out one night, and froze her feet, and lost some good claws, too; but I knew she'd manage some way, and of course I did not let her set, because she could not scratch with these stumpy feet of hers. But she found a job all right! She stole chickens from the other hens. I often wondered what she promised them, but she got them someway, and only took those that were big enough to scratch, for Biddy knew her limitations. She was leading around twenty-two chickens of different sizes that summer.
"You see she had personality—that hen: you couldn't keep her down; she never went in when it rained, and she could cackle louder than any hen on the ground; and above all, she took things as they came. I always admired her. I liked the way she died, too. Of course I let her live as long as she could—she wouldn't have been any good to eat, anyway, for she was all brains, and I never could bear to make soup out of a philosopher like what she was. Well, she was getting pretty stiff—I could see that; and sometimes she had to try two or three times before she could get on the roost. But this night she made it on the first try, and when I went to shut the door, she sat there all ruffled up. I reached out to feel her, she looked so humped-up, and the minute I touched her, she fell off the roost; and when I picked her up, she was dead! You see, she got herself balanced so she would stay on the roost, and then died—bluffed it out to the last, and died standing up! That's what we should all try to do!" she concluded; "go down with a smile—I say—hustling and cheerful to the last!"
I commended her philosophy, but the other woman sat silent, and her knitting lay idle on her knee.
After all, the biggest thing in life is the mental attitude!
This was the third time a boy on a wheel
Had come to her gate
With the small yellow slip, with its few curt words,
To tell her the fate
Of the boys she had given to fight
For the right to be free!
I thought I must go as a neighbor and friend
And stand by her side;
At least I could tell her how sorry I was
That a brave man had died.