The Next of Kin: Those who Wait and Wonder

by Nellie L. McClung

I told her that I did see, and that I believed that she had expressed the very thought that was in the mind of women everywhere.

"Well, then," she said quickly, "why don't you write it? We will forget this when it is all over and we will go back to our old pursuits and there will be nothing—I mean, no record of how we felt. Anyway, we will die and a new generation will take our places. Why don't you write it while your heart is hot?"

"But," I said, "perhaps what I should write would not truly represent what the women are thinking. They have diverse thoughts, and how can I hope to speak for them?"

"Write what you feel," she said sternly. "These are fundamental things. Ideas are epidemic—they go like the measles. If you are thinking a certain thing, you may be sure you have no monopoly of it; many others are thinking it too. That is my greatest comfort at this time. Write down what you feel, even if it is not what you think you ought to feel. Write it down for all of us!"

And that is how it happened. There in the Municipal Hall in the small town of Ripston, as we sat round the stove that cold November day, with the sleet sifting against the windows, I got my commission from these women, whom I had not seen until that day, to tell what we think and feel, to tell how it looks to us, who are the mothers of soldiers, and to whom even now the letter may be on its way with its curt inscription across the corner. I got my commission there to tell fearlessly and hopefully the story of the Next of Kin.

It will be written in many ways, by many people, for the brand of this war is not only on our foreheads, but deep in our hearts, and it will be reflected in all that our people write for many years to come. The trouble is that most of us feel too much to write well; for it is hard to write of the things which lie so heavy on our hearts; but the picture is not all dark—no picture can be. If it is all dark, it ceases to be a picture and becomes a blot. Belgium has its tradition of deathless glory, its imperishable memories of gallant bravery which lighten its darkness and make it shine like noonday. The one unlightened tragedy of the world to-day is Germany.

I thought of these things that night when I was being entertained at the Southern woman's hospitable home.

"It pretty near took a war to make these English women friendly to each other and to Americans. I lived here six months before any of them called on me, and then I had to go and dig them out; but I was not going to let them go on in such a mean way. They told me then that they were waiting to see what church I was going to; and then I rubbed it into them that they were a poor recommend for any church, with their mean, unneighborly ways; for if a church does not teach people to be friendly I think it ought to be burned down, don't you? I told them I could not take much stock in that hymn about 'We shall know each other there,' when they did not seem a bit anxious about knowing each other here, which is a heap more important; for in heaven we will all have angels to play with, but here we only have each other, and it is right lonesome when they won't come out and play! But I tell you things have changed for the better since the war, and now we knit and sew together, and forgive each other for being Methodists and Presbyterians; and, do you know? I made a speech one night, right out loud so everybody could hear me, in a Red Cross meeting, and that is what I thought that I could never do. But I got feeling so anxious about the prisoners of war in Germany that I couldn't help making an appeal for them; and I was so keen about it, and wanted every one of those dear boys to get a square meal, that I forgot all about little Mrs. Price, and I was not caring a cent whether she was doing herself proud or not. And when I got done the people were using their handkerchiefs, and I was sniffing pretty hard myself, but we raised eighty-five dollars then and there, and now I know I will never be scared again. I used to think it was so ladylike to be nervous about speaking, and now I know it is just a form of selfishness. I was simply scared that I would not do well, thinking all the time of myself. But now everything has changed and I am ready to do anything I can."

"Go on," I said; "tell me some more. Remember that you women to-day made me promise to write down how this war is hitting us, and I merely promised to write what I heard and saw. I am not going to make up anything, so you are all under obligation to tell me all you can. I am not to be the author of this book, but only the historian."

"It won't be hard," she said encouragingly. "There is so much happening every day that it will be harder to decide what to leave out than to find things to put in. In this time of excitement the lid is off, I tell you; the bars are down; we can see right into the hearts of people. It is like a fire or an earthquake when all the doors are open and the folks are carrying their dearest possessions into the street, and they are all real people now, and they have lost all their little mincing airs and all their lawdie-daw. But believe me, we have been some fiddlers! When I look around this house I see evidence of it everywhere; look at that abomination now"—She pointed to an elaborately beaded match-safe which hung on the wall.