A Cry in the Wilderness. Mary Ella Waller
children, and his wife runs a private laundry.
What remains of the four dollars after the weekly bills are paid, I lay aside for clothes. I make my own shirt waists. It took me eleven months to earn a good skirt of brown Panama cloth; but it has lasted me four years.
I think I live well, considering; but, in living thus, there is no denying I cross the bridge of mere sustenance every day, and am obliged to burn my bridge behind me! I don't like it—but am thankful for work. I 'm not beneath adding to my reserve fund five cents at a time.
Dec. 18, 1908. They 're nice boys, the theological students—but queer, some of them. I 've watched different sets of them come and go during these six years. Two or three have attempted to make a little love to me; a few have adopted me—so they said—for their sister. I 'm forgotten with their graduation and their flitting! One or two are really friends; they 're younger than I, of course, and I can patronize and quiz them.
Johnny is my favorite. There is little theological nonsense about him, and there is an inquisitive disposition to see New York and make the most of his time here. He 's from the north part of the state; likes books, likes people, likes a good time, whenever he can get it, on his limited income to which he adds by helping the basement barber two days in the week, canvassing for books in the summer, and on Saturdays waiting on the patrons of a book stall in a corridor of one of the big hotels.
Taken altogether, Johnny is a man who has not as yet found his calling, although he is anchored for the present, through affection for his father, to "Chelsea" and a career that, at times, irks him. We 've had many a good talk about this matter. I tell him he 's not dragging anchor, but weighing it.
I like to see New York through Johnny's eyes—Adirondack eyes, keen, honest, and blue; they take in all the metropolitan sights, from the Hippodrome, to the Bowery vaudevilles and the Cathedral of St. John.
It's fun to "do" the city with him, with no expense except car fares.
Jan. 1909. Johnny and I stood outside the Metropolitan Opera House this evening, to see the hodge-podge of carriages and automobiles arrive with their contents: the women who toil not, neither do they spin anything except financial webs for men's undoing. It was a queer sight! Hundreds of women passed me. As I looked at them, I saw the same long, pointed, manicured nails, the same jewelled fingers, the incurving fronts, the distorted busts, the lined and rouged faces—like those I loathed so when I first came to this city. I asked myself, "What's the difference between the two kinds? Is it money alone that makes it?"
"But are there two kinds?" I was asking myself again, when Johnny, who has an eye for good clothes on man and woman, called my attention to a woman's opera cloak. It was worth a man's ransom. From a deep yoke of Russian sable depended the long cape of pale green satin covered with graduated flounces, from eight to fourteen inches deep, of Venetian point. And taking in all this, I saw—
Well, I don't know that I dare to set down in words, even for my own enlightenment, what I saw in that Vision. But, suddenly, all the rich robings, opera cloaks, clinging gowns of silk, velvet and chiffon, the diamond tiaras, the jewelled necklaces, the French lingerie even—all dropped from every one in that procession; and there, on a New York sidewalk, in the harsh glare of electric lights, amidst the hiss and cranking of their automobiles, the clank of silver-mounted harness and the champing of bits, the shouts and calls and myriad city noises, I saw them for what they really are:—women, like unto all other women; women made originally for the mates of men, for mothers, for burden-bearers, with prehensile hands to grasp, then lead and uplift, and so aid in the work of the world.
And what more I saw in the Vision I may scarcely write down; for, therein, I was shown for these same women both unfathomable depths and scarce attainable heights, both degradation and transfiguration, the human bestial and the humanly divine—the Vampire, the Angel.
And I was shown in that Vision the Calvaries of maternity common to all, whether the conception be immaculate, so-called if within the law, or maculate, so-called if without the law. I saw, also, the Gethsemanes of motherhood common to all. I saw, moreover, the three Dolorous Ways which their feet—and the feet of all women, because women—are treading, have ever trod, must ever tread, that the seed which shall propagate the Race may be trodden deep for germination.
Moreover, I saw in that Vision the women treading the seed in the Ways. One of the Ways was stony, and those therein walked with bleeding feet for their labor was in vain; the land was sterile. And the second was deeply rutted with sand, and those therein labored heavily with sweat and toil; the fruition was but for a day. And the third Way was heavy with deeply-furrowed fertile soil, and those that trod it toiled long and late that the seed might not fail of abundant harvest.
Furthermore, I saw that every woman was treading one of these three Ways; and silk, and chiffon, or velvet gown, opera cloaks of sable and satin, diamond tiaras and jewelled necklaces could avail them naught. Trammelled by these or by rags—it matters not which—they must tread the Ways.
I pressed my hand over my eyes to clear them of this Vision; for, at last, I understood. I knew that I, too, being a woman, must tread one of the three Dolorous Ways even as my mother had trodden one before me. But which?
I could bear it no longer. "Come away, Johnny," I said abruptly.
April, 1909. I am beginning to be so tired of the confusion of the streets. The work at the Library has become irksome. I am tired of reading, too, and feel as if my last prop had been taken from under me, when I have no longer the desire to read.
I handle the books, place them, record dates, handle books again, place them, record dates, handle books again—the very smell of the booky atmosphere is sickening to me.
I suppose I need rest. But how can I rest when I have my daily living to earn? I won't touch those hundred and seventy-five dollars if I never have a vacation. I should lose all my courage if I had to spend a dollar of that money, except for the final end—nine years hence. Even the thought of stopping work makes me feel weary.
July 1. So the money is gone! I have been trying to face this fact the last hour. The long sickness of ten weeks has taken it all, for I was too proud to go to the hospital without paying my way. I let no one know how matters stood with me. I have come out of St. Luke's feeling so weak, so indifferent to life, to everything I thought made my own small life worth living.—And it is so hot here! So breathless! A great longing has come upon me to get away somewhere. Since I have been so sick things look different to me. The energy of life seems to have gone out of me, and I want to creep away into some place far, far away from this city, where I can live a more normal life.
But how can I make the break? Where can I go? How begin all over again in this awful struggle to get work, and succeed in anything? My courage has failed me.
I closed the books. I was wondering if I should destroy them and in this fashion burn all my bridges behind me.
"No," I spoke aloud; "I 'll save them, but I will never keep another journal."
I opened to a blank page, took pen and ink and wrote on it:
September 18th, 1909. I have decided to accept a place at service (at last!) on a farm in Canada, Province of Quebec, Seigniory of Lamoral (?). Wages twenty-five dollars a month, besides room and board.
And underneath:
12 midnight. My last word in this book. Within the past six hours I have experienced something of what I call "heaven and hell". I have travelled a long road since I came to this city on November 4, 1902.
V
A few evenings afterwards Delia Beaseley came up to see me. She brought the passage money and a note of instruction. It was directly to the point: I was to take a sleeping car on the Montreal express; then the day local boat down the St. Lawrence to Richelieu-en-Bas. At the landing I was to enquire for Mrs. Macleod, and someone would be there to meet me. A time-table was enclosed. The note was signed "Janet Macleod ".
"This must be the 'elderly Scotchwoman,' Delia," I said after reading the note twice.
"I'm thinking it's her—but then you never can tell."
"How did she send the passage