14 Vignettes of a private world

But memory is a democratic jade, and no respecter of persons. Many inconsequential characters, whose distinctions were neither praiseworthy nor remarkable, exercised a fascinating spell upon my imagination. There was ‘Kattar Issi’ for instance, a gawky, tow-headed youth, not the brightest, who derived a sketchy livelihood by exterminating surplus cats. Considering my unbounded passion for felines, it is not surprising that the mere mention of Issi made me sizzle with plots of dire vengeance. Vindictive as any prophet of damnation, I vowed to haunt him when I died, in company with all the innocent pussies he had heartlessly dropped into the muddy waters of the Red River. He was, I felt convinced, the worst of ogres, and ought himself to be tied in a sack and duly drowned.

In reality, poor Issi was an inoffensive youth, afflicted with a hare-lip, which made articulation difficult, and doubtless was largely responsible for his seeming stupidity. This handicap, far from arousing pity, only strengthened my displeasure and suspicion. He hissed, so what more proof was needed to establish his true kinship with trolls and ogres?

Issi’s last visit to our house made an indelible record upon my mind. To begin with, I had not seen him for a long time—the sex of my pets having liberated us from murderous proclivities—and I thought we were for ever rid of his dark shadow. It was a double shock, therefore, on walking into the kitchen one morning, to find him sitting at the table, grinning crookedly, and shuffling his huge feet as he waited for the customary cup of coffee. Chills ran up and down my spine, and a host of doubts soared up like startled birds in my protesting heart. The creature wore the cheerful mask of hired villainy! I could read it in his eye that pleasant business was afoot. Nor was I mistaken, for his evil genius had actually been sought by my own mamma. Yes, she had sent for him, and, pert as a cricket, unfolded a horrible plot.

It seemed that an eminent physician—heaven forgive him!—had just discovered the electric qualities of cat skins. Electrotherapy was yet undreamed, it is true, yet here was a pioneer who imagined that the vibrations of such supercharged skin, if applied to a weak chest, would benefit the patient. Well, who was mamma to doubt the great man? Never let it be said that she refused to co-operate with science—that her precious child continued croupy for lack of a cat skin!

Speechless, I could only stand there, a helpless accessory to the plotted crime. The skin must be found at once, said mamma. And when mamma spoke in that firm, clipped manner, even the angels would hesitate to tarry. The grisly deed was as good as done! Yes, utterly oblivious of my sick displeasure, mamma shooed me into a chair and went on with her instructions. The skin must be sun-cured and properly dressed—it ought to be as soft as a chamois. And it must be black!

‘Well, now, ma’am,’ Issi scratched his unkempt head. ‘I can’t exactly promise that for sure. Not for certain sure, anyhow. Black cats ain’t being discarded just now.’ As a matter of cold fact, he hadn’t a single dusky puss in prospect, and, being an honest soul, that factor presented an insurmountable hurdle. Of course, he would comb the town with might and main, and fetch the desired article at the first possible moment. With that, mamma had to content herself—although, I’m sorry to say, I inferred from her impatience that, in a case like this, she might have winked at a weaker brand of honesty. Why, for instance, should not a grey mouser serve a housewife as well as a black? In the end, however, it was a dark grey feline that surrendered its most precious possession for my unhappy benefit. A compromise not altogether pleasing to my hopeful mamma—yet I, forsooth, must wear it!

For years the sin weighed upon my soul. It used to haunt me, first as sheer wickedness against the dearest of pets, and later as a hateful reflection upon the intelligence of my otherwise highly capable parent. It was not until years later, when I met a charming French girl in Saskatchewan, and learned that she too had been subjected to the cat-skin cure, that I realized how widespread this ridiculous notion must have been. It had even penetrated into the Territories. So far as either of us could recall, however, the only apparent results were a fine frenzy of itching and an equally fine frenzy of revolt. How many innocent cats were offered up on the sacrificial altar I shudder to think, but, in justice to our mammas, I hasten to reaffirm that it was done at the behest of a high priest of science. The nonsense cannot be laid at the door of some unlettered housewife, nor to the commercialized guile of the now discredited homoeopathic doctors whose pills and plasters once served us not too badly.

One such genuine helpful and extremely courtly gentleman I well remember. His bearded face had distinction, and his eyes twinkled with perpetual good humour, as though, in the sum total of his being, he refused to accept the actuality of the aches and pains he worked to alleviate. His voice was pleasantly cultured, and his choice of words would have rejoiced Queen Victoria. Where his medicines failed I am confident that the positive quality of his personality flowed to the rescue, for he had what so many modern doctors lack—a natural sympathy with human frailty and a fixed faith in the divinity of nature. The old black bag he carried on every occasion, with its array of tiny bottles of every hue, was a fascinating receptacle. Words cannot describe the conglomerate smells that eminated from its yawning depths when the brass latch flew open: aromatic Hoffman drops, volatile substances that reeked of camphor, eucalyptus, sassafras and cinnamon—and, lustier than all the rest, a colourless fluid that shrieked of a million murdered onions!

Plasters there were, as well, black and red and white, some perforated, and others cut in cunning strips for quick application to the various angles of the human anatomy. Pills, like seed pearls, in small blue and green bottles, sang of relief for a dozen ills, and as many pastes promised ease to cramps and crimps of ageing backs and limbs. Whatever these things were, they doubtless acted in proportion to the faith held in them, and very seldom I think, caused any harm.

The old gentleman was devoted to me, for had he not brought me into the world, and he loved to tease me about my insignificant appearance. ‘Why, my chick,’ he used to say, ‘you were such a scrap of a thing that your poor mamma refused to believe you were born until I held you up for her to see.’ Then, fearing that maidenly vanity was wounded, he would add: ‘Just the same, there was nothing wrong with you. No indeed. Four pounds of fat, and—hum, I cannot say just how much vociferation. That was you, my love.’

This piece of news never failed to charm me when I was small, for, like every other child, the mystery of my own appearance on the world scene was a fascinating miracle. Papa generally helped the old gentleman by adding other, even more thrilling details.

‘Yes, and what is more,’ he used to say, ‘you had no will to be put upon, my lamb. Although you were so small that a shoe-box could easily have been your cradle, you understood perfectly how to scare the life out of papa. You see, here was I, all unwarned that a daughter had come to the house, and, in my surprise, sank into the old rocking-chair. Herra Gud! What a squawk came from the little bundle I had nearly sat upon! That was how we met, my little dear—and I don’t mind admitting I’ve had no desire to sit on you ever since.’

‘A child without a temper is a ship without a sail,’ the old doctor supplemented, stroking my hair with a soft, white hand.

‘That is so,’ papa nodded. ‘I wasn’t inferring that the little miss yelled out of turn. No indeed. On the contrary, she knew from the start how to conduct herself. I’ll confess I had some qualms when I took her to the baptismal fount. Now, thought I, will the midget startle the angels with her howls, and shame her poor father? It was an unjust suspicion. Never was there a better chick. When the holy water touched the small black head—oh yes, my love, your hair was as black as an Indian’s—you would have thought the child understood here was something she must support with dignity. It may have been a cramp, of course, but I really think she smiled!’

Well, whatever it was, it seems I made a good impression in the Lord’s house; that, after the ceremony, every one had to have a look at this littlest of human beings, newly entered into the congregation of just men and true. It was my long hair, mamma said, and no wonder, for it reached to my shoulders, and made me look like a Japanese puppet, and not in the least what one expected a sprig of Viking stock to be. It was this reference to my coal-black hair that pleased me most. For a few days, at least, I had shared this distinction with papa, whose hair had the polished sheen of a blackbird’s wing. Now mine was yellow as corn tassel, and gave me no feeling of superiority, though it was so long and abundant that even mamma boasted about it in her weaker moments—weakness she bolstered up by explaining that, after all, it was not remarkable, since all the women of her house were noted for their long hair. Yes, even that wicked wretch who refused to give a lock of her tresses for the mending of Gunnar’s bow, when it might have saved his life!

The logical inference to be drawn from this horrid incident was that handsome is as handsome does. What if I could sit on my hair? Was that something of which to be puffed up about, when, at any moment, the evil blood of my ancestress might lead me to undreamed mischief? Clearly, it was much more profitable to remember that only the mercy of God had preserved me to be a sort of witness to the power of His hand. Oh, I understood that perfectly. I had not been much of a baby. I could well believe that I must have been a surprise to poor mamma. Her other babies had always measured above the average in size and beauty. Yet those sturdy little creatures had not survived. They came and departed. I was so used to it that its sole effect was a kind of fearful distaste for all babies. They were such unstable entities, predictable in nothing save the certainty of their sure departure. Their cries disturbed us for a little, and then these plaintive protests were stilled, leaving only my brother and myself in the house.

It was not until I was eight years old that a more determined being made her appearance. My sister Dora was a beautiful baby of sufficient hardihood to withstand the shocks of existence, and her happy advent seemed to break the evil spell that heretofore had darkened the house. By this time sanitary conditions had everywhere improved. Barns and livery stables were still plentiful, and the disposal of middens haphazard, but, to borrow the jargon of the day, the citizens were becoming fly-conscious. Lectures were given on the sins of the bluebottle, and frightening pamphlets on the subject descended with increasing frequency upon the heads of the people. To be discovered without screens became a graver offence than to lose one’s petticoat on Main Street, and it was a common sight to see whole households armed with papers and rags, wildly whisking the unwelcome blue swarms from kitchen doorways. The milk supply was better handled, and even the water was under such grave suspicion that no sensible mother dreamed of offering an unboiled drop to her baby. All this was something gained, and doubtless accounted in no small measure for the drop in infant mortality.

Many unrelated incidents crowd into the memory of those years: individual pictures that, for some obscure reason, remain clear-cut and defined, even though I have no way of fixing the actual time or place. Oddly enough, it was not the concrete and more spectacular of these events that most impressed me. For example, it must have been rather jolly when the band came to practise at our house, especially when the ‘boys’ were rehearsing for Victoria Day. They made a tremendous noise, I know, and mamma beamed upon them impartially, and fed them with pancakes and coffee. I thought them remarkable creatures, and was filled with elation if my brother let me hold his horn for a moment. Yet I was much more affected when, one evening, papa led me into the front room to inspect a new picture of Laurier and the Cabinet. Quite as though I were his equal, and not a fat little girl in pigtails, father named the various gentlemen, defining their importance, and in conclusion pointing out the handsome figure of the great Frenchman, saying: ‘There stands an earnest man. Remember that, little Lalla—for it is only through the earnest heart that God works justice on the earth.’

The words meant nothing, but the serious inflection of papa’s voice, which was always gentle and warmly human, sent a thrill through my whole being. Although I could not understand my own swift reaction, I had a lovely feeling of being caught up into something vital and important; as though papa and I shared a beautiful secret which made us heirs of untold riches beyond the stars.

A darker thrill concerns another picture, and is associated with mamma and my visit to the Borgfords, where sister Anna lived. I remember very little of the house, which was bleak and scrupulously clean, and where the goodness of its gentle mistress fought bravely against the stern overtones of a harsh house-father. Mr. Borgford, it was said, prided himself on being a good provider, but one instinctively felt that this generosity did not extend to any marked degree to the innermost needs of his wife. Small though I was, I sensed something tragic in Mrs. Borgford’s eager defence of her domineering husband, for it was so obvious that her affectionate nature, though starved and denied a natural outlet, shrank with almost physical pain before the least suggestion of blame. Somehow, I never could form any definite image of Aunt Malfridur, possibly because of her great contrast with my firm little mother, whose characteristics were so knowable and fixed. There was nothing vague about mamma, nothing apologetic or uncertain. She knew her own mind and its limitations, and let it be clearly understood that in this and any other life, she would sail under her own colours upon her own charted highway, with utmost efficiency, and with that the world and her God would have to be content.

With equal honesty and without blame, she recognized the limitations of others, and neither defended nor condemned them—with this exception: stupidity and hypocrisy tried her patience. What was the good of fools, she wondered, and how could any human being embrace the cult of Judas without shame? Mamma was, I sometimes used to think, very like her old ancestors, who put to sea in their little ships, nothing daunted by the pounding waves, for their attitude to life was wisely impersonal; their indifference to danger the result of an inner feeling of kinship with the stress and storm of nature.

Mrs. Borgford, on the other hand, gave one the impression of perpetual uncertainty, as though she lived in secret conflict under the shadow of fears that drove her this way and that, irrespective of her ardent desire to placate and please. Children form queer ideas that on the surface seem to have small relation to the truth, but, when I grew older, I learned from my father that this aunt of his, whom he deeply respected, was not so far removed from my childish impression. It was his opinion that ironic destiny had chained a dove to a hawk in that household, to the complete subjection of the one without marked benefit to the other.

At the time of our visit, however, I was only conscious of Aunt Borgford’ s fluttering kindness. I have not the least idea what the coffee conversation was about that day, nor what I did to amuse myself. I knew that mamma was waiting to see my sister when she came home from school, and I remember that, when she finally arrived, bright-eyed and merry, the bleak old house seemed to relax its austerity, stretch and yawn, and settle down with a sigh. Anna was then a young girl in her ‘teens, too tall and thin for beauty, but with the lively charm and handsome eyes that characterized father’s people.

To my thinking, Big Sister was a marvellous being whom I secretly envied, for it was a source of grievance to me that no one ever said I resembled papa. Nor could I really blame them when I looked in the glass. My familiar face was round as an apple, ridiculously grave, and not even my best friend, Nonni, would have perjured his soul by claiming I had ‘Irish-grey eyes’ like my father. No, the oftener I gazed at myself, the more surely I knew how unkind the fairies had been at my birth. There was no good fooling myself. I was just the sort of fat little girl an ogre might like for his pot, and whom no king’s son on shining steed would ever break his neck to rescue.

So here was my lively sister, with her dancing grey eyes, chattering to mamma with an ease she must certainly have inherited from our father. I could only hang over mamma’s chair and hope that no one noticed how stupid I was. And when I heard Aunt Malfridur telling sister she ought to do something to amuse the dear child. That was I, of course, worse luck! Now I should have to bore Big Sister, for what could I answer such a paragon?

‘Why don’t you show your little sister your collection of handkerchiefs?’ my aunt went on. ‘That would be nice, don’t you think? And better, if you gave her one. You have so many, my love.’

Here was another manifestation of adult ignorance! Why, for goodness’ sake, should my sister show me her handkerchiefs? Why should I see them? Had I not seen a thousand in Yes-mam’s bundle—handkerchiefs with roses like cabbages and birds with stiff wings and stomachs rounder than my own? More reasonless still, why should sister give me something against her will?

Well, there was no help for it. When big folk made up their minds to be kind, it was as hard to dodge the assault as to slip through a snowball fight. As bored as myself, sister told me to come along, and out came the handkerchief box—and there were the scraps of silk, exactly as I knew they would be. Like a little owl, I stared at the fine pile, marvelling at the fleetness of sister’s fingers as she leafed through it.

‘Here is one you can have,’ said she, kindly enough, glad to be done with the job. No doubt it was a pretty handkerchief, but I really never saw it—as I never saw anything I did not want to see in those wiser infant days. I’m sure that I received it with a shameless lack of enthusiasm, and, quite possibly, might have further disgraced myself if I had not, so to say, in the nick of time, discovered the awe-inspiring picture which instantly changed the face of the world.

It was a common print of Joan of Arc at the stake—a grim representation of the Immortal Maid in her final agony, the black smoke writhing upward from the faggots at her feet, the makeshift cross of twigs uplifted in her tortured, supplicating hands. A common enough picture in those days, when popular taste was not yet freed from Calvinistic sadism. To me, however, it was not a framed print upon a cottage wall in a mundane prairie town. It was a living experience so profound that everything else faded out of mind. What happened after my senses were caught up and swallowed in that awful scene I cannot say. I cannot even remember going home. It was just as though the centuries had fallen away, and that every act of that piteous drama were being enacted anew, with only my eyes the unwilling witness and my heart the centre of deathless pain. I was no longer my comfortable familiar self, the fat little girl with an apple face and yellow pigtails. I was a point in consciousness, where the repercussions of that long-stilled torment registered with incredible intensity.

Horror clamped down on me with an iron hand, and I could not even scream, for my lungs were filling with smoke, and my limbs held fast in burning bands of steel. I stood there like a stupid sheep, hearing nothing that was said to me, lost in an eternity of suffering I could not even understand, and would never in the world have dared to mention. Even papa would have been displeased with such exaggerated emotion, and mamma, I knew, would have doubted my sanity.

Of course, I had often suspected that I was queer, for my moods tended, at times, to objectify in pictures, with which I liked to amuse myself. But here was something that leaped at me unawares, unprovoked by imagination, and therefore terrifying. And that abominable experience pursued me. In the dead of night the picture came rushing out of a thick grey cloud, and no sooner recognized than, bang! went frame and glass, and there were the billows of fire and smoke which hideously enveloped, but never obscured, the tortured martyr.

I hated these intense reactions to painted atmosphere. I hated them, as every child hates anything that marks him as different from his sensible little companions. No one could have dragged the confession from me. If I read all sorts of absurd nonsense into the most ordinary pictures, and in my dreams saw the most amazing people engaged in utterly unfamiliar pursuits, I decided that, for decency’s sake, I could at least keep the weakness to myself. One had to have his senses about him in this world, for the Lord had no patience with people who could not tell substance from shadow—so mamma said on many occasions, when the porridge was thin, and papa’s gaze too ardently fixed on some invisible paradise.

Still, there were exceptions, she admitted, with her usual, unswerving honesty. Poets were bound by no common rule, yet even they, poor dears, more often than not, found it hard to buy a shoe-string with a dream, to say nothing of the shoe itself. I could not doubt the wisdom of these observations, and therefore piously vowed on all ten fingers that, by the help of the holy saints, I would for ever forsake the vainglory of dreams. No, there was no question of doubt, for even I could see the difference between papa’s old Prince Albert and the glossy black coat worn by a brisk gentleman who sometimes whisked past the house behind a pair of high-stepping bays, on his round of inspecting the ugly row of cottages his foresight had built for trusting foreigners. Certainly, no concrete good came of dillydallying with dreams. And yet, I have come to wonder if my queer obsession with that harrowing picture was not largely responsible for the curious, fraternal feeling I have for the past. A feeling deeper than interest, swifter than insight, and not at all dependent upon written history—a feeling inseparable from the conviction that human experience, translated into mind-stuff, is timeless with eternity; that, in the eternal, the past is co-existent with the present, and the future; that everything that ever was, or ever will be, lived out under the chiming clock of the years, is nothing but the slow unfolding, incarnation by incarnation, of the Divine principle seeking expression in matter. Whatever this living, all-sustaining, and all-inclusive medium of being really is matters nothing, it seems to me. But to perceive that all creatures, now and for ever, are extensions of it rounds the sum of existence into a crystal sphere, wherein whosoever has eyes to see can read a fascinating epic.

Even without much vision, it must be clear to most that the past lives in us—that we are not products of one generation, and limited to the peculiar attributes of a sole set of parents. We were forsworn in the loins of the remotest ancestor, and shall continue until the last living form is extinct. Is it so strange, then, to imagine that man’s emotional nature, which is just another expression of universal activity, may, in moments of great stress, somehow register its patterned feeling upon the living ether—if one may use such a term—in which we have our being? Is it beyond the bounds of reason that a sensitive mind may upon occasion react to such heightened vibrations and be moved by them at least to similar feelings, resentments, glooms, or exaltations, even though the experience go no further? If not, what are inspirations, and what better explanation has been offered for the strange visions of many honest men and women? Were they all epileptics and fools? Were all the mighty prophets, whose impassioned words still ring down the dark arches of the years, and all the star-enamoured visionaries, whose dreams, once despised, are now realities, were they all ignorant victims of egomania and hallucinations? How pitiful then is the lot of the blessedly sane! How little reason for envying the proudly practical, who live and breed and perish like mice in cheese, without so much as a single enraptured glimpse of the golden moon!

Alas, none of these pleasant conceits comforted me at the time of which I write. Joan continued to haunt me with her smoke and fire, and other ghostly personages joined in the tireless sport. Seemingly, I was just a round little human sponge that eagerly sucked up every drop of emotion that splashed from the crock of life. It was a queer sort of ingrown existence for a child—the sort, in fact, that would make a modern psychologist swoon with horror—and yet I survived those unhealthy fevers, just as doggedly as I survived the onslaughts of measles, scarlatina, and the cat skin. And, somehow, by scarcely perceptible degrees, the narrow limits of my confining horizon spread and widened.

One beautiful, warm evening, as in a trice, the boundaries of the world, which had been so comfortably snug and small, sprang apart, and there I was, suddenly face to face with undreamed vistas of incredible space. Mother and I were sitting in the back-yard, when papa came out, full of excitement, a newly opened letter in his hands. It was from his sister, who lived in some mysterious place called the United States.

‘Can you believe it!’ papa began, visibly stirred to deepest excitement. ‘Little Finny has joined the army. He is going to war!’

Clearly this referred to my cousin, whom I remembered as a leggy youth full of fun and mischief. By some miracle, he had become a different creature—the sort that pranced through the pages of history books with sabres and swords and such commotion that one felt the yellow leaves of the books groan and shiver.

‘Heaven help us!’ exclaimed mamma, frowning, and not at all thrilled. ‘Why must people kill each other to settle arguments? At least we have learned better than that in Iceland, thanks be to God!’

Papa brushed this aside. ‘He will make a good soldier, never doubt it,’ he said, staring off into the sunset, quite as though the yellow streamers of the sun were the proud banners of a conquering host of heroes. So, naturally, I too must plant myself at papa’s side, and strain my weak eyes in the hope of catching a glimpse of the gallant company. They were marching into a land called Cuba, where the Spaniards were misbehaving.

This was certainly a shock, for heretofore I had only thought of Spain in terms of señoritas with rings in their ears, and twinkling castanets in their supple fingers. Then, too, what were they doing in Cuba? A horrible place, full of swamps, papa said, where something infinitely more dangerous than bullets awaited the American soldiers. Swamps were the breeding-place of fevers, which I could easily enough visualize as a burning sort of sickness that shrank the skin off your bones, and left you a yellow skeleton, only fit to scare bad, bad children. According to papa, a good clean war was not so intolerable, for its dangers were predictable, and a quick death was nothing to fear, but who could strive against pestilence in a barbarous country? No, he had no doubts whatever but that little Finny would acquit himself with valour, if only fate kept him out of the swamps.

‘Well, then, why doesn’t he stay home?’ demanded mamma. ‘That’s what’s wrong with you men—you talk sense for amusement, and when it comes to action, you behave as though the good God had forgotten to put an ounce of brains into your heads. I’ll thank you not to be talking war in this house. I was reared a Christian, please remember.’

‘Tut! Tut! A lot that means, my love,’ papa grinned, his grey eyes lighted for combat. ‘Who were the bloodiest fighters, if not the Christians, I ask you? Yes, my love, I seem to have read somewhere that even to our small country protestantism came at the point of the sword.’

‘Poof!’ Mamma rose with a swirl of cotton skirts. ‘What does that signify, Lars Gudmundson? What else could you expect of the Danes, no matter what they called themselves. What I’m very sure of is that nowhere is it written that the Icelanders rushed up and down any country shaming their Blessed Saviour. I’m going in to put on the coffee-pot. If little Finny comes home again, it’s more than your sister deserves—God forgive her!—if she writes as foolishly as you are talking.’

Of course, papa said no more that night, which was rather a pity, since my skull was aching with all sorts of questions I should like to have asked. The following weeks brought more letters, fortunately, and though mamma refrained from voicing any sinful curiosity, she never objected when papa read these communications at the supper-table. The same was true of the weekly papers, which more and more featured the fortunes of war, and very soon, it appeared that papa had been right about the swamps. The soldiers died like flies of yellow fever, many of them without the glory of firing a single shot for the grand myth of liberty. Still, the conflict went gallantly on, piling up profits for the meat-packers, who were selling rotten supplies to the army. When papa expressed this opinion I was rudely shaken, whereas mamma seemed to soften, and listened more patiently to the scandalous articles. It was just as though her silence were shouting: What can you expect? Is it surprising that people who countenance murder should be thieves and liars as well? Is it harder to cheat your neighbour than to take his son to be the target of hate in which he had no part? Come, come, Lars, use a little sense!

So here was I, all of a muddle. The gallant company whose banners I had seen in the sun were somewhere wallowing about in a dirty swamp, eating rotten meat. Was that the fate of heroes? Was it, then, the patriotic duty of little Finny to stuff himself on musty beef, so that the meat-packers, whom I imagined as whiskered monsters stirring a huge cauldron full of carcasses, should get rich as the terrible giants in folk-lore? Moreover, there were other surprising angles to the war business. Every American child was made to purchase a shining button for its righteous breast. The button had on it the picture of a furious-looking battleship, with, over it, the provocative caption, ‘Remember the Main!’

What a lucrative idea that was! How stimulating to the hearts of innocent children. My good aunt sent me one of these precious emblems, which, alas! mamma promptly threw away, almost as fiercely as she had flung out the wild rabbit papa once brought home. ‘So!’ she had ejaculated that time. ‘It is not enough to bring us to a savage country, but you must introduce heathen food? Well, my man, you won’t get me cooking cats, let me tell you!’ And out went the rabbit, flying through the door like a startled shadow—nor have I ever had the courage to sample that particular food.

The climax of thrills came when Lieutenant Hobson sank the Merrimac under the very noses of the Spanish command. Dear me, he, at least, must have eaten better fare than the poor lads in the swamps, thought I, swelling with vicarious courage.

‘Humph!’ sniffed mamma. ‘Let’s hope he lives to use his wits more profitably.’

Poor lieutenant! How little he suspected at the time that the barrage of Spanish gunfire he so cheerfully braved was only a bagatelle in comparison with the deadly battery that awaited his homecoming. In short, the enraptured ladies of the victorious republic fell upon him with such violent manifestations of affection that the undignified spectacle led to his being demoted in rank. ‘Well, of course!’ sighed papa, ‘only kings and cardinals, and bespangled admirals, can make fools of themselves to good effect.’ Which is doubtless very true, and therefore makes it something of a miracle that the dear, discredited hero was eventually recompensed for the furious kisses of the ladies when his constituency elected him to congress.

For me, be it confessed, the glory of the Spanish-American War was not epitomized in Hobson and Dewy, but in the amazing fact that cousin Finny, marching home under flying colours, showed himself a ‘true and gentle knight.’ He had saved his wages, and bought his mother a fur coat! There were tears in mamma’s eyes when she heard that. The darling boy! She had always known he had a heart of gold. Didn’t we remember how kind he was to dumb animals? God love him. Think of it! Now my aunt could make her rounds among the sick, even in the coldest weather, as proudly warm as the fine ladies on Broadway for whom she once scoured and scrubbed. Sometimes one got a whiff of justice here below! Nor was this all. My generous aunt must share her good fortune, so what does she do but send me five dollars! Gracious goodness, what a shock we had when the bill fluttered out of the envelope like some strange, heavenly bird. How my eyes popped. How utterly beyond my wildest imaginings was the conception of such an enormous sum! When the pin-pricks and heart-thumping eased a bit, I began to wonder if I couldn’t buy a horse and carriage—or, at least, a house. But no. Mamma had instantly recovered her composure and all her good sense. The money must go for a winter coat. Obviously that was the inference to be drawn from the letter. Dear Aunt Haldora wanted me to be as comfortable as herself.

If such had only been the case! Instead, the bitter truth must out. Never in the world was there a little red coat more hated than that which mamma made for me—never a little creature more miserable so attired. Oh, it was warm enough—warm as a fiery furnace, and red as blood. A perfect Santa Claus coat! A little red horror trimmed in white fur and with a silver buckle. On a small, rotund miss, it shrieked for attention—bellowed to high heaven for all and sundry to behold this roly-poly, female miniature of Father Christmas. To say that I loathed this beauteous garment, which my mother prized so highly because it was of pure wool, and trimmed with real fur, is a gross understatement. Why, even now, when I think of that woollen nightmare, I find myself wishing that the hero of the Merrimac had never been born—that Randolph Hearst had died of newsprint in the cradle, and that Cuba had never sprouted sugar-cane—which is wickedly to wish that the glorious Spanish-American War had never come to pass, with its sweet bonus of five dollars to me!