Lady of the Decoration | Page 2

and sentiment. Of course we all know that Jack is the salt of
the earth, and it nearly kills me to give him pain, but he will get over it,
they always do, and I would rather for him to convalesce without me
than with me. I made him promise not to write me a line, and he just
looked at me in that quiet, quizzical way and said: "All right, but you
just remember that I'm waiting, until you are ready to begin life over
again with me."
Why it would be a death blow to all his hopes if he married me! My
widow's mite consists of a wrecked life, a few debts, and a worldly
notion that a brilliant young doctor like himself has no right to throw
away all his chances in order to establish a small hospital for incurable
children. Whenever I think of his giving up that long-cherished dream
of studying in Germany, and buying ground for the hospital instead, I
just gnash my teeth.

Oh! I know that you think it is grand and noble and that I am horrid to
feel as I do. Maybe I am. At any rate you will acknowledge that I have
done the right thing for once in coming away. I seem to have been a
general blot on the landscape, and with your help I have erased myself.
In the meanwhile, I wish to Heaven my heart would ossify!
The sole power that keeps me going now is your belief in me. You
have always claimed that I was worth something, in spite of the fact
that I have persistently proven that I was not. Don't you shudder at the
risk you are taking? Think of the responsibility of standing for me in a
Board of Missions! I'll stay bottled up as tight as I know how, but
suppose the cork should fly?
Poor Mate, the Lord was unkind when he gave me to you for a cousin.
Well it's done, and by the time you get this I will probably be well on
my sea-sick way. I can't trust myself to send any messages to the family.
I don't even dare send my love to you. I am a soldier lady, and I salute
my officer.

ON SHIP-BOARD. August 8th, 1901.
It's so windy that I can scarcely hold the paper down but I'll make the
effort. The first night I came aboard, I had everything to myself. There
were eighty cabin passengers and I was the only lady on deck. It was
very rough but I stayed up as long as I could. The blue devils were
swarming so thick around me that I didn't want to fight them in the
close quarters of my state-room. But at last I had to go below, and the
night that followed was a terror. Such a storm raged as I had never
dreamed of, the ship rocked and groaned, and the water dashed against
the port-holes; my bag played tag with my shoes, and my trunk ran
around the room like a rat hunting for its hole. Overhead the shouts of
the captain could be heard above the answering shouts of the sailors,
and men and women hurried panic-stricken through the passage.
Through it all I lay in the upper berth and recalled all the unhappy
nights of the past seven years; disappointment, heartache,
disillusionment, disgust; they followed each other in silent review.
Every tender memory and early sentiment that might have lingered in
my heart was ruthlessly murdered by some stronger memory of pain.
The storm without was nothing to the storm within, I felt indifferent as
to the fate of the vessel. If she floated or if she sank, it was one and the

same to me.
When morning came something had happened to me. I don't know what
it was, but my past somehow seemed to belong to someone else. I had
taken a last farewell of all the old burdens, and I was a new person in a
new world.
I put on my prettiest cap and my long coat and went up on deck. Oh,
my dear, if you could only have seen the sight that greeted me! It was
the limpest, sickest crowd I ever encountered! They were pea-green
with a dash of yellow, and a streak of black under their eyes, pale
around the lips and weak in their knees. There was only one other
woman besides myself who was not sick, and she was a missionary
with short hair, and a big nose. She was going around with some tracts
asking everybody if they were Christians. Just as I came up she tackled
a big, dejected looking foreigner who was huddled in a corner.
"Brother, are you a Christian?"