The Next of Kin | Page 3

said to them do not matter; they merely served as an
introduction to what came after, when we sat around the stove and the
young girls of the company brought us coffee and sandwiches, and
mocha cake and home-made candy, and these women told me some of
the things that are near their hearts.

"I drove fourteen miles to-day," said one woman, "but those of us who
live long on the prairie do not mind these things. We were two hundred
miles from a railway when we went in first, and we only got our mail
'in the spring.' Now, when we have a station within fourteen miles and
a post-office on the next farm, we feel we are right in the midst of
things, and I suppose we do not really mind the inconveniences that
would seem dreadful to some people. We have done without things all
our lives, always hoping for better things to come, and able to bear
things that were disagreeable by telling ourselves that the children
would have things easier than we had had them. We have had frozen
crops; we have had hail; we have had serious sickness; but we have not
complained, for all these things seemed to be God's doings, and no one
could help it. We took all this--face upwards; but with the war--it is
different. The war is not God's doings at all. Nearly all the boys from
our neighborhood are gone, and some are not coming back----"
She stopped abruptly, and a silence fell on the group of us. She
fumbled for a moment in her large black purse, and then handed me an
envelope, worn, battered. It was addressed to a soldier in France and it
had not been opened. Across the corner, in red ink, was written the
words, "Killed in action."
"My letters are coming back now," she said simply. "Alex was my
eldest boy, and he went at the first call for men, and he was only
eighteen--he came through Saint-Éloi and Festubert--But this happened
in September."
The woman who sat beside her took up the theme. "We have talked a
lot about this at our Red Cross meetings. What do the women of the
world think of war? No woman ever wanted war, did she? No woman
could bring a child into the world, suffering for it, caring for it, loving
it, without learning the value of human life, could she? War comes
about because human life is the cheapest thing in the world; it has been
taken at man's estimate, and that is entirely too low. Now, we have
been wondering what can be done when this war is over to form a
league of women to enforce peace. There is enough sentiment in the
world in favor of human life if we could bind it up some way."

I gazed at the eager faces before me--in astonishment. Did I ever hear
high-browed ladies in distant cities talk of the need of education in the
country districts?
"Well-kept homes and hand-knit socks will never save the world," said
Alex's mother. "Look at Germany! The German women are kind,
patient, industrious, frugal, hard-working, everything that a woman
ought to be, but it did not save them, or their country, and it will not
save us. We have allowed men to have control of the big things in life
too long. While we worked--or played--they have ruled. My nearest
neighbor is a German, and she and I have talked these things over. She
feels just the same as we do, and she sews for our Red Cross. She says
she could not knit socks for our soldiers, for they are enemies, but she
makes bandages, for she says wounded men are not enemies, and she is
willing to do anything for them. She wanted to come to-day to hear you,
but her husband would not let her have a horse, because he says he does
not believe in women speaking in public, anyway! I wanted her to
come with us even if he did not like it, but she said that she dared not."
"Were you not afraid of making trouble?" I asked.
Alex's mother smiled. "A quick, sharp fight is the best and clears up
things. I would rather be a rebel any time than a slave. But of course it
is easy for me to talk! I have always been treated like a human being.
Perhaps it is just as well that she did not come. Old Hans has long
generations back of him to confirm him in his theory that women are
intended to be men's bondservants and that is why they are made
smaller; it will all take time--and other things. The trouble has been
with all of us that we have expected