The Next of Kin | Page 7

a
sermon preached by a young man from the college, who had a deep and
intimate knowledge of Amos and Elisha and other great men long dead,
and sometimes we wished he would tell us more about the people who
are living now and leave the dead ones alone. But it is always safer to
speak of things that have happened long ago, and aspersions may be
cast with impunity on Ahab and Jezebel and Balak. There is no danger
that they will have friends on the front seat, who will stop their
subscriptions to the building fund because they do not believe in having
politics introduced into the church.
The congregations were small, particularly on the hot afternoons, for
many of our people did not believe in going to church when the
weather was not just right. Indeed, there had been a serious discussion
in the synod of one of the largest churches on the question of
abolishing prayers altogether in the hot weather; and I think that some
one gave notice of a motion that would come up to this effect at the
annual meeting. No; religion was not a live topic. There were evidently
many who had said, as did one little girl who was leaving for her
holidays, "Good-bye, God--we are going to the country."
One day a storm of excitement broke over us, and for a whole

afternoon upset the calm of our existence. Four hardy woodmen came
down the road with bright new axes, and began to cut down the
beautiful trees which had taken so many years to grow and which made
one of the greatest beauties of the beach. It was some minutes before
the women sitting on their verandas realized what was happening; but
no army ever mobilized quicker for home defense than they, and they
came in droves demanding an explanation, of which there did not seem
to be any.
"Big Boss him say cut down tree," the spokesman of the party said over
and over again.
The women in plain and simple language expressed their unexpurgated
opinion of Big Boss, and demanded that he be brought to them. The
stolid Mikes and Peters were utterly at a loss to know what to do!
"Big Boss--no sense," one woman roared at them, hoping to
supplement their scanty knowledge of English with volume of sound.
There was no mistaking what the gestures meant, and at last the
wood-choppers prepared to depart, the smallest man of the party
muttering something under his breath which sounded like an
anti-suffrage speech. I think it was, "Woman's place is the home," or
rather its Bukawinian equivalent. We heard nothing further from them,
and indeed we thought no more of it, for the next day was August 4,
1914.
When the news of war came, we did not really believe it! War! That
was over! There had been war, of course, but that had been long ago, in
the dark ages, before the days of free schools and peace conferences
and missionary conventions and labor unions! There might be a little
fuss in Ireland once in a while. The Irish are privileged, and nobody
should begrudge them a little liberty in this. But a big war--that was
quite impossible! Christian nations could not go to war!
"Somebody should be made to pay dear for this," tearfully declared a
doctor's wife. "This is very bad for nervous women."

The first news had come on the 9.40 train, and there was no more until
the 6.20 train when the men came down from the city; but they could
throw no light on it either. The only serious face that I saw was that of
our French neighbor, who hurried away from the station without
speaking to any one. When I spoke to him the next day, he answered
me in French, and I knew his thoughts were far away.
The days that followed were days of anxious questioning. The men
brought back stories of the great crowds that surged through the streets
blocking the traffic in front of the newspaper offices reading the
bulletins, while the bands played patriotic airs; of the misguided
German who shouted, "Hoch der Kaiser!" and narrowly escaped the
fury of the crowd.
We held a monster meeting one night at "Windwhistle Cottage," and
we all made speeches, although none of us knew what to say. The
general tone of the speeches was to hold steady,--not to be
panicky,--Britannia rules the waves,--it would all be over soon,--Dr.
Robertson Nicholl and Kitchener could settle anything!
The crowd around the dancing pavilion began to dwindle in the
evenings--that is, of the older people. The children still danced, happily;
fluffy-haired little girls, with "headache" bands around their pretty
heads, did the fox-trot and the one-step with boys of their