CHAPTER XVI.
“Oh, mother,” she said, “I am so glad, for I made application for you. I was sorry you did not see the advantage of it, and now there will be just time enough for your name to be advertised, so you can get it on the first coronation day. I was sure you were too good a soldier to let old-fashioned ideas hold you back. No good woman will stand idle in these days, especially when so many are needed to face the foes of humanity. Why was that poor woman afraid to ask sufficient for her labor? Because she didn’t know that her labor was wealth.
“Many old men and women who had been poor all their lives, who had never known anything but poverty, were given light work to do, such as gardening with short hours, under the direction of a competent gardener. In this way the grounds in the colony had been beautified, trees had been planted, waterways dug. The women helped to take care of infants in the nursery for a few hours each day, or do necessary housework, mending, etc. As the society was formed to secure homes, it was as easy to feed these poor creatures as it was animals, and they could earn what they got also.
“The majority of people crave independence. Did you ever see a number as large as we have here take such pride in pointing out the beauties of the place? You see it is their wealth. Their labor has been expended to make it what it is. It is so much more to be enjoyed than a park that any one can use, so, of course all take great pride in it. It is so lovely to be able to step downfrom our apartments and crossing the street enter a thick foliage, swing hammocks among the trees and look up into the beautiful green so restful to the eyes. To lie there seems like a taste of heaven.”
“Yes, Scoris, I agree with you and when I remember that it is my son who has been the leader in bringing out this happy state of affairs, I am very much gratified, and, oh, so proud! I feel that all the old warriors, who have been honored for their share in all the great changes that have come to the world, have not done more than he has, if as much. Under this system wars will cease. I have had quite a talk with an old friend on this subject. Your father and I met her years ago, while abroad. Her oldest son was killed in one of the late wars and two others wounded. One is blind and the other had both legs amputated, one below the knee and the other above. He wears artificial limbs as a result. All three had wives. I asked if the cause they had fought for was worth the glory; if the duty they had been called upon to perform for their country, the bloodshed, the blindness of her son and the mutilation of the others, the total loss of the oldest one had been any alleviation. ‘No,’ said she, ‘oh, no; but of course they were honored for their heroism. One has been knighted and both receive a pension and the widow of the oldest son also has a pension, but of course it would not support them without our help. They were all such good, brave boys. I shall always feel very proud of them.’
“‘So am I proud of my son,’ I remarked. Well, dear, I shall never forget her face nor the effect the remark had upon her as she mentally drew the picture.”
“‘Your son, the General, you mean? Oh, but he is a genius, you know.’ ‘I believe your sons were also,’ Isaid. ‘All were brave men and ready to do their duty as they saw it.’
“‘Well,’ she said, as she sighed, ‘I would have been one of the happiest of women today if they had only seen the facts as your son did. You all have in prospect a much larger income than my living sons are receiving from the government. You have them all alive and whole with you, not one maimed, or one who has had to suffer as mine did. Your son is more honored than any man who ever conducted an army of men. No title conferred upon him can ever adequately describe how much he is appreciated, and your daughters and his splendid wife are equally admired for the part they have taken in this movement. Now see the difference: my poor Frank is dead; the others have only the merest pittance to live upon; they only exist, for it is not living to be blind, nor to be crippled as they are, and the cause was not won or the enemy vanquished. Then that war raised the taxes to such an enormous sum that it leaves us very little to take us through life, considering our habits and mode of living.’
“I asked her if she knew we considered this movement in the light of war? She said, ‘Why, no, how can it be?’ I told her it was a bloodless one, nevertheless a war upon all oppression; that the rich were determined to keep the working people in all subjection, and that as the working people outnumbered the moneyed class they could tie up all kinds of industry and that by their united efforts showed that the odds were just about even. When the laborers become indignant and the strikes rule for a time, there is only distress for the majority and another lesson learned by those in power to divert their minds in some other quarter until they could outwit them, or keep them out of employment until all their savings weregone. The people have never had justice until this society secured land for them and started all their industries running. Now the trusts can bring all the emigrants from other countries to take the place of the home laborers that they like, and the society is gathering them in and sending them further out on to the land where they are being self-supporting and at the same time could not interfere with the wages of the people.
“‘Well,’ she said, ‘I never bother about these things. They only excite me. I really think a gradual evolution is taking place and the right results will come in the long run.’
“I told her that I had once felt as she did on the subject, but I had known many persons to prepare for a journey and to miss the train on account of their indifference to the time table.
“‘My not knowing that there was a war of conquest,’ she said, ‘of more consequence to us all than the ones my sons fought in has left me in my old age a very sorrowful woman. Think if we had only had our thoughts directed in this greater cause of justice, I and my boys might have been living in comfort and affluence instead’—then she broke down and cried so bitterly that she broke me up also. You see, Scoris, she had never realized that she had any part in the world’s great events. She wanted them to excel and as the army glorifies the successful ones, there was a chance for her sons. I feel sorry for her, but I also feel sorry for the unthinking thousands who are venturing along life’s paths, unprepared for the future.”