HEROISM AT HOME.
Every month the Department will publish a little story of heroismin the home—not any one act of heroism, but the tale of how someonelivedheroically,livedself-sacrificein everyday life. It must betrueand must be about somebody you know or have known or know definitely about.It must not have over 500 words.The shorter, the better.Whoever sends in the best story each month will not only have it printed but will receive a year’s free subscription toWatson’s Magazinesent to any name you choose. Tell your story simply and plainly.
Please state whether the names and places mentioned in your story are real or fictitious.The Department does not print real names in these stories. Please do not send in stories about someone rescuing another from drowning or anything like that—we don’t want stories of single acts of heroism but of lives bravely and unselfishly lived out.
The stories of “Heroism at Home” have begun to come in. We can not print all of them in this number, but there will be a place for the others later on. Only one told of a single heroic incident. It was a brave, unselfish act, but that isn’t what we are going to use under this head—not things done suddenly, perhaps on impulse or by instinct, but the kind of heroism that lasts day after day. This one story, too, was told in verse and though it was good I fear we had better confine ourselves to simple prose. I hope the writer will send us another good true story in prose and of heroicliving.
The prize this month is awarded to “Her Career.” It was very hard to decide among several stories that told of some very beautiful and useful lives, so I got others to help me. I imagine it is never going to be easy to decide which is the very best of the stories each month. How the stories are told is not considered at all, but the heroic lives described are very hard to weigh against one another. But I will do the best I can.
No, she never wrote a book, nor went as a missionary to Japan, nor won a degree in college. She never even taught school, nor belonged to a woman’s club.
But she has been the inspiration of her family and has radiated blessings on all she knew.
Thirty years ago she was a dark-haired, dark-eyed bride of eighteen. They were poor, but they had health and strength and bright dreams of the future. They built a small log house on the land they had bought on credit and began to improve it. Their days were filled with hopeful work and their nights brought rest and refreshing sleep.
But soon a shadow fell across the sunlight that streamed on her pathway. Her husband began to drink. He was soon a helpless victim of the fiery appetite and could not go where liquor was without getting drunk.
She was refined and regretted to the very depths of her soul her husband’s weakness. Sometimes she was righteously indignant, but she never upbraided him with moral lectures in which she posed as a mistreated angel, though she often talked it over with him after the “spree” was over.
Children came. The “sprees” became more frequent and things looked more gloomy, but she worked tirelessly and trusted everlastingly.
At last the county voted liquor out. This did some good; the temptation was farther away. But even then he would make several trips a year to the nearest liquor town and always with the same result. If a neighbor were going to town at the same time she would ask him to look after her husband. And when the erring man staggered home she would put him to bed and cook him something to eat—not always ham and eggs and delicacies, but the best she had. She never slipped anything in his coffee to cure him secretly.
And she has almost won. He is not proof against them yet, but the “sprees” are few and far between.
Six children call her mother—two womanly daughters well married, another a lovable and accomplished young woman, a handsome son, with his mother’s wonderfully calm eyes, who detests liquor, and two young girls at school.
A neat white house with green blinds has taken the place of the log structure. She is a model housekeeper and has always done all her work—cooking, sewing, washing, ironing, scrubbing, milking, churning, sweeping, poultry-raising and one thousand and one other things. Besides this she has tied up sore toes and cut fingers, poulticed boils, applied hot salt to all manner of aches and pains; doctored mumps, whooping-cough and la grippe; and successfully nursed measles, pneumonia and fever.
Her face has lost some of its freshness and her hair is turning gray, but she is still the blessed counselor of her family and she still finds time to visit and make herself a true, cheerful friend and neighbor.
Miss ⸺ lives in ⸺, Ohio. She was born on a farm where she lived with her father and mother and two brothers and one sister. The father became surety for a friend who failed, and it took the father’s farm to pay the debt. The family therefore left the farm, and moved to the county-seat, in the suburbs, and in a small house and two lots began life anew. He rode the country buying stock for other men, kept cows and peddled milk in the town, kept forty hens and sold eggs, cultivated the lots in garden produce, and kept the family together. One fortunate result of leaving the farm, the children were put into the city schools. Miss ⸺ graduated in the high school, and obtained a certificate to teach. The two brothers married and left the city. Then finally the sister married and left. Miss ⸺, at the age of 26, was left to care for her parents in their declining years.
She obtained a position as teacher in the city schools and devoted her wages to the care of the home, and looked after her parents when out of school hours. There came offers of honorable marriage, for she was strong, healthy, comely and attractive. She could not consider them. Her parents could not do without her. They were declining in strength and looked to her for the care of the household. She taught on, and with her wages kept them in comfort. Two years ago the good old mother, weary of life, departed for the better land. Two years longer the old father lived, kept the house during the day while the daughter was in the schoolroom and awaited the sound of her footsteps in the evening returning from the school. In January he lay on the bed stricken with a fatal sickness, though unknown to him or her, and while they talked together as she bent over him he ceased to breathe, and she was left alone in the world, unmarried, without a home, and the prime of her good life spent in assiduous care of her parents—at the age of forty years! All hope of a home and family of her own sacrificed to her sense of duty to her father and mother! What is to be her reward? Many another has made a like sacrifice, but how is she to recoup the loss of the fourteen years spent in their service—the loss of her own home and family and children and all the sweet consolations of the state of motherhood? Was it not a heroic life? How few would have met it! Only those who know of her self-sacrifice will know how to honor her. Her fidelity, so unobtrusive, will be little noted by the world. But how grand and noble the sacrifice she has made!
Elizabeth Stanton was born about sixty-five years ago in a beautiful Southern town.She was the youngest daughter of Judge James Stanton, one of the ablest jurists of the state.
Few young ladies had superior advantages to Elizabeth, and fewer still possessed her amiable disposition and strong character. Being beautiful, accomplished and wealthy, it is no wonder she married the only son of a millionaire. A few years after their marriage her husband erected the finest residence in the state. Although built forty years ago it stands proudly today without an equal in the state.
Elizabeth had everything that heart could wish save one—her husband was dissipated and grew more so as years came on. But no ear save the Master’s ever heard her complain and she was always cheerful.
A few years after the Civil War her husband died, leaving his palatial home mortgaged and his vast estate squandered. Elizabeth was left with three children and a small amount of money. She gave up her magnificent home and wealth without a murmur and returned to her old home. In a few years she married again, a man of fine personality, a scholar and typical Southern gentleman, one born to wealth and knowing little how to acquire it. His fortune was like that of most Southern people after the Civil War. They remained in their native home till their small fortune was nearly gone. Then they removed to Florida and lived on a homestead, in a tent with a dirt floor for two years. Elizabeth had never before lived without servants, never cooked a meal or laundered a handkerchief. Now she did all her own work, even to the washing, and taught a country school several months of each year. She found time to visit and elevate the poor, rough people around her, and never by word did she let them know she was not of their class. She was greatly admired and beloved by all who knew her. During these years of hardship she was just as bright and cheerful and apparently as content as when she trod the marble floors of her former mansion. She smilingly remarked to me once that she was glad they had been chastened. It had made her a better woman and was the means of her husband’s conversion. As fortune always favors the brave, she did not always live in poverty. In a few years they had a fine orange grove bearing, and her husband was elected to a high office.
I have never known a more heroic life of any woman. When clouds have hovered over me I have thought of this brave, beautiful character and it has been my inspiration.
RECIPES, OLD AND NEW.
From a collection of recipes that dates back almost to “War-Time” we shall give a few every month. Along with them will be given new recipes of the present day.
One pint bread crumbs, fine, one quart milk, three or four eggs. Season and sweeten to taste, then bake. Spread a layer of jelly or jam quite thick or white of eggs a little sweetened, and brown a little.
Three cups of molasses, one cup of brown sugar, two small cups of lard, four tablespoons of ginger and one of cloves, and enough flour to roll them out.
One and a half pints of corn-meal, the same of milk, one half teaspoon of salt, five eggs beaten together and put in with the corn-meal and milk, one and a half teaspoons of baking-powder.
Six eggs, one pint of flour, one pint of sugar, three-fourths of a cup of water, two tablespoons of baking-powder.
One half peck peas. Take the shells and put on with two quarts of water. When well boiled take off and put through the colander. Take the water and pour into it the peas. Let boil until very soft and tender. Take off and put through the colander again. Take a quart of cream, or cream and milk, two even tablespoons of flour and less than one ounce of butter. Put in and let come to a boil. Pepper and salt to taste.
CHANGING THE DIRECTIONWarren, in Boston Herald
CHANGING THE DIRECTION
Warren, in Boston Herald
BeforeAfterDeMar, in Philadelphia Record
BeforeAfter
DeMar, in Philadelphia Record
“Sh— Sh— You Blamed Ass!”Rogers, in N. Y. HeraldApril, 1906
“Sh— Sh— You Blamed Ass!”
Rogers, in N. Y. Herald
April, 1906