Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Part 2

"Big Creek, Kentucky.

"December 18th, 1914.

"John M. Allen, Esq.

"Dear Friend:

"It is seven months today since you were here and I have grown a lot. My birthday was last month, November 7th. I am now thirteen. Miss Smith, the teacher, says: 'Jeannette at last you know how to write a letter. No wonder, you have spent half your time trying.' The dictionary is nearly worn out. I look up every word.

"Last summer I hunted 'Sang' on the mountain for three days and when granny went to Hyden to sell the feathers, the eggs and a basket of chickens, she sold it and the store man gave her 1 dollar and 60 cents, all mine.

"Hi Lewis lives up the creek. He has some sheep and I bought 2 pounds of wool from him with part of my money. I washed the wool until it was as white as the whiskers of Santa Clans then I spun it into yarn on granny's spinning wheel and gave Sim Blair the mail man two bit to buy me some red and blue dyes and some I made red and some blue. With the blue I made granny some mits and grandpa some socks but I kept the red for your Christmas gift and last night I finished it.

"I hope you will like your red mittens and red and black socks. They are just as purty as the red bird that roosts in the cedar trees near the barn. Granny said most of the men in the blue gra.s.s wore black socks but I said they is not nice enough for you, so to please everybody I made them red with black toes and tops. Maybe my gay little soldier of the cedar trees was the cause I made them red and black. He has so much to whistle about even when it is cold and the snow is deep. Just now he lit on the window sill, knocking off the snow. I had a good look into his bright black face. How purty and red his coat was against the snow. If it was not for him and my dolls and the books you gave me I would be lonesome. Granny says I am too old to play with dolls; but she does not know what they whisper to me.

"How still it is in the winter time. By day we hear the red bird and the crows; at night if it storms, the wind; if it is still and snowing, the murmur of the flakes; if the moon is full a great owl calls; if I wake in the night and it is dark and still I hear the whispers of either the angels or of my dolls who sleep with me. One of the dolls is granny and the other is my mother, and they tell me what they used to do when they were girls like me. Sometimes grandpa calls and when I go to him he asks: 'Did you hear that?' 'What, grandpa?' 'Someone calling, it sounded like your pa.' Grandma says he is going to die soon. I believe up here we hear voices you cannot hear where there is so much noise.

"I know Santa Claus will bring you nice things because you are so good.

"Yours truly, "Jeanette."

"Well, it is nice to be remembered, even though the remembrance is impossible. I will put them and the letter away with other treasured and impractical things that have been sent me by girl friends. I feel sorry for that lonesome little half-starved thing. She will grow up into a scrawny, tired-looking woman; marry some man who will work her to death.

No telling what she might do with advantages and in another environment."

After breakfast, he telephoned a book store asking that a dictionary and some appropriate books be sent to Miss Jeannette Litman, Big Creek, Kentucky. The clerk who took the order, having recently read Mark Twain's Joan of Arc, mailed a copy of that book with the dictionary.

A week later Mr. Allen received a letter from Jeannette thanking him for the books.

Verona, Italy.

--- Hospital, Ward 11.

December 2, 1917.

Dear Little Jeannette:

To children like you nothing is unexpected. You believe witches are abroad on dark nights, while fairies dance in the moonlight; and that angels protect you from evil spirits.

When you grow older experience plucks these pinions of fancy; you can no longer soar but become an earth stained materialist, surprised if your plans of the morrow miscarry and you find yourself in New York when you expected to be in Was.h.i.+ngton.

A year ago today I was defending a suit against the Lexington Railway Company; had become reconciled to law and expected to continue in that comparatively thrill-less profession. I might have thought by now I would be married-but I certainly did not think that I would occupy a bed in Ward 11 of an army hospital at Verona; so far away that it is impossible to send you even a book for Christmas.

Looking backward, it is easy enough to explain why I am here. Not understanding what war was; not appreciating what a government undertakes that declares war, I grew impatient at our country's apparent criminal slowness in getting into the war; and in February, 1917, went to Montreal and enlisted. In March 1,500 of us were loaded aboard the Burmah and that transport steamed a thousand miles down the St. Lawrence to the ocean and at the end of a two weeks' voyage by the northern pa.s.sage, over a gray fog-burdened ocean by day, a phosph.o.r.escent billowy one by night, we landed at Liverpool.

At a cantonment, a few miles from London, we were subjected to four months' strenuous training; and presumedly because I had attended a military school for a year, I was commissioned a lieutenant in the British army. At the end of the four months our regiment was loaded aboard a transport and many of us did not learn our destination until we were landed at --, Italy. (We are not allowed to name the port.)

We reported to General, the Earl of Cavan, commanding the British forces in Italy; and after several weeks' training were ordered to the Piave front.

On the 24th of October at the battle of Caporetto, I experienced the same sensation as though I had been struck in the chest by a brick, when it was but a small calibre, soft nosed bullet; and remember having been loaded into, and it seemed riding for days in, an overfilled ambulance, just enough alive to have a dull sense of pain and to feel the concussion of the great guns, though the reports seemed m.u.f.fled and far away.

I lost consciousness; was no longer near the battlefield, but at your home in the mountains of Kentucky. I heard no sounds save the murmur of running water and the song of a wood thrush. All about was the implacable serenity of the blue sky and the everlasting hills. The face of nature was unscarred; there were no sh.e.l.l holes, no splintered trees, no pools of blood, no dead and dying.

Strange that I should think of you and your mountain home in the midst of battle, violence and death. Strange that when I went on my journey into the valley of the shadow, falling, falling, falling, into a darkness that seemed to freeze my soul, you, a little girl, were the only one near. Strange that when I came back to consciousness, it was by way of the creek valley and your home and you were leading me by the hand. Returning to consciousness I discovered it was not you but a soft-voiced, patient, white-robed Italian nurse; and I was here. What brought you so vividly to mind? Can you tell? It must have been the contrast between your home as I saw it that moonlit night and the battle field, with its barbarities, vengeances, and human abominations.

There is a sharp pain when I breathe or cough. I am ill, homesick, among strangers, I feel deserted. To you, a little girl, the acquaintance of a day, some influence impels me to write, though I have heard nothing since you sent the red socks and mittens, and wrote thanking me for the books. Since I have been wounded I have learned there are many things I may not know.

Tell me of your own life and picture it in your own way; and also of your part of Kentucky. Even now I see your face and hear your voice; it seems nearer than my mother's-and she is a wonderful, much-loved woman.

I do not recover my strength as I should and will be here for some time-if you care to write.

Your friend, John M. Allen.

Lieutenant John M. Allen, --- Hospital, Ward 11, Verona, Italy.

Dear Mr. Allen:

For several years I have been waiting, not daring to hope, but longing for a letter-and it came on Christmas Eve. I am answering the afternoon of Christmas Day.

The earth is mantled in white, and crystals of crisp snow give back myriad rays of dazzling light stolen from the sun. The cedar trees bend low with their fluffy white burdens; and the creek is frozen, except the riffle just above Big Rock. I was just going to say that all life had taken to itself the silence of the mountain--which is a speaking silence to its own people-when I saw a hungry little nut-hatch bobbing up and down the elm; and my red birds, thinking it time I served their dinner, flew from the cedar trees and are now whistling for me from the lilac bush.

Granny is quite feeble; so she takes a nap each afternoon in the great rocking chair, with its padded sheepskin back and bottom; and from the noise she is making seems to be enjoying it. I also hear an intimate voice, though I rarely see my friend. He is the cricket of our hearth; and now since the days are short, begins his chirping when it is time for me to feed the chickens, milk the cow and look after Silas, the old mule. We have no earthly use for that mule, but I cannot let him go. He was in the prime of his days of usefulness when I first saw the light; and now when I go out to feed him, there is a look in his old gray-lashed eyes that speaks to my heart with the voice of an old and trusting friend.

When people live as we do, the fowls of the barnyard and the creatures of the manger become their friends. They speak with a look; they come towards you with a caress; they bind themselves to your heart with an untimid trust. That old mule's look approaches wors.h.i.+p; and his trust shall not be vain.

Grandad is not here. I stand at the door and see his grave on a knoll a little way up the mountain side. It is hedged about by a white picket fence, which I repaint each spring.

Last evening as I was wreathing it with holly and mistletoe I thought how, when I was a little girl, he carried me over the rough places and when he went to the store on Red Bird or to town, brought back something he knew would delight a little girl. Then, how the last year or two before he died, I partly paid the debt by ministering unto him. As I stood beside his grave it seemed his spirit spoke to me of unutterable things. * *

I have finished with the chickens, the cow and the old mule. We have had supper. The cricket is chirping away quite comfortably in his cozy corner under the warm hearthstones and I hear the click of Granny's knitting needles.

My thoughts have been mainly of you since your letter came. Joys are the scarlet buds and tears are the white flowers of life. Your letter has made this a Christmas of white flowers; yet it brought a gift filigreed with happiness, as tears are wont to be, except those of despair. It seems sadness lives next door neighbor to a very pure happiness. I can pray and weep and the tears are a holy joy. I think if G.o.d would speak to me I would shed tears of joy; and if he comes tonight and tells me he will make you well and bring you back to Kentucky, I shall shed tears of great joy. That you return in health is one of the hopes my life lives on.

You will understand, when I say I have always looked upon you, much as I imagine the old mule feels towards me. For a long time there was little in my life, but that little was all joy. Then you came our way and introduced me to real dolls and to books. While I have outgrown the dolls, I have many cold but safe friends in my books; friends you leave at your convenience and return to at your pleasure.

Do not think that I am unhappy or lonely; nor must you think that while you have been moving along in years, I have remained the same little girl whose doll house you disturbed. I was seventeen last month; and a girl of my age in the mountains is supposed to be grown. I am more-a business woman; the bread winner of the Litman family; and having outgrown "sang digging," for nearly a year have had the Big Creek school.

Last June I obtained my teacher's certificate; and in doing so surrendered my great ambition, which was to be an actress. You can judge what a creature of fancy I am, when I tell you. I have never been inside a theatre. I dreamed of a stage career and-landed in a school room. The very first day of teaching I realized that it was the next best thing. I had a wonderful audience and a stage setting unique and clever. Teaching now seems a high-cla.s.s of play acting-just lots, anyway-and children are such fun.

I should like for you to see my school room and know the boys and girls.

I would like for you to be a.s.sociated with certain other experiences of mine. I'd like-but what's the use? I feel as though, if or when I need you, you will be my friend. In other words, I trust you.

The glorious fun of being poor is that the little things that come your way are greatly appreciated. Now Big Creek is my Brook Cherith; and the school children are the ravens during the stress of high prices incident to the war. They not only bring bread and meat but a few modest dresses and a few books and magazines. Should the brook fail and the ravens receive other commands, Granny and I can depend upon the unfailing jar of meal and the cruse of oil for our daily bread; and should you like to play the part of Elijah to the widow and the orphan, you are welcome to your share. We will give you a cup of water and make you a little cake.

I have even had a beau and a proposal of marriage by a red-headed man from Red Bird. I answered: "I have no idea of considering such a proposition for several years as I expect first to graduate at the University of Kentucky. When my Prince Charming comes wooing, he may come with empty pockets but he must be able to read and write." The next day Sandy came to my school, but I refused to take him in. He has since spread the information that "Jeannette does not want 'a feller' but expects to remain a 'school marm'"-and so I shall until a real man comes along. Sandy Blair is as near the "sweet evening breeze" kind as we have up here. I call him my knight of the pink s.h.i.+rt and green store clothes.

He never misses a dance; and Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed as he then is.