All the Days of My Life: An Autobiography

“Day and night Christ standeth,
Scanning each soul as it landeth;
Over the floods He bendeth,
With a face that hath once been dead.

…

“And when the children come
To pass through the dreary River,
Christ stretcheth forth His hand,
A gentle piercèd hand,
And draws them safe to Land.”

To those who know nothing of this loss, my grief may seem unreasonable; but the fathers and mothers who have turned away from an open grave, blind with tears, and with heart and flesh failing them, they will understand.

Yet I had not been left without intelligence of the coming sorrow. Three nights before her death, at the midnight, as I lay thinking with the child asleep in my arms, the warning notice came. I knew then, that some of my family were called, and my thoughts went at once to my father. I either did not, or would not associate it with my child, until the symptoms of her dissolution were at hand. If it was an inimical Presence that predicted such relentless, inexorable doom, who would carry my little child safe through the river of death, and up to the celestial city? And as I mused on these things, a sweet Spanish tradition read years before came into my memory – that an angel sat outside the gate of heaven with shoes for the barefooted babies, who came there unshod – and I remembered that Edith had been laid to rest unshod, and had a passionate fit of weeping.

But comfort was at hand. The thought of the gate of heaven made me remember that heaven had twelve gates, and that they were always open. So then, when God took from us our beloved, He did not shut them up in the heavenly city. Its twelve gates stand open, and the angels ascend and descend; and go in and out on their heavenly messages. Jacob saw them; weeping mothers and good and suffering souls have seen them. No doubt, the child would be safely carried home. And I blessed God for the smile with which she went. Surely

“The Shepherd from His Fold,

Had smiled and drawn her unto Him.”

It was this thought which enabled me to dry my eyes, and to set my hands to the duty they had to perform. For the school was to meet late in September, and I had not done anything, as yet, towards the welfare of the next session. Yet I knew that if it was to be successful, I must set the key-note of enthusiasm and delight in the work, or all would be done with the left hand only; knew that if I went into the school room alert, and smiling, and with the air of a teacher expecting great things, I would have cheerful, busy, ardent girls around me; while if I showed depression and indifference, my attitude would have the same effect upon their spirits and ardor, that the putting down of the soft pedal has on the tones of a piano. For it is not what a teacher does, it is what she makes her scholars do, that is of lasting value.

Knowing these things well, because taught by experience, I tried to give myself to my duties with all my heart, and

“So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’
The Soul replies, ‘I can.’”

The school opened well, so well, that the proprietor of the house we rented, asked me if I would like him to build a larger house with suitable school room attached. And this question revealed to me my innermost and as yet unacknowledged feeling —that we should not remain much longer in Chicago. I told myself that the climate was too cruel, the summer heat and the winter cold were alike dangerous. Croup lurked in the nursery all the time; I never went to bed without its remedies at hand; and again the school had unavoidably out-stripped its limits. At present it was too large; its demands exhausted even my young, fresh faculties, and physical strength. If I increased it, I should require more room and more assistance. I told myself these were my reasons for desiring a change, but down in my soul I knew they were only the reasons I should assign to the world at large – the deep, underlying motive beyond all others, and above all others, was Robert’s evident and constant anxiety. He came home every night mentally exhausted. It was not his grief for Edith’s loss; no, he sought me in that trouble, and we comforted each other. It was no God-sent trouble of any kind, or he would have done the same thing and I thought, and feared, but knew nothing certain.

One day about the middle of November, he returned home in such evident distress, that I could no longer keep silence. “Are you ill, dear Robert?” I asked.

“No, Milly,” he replied. “I am as well as a man can be, who is worried to death nearly.”

He was lying on the sofa, and I went close to him, and with kisses and sweet words begged to share his worry.

“Is it business?” I asked.

“Yes, and no. I could manage the business end, if it was not for that man. You know who I mean?”

“Yes, I know. What is the matter now? Tell me, dear.”

“I must. You will have to know, for in that quarter it is now kill, or be killed. He has made life too intolerable – and I struck him today. He promised me full payment, and he is able to keep his promise.”

“Then you must go away. He provoked that blow, because his revenge is ready. You must go at once – tonight – do not wait for the morning.”

“I have no money. I cannot go. I will not be driven away by him.”

“You do not want that creature to spill your life in the dust of Chicago! You do not want to commit murder! That part of the subject is settled. Where then will you go? You must have thought of this necessity as certain.”

“I have. I will say I am going to Kansas City, and go a little way in that direction – then cross to a line by which I can reach Cairo, and at Cairo take a boat down the Mississippi to some southern town. There I will wait for you, and we will go forward to Texas.”

“Wait at Memphis,” I said.

“Why Memphis?”

“I do not know, Robert. The word came inadvertently to my lips. It is therefore a word from Intelligence beyond mine. Say Memphis, Robert.”

“Very well.”

“Go tomorrow night,” I urged, “at the latest.”

“I will try. I must see Peter Grey in the morning, and leave my affairs with him.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Not much. As for money – ”

“I have one thousand dollars saved, Robert. Take half of it. With the rest I will close up the house and school affairs, and come to you. Be ready for Texas when I come.”

“God be thanked for you, Milly! You have given me a new life!” he said lovingly. We talked the matter over in every light, found out the best trains, and I promised to have a small valise packed for him. He was to come home to get it and the five hundred dollars at six in the evening.

All day I went about like a woman in a dream. When the clock struck six, every stroke was on my heart. Then I waited for the turn of the key in the lock, and the sound of footsteps. All was strangely silent. I was sick with fear. Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven o’clock struck, but Robert did not come – did not even send any message. I could wait no longer. Something must be done, but what? Whom must I go to now, that it was near midnight? My own household was fast asleep. Peter Grey was not now at his office. I did not know where he lived. There were no telephones in those days. I watched and watched for a policeman, but none came to this quiet corner of the North Side; and I could not leave a house full of girls, and my own children alone. I slept none all night. I was on the alert for any call that might come. It was bitterly cold. I went down stairs and brought up coal, and sitting down by the fire, suddenly found my dress, which was of silk, burning. I put the fire out, and then saw it was six o’clock. The servants began to move about; I went to my room. Oh, if the daylight would come! And I had to go to the breakfast table, and give the orders for the day’s work. I do not know how I did it. I was dressing to go to Peter Grey’s office when he called.

The thing that I feared had come to me. Robert was in the power of his enemy, and there followed an interval of ten days of supreme agony and suspense; then Robert was triumphantly justified in the sight of all men. But I will not, can not, enter into details. The men are both dead – dying almost at the same moment, though Robert was in Texas, and the other one in a far northwestern state; but I have no doubt whatever, that Robert’s soul in passing called his soul, for he told him he would do so. I will go into no details of this tragedy, for there is no good to be gained by compelling myself to live over again those terrible ten days and nights. Time cancels, and I have forgiven. But if anything could make me do this thing, it would be solely and entirely, that I might glorify the wonderful way, in which the Great and Holy One wrought out our salvation, and that by means so insignificant, that even the hatred of hell had overlooked them. “We were brought low, and He helped us.” He raised up also a host of unknown friends, and the way that had seemed impossible was made clear and easy. I did things at that time that appear incredible to me now, and all I did prospered.

In those days I did not think of tears, but it was then I learned to pray, to take heaven by assault, to press forward and upward, bent on prevailing. Such prayer is the gift of God, and when He gives it, He gives all it asks with it. This was one of those chasms of life, for which we must have wings – the wings of prayer.

The day after our victory was Thanksgiving Day. The scholars had all gone home, and Robert and I were sitting still and almost speechless in our parlor with the children playing quietly beside us. We were both weary, and looked very much like two strong swimmers who had just – and only just – escaped the treacherous under-current carrying them to destruction. I was hardly able to open my eyes, and too tired to lift the hands that hung by my side. Robert was more restless. Finally he rose and walked about, saying softly, and in a kind of rapture, “A wonderful Thanksgiving! We won a great victory, Milly – by God’s help!”

“Yes, God won it for us. A great victory, Robert, but after a victory, the new situation will bring the new struggle. We must be ready for it. What will you do now?”

“We must remain here for the present.”

Just as he said these words, his assumed friend Peter Grey entered. He had come to congratulate Robert in the first instance, but when he had spoken of the enthusiastic partizanship of every one, he asked, “How soon can you get away, Robert, for your life is not worth a cent here.”

“I have made up my mind to stay here, Grey.”

“Let me tell you something – in fact, I came here specially to tell you; better get away tonight. Tomorrow there will be an attempt to arrest you for debt.”

“Debt?”

“Yes, if that does not work, you will go out some day, and never come back.”

“I will go armed.”