Page:Everywoman's World, Volume 7, Number 6.djvu/42

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Let Us Hope This Baby Won’t Reach The Poison

Ee soned in the last three years by Be arsen’ fly destroyers. And this is but a fraction of the actual num- ber. Arsenical fly poisoning and cholera infantum symptoms are al- B most_exactly the same, Diagnosis = is difficult, And first aid in arsenic =
 * 1) 106 children were reported poi:

=

poisoning must be quick.

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Government Issues

Warning

Earnest A. Sweet, Passed Assistant Surgeon in the United States Public Health Service, makes the following statement in ds nm ape No, 29 to the Public Health Report: “Of other fly pees mentioned, mention should be made, merely for a pur- pose of condeffination, of those com- of arsenic. Fatal cases of Poisoning of children through the use of such compounds are far too frequent, and owing to the resem. blance of arsenical poisoning to sum- mer diarrhea and cholera infantum

it is believed that the cases reporte: do not, by any means, comprise the total. Arsenical fly-destroying de-

vices must be rated as extreme!

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into a dimly lighted room, filled with bric-a-brac. At the far end sat Mrs. Jelleby. She seemed like a china figure herself, dressed in a quaint, flowered silk gown and seated under the light of a yellow parlour lamp. We stated our mission.

"No," she said, "I don't believe in war. I can't give anything to this cause; it's absolutely against my principles."

"But," I said, "the Red Cross has nothing to do with fighting. It binds up wounds, gives help and comfort to any who need it, friend or foe." She looked at me and set her mouth as though it had a combination lock that not even an expert could open. We felt uncomfortable and wished we were on the street. If I had been alone, I think I should have bolted, but Mrs. MacIntosh is a friendly soul and wanted to leave a nice, comfortable feeling behind us, so she smiled and asked Mrs. Jelleby what church she attended. Then we found that our lady could talk. She told us there were none of her sect in Toronto. For one thing, she firmly believed in transmigration of souls.

"I can almost remember being one of Solomon's wives," she said dreamily.

"Dear me, how dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. MacIntosh. "I would sooner have been a jelly fish!"

She paid no attention but went right on:

"I know I'm advanced far beyond the generation in which my many peregrinations have brought me. If my husband had lived, I suppose he would still be dragging me to the Methodist Church, but I've been emancipated. There is no such thing as poverty. No one is hungry; no one is thirsty, Can the all-mind feel cold?" I felt as though we were on the border land of the uncanny, so I said, "I think we'd better be going, seeing you have principles against helping your nation win this war. Mind you, we did not start it!"

She went off on another airy oration:

"In one way I don't believe in war; in another I do. It's nature's way of preserving the fittest.

"You don't think Germany should win?" I shrieked, jumping up.

"No," she said, without emotion. "I don't know that she is the fittest; her women are in bondage. It is the law of life that the strong must win, the weak must go under. I've just been reading the works of a German professor, Nietzsche, and I must say that, in the main, I believe as he does."

I was thoroughly shocked, for I, too, had read a small book on Nietzsche. The whole room seemed full of smoke, burning villages, and the cries of helpless children. Red hot indignation surged up my spine and ran out at the tip of my tongue.

"Mrs. Jelleby," I exclaimed, "how can you sit there clothed comfortably and warm in a Christian country and say you have no pit for the poor, no stirrings of compassion for the downtrodden and oppressed? Do you dare say that might is always right, which means that if I am stronger than you, I am justified in knocking you down and taking for myself your wrist watch?" I noticed she had a very beautiful one and that she was small and thin, while I was—well, I could take her in one hand and do for her. She winced slightly but continued.

"Oh, I don't go quite that far; but in a general way I think Nietzsche is right. We must all cultivate our own individual ego." She seemed very proud of this speech and looked misty and far away, as though she were in spirit almost beyond anything earthly or human, and I guess she was.

"You know," she continued, ":I am glad I have a son, a separate ego to propel into the light."

"God help the lad," I offered as a parting shot, "if he is to have his life patterned after that half-mad German, Nietzsche, who went the other half and died in an insane asylum."

NEVER saw Mrs. Jelleby again, except at a distance, for a whole year. I was too busy to spend time cultivating her ego.

In the spring of 1916 she came to me, on the very morning I had heard that my Sandy was wounded. She looked like a plant that had been shrivelled by a fiery blast or withered by a biting frost. I had just finished my morning work and was alone with my grief, although the telegram stated, "not serious."

I saw Mrs. Jelleby coming up the path. I met her at the door and invited her in. It was plain she was in great trouble. She sank down, and her white lips came the words, "My boy has enlisted!"

"Well," I said, "hundreds of others have done the same."

"Oh, but," she wailed, "he is all I have. I trained him so carefully, I never thought he could do such a thing."

"Tell me about it," I said, gently. You cannot rub it in when red-eyed trouble stands at the door.

“It was this way," explained. "Guy joined the Young Men's Christain Association, just for the gymnasium work. At home things are a bit quiet for an only son. Last week he came to me and said, 'You have always taught me, Mother, that each individual must develop in his own way.'

"'Yes,'" I said, "'cultivate your ego.'

"How I did enjoy that phrase! It sounded so intellectual; but my boy soon made me think of things of the heart. He told me that the fellows at the Young Men's Christian Association had talked things over, and that he could not see that might was always right. There was a higher law, and now he must go to uphold it. Mrs. Ferguson, I know the boy has chosen the better part. I've sinned against the lad by trying to teach him things I did not half believe. These proud, fluttering rags of unworkable theories have utterly failed me in this crisis of my life."

"Cheer up!" I said. "God bless the lad!"

"Of all the sorrowing women," she continued, "I am the most miserable, because I withheld my gift until it was rudely wrenched from my breeding clasp by a power stronger than my love."

PUT my hand gently on her shoulder, and a strange thing happened. We both wept. Women may laugh, gossip, drink tea, and even live together for years, and yet be as distant and cold as two snow-capped mountain peaks divided by a rushing torrent; but when women have wept together, they have looked into each other's souls. They can never be strangers again. All over Canada women are finding long-lost sisters—tears that come from the heart bind firmer than ropes of iron; not always the rich to the rich, nor the educated to the talented, but poor and rich, unlettered and gifted, the same great heart—sorrow makes them one. What grand vistas are opening up for our Country after the War. We can see the golden sunlight struggling into our dark, neglected places, falling on the faces of poverty and distress, the blessed sunshine of sympathy and kindness making our Country a grand place in which to be born.

The spirit of giving has arisen and hovers over the land. There seems to be no limit to our generosity. Red Cross, Serbian Relief, Belgian Relief, and Patriotic days—each gather large sums. The soldiers are showered with gifts; needless to say, some quite useless. One lad had a large album presented to him, filled with the pictures of his relatives, dead and living. If he could have worn it over his heart, it might have warded off shot, but it would not fit under his uniform. Another soldier got a padded kimono from his best girl. Except for the kind thoughts that went with these and similar gifts, they were better left ungiven.

Some of our boys asked for what they wanted, and many named tobacco. In this connection I remember Mrs. Prescott, a little, sharp woman who reminded me of a small, gray bird with an unusually long beak.

"No tobacco," she declared, "goes to any soldier from me; it's the thin end of the wedge, the very tip of the claw of the devil's fangs." She does get eloquent like that and loses herself in a muddle of mixed metaphors when she is excited. "Cigarette-heart and brandy-liver go together. I make no compromise with Satan, war or no war." A month later I met her in a tobacco shop. She looked guilty for a minute, and then came up to me and said laughingly, "This War does rattle the slats of our most firmly established platforms. I am buying tobacco for my nephew. He wrote from the trenches asking for it. I'm a silly, weak woman, I suppose, but I could not refuse the lad. Really, with this dreadful War on, we don't know where we stand or whether we have any firm convictions about anything. I've back-slidden terribly, I know."

We women pack boxes for the Young Men's Christian Association, that splendid organization which does so much for our boys at the Front. We put in all kinds of good things that a mother might send to her boy: socks, fruit, cake, candy, nuts, etc., and through all, from the lowest layer to the nailed timber on top, we cram in kind thoughts and fervent prayers. I often think when these boxes are opened, a sort of sweet, tender feeling must fill the place and soothe the poor boys who have come, foot-sore and weary, to the Secretary for comfort. We used to pray a lot for all kinds of things, but some of our most real prayers have been uttered without a sound, as we packed those boxes for our lads on the firing line. The boys who miss a good home, as well as those who never had one, some under the wing of the Young Men's Christian Association, and are mothered a bit by far-away women, who, with prayer and love, send these comforts.

The War also, with her tragic methods, has forced her gifts upon us; with no gentle touch she has broken up our self-content, thundered at our heart's door, until bolts long rusting in their sockets have shot open and now we look with compassion on a weeping world. Belgrade, Mons, Somme, St. Julien, Salonika—those are no longer spots on a map; they live before our eyes.

My Sandy is coming home; he has won the Military Cross for saying the life of his Commanding Officer. He writes, "I am only coming home on leave, dear love. In a year or

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