The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1873-08-08

plneSS 10 her. huDgryI Yes, poor
soul, starving, fainting for her lost love
l must not dwell upon the months
that followed. i cannot describe the
footsteps marked with blood with which
she trayersed the dreary road back again
to life-that road which only those
smitten almost to death ever travel. /
would not IL could; for the happy eau
never realize grief, even by most in
spired description, and those who have
suffered can trace Mary's tortured steps
by the tear-stained print of their own.
The harsh necessities of existence first
aroused her from her stupOr. She and
Blossom must be fed and clothed even
yet, though she knew little what she
ate or what her rAiment was. / exerted
myself to see that q widows dress shut
her, in its merciful seclusion, from the
careless world, although she gave no
sign that she observed the change from
her dainty colorS to sombre black.
With aid / secured for her the pay
which was Harry's due, and finally the
small pension to which his death enti-
tied her. But when finally the stern
question "What shall we eat, what shall
We drink, and wherewithal shall we be
clothed" became imperative, Mary
herself was forced to look into her af-
fairs TO find answer. And we found that
except the pension of twelve or fifteen
dollars a month, nothing stood between
the two and starvation. Then began
that pitiful struggle so familiar TO many
who drop tear upon this page, for this
young widow; the struggle for bread
against depressing odds of inefficiency
and hOpelessness. She had nothing to
offer the world in exchange for food and
raiment, but very unskilled labor; for,
poor girl, she had been elegantly
brought up to idleness and SNOWY ac-
eomplishments. She had married right
from school, before her mind had at
tanned sufficient nobleness Of stature to
overlook the complexities of our social
system, and to see that no object in ex-
istenee is so useless and so helpless, so
entirely the victim of chance, as the
woman who is not prepared to conquer
foOthOld for herself and then to protect
it, the woman who drops n dead weight
to earth unless masculine arms out
stretched for her keep her midway be-
tween earth and heaven-neither a
grand woman nor an inferior angel.
So Mary had lived in her husbands
house, nominally its mistress, yet really
only secondary in its management to
the servant who alternately bullied and
cajoled her. And when disaster came,
she was no more fitted to cope with pow
erty than Babie Blossom was.
Impotent to help, l watched the strug-
gle for years. First she opened small
school. But in that thriving Illinois
village the public schools absorbed all
the children, save a few, so few indeed,
that their tuition fees scarcely paid her
rent. Then she tried the sewing ma
chine, working early and late to dis
tance the fiend which followed upon
her steps. But alas! Mary had never
been taught to sew, and the mysteries
of cutting and planning, of matching
seams and cutting biases, of eking out
scanty materials to fit generous patterns,
were as much beyond her cOmprehen-
sion as the differcntial calculus or New
toms principal. She hadn't a mechan-
ical faculty, poor girl, and all the pow
erty in the world couldn't develop one
in her. Next she essayed giving music
lessons, toiling through tropical heat
and artic cold, year in and year out, Wis
iting pupils at their homes. But the
fatal war had made other widows, upon
whom poverty's grip was laid as heavily
as upon her. So she found, one sad day,
after a mathematical exercise, that the
fourteen music pupils of the town were
divided among three teachers, each OF
the others more proficient in the profess
sion than she.
Poor Mary She was so incapable,
there really seemed but two things left
for her, and of these, one was death, the
other-marriage. Who must we blame
| for this sin of false marriage? ? Surely
not the helpless girl or widow who es-
capes from starvation through the only
! door open to her, even If into the dreari-
ness of an uuhallowed marriage.
No! how dare we? for how few are
we who have gained that high plane ol
spiritual conservation, where the carnal
needs feed sacrificial flames; where
meat, drink, and raiment are less to US
than q life verified by grand ideal,
! We may long to live exalted lives, but
first We must live in the body; let US
cease to reinforce the body, and spirit
deserts it, to exhRle into some vaporOus
abstraction which we cannot limit oil
define. Therefore, let not the world:
reproach fall upon those who choose
marriage only as an alternative will
destitutiOn. But if we have curses fol
the guilty, let them be piled high upon
the heads of the faithless guardians who
sin so deeply as to send a human being
from their charge out into the world
unarmed and defeneeless for the battle
of life.
/ mean such as you careless anC
thoughtless fathers and mothers, as wei
as YOU indolent and luxurious ones
who think no better, build no mort
wisely, than to give your daughters easy
and aimless lives, till somebody comes
TO relieve you of their care. What /
death comes for you, and the suitor de
lays? What If disaster engulfs YOU
substance, and husband stands alone.
say you are as much the enemy of you
daughters as il You put manacles upOT
their limbs, and limited to your will
the use Of their physical powers.
Thinking all these things, and know
ing how both horsemen and footmen
in the struggle, had trampled poor Mary
down, l was not, / must confess, over
whelmed with astonishment when
heard that she was soon to contract /;
second marriage. She made the an
nouncement to me herself, with such
strained, unnatural voice, such pulse
less calm of manner, such rigid face
that / knew, better than II she ha'
broken into shrieks and fierce outeries
that Jagged nails tore her tender flesh
and that in this marriage she was cruel
fed anew to a sorrow hardly less thar
that Of Harry's death.
She had grown so wan and worn II
these wears, that little Of her early beauty
remained. Neither was there more
than an echo in her voice of the swee
chimes that once seemed to ring through
IL. Yet was she still a sweet, lovabl'
woman, aud il was no marvel that wife
less homes opened their doors wide will
Z invitation for her. / will not dwell
upon this part Of the sad story, for m!
heart aches with the bitterness of it