Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1885-12-26
A CHRISTMAS MESSAGE.
TOrfgfnaL.l

[OriginaLl
knew years ago the person who tells tho
following story. The facts were conveyed to
me by letter, with the request that / should
put them in readable shape and publish them
after l heard of the narrator's death. / have
complied with the request to the best of my
ability.
My name is Margaret Latham. My more
intimate friends used to ~sportively call me
doc" for reasons which will shortly appear.
For the last ten years l have resided in a far
away South American city among a people
whose customs are very different from my
own.
Christmas is here also q season of festivity.
But it is all very different from the New
England Christmas of my childhood. As
this season draws near I feel an irresistible
yearning to send to my own country some
thing which may possibly remind certain
friends I left of my existence. l thought
had shut them from me forever; I find I can
not. Year after year in this strange land, as
this season draws near, have I felt the same
impulse. 1t is as if then I would migrate to
my northern home, like a bird OF passage.
The feeling has with me grown stronger and
stronger. As I cannot come with my body l
send my thoughts-my ~story-which l hope
and pray may meet some old friends eye.
/ desire to tell a woman's story-my own-a
story involving faults, follies and inconsistent
cies, some real, some apparent, and involving
also what / think to be some merit and good
quality; for I hold that self-depreciation is
as great a fault as an misrepresentation In
deed, whenever I hear a person persistently
run down" himself, it seems to me as il
it was accompanied by an underlying mo-
tive, possibly of which he is unconscious,
to extort from his listener more praise than
he really deserves.
was born and bred in the hard, narrow,
rigid life of a family Sin straitened circum-
stances, /" in a New England village. l had
when a girl two dominant desires: one was
to get away from my people, the other to be-
come a physician. The love of healing was
inbred in mel mean to heal as / think only
a woman can heal-and to heal principally
women.
| don't say this as a man hater-quite the
reverse. l state it only as my peculiar in
clination.
One of my besetting sins, and which in
jured my prospects in life, was an irresistible
tendency to ''cut up" and generally at the
very time and in the very place where, of
all others, l should have acted decorously.
Be sure if there was a wrong thing to do in
company or in any public assemblage, it
seemed to me as if a very imp of mischief
kept at my ear, whispering, urging, tempting
me to do it, until at last l could resist the in
~clination no longer-and did it.
When ] was fifteen ! told my parents /
wanted to be a doctor. Women physicians
were little heard of in those days. My family
scorned the idea and threatened to send me
to bed for an indefinite period if ever I men
toned the subject again. so I nursed the
thought and intent in secret. 1t grew
stronger and stronger. One day I read in a
newspaper of a woman who had commenced a
medical practice in a western town. She
was the first female physician of whom l had
ever heard. 1t gave a renewed strength to
my determination.
At the age of sixteen I commenced keeping
the books of a village merchant on the
meagre salary graciously allowed a girl for
performing a man's work. worked for him
five years and saved a thousand dollars.
With this | went to Boston, applied at a GER
tain noted college and stated my desire to
the principal of entering ON a course
of medical study. He told me that
l could manage to pull through" on a thou
sand dollars, but that it would be hard work.
involving much deprivation ~1d relative
hardship. On-fifteen hundred dollars he said
l could get through properly, and advised
ne strongly against making further effort
unless l had that sum.
went from the college, and at the first re-
tired spot in which l found myself, leaned
against a wall and cried for half an hour 1
terminated my cry with a laugh, vent back
to my native village, kept the merchants
books for two years and a half longer, re-
turned to Boston with the necessary fifteen
hundred dollars, and commenced my medical
studies
went to Boston very full, indeed, of good
intent and resolution to abandon my mad
cap pranks, and be a sober, solemn and de-
mure young woman.
made in Boston - very lear female
acquaintance-the l~oveliest, most gentle.
most considerable nature l ever met. She
seemed to accept my odd makeup, though,
possibly, she did not understand it; but, for
that matter, neither did l then, nor do l now.
The years that l spent in the earning Of
money to pay for my education and those oc-
cupied in attaining that education were years
of close, hard, cheese pairing living. / de-
prived myself of many things my naturs
craved- dressed very plainly, and fed my
self meagrely. was obliged to deny my
self amusement and recreation. l loved
dress, rich and expensive dress. I appreci-
ated and craved food much above the
quality of twenty-cent meals in crammed
res aurants. was p~assionately fond of the
drama. | enjoyed all the elegancies and
luxuries of life. Wanting all these. and as
Inow believe needing them, my life was a
continual starvation. / tried to comfort my
self by the belief that in all this necessary
denial and in pressing forward toward the
one aim-my education-f was doing the
right thing.
Was l! | answer, as now l see life and its
necessities: mol True, all the current senti-