The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-02-16
CASTORIA
For Infants and Children.
The Kind You Have Always Bought
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The Sons of Martha.

Inc SOnS vi Vld1 Tia.
There are many persons who think
first of the credit, who want the adver-
tisement even before the deed is done,
who love to pose in the calclum-ray, and
who imagine that if all the worlds a
stage they are the ''star" performers.
Others there are who are among what
Doctor Eliot has called the forgotten mil
lions; they make one more Tor the decen-
NAL visit of the census aker, their
names appear when the directory is COM
piled, but they figure neither in the soci-
ety column nor in the news of the day;
the tannals of a quiet neighborhood"
are stirring chapters of current history
for them; they are content to be house
keepers and homemakers, or, if they are
men, they go forth soberly to labor for
their daily bread and come back at even
fall with the modest wage of toll, max
ing no noise about it, expecting no cher
aldry and pomp of power" looking for
no blazonry of anything they are or have
or do.
We could not afford to have world
full of University Extension lecturers,
of opera singers, of orchestra leaders, of
actors, artists and poets. Somebody
has got to stay at home and bake the
bannocks and mind the baby and wiring
the linen. The Brazilian navy may be in
revolt, the tariff may clamor for recon-
struction, it may become inevitable to
end or mend the House of Lords; at the
same time, the snow must be shoveled
from the walk in front of our gate, the
grate-bar in the bottom of the furnace
needs repairing, the water tank leaks,
or there is an attic window through
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the expert services of the glazier. The
English budget or Philadelphia's loan
may be an absorbing issue; but in our
own family circle, perhaps, there is
looming grocer's bill or the doctors ac-
count to be settled; Jane needs rubbers
or Percy has the tonsilitis, or the cook
has given notice. The newspapers may
clarion the approaching visit of Grown
Prince, but Christmas is coming, too.
There are large economic or ethical is
sues demanding adjustment, but, to in
vert Charles Kingsley, while men may
weep, the women must work-somebody
had to do the work of Louisa M Alcott' s
household while her father talked about
mans relations with the infinite, and
she had to entertain poor relation while
Bronson entertained vague conjectures
as to the identity of his astral body.
For every big engineering undertaking
thousands of communicative men ir
overalls, with stubby pipes gripped in
their teeth, and tin pals on their arms,
hustle to work under the gray clouds Of
earliest morning and come home to fine
their children asleep. They fill the ear
: Hest trains starting for anywhere, ano
you wonder where they all come from
They win no notice while they live, ex
cept as innumerable constituents of the
sociological problem, and they are I'm
commemorated when they die. The,
could not tell and they do rot care wht
their own great-grandfathers were
their life is toll, the immediate presen
) bodies and souls are built into the foun
= dations of sky-scrapers, the embank
ment of railways, the abutments O.
bridges, like objects laid in the corner
stone of cathedral. These are the SON
of Martha, who commonly win 20 praise
whose names are unremembered, like tn
names of those who lavished their Gun
ningest handiwork in the hidden corners
of the monumental architecture ant
sculpture Of the middle ages.
Kipling recognized, while ago, tina
the time has come to do plain justice t.
those who labor that others may ente
into the fruit of their travail and thei
; striving He wrote, therefore, a poem
4 in their celebration. A poem, ordinarily
will not purchase many pounds of roune
steak or soup meat; it will not buy eggs
at half dollar for a dozen, or purchase
1.-THE short and simple fannels of the
poor" If poem sells for anything al
all, the profit goes to the poet alone, to
buy more ink or kerosene. Therefore,
the toilers generally spurn poetry
though there are poor men who would
part with the last stick of furniture and
still keep the poetry of Burns beside
them. Kip!ing. like Burns, has earned
the favor of those that go down to the
tives, or hammer ler-iron-because
he tells the truth. Enough has been
written for the dilettante and the litter
ateslrs; he gave the workers poem, and
he called it 1.-The Sons of Martha" The
Sous of Martha are those who are
weary and watchfEl all their days,
that their brethren's days may be long
in the land.' They flavor their mother,
of the careful soul and the troubled
heart" They go forth like scapegoats
into the painless wilderness with their
transits and levels, sleep under the stars
and stand waist deep in rivers, that the
railway may beribbon the fr-crested
mountain and that "the Sons of Mary
may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping
and unaware" There is son of Mar
tina in every locomotive cab, in every
power house, on either end of trolley
car, in the heating plant of each apart
meEt house and hospital. There is
many daughter of Martha land often,
in the spiritual similitude, she strongly
''faHors" Mary as welD watching beside
hospital cot, or letting her light shine
in a mission or cottage settlement, OF
just doing her plain, everyday, unex-
|; citing, monotonous duty in her own
home She does not aspire to be Mary
Garden or to emulate Bernhardt. She e
! content to be
"a perfect woman, .noby planned
To warn, to comfort and command.
And yet spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light
The recent history of aviation is tragic
| with the neurology of those who have
given their lives to what was regarded a
decade ago as the sheer insanity of rest
less adventuresomeness, plus the usual
crazy persistency of the crack-brained
inventor of the type of Darius Green.
But the world is not laughing now at the
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