Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1911-03-10

While he and we're waiting in the
sitling-room for the news. he turned
his heart inside out.
1 want to tell you, Harvey said
he. that the--boy or glrl-whicheye
1t isis to be my heir"
i shan't hold you to that" re.
piled with laugh.
'No-l'll never marry" he went on
There was an--an angel. You know
the Shaker settlement?-well out
there"
J looked at him In wonder. II ever
there was a man who seemed unro-
mantle. it was he, heavy and prosaic
and so shy that he was visibly agitat-
ed even in bowling to woman ac-
quaintance
I met her he was saying, when
was driving that way-the horse ran.
was thrown out, and her parents had
to take me in and let her nurse me.
You've seen her face-or faces like 1t.
Most of those Madonnas over on the
other side in all the galleries suggest
hcr Well-her parents were furious
wouldn't hear of it--you know
Shakers think marriage and love and
all those things are wicked. And she
thought 50, too How she used to suf-
fer 1t wore her to a shadow. She
wouldn't marry me--wouldnt let me
so much as touch her hand. But we
used to meet and--then she caught a
cold-waiting hours for me, one win
ter night, when there'd been a misun.
derstanding about the place. was in
one place, she in another And the
cold-you see, she couldn't fight
against it, And-and--there won't be
another Harvey. All women are
sacred to me for her sake, but |
couldn't any more marry than could
could stop feeling her sitting beside
me, just little way off, wrapped in
her drab shawl, with her face-like
glimpse through the gates of Heaven
Within me up-started the memories
that | KEEP: battered down.
Your children are mine, too, Har-
vey," he ended.
| took from Carlotta's work basket
an unfinished bit of baby clothing. |
went to him and held it up and point
ed to the monogram she had embroid-
cred on it,
"E. r. S." he read aloud. Then he
looked at me with a queer expression
beginning to form in his eyes.
Edward Ramsay Sayler. if it's a
boy" said l. "Edwina Ramsay Sayler,
If it's a girl
He snatched the bit of linen from
me and buried his face in it.
The baby was boy-fortunately
for / don't admire the name Edwina,
and | shouldn't have liked to handicap
a child with it, Carotta and Ed were
delighted, but | felt a momentary keen
disappointment. had wanted a girl.
Girls never leave their parents com
pletely, as boys do. Also / should
rather have looked forward to my
child's having a sheltered life, one in
which the fine and beautiful ideals do
not have to be nodded into the gross,
ugly forms of the practical. l may
say, in passing, that | deplore the en-
trance of women into the world of
struggle. Women are the natural and
only custodians of the ideals. We
men are compelled to wander, often to
wander far, from the ideal. Unless
our women remain aloof from action,
how are the ideals to be preserved?
Man for action; woman TO purify man,
when he returns stained with the
blood and sin Of battle.
But-with the birth of the first
child | began to appreciate how pro
foundry right my mother had been
about marriage and its source of hap
piness. There are other flowers than
the rose-other flowers, and beautiful,
the most beautiful for its absence.